Comparison of the cognitive profiles and social adjustment between mathematically and scientifically talented students and students with Asperger's syndrome

• This study examined the cognitive profiles and social adjustment among four groups.
• The high-IQ MST group demonstrated balanced development in cognitive and affective aspects.
• The average-IQ MST group showed weakness in perceptual organization, working memory, social awareness, and socialness.
• The AS group scored lower in digit symbol-coding and symbol search and highest in SRS and AQ scores.
• The AS group also reported lower empathetic and higher emotional and creative overexcitability.

This study compared the cognitive profiles and social adjustment of mathematically and scientifically talented (MST) students and students with Asperger's syndrome (AS) as compared to typically developing students. The applied instruments were the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, 3rd version, Me Scale II, Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ), and autism diagnostic interview-revised. Eighty-four male students, aged 16–26, were assigned to four groups according to a talent in mathematics and science, diagnosis of AS, and the IQ level. The results showed that the high-IQ MST group exhibited balanced development in cognitive and affective aspects, the average-IQ MST group demonstrated weakness in perceptual organization and working memory, and problems with social awareness and socialness, and the AS group had weakness in performance IQ, particularly in digit symbol-coding and symbol search and a wide-range of autistic-like social deficits (SRS) and autistic trait (AQ), and reported lower empathetic and higher emotional and creative overexcitability. Our findings support differential cognitive profiles and social adjustment between the MST and AS groups, and the influence of IQ on these manifestations in MST students. More attention should be paid to the social difficulty of average-IQ MST students in addition to AS students.