Re: hyperlexia and biomedical treatment- a,

[Guest guest]

Agree, agree, agree some more with all the points made. You guys are

great. It's a worthwhile discussion.

Adjusting my monocle here, clearing my throat in a self-important

way as I usher forth my grand theories of giftedness...

Remember the Larsen cartoon showing a chubby bespeckled kid

pulling on a door with a sign on it saying " Push " ? The larger sign

above the door says, " School For the Gifted " . I love it.

IQ tests themselves are biased to affluent white (or dominant

paradigm) males, certainly. Marilyn Voss-Savant being one of many

exceptions, I think, but the bias appears to be especially cultural.

And it's true that there are thousands of types of intelligence, not

just the two that are mostly measured. Gifts in writing, critical

thinking and the emotional intelligence necessary for all the arts

(and for truly earth-shaking physics, if you think about Einstein)

go under the radar for the most part. I totally agree that there's

so much that can't be tested.

I've seen a few sides of the issue- people who suffered or made

others suffer because of their " gifted " label and people who were

basically saved by finding out why they never fit in. A woman I knew

had been a Philharmonic child soloist who dropped out of music

altogether to save her sanity. Music had been ruined for her. Her

parents had protegeed her to the point that it almost ressembled a

form of molestation: they forced a child to perform to gratify adult

needs in direct conflict with the child's needs. Her former

Juilliard classmates used to greet her by saying " How's the great

has-been? " . They'd all been mommy and daddy's special geniuses and I

knew the time. Like crabby, over-groomed show dogs with the

emotional intelligence of gnats. She had more sense than they did

which was why the loss of her music to the world was a real loss.

She never lost her emotional intelligence and suffered all the more

for it. Funny that her external personality was exactly like Marilyn

Monroe's- the world's most famous " crazy hypersensitive dumb blond " .

Brings up the issue of " what's crazy? " as well.

What she went through is not what I think of when I imagine

providing all children with appropriate environment and education-

it's just a mockery of catering to needs. I think the movie " Little

Man Tate " shows the opposing problems facing " gifted " children

(geeks, nerds, eggheads): protegeeing vs. ignoring the child's needs

and trying to force them to be " normal " , which could literally kill

some children. In the film, a kind of happy medium is reached.

Then I was in a philosophy class in college with an army specialist

from a small farming town. He'd taken the army IQ test and found out

why he'd never fit in, why he grew up without friends, why no one

thought his jokes were funny, why he daydreamed throughout

highschool. He was " 99th percentile " . He changed his view of

himself, was the first of his family to enroll in college, went on

to get an MA in something, I don't remember what. Did he end up

happy? Did he end up with more friends? I don't know, but at least

he had a chance which he hadn't formerly had. Was it the placebo

effect or at last a consensus on what he'd always felt was different

about himself? Dunno. One could say the healing effect of every kind

of consensus is just the placebo effect and all our intuitions about

our fittingness or nonfittingness in the world and our perceptions

about how we're treated are " all in our heads " .

I do believe that gifted kids are often discriminated against in

ways that puts many in a similarly misunderstood, marginalized and

victimized demographic along with mercury-poisoned children.

Particularly the empathic, emotionally intelligent and rebellious

types who have the potential to most benefit the (ailing) world. A

theorist wrote a book on the subject, on his " Fittingness " theory,

which got a bit of coverage a few years ago and then fell completely

off the radar itself. I can't find any reference to it at all

anymore and I'm begining to think I imagined it.

It's especially bad for gifted females, half of whom fall off the

radar by seventh grade (maybe in part because they don't take the

pinball IQ tests as well) and underachieve to avoid the negative

social stigma against the more extreme traits which go along with

giftedness which are less " acceptable " in women (talking about

things that don't interest others, talking too much, not enough,

being passionate, being withdrawn, etc..) At least those were the

conclusions of one study. I forget the name of the researchers- I

don't agree with all their premises.

And take Dr. Lloyd Ross' chart showing that all the supposed markers

for " ADHD " put out by the psychopharmaceutical complexes' crackpot

science spin correspond to traits of giftedness accross the board.

They're drugging the crap out of all kids rather than developing

tailored programs for each individual child or looking into real

causes for behavior. And it's a problem of all children but maybe

especially horrific for the most ill-fitting and most vulnerable.

I've worn myself out and probably everyone else. Going to go watch

something stupid from Netflix now!

> >

> > The site I read just said " reading " with no description.

Here's one

> > site with some info:

> >

> > http://www.educationaloptions.com/levels_giftedness.htm

>

> That info is very non-specific. Reading includes, in order of

> sophistication, reading words, sentences and combined sentences

(a

> story, etc). Saying " reading " means close to nothing. Plus, when

kids

> start reading (and talking), it's mostly mimicking operations,

since

> mimicking is a primordial aspect of learning.

> So, in reference to the website you linked above, let me rant a

> little: I don't know how controversial my opinion might be here,

but I

> think the whole IQ thing is crap. I don't believe in quantifying

> something as delicate and multifaceted as intelligence (which,

might I

> add, no one has ever come to a consensus or scientifically good

> definition of what is intelligence). It's something that is

amorphous,

> always changing and always growing, has many aspects, comes in

many

> " packages " and has many definitions of what it might be, which

makes

> it impossible to quantify. Also (and this is very discussed in

the

> pedagogy field), test performances are highly affected by stress,

> insecurity, low self-esteem, and other circumstancial

psychologial

> aspects. That makes a lot of kids (and grown-ups also) score low

on

> various tests, which is another argument for the invalidity of

those

> tests. In Brasil, IQ tests haven't been applied since the 1970's

> because they were discredited. I just cannot believe that

intelligence

> is like a cattle brand, that can't be changed, optimized,

acquired and

> trained. I cannot believe that autistic kids, who are all

incredibly

> bright, would carry a " retarded " stigma just because they

wouldn't

> score well on an IQ test. I hate it that brightness and

giftedness are

> thought to be a privilege of some. Intelligence, like many other

> skills, is just that, a skill. You pick it up, work with it,

improve

> it by experience. If I had to come up with a definition of what I

> think is intelligence, I'd say it's something qualitative. Like a

> rough diamond can be polished.

> I could go on and on and on, but for the readers' sake, I won't.

>

> > It's worth investigating because your son sounds really

precocious.

> > But if you do visit a message board for ES, bear in mind that

current

> > Einstein " syndrome-ians " (the parents who believe their

children have

> > the Einstein syndrome) are pretty hostile to the mercury-

induced-

> > autism camp. This is probably because many who believe their

children

> > have ES and it alone are terrified that it might actually be

autism

> > (aka mercury poisoning), which in many cases is what it turns

out to

> > be or a combination of the two. It's very tragic because I

think some

> > might paint themselves in a corner of not treating their

child's

> > mercury or toxic issues. Also, the attitude is a trickle down

from the

> > coiners of the term " Einstein sydrome " (not Pinker

necessarily: his

> > research was just cited in the book on ES, though he may have

no

> > opinion about MIA), who are extremely opposed to the mercury-

induced

> > autism theory.

>

> There are too many labels out there. The medical community is

like a

> Fordist factory of labels, producing them at full speed. And one

of

> the side-effects of the labels and " team-this " , " team-that " is

that it

> only interferes with the cooperation between people, harming

ourselves

> and our kids. Like you said above, the " ES " parents are

terrified that

> their kids are mercury poisoned and won't do any effort in

trying to

> educate themselves in other areas because they are so stuck in a

label

> that paralyses them. I believe that if our kids present any

issues or

> problems we should try to address them (preferrably biomedically)

> regardless of the label they were given.

>

> Thanks for the feedback, I love your posts, Ana.

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