Smart and Smarter
February 27, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Writes Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing about the Wired magazine article on autism featuring Amanda Baggs and Michelle Dawson:
The article looks into the long-held belief that autism and retardation are tied together and concludes that this just isn’t true — rather, that people with autism have been incorrectly classed as retarded for generations.
Yes.
It’s very obvious to me why people would think my son is mentally retarded; his academic performance and testing reveal this. But anyone who’s spent any time with Charlie knows that—-while he is very limited in his speech and while it often takes a long time (minutes, hours, days) for him to understand things that are said to him—-he doesn’t just look smart, but he is. Charlie’s very attuned to all that is said and done around him; he has an innate sense of direction and a strong memory. He needs a lot of help to navigate the world, whether looking both ways for cars or listening for his name to be called; he’ll very likely always need a lot of supports. He’s neither a genius nor a savant.
And he’s been smart enough to teach me that there’s a whole other way of being and understanding and processing the world—something I was more than ignorant of before getting to know a boy named Charlie.
Thank you! I remember when one of my first clients called me, very excited, to tell me that his son did not test mentally retarded. I honestly can’t remember how I responded but I do remember that I knew that well BEFORE any test was performed. Every child I have worked with has an intelligence and a beautifully unique outlook on the world that is valuable. Sometimes it can be very hard to see, and it can certainly be hard to be around. But that does not diminish their contributions to the people and society around them.
Namaste!
My son experienced a miraculous I.Q. leap from kindergarten to fourth grade. He went from very low average all the way to high. The tester really thought he had somehow transformed in the three years. I pointed out that in the first test he had to use a pencil, even though he could barely grip one. “No, that can’t be it” she said. “That gets controlled for.” Okay, fine. We’re miraculous.
Your last paragraph is so very true.
I wonder what the implications are for special education. And maybe “special ed” is a misnomer. Maybe it should be “atypical ed” – a program that provides communication support, but challenges the children with respect to areas in which they may have above average aptitude, like math and science.
I’ve been flailing around for a metaphor for my perceptions of Charlie for months now.
Charlie as a radio station (sending): lots of content not in my language, with bursts of static.
Charlie as a radio receiver (receiving): pulls in lots of stations–again with lots of static.
But something about this discussion is making me uncomfortable–is it so bad to have a child with mental retardation?
Liz D: Is it so bad to have a child with mental retardation? No, I don’t think so–certainly my friends with children in that category don’t think so, either. And I have to say that sometimes I as a little envious of the parents of one of my son’s friends who has mental retardation–he’s much easier to handle than my son, in terms of being generally good-tempered and predictable. The frustration for me when autism is equated with mental retardation for my son (who has a high IQ but really poor auditory processing) is that the type of educational program that well-suits the needs of kids with mental retardation but without autism really don’t suit my son’s needs at all.
I like your analogy to a radio-receiver. I’ve often thought of auditory processing problems (my son’s, as well as my own lesser ones) as being like a radio station that will slip out of tune if we don’t keep our fingers constantly adjusting the tuner…
“Mental retardation” was a term that (to be very honest) simply scared me when Charlie was first diagnosed. And I do think he’s smart, but I can see how he appears (to the untrained eye; the glancing passerby) as “mentally retarded”—something about how it takes him longer than for many to understanding things and to respond.
(all that static! and then sometimes mountains or weather gets in the way, and the signal gets lost.)
Or, flipping the analogy on its tail and building on the neurodiversity theme – we’re the one receiving static, and individuals with ASDs receive the signal crisp and clear.
Example: when I wear a shirt emblazoned with the obnoxious “OLD NAVY” logo, my 2 year old with ASD tends to focus on the letters when I’m talking to him, and not on me. My neurotypical son, by contrast, looks at my face and doesn’t seem to notice my shirt. What I’m suggesting is that maybe us NTs are so distracted by social data and species awareness that we’re missing out on the lines and letters and numbers and abstract ideas that surround us. It’s us, not them, that are picking up the static. Einstein was a physics pioneer BECAUSE and not IN SPITE OF he screened out social data.
And yet…in order to get my daughter any services here I had to work…very hard to prove that she was mentally retarded. It made me sick but I did it and won. What did I win though? Crappy services. Some that we will not access for years due to the waiting list. So….we little by little dropped services and left the grid so to speak. In a way it has been great and in other ways we have much less support. Now, we are working to find new supports. so much of the system makes no sense.
i knew it all along! i have several notebooks full of stories about my son Ryan that i have been hesitant to publish because my methods go against the mainstream. my family thinks i spoil him since i never tried to make him like the rest of us. i didnt think it possible, even though i have been thumbing my nose at science for the past 20 years i am relieved that theyve begun to make some sense.
as for that static… Ryan grabbed his ears and ran screaming everytime a toilet flushed or just every once in a while at random due to noises. in 1991 i had a process called auditory therapy done on him. it is non invasive. they let me go through it too since i wanted to be sure. it was found that his hearing took in sounds way below the normal and way above it and very little in the middle of the spectrum. he always passed regular hearing tests; so it isnt something that might be caught by those.
the 2 week process consisted of listening to music through headphones (which wasnt always easy to get him to do) many times a day for about 15 minutes at a time. after that 2 week period he stopped grabbing his ears in terror at various sounds. he began to flush the toilet too!!
it is a pain to do the auditory therapy since it takes 2 full weeks off of work. it is an all day ordeal, but totally worth it. after the training his hearing tested much more within the normal range and fewer hits within the high and low. i guess it is was like dog and elephant hearing before this. maybe that is why he made such unusual sounds; still does make some but not nearly as frequently.
anyhow… the static y’all referred to reminded me of this. i just did a quick search and it is called the Berard therapy. it has been so long and i just take it for granted now. reading over some of my notes freaks me out, wish i’d known about this much earlier in his life.
back on the topic though; i always knew Ryan was really smart. his initial iq tests were 0 since he refused to respond to the questions. i went into the test with him and without giving him the answers was able to communicate the questions to him which he answered correctly; he scored above 140 and below 150 on that test back in 1989. the scores were thrown out because he couldnt do the same without me there to keep him on task.
later he tested huge on spatial skills but poor on others. that part about the quickness of their tests is so true. Ryan was given lots of puzzle pieces and shown a picture; he just fluttered his fingers over the pieces and voila! the picture.
one day his 7th grade teacher called to say “come in to the classroom today after school, i want you to see something”. Ryan was at a computer that was flashing, once in a while i could make out a word but only for a split second. after the flashing stopped 10 questions popped up and Ryan answered all of them correctly. the teacher said that earlier in the day he had asked Ryan to stop fooling around and get to work and reset the computer to its “normal” pace. Ryan set it back up and answered correctly, when the teacher set it back down he missed lots of the questions. the highest it would go was @ 2000 words per minute.
another time a bunch of us were talking about the funny drunk driving test in a Chevy Chase movie; the one where he has to do flip flops and say the alphabet backwards. someone attempted to say it backwards and we talked about how hard it is, Ryan said “i can do it” and we said “do it” he did. without any rehearsal or forethought, he just said it very fast, backwards. yet another amazing, and totally unmarketable, skill. lol
his friend filmed him saying it the other day, i will ask him to stick it on youtube if anyone wants to see something like that.
i ordered the EyeQ system to see how Ryan reads but only got to 800 words per minute after weeks of training. i gave up because i enjoy a slower pace, haha or that is what i tell myself.
i may be rambling… this website really brings back memories. you guys are pretty lucky, i can tell some real horror stories about school systems from California to Texas. i have been forced to move out of so many districts, especially the ones that enforce attendance. most of Ryan’s public schooling was in locked down situations with mentally retarded kids who were the only bit of sunshine in the classes; it was the “normal” (so-called) kids that were mean, violent, and crazy that were the problem. the delinquents with their control issues, strange attention seeking hairdos and clothing choices and all sorts of body tatoos that they pretended they didn’t want noticed or spoken about. Ryan of course has no qualms about asking questions like “why do you have that bone in your nose?” which doesnt go over too well with some of the more violent of these types. although, i must admit Ryan does get along with everyone after they realize he isnt judging them (like i am), only curious. i say lucky because as i understand it theyve stopped throwing the “bad boys” in with these gentle creatures. jaymee