Part II, Piece of the Puzzle

Since the last post about TD and his personality and concerns I have had, we have done some more testing.

Asperger's: He's in the normal range, so it's not that. However, the school psychologist did agree that he had some OCD tendencies. He also thought that perhaps he may have a higher intelligence, or IQ, that may also be a part of why he has some of these quirky characteristics.

Then the special ed teacher proceeded over the next few weeks to test his IQ. The results are quite interesting. His overall AVERAGE IQ is 113--high average (average range is from 85-115). However, there was one section that he scored fairly low in, which brings the average down. Basically, much of what he had to verbalize, was lower, mostly within average range. The majority of his scores were in the 120's-140's, including such aspects as memory, visual and auditory processing, and all mathematics. 

He had a exceptional score in the Visual-Auditory Learning. For the task, he was given picture symbols and was told what they represented (example a picture of a flag was a cowboy). This is kind of like having a secret code, but he didn't have a key to refer to. The special ed teacher said that most kids start having errors after 4 or 5 pages, but TD only had 1 error. His score was 163, very superior range.

Also notable, he does multiplication--like not memorized, but actually understands it. He is only in 2nd grade, by the way. They don't start teaching multiplication until 3rd grade--and that's more or less memorizing facts. He was given problems like 13 x 7 and he verbally worked through it, "So that is 7 13's so, 13, 26, 39, ...). Most kids can count by 2's, 5's, 10's, etc... but by 13's? Even for an easier one, 8 x 5, he didn't do eight 5's, he did five 8's--"8, 16, 24, 32, 40." So, no surprise that his scores in broad mathematics, math calculation skills, math reasoning, and brief mathematics are also very superior.

I don't know what the future holds for this little guy, but, I think he can pretty much do anything he'd like to do.

All of that being said, I've also been attending "Multiple Intelligence" class at the elementary school. A man, Howard Gardner, asserts that there are more ways than one measuring "intelligence"--it's not just defined by academics. Everyone has different intelligence. Some may have intelligence in music, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, logical mathematical, naturalist or existential.  

To take the test yourself, go here: http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm#vark. You'll need to scroll down past the descriptions of the different intelligences and then click on the first one that says "self-calculating" if you want it to calculate for you and give you a bar graph to show how your intelligences all line up. You can also go here: http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-learning-styles-quiz. 

It's very interesting. Knowing what your child's strengths are can help you to be able to use their strengths to bring up their weaknesses--like if they are musical smart, find a way to use music to help them in an area where they struggle. Or, TD is very much into facts, so I may use facts to help him be able to verbally express more fully.

Knowledge is power. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses and other family member's or co-workers strengths and weaknesses can be a real help in understanding each other. I guess this goes with my discussion about talents as well--we can all compliment each other with our skills, talents, strengths, etc. That's the way it should be--everyone helping one another, and working to improve out weaknesses through our strengths.

© Wendy 2012