[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: feeling sad

[Shaun Hately]

> Shaun (welcome!) wrote:
> 
> I have only read excerpts from The Mismeasure of Man, but I never knew 
> it got used this way.  Why on earth would people take the problems of 
> intelligence testing as a reason to deny special needs?  It sounds as 
> if they are misusing his work for their own ends.

Many were - their decisions were political rather than based on  reality - Gould's 
book simply gave them a pseudo-scientific justification for their actions.
 
> It is supremely ironic, because one of SJG's sons is both profoundly 
> mentally challenged and intelligent--IIRC, he is autistic and a 
> mathematical savant.



 
> I think IQ is B.S. (I didn't need to read Mismeasure of Man to reach 
> that conclusion--all I needed to do was read the tests; they are 
> patently not testing inherent ability, but knowledge and experience), 

I really wonder which tests you have read. Most of the tests people think are IQ 
tests aren't IQ tests at all - the tests schools use are generally achievement tests 
and I would suspect that's what you have read.

Unless you are a qualified psychologists, you should not have been able to read a 
proper IQ test - the manuals for these are tightly controlled to try and avoid anybody 
seeing the questions (there's been a minor scandal recently based on the discovery
that some university libraries have been placing the manual for the Stanford-Binet 
Form LM test on publically accessible shelves because they didn't realise that test 
was still in use for certain limited purposes.

This is part of the problem - people have seen the test used in schools - such as the 
Woodcock Johnson, Ravens, Slosson, etc - or the online 'IQ' tests - and this leads 
them to believe that that's what true IQ tests are like. It's not. Administering a proper 
full IQ test takes a very significant amount of training and is limited to psychologists 
and psychiatrists, and they can only be administered individually, and they can take 
upwards of three-four hours (much longer in some cases) to administer.

These are tests like the WAIS, the SB-LM, The SB-IV, the WISC-III - there's only a 
few of them, and people are not allowed to read them as making them public 
diminishes their value. And they do measure ability far more than they do 
knowledge or experience.

They're not perfect by any means - but it isn't fair to judge these proper clinical IQ 
tests based on the tests that are publically available - they are very different.

> but I would have shriveled up and died if I hadn't had access to 
> talented-and-gifted education, as it was called in my school system.  
> I don't think IQ testing was needed in order to identify the fact that 
> I would have been desperately bored without this kind of education; in 
> fact, I don't believe I was given any intelligence tests except as a 
> very young child.  We got placed in "enrichment" classes based on 
> standardized achievement tests (also B.S., but different), class 
> performance/the recommendation of our teachers, and other simple 
> observable facts.  The fact that tests are flawed, misused, and abused 
> doesn't mean that everyone has the same educational needs.  It's scary 
> to think that your students could lose out because tests are shown to 
> be flawed.

The problem is that over 50% of gifted children are underachievers - and the higher 
you get up the scale of giftedness (there are generally considered by experts to be 
three or four levels of giftedness - each with significantly different educational 
needs) - the higher that proportion is - and a significant number of these kids are 
underachievers because their school environment is inappropriate to them.

Achievement tests, somewhat obviously, miss a lot of underachievers. Class 
performance - the same problem applies. Recommendation of teachers - teachers, 
as a whole, are actually extremely bad at identifying underachieving gifted children, 
unless they have been specially trained to do so. Observable facts - again, 
underachievers may show no clear observable sign.

All the above methods can be useful in placing kids in enrichment classes - but all 
have significant flaws as well, and miss kids who should be identified.

IQ tests are the same. They have flaws. They do miss some kids whose abilities are 
outside the areas that IQ tests measure (generally logic and reasoning ability). But 
for underachieving gifted kids, they are their best chance at getting identified and, 
once identified, getting an appropriate education.



Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia