IQ tests truly dont understand us

When I was in fifth grade, my brother Alex started correcting my homework. This would not have been weird, except that he was in kindergarten—and autistic. His disorder, characterized by repetitive behaviors and difficulty with social interactions and communication, made it hard for him to listen to his teachers. He was often kicked out of class for not being able to sit for more than a few seconds at a time. Even now, almost 15 years later, he can still barely scratch out his name. But he could look at my page of neatly written words or math problems and pick out which ones were wrong.

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When I was in fifth grade, my brother Alex started correcting my homework. This would not have been weird, except that he was in kindergarten—and autistic. His disorder, characterized by repetitive behaviors and difficulty with social interactions and communication, made it hard for him to listen to his teachers. He was often kicked out of class for not being able to sit for more than a few seconds at a time. Even now, almost 15 years later, he can still barely scratch out his name. But he could look at my page of neatly written words or math problems and pick out which ones were wrong.
Many researchers are starting to rethink how much we really know about autistic people and their abilities. These researchers are coming to the conclusion that we might be underestimating what they are capable of contributing to society. Autism is a spectrum disease with two very different ends. At one extreme are “high functioning” people who often hold jobs and keep friends and can get along well in the world. At the other, "low functioning" side are people who cannot operate on their own. Many of them are diagnosed with mental retardation and have to be kept under constant care. But these diagnoses focus on what autistic people cannot do. Now a growing number of scientists are turning that around to look at what autistic people are good at.
Researchers have long considered the majority of those affected by autism to be mentally retarded. Although the numbers cited vary, they generally fall between 70 to 80 percent of the affected population. But when Meredyth Edelson, a researcher at Willamette University, went looking for the source of those statistics, she was surprised that she could not find anything conclusive. Many of the conclusions were based on intelligence tests that tend to overestimate disability in autistic people. "Our knowledge is based on pretty bad data," she says.


This hidden potential was recently acknowledged by Laurent Mottron, a psychiatrist at the University of Montreal. In an article in the November 3 issue of Nature, he recounts his own experience working with high-functioning autistic people in his lab, which showed him the power of the autistic brain rather than its limitations. Mottron concludes that perhaps autism is not really a disease at all—that it is perhaps just a different way of looking at the world that should be celebrated rather than viewed as pathology.
Having grown up with two autistic brothers—Alex, four years younger than I, and Decker, who is eight years younger—Mottron's conclusion rings true. As I watched them move through the public schools, it became very clear that there was a big difference between what teachers expected of them and what they could do. Of course, their autism hindered them in some ways—which often made school difficult— yet it also seemed to give them fresh and useful ways of seeing the world—which often don't show up in the standard intelligence tests.
That is because testing for intelligence in autistic people is hard. The average person can sit down and take a verbally administered, timed test without too many problems. But for an autistic person with limited language capability, who might be easily distracted by sensory information, this task is very hard. The most commonly administered intelligence test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) almost seems designed to flunk an autistic person: it is a completely verbal, timed test that relies heavily on cultural and social knowledge. It asks questions like "What is the thing to do if you find an envelope in the street that is sealed, addressed and has a new stamp on it?" and "What is the thing to do when you cut your finger?"

This year Decker was kicked out of a test much like WISC. Every three years, as he moves through the public school system, his progress is re-evaluated as a part of his Individualized Education Plan—a set of guidelines designed to help people with disabilities reach their educational goal.


This year, as part of the test, the woman delivering the questions asked him, "You find out someone is getting married. What is an appropriate question to ask them?"
My brother's answer: "What kind of cake are you having?"
The proctor shook her head. No, she said, that's not a correct answer. Try again. He furrowed his brow in the way we have all learned to be wary of—it is the face that happens before he starts to shut down—and said, "I don't have another question. That's what I would ask." And that was that. He would not provide her another question, and she would not move on without one. He failed that question and never finished the test.

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s2theizay said:

@Marshy14, is it me, or has your posting style changed to match the new avatar? I'm not complaining.

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Eryngo said:

I have the same problem except with my sense of humour. I'm so funny, and yet, no one pays me for it. It's how people show me how much they value my act. It's priceless.

So I pity those rich comedians. They have only their bank balance and the exact decibels of applause to cling to, while I have infinity.

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DarkBarlow said:

Circles are infinite, any starting/stopping point imposed on them are completely arbitrary. Do you ever find yourself coming full circle and people aren't entirely sure whether you're quite serious or expounding from a higher plane of humor?

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Clivy said:

This avatar is a mystery to me. Is it happy, sad, or mad! Or is it just constipated!!!! Tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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SpookySprite said:

I think it's actually shooting laser beams out its eyes.

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Clivy said:

An IQ test can only measure your spatial awareness, patterning, and language skills, but nothing else. But intelligence is a spectrum.

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Even Steven Hawking doesn't take IQ seriously, so why should we?

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Anon Pervathon said:

Wrong. IQ tests also measure processing speed, memory, and probably other things I can't remember at the moment. What is it with all you random, clueless internet people who think your half-baked concepts of intelligence are superior to whatever is tested on real IQ tests?


Oh stop with your bullshit appeal to bogus authority.

Also, large differences in IQ subtest scores suggest learning disabilities, so scores in the cognitively disabled range are not the only reason to take IQ tests seriously.

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Anon Pervathon said:

Wrong. IQ tests also measure processing speed, memory, and probably other things I can't remember at the moment. What is it with all you random, clueless internet people who think your half-baked concepts of intelligence are superior to whatever is tested on real IQ tests?


Oh stop with your bullshit appeal to bogus authority.

Also, large differences in IQ subtest scores suggest learning disabilities, so scores in the cognitively disabled range are not the only reason to take IQ tests seriously.

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Eryngo said:

Out of curiosity, what would be involved in "taking an IQ test seriously?" For adults, I mean. Gifted children probably need special programming, as do learning disabled children, but with only a few exceptions, we're all adults here. So what, exactly, should we do to take our IQ tests seriously if we have them?

In the end, I'm pretty sure all @Clivy is saying is that IQ tests can't quantify everything. For example, a sense of irony.

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