Taking the Scenic Route

cut and paste from:  http://autism.about.com/b/a/257904.htm

Once Again, the World Discovers That People with Autism Are Bright But Different

A new story came out in Science Daily this week. Yet again, it seems, science has discovered that people with autism are actually – gasp – pretty bright after all! Here’s the Science Daily describing the research and its findings:

Led by psychologist Laurent Mottron of the University of Montreal, the team gave both autistic kids and normal kids two of the most popular IQ tests used in schools. The two tests are both highly regarded, but they are very different. The so-called WISC relies heavily on language, which is why the psychologists were suspicious of it. The other, known as the Raven’s Progressive Matrices, is considered the preeminent test of what’s called “fluid intelligence,” that is, the ability to infer rules, to set and manage goals, to do high-level abstractions. Basically the test presents arrays of complicated patterns with one missing, and test takers are required to choose the one that would logically complete the series. The test demands a good memory, focused attention and other “executive skills,” but–unlike the WISC–it doesn’t require much language.

The idea was that the autistic kids’ true intelligence might shine through if they could bypass the language deficit. And that’s exactly what happened.

The difference between their scores on the WISC and the Raven’s test was striking: For example, not a single autistic child scored in the “high intelligence” range of the WISC, yet fully a third did on the Raven’s. Similarly, a third of the autistics had WISC scores in the mentally retarded range, whereas only one in 20 scored that low on the Raven’s test. The normal kids had basically the same results on both tests.

When I read this article, I had a sudden sense of deja vu, and went back to my prior blogs. It turns out that I announced exactly this same information, and a very similar research project, in February of 2006:

In not very surprising news, it turns out that standard IQ tests are lousy tools for measuring the intelligence of autistic individuals. In fact, say researchers presenting at conference sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, standard IQ tests may lower our kids’ scores by 30 IQ points or more.

A Reuters article, entitled Bright Autistic Kids Misunderstood, lays out all the details. Among other points, it states that a particular IQ test, called the Raven Progressive Matrices, is a far better tool than the usual Wechsler or Vineland IQ tests.

Interested in learning more? You can read the actual poster presentation online. It’s called The Nature of Autistic Intelligence, and its well worth a quick read. It may offer parents a very useful tool for improving their children’s educational options.

The same questions were asked and the same research tools were used – more than a year apart – to come to precisely the same findings: that people with autism are just as bright as any other group of people, but that they think differently.

So…what happened in the intervening year? Did the good folks at the University of Montreal simply miss the AAAS research, the Reuters article, and the poster presentation? Since they’re clearly in the same field with the same interests, it seems hard to believe. Yet today’s findings are presented as if they were a brand-new breakthrough in psychology.

More importantly for our children and for adults on the autism spectrum – why is a standardized test like the Raven Matrices, which was not developed for autistic people but for people in general, NOT being used to test our children’s intelligence? Why, instead, are they STILL being subjected to tests which are obviously inappropriate – and then judged, placed, and educated on the basis of the results?

My own son went through the WISC and was found to be signficantly mentally retarded. I asked the psychologist who tested him how it was possible that a then-9-year-old with significant retardation could be reading, writing, doing math, playing piano, and generally showing clear signs of ability. Her response was that, evidently, the test had not been appropriate to the child. I asked about Raven, and was told that the test was not available to her. This psychologist works for a county agency in Pennsylvania – one of the better autism programs in one of the better autism states in the US. How much worse much the situation be in other places in the US and abroad?

Have you or has your child been given the Raven matrices as opposed to WISC or Vineland? Are things in fact any different or better in the UK, Australia, Canada, or elsewhere?