The Hidden Potential of Autistic Kids
November 30, 2011 by Leslie E. Packer PhD
Filed under Commentary, Research
Rose Eveleth has an article in Scientific American that begins:
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.
She goes on to discuss how more attention is now being paid to what autistic individuals can do and not just what they can’t do. Discussing the failures of commonly used tests to provide accurate assessments of autistic children, she provides an example from her brother:
… 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.
A test does not have to be like this. Other measures, like Raven’s Progressive Matrices or the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI), avoid these behavioral and language difficulties. They ask children to complete designs and patterns, with mostly nonverbal instructions. And yet they often are not used.
Read more of this fascinating article on Scientific American.
