Childhood misconceptions, the first in a series

[sabotabby]

When I was seven, they made me take a test. They wouldn't tell me what the test was for, only that it didn't count for grades and that there was no way I could study for it. It consisted primarily of puzzles. I was pretty convinced that I bombed it, as I've never been that good at puzzles.

Anyway, what it meant was that I was "gifted." I'm not talking about this to brag or anything—anyone who's gone through the experience of being labelled as such knows that it's nothing to brag about ("More of a curse," we used to say.), and further, that it's not any sort of precursor to success later in life. I bring it up because I'm studying Special Education now, and one of the things that happens when you study syndromes and disorders and exceptionalities is that you're convinced that you suffer from each and every one.

So anyway, I was gifted. And apparently very much so—top of my class, got A+s all the way through, blah blah blah. But here's the theory I developed. I was convinced—utterly convinced—that rather than being near the distal end of the bell curve, I was closer to the proximal end. I was pretty sure that I was, if not severely developmentally delayed, at least mildly intellectually disabled. My theory went that either my mother, who had a great deal invested in the idea of having a really smart kid, or, more likely, some egghead scientist, had decided to place me in gifted classes and constantly tell me that I was smart to test whether or not this would actually improve my intelligence.

Some of this stemmed from witnessing something similar (a child in my Montessori class with some manner of intellectual disability was, upon entering the public school system, placed into a regular class where he functioned quite well on account of having been encouraged in his early years). Some of it stemmed from my conviction that I'd failed the puzzle test in third grade. But most of it was because I have just always felt vaguely out-of-step with the world around me.

I was just thinking of this as I diagnosed myself tonight with ODD (oh, like you're surprised), auditory processing impairment, and poor math fluency. I should probably get my head out of that textbook, y/y?

Comments

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

IQ is nonsense.

[sabotabby]

Of course it is. I just came to that conclusion in an odd way.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

A psychologist friend of mine says that IQ tests are very good in diagnosing diasabilities, but not superpowers. Apparently, everyone thinks that, including the test developers, who developed it for that purpose.

[misfratz.livejournal.com]

Hmm, they can also be good for getting people who have social interaction or language disorders out of the classification of being 'retarded' when the disorder has been used to hold them back from achievements in other areas. I think it's just that they aren't useful for making large-scale comparisons (between individuals or populations) because of the poor replication capacity and social biases.

Of course, in an ideal world, kids wouldn't be held back on an area of talent to try and force them to conform in other areas anyway, but they are (I've seen it in special schools over here, and experienced it myself- according to the testers I saw, I was very strange but also gifted. Therefore, luckily, ended up in a school with fairly sympathetic teachers rather than a shitty special school that thought social control was 'teaching'. At least until getting sent back into more mainstream schools, at which point the other students perform the social control themselves, and no one cares if you sit about doing no work as long as you're quiet).

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is true. Also, grouping the gifted together seems like a good idea to me. At least I felt most at home among them, and I still do.

[sabotabby]

I felt most at home with the behavioural kids. They were also angry.