Autistic people

[Coolydudey]

What do you think would be the most common/average MBTI type for autistic people (especially children)? Clearly the instrument is not meant for such cases, but what's the closest match? My first guess is something along the lines of IXTP?

 

[Hadoblado]

For high functioning I'd definitely say you're quite close. I've worked with a few low functioning (what's the pc way of saying that?), possibly with other complications, and they can be extremely difficult to plot in a introversion/extraversion, or thinking/feeling scale. They were all on strict regimes as well, their actions so habitual you couldn't tell if they actually had a preference for P or J.

 

[Darby]

My best friend is very high functioning, and I find it incredibly difficult to type him for two reasons.

1) I just don't know enough about typing
and
2) He is a totally different person when talking 1 on 1 vs. groups of people

My guess would be ISTJ (maybe P, I simply don't know enough about typing)

 

[Coolydudey]

Perhaps a less restrictive model would be IXTX (with a preference for what?), and for the sake of argument, let's remove low-functioning, or whatever the name actually is.

 

[DetachedRetina]

I don't think Autism is a personality disorder. It wouldn't be appropriate to think of an autistic person as a certain "personality type" taken to an extreme.

It is a cognitive disorder as is mental retardation for example. A high functioning retarded person is just a dumb person, that can have any personality type. I think a high functioning autistic person is like a dumb person in this sense (not that high functioning autistic types are dumb, I just mean they are similar in that neither really has to do with personality types.)

In theory you could plot everyone on the autistic spectrum the way we plot everyone on the intelligence spectrum and have just different shades of gray. Perhaps we'd call the lowest 5% "autistic" like we call the lowest 5% "mentally retarded."

I bet there would be no correlation or at least only a loose correlation between autistic score and MBTI type. There is supposedly no correlation or at least only a loose one between IQ score and MBTI type.

 

[ObliviousGenius]

Depends on where one is on the spectrum. I have high-functioning Asperger's and I am an INTP. However, I'm fairly sure most autistics are INTJs or so I've heard.

@DetachedRetina, low functioning autistics ususally have low IQs but all still fall under a MBTI. The biggest difference between autism and Asperger's is IQ, where aspies must be of at least average intelligence to even be diagnosed. And again, aspies all fall under a certain MBTI as well. I found out I was an INTP before I knew I had Asperger's.

 

[Wasp]

Same here. My parents had me in their teens and didn't know about autism much less aspergers so I fell through the cracks. Growing up was hard. Personally, I see it as a personality extension.

 

[Susannah]

For Asperger Syndrome, I know the most common type for them is INTJ with INTP as the next most common. I think autistic people in general are pretty strong introverts and thinkers all in all.

 

[intpz]

For Asperger Syndrome, I know the most common type for them is INTJ with INTP as the next most common. I think autistic people in general are pretty strong introverts and thinkers all in all.

You mean most common misdiagnosis.

 

[briangriffin32]

I knew one fellow who had a bad case of Asperger, but when I hear about Asperger nowdays I'm not sure it's really autism at all. Like ADD and ADHD, you could potentially argue it's just a different cognitive style, granted way different than normal. And yes, I do find the Asperger diagnosis an extreme case of introverted NT at play.

If you consider that Einstein (INTP), Jefferson (INTP) and Newton (INTJ) supposedly had Asperger and still achieved greatness in their time, why is Asperger supposedly such a handicap today?

Maybe because in the old days there was more emphasis on being self-taught, whereas modern-day colleges seem more like social finishing schools than ivory towers of knowledge.

Just my two cents...

 

[introverted_thinker]

I'm not sure about people with classic autism, but for aspies, it seems INTP or INTJ.