Oh, and the author of the original wince-inducing article has written the second part...

[conuly]

In which she describes Rain Man as a movie about a man with Asperger's. No, Rain Man was about somebody diagnosed as HFA. Whether or not this distinction is valid is an exercise left up to the reader, but please, let's stop saying "hey, they can talk, they must be aspie".

And this article, where the number of autistics with average or above average intelligence (whatever that means) is a paltry 10 - 15%. That can't be right....

Comments

[l33tminion]

The strictest interpretation of "average or above intelligence" means having a tested IQ of 100 or above. And it's probably not counting people with Asperger's as Autistic.

[conuly]

Except she did! If not in this article, then in the other two!

[l33tminion]

Yeah, she did, but she undoubtedly didn't do the study that produced that statistic, and they were probably using different standards, which she failed to point out. It's the sort of thing some journalists are less than careful about.

[leora.livejournal.com]

*nods* This is a fundamental problem with the modern usage of IQ tests.

The original design of the IQ test was good - it was designed to identify which students were likely to have problems in school and would benefit from additional assistance. Modern IQ tests are still really good at doing this. The thing is, they do not point to what the problem is. The problem could be that the student doesn't speak the language the test is written in. It could be that the student has different assumptions or understandings that cause a different, sensible pattern of answers, but that child will still likely benefit from additional assistance. It could be that the child is of lower intelligence or has learned less. It could be that the child couldn't physically hold a pencil to fill out the test.

The test alone says nothing about why the results are low. And if you want to use it as a measure of intelligence, you need to look far beyond the results and into the reasons. Intelligence is incredibly difficult to judge, in part because we can't even define it.

I have a great deal of respect for IQ tests and believe their use could be very helpful in identifying cases worth spending more time on. But I wish people would stop using them as measurements of potential and ability. Time after time we find that knowledge and understanding is generally greater than the ability to demonstrate it on all sorts of tests. Plus, a lot of test questions are just poorly designed.

[conuly]

The original IQ tests weren't given out like standardized tests. They were done completely one on one, so that the tester could identify difficulties or unique answers.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I believe some may still be. Although even when they are, I'm not sure the people giving the test are always trained to make allowances for creative answers. My brother is still bitter for being told he missed one question on his IQ test. I don't know the specifics, but it was analogous to this (or any errors are on my part):

Which one doesn't belong:

hammer
paint brush
saw
drill

He said drill, it's the only one that isn't a simple machine. The person said, no, it's a paint brush, because all of the others are tools a carpenter uses. His reply was, so how does a carpenter apply varnish?

He was marked wrong.

I was given a one on one IQ test in kindergarten, although I never found out my score. I really don't know too much about modern IQ testing procedures, but it seems fairly clear that IQ tests and their results are routinely misused and misunderstood.

I also know a friend who part way through an intelligence test on a nice day realized that as he kept getting answers right, they kept giving him more. He tried getting them wrong, and they let him leave. Obviously, they massively underestimated his intelligence from that test.

[conuly]

I'd say saw, because it's a completely different shape from the others. The point of the IQ test isn't to find "correct answers" (or shouldn't be), it's to find complex thought patterns.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. But my point was continuing the point made previously, that since the IQ test if often misused, the number someone scores can, at times, be far off from what the test is actually attempting to measure. And if you are not part of the target audience the test is normalized for, it is more likely the test will pick up on differences that don't reflect intelligence, such as not seeing the point to playing along with an IQ test and trying to do your best. That really throws test results off. So, perhaps a large number of people on the autistic spectrum score below average, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are of below average intelligence, because of the problems with the test structure and execution.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

So what your saying is that modern I.Q. tests don't measure how intelligent you are, but how normally you think?

Oh god, that fills me with the urge to shoot people.

[conuly]

That's not normal :P

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

lol

[leora.livejournal.com]

No, that's not quite it either.

The point is that IQ tests have worked consistently well at identifying students who will have problems in school. However, they have numerous inadequacies when used to measure intelligence. They actually tend to do a fairly decent job for most people and if you pick a random sample of people measured as 135 and compare them to a sample of measure measured at 85, you'll generally agree that people with a 135 IQ seem to have that intangible quality of intelligence moreso than those measured at 85.

However, when the test is used to say this is how intelligent someone is, a bunch of problems crop up that do not occur when it is simply used to find which students are likely to have problems in school. Basically, the test makes certain assumptions about the test taker, and if the test taker violates these assumptions, you can get results that are far lower than people might think reasonable just by getting to know the person.

This means that IQ tests have to be used carefully, the results not taken quite too seriously (although an unusually high result will either have meaning or involve someone finding a way to cheat or the test giver totally messing up something), and the test should be given by a well-trained test giver. The last step is often missing. And it still doesn't fully account for the test taker having motives other than to get the answers right.

So, it's not a horrible test, and they have worked hard to make it less culturally biased (I'm sure there is more work to be done there, though), but like all tests, it's not a perfect tool. I bring it up especially in the case of autism, because I feel this is a group more likely to violate the assumptions of the test and thus get less accurate results.