Important Thing to Know About Intelligence and the Concept of IQ and Giftedness
Remember, kids! Really smart or gifted kids can have ADHD and/or autism that masks their giftedness/intelligence! This does not make them any less intelligent as their peers. It basically masks it because the ADHD means they’ll have trouble keeping their attention on things that don’t interest them like books or tests or things like that if they genuinely don’t have much interest in reading/if they don’t want to spend that much time deciphering what they’re reading. Autism can also cause a lot of problems with stress and overstimulation in the form of too much work being pressed on them.
This does not mean you are stupid or incapable of doing things nor that you aren’t intelligent. It is an ableist system that will specifically target anybody that struggles even a little bit. Regardless of what mental health or disability you’re struggling with, you are just as capable as your peers. It’s okay to get help for things you’re struggling with.
Just letting y’all know that like- you aren’t dumb or lazy if you can’t focus long enough on an assignment or listen to schedules/reminders/alarms. You have trouble with that stuff and that’s okay. It’s hard, but it doesn’t make you any less intelligent as your peers.
So like- literally the concept of IQ and Intelligence and Giftedness is inherently ableist in that it’s testing you on information that you can easily memorize or that people with attention issues or processing issues might struggle with. For example, somebody with processing issues may need more time to test since they’ll read over the first question and go through the test, finally process the first question, and have to go all the way back to fill it in and spend time to try and process everything. That’s okay! When it comes to timed tests that require you to work quickly (As most IQ tests happen to be because they assume you can process information quickly and retain it effectively and just as quickly) it can really hamper the success of somebody with processing issues. IQ tests are also not built to help cover every single field of what constitutes intelligence. Somebody can be intelligent in that they CAN think quickly because they have ADHD and can quickly spot patterns and fallacies and patterns in something, yet fail when it comes to a reaction test or a word processing game or reciting something. They’d, on a typical IQ test, would fail or get a poor score. This is not an indication of either their worth as a human nor their true intelligence!
ADHD, Autism, and many other mental health disorders and developmental disorders can hamper your ability to perform typical tasks seen on IQ tests. This is not an indication of your actual intelligence. The concept of IQ is an outdated, ableist, classist, and racist concept. It’s ableist for the reasons I listed, classist since they tend to be built off of reading skills and the ability to rearrange letters and words, rely on knowledge of towns, cities, states, oceans, continents, etc. These can be bits of information not accessible to people with a proper education. Hence, it is a classist test. It’s also racist in that it’s based off the IQ of Americans and Europeans due to its roots being in Europe where they were testing if people were mentally skilled enough to perform basic tasks for war.
The IQ test has been warped in a way that disadvantages and incorrectly represents the intelligence of those on the autistic spectrum and those with early-age mental health conditions. It’s been used as a way to hurt children that are unaware of what they mean and make them compare themselves to others and alienates them. Somebody who can tie knots really fast and learned how to do it quickly and efficiently but can’t speak easily would be considered intelligent in a fishing community. Would they be considered not intelligent for not being able to speak?
If somebody in a hunting community were, for example, really efficient at tracking based on the position of the sun and stars, capable of learning patterns efficiently, and able to teach others their skills well but couldn’t learn anything outside of their interests well, would they be considered unintelligent? Intelligence is relative and is varied and not limited to simple things related to scholarly pursuits.
There are several types of intelligence. There are several types that, when combined, will give a general idea of what somebody’s general skills are. Being skilled in exclusively one type of intelligence doesn’t make you unintelligent, nor does being good at multiple but not adept at any. Intelligence is relative and situational.
Basically, you’re not stupid for not being able to get a good score on a test, for not having a “High IQ” because it’s a flawed and broken system. You’re capable, you’re worthy, you aren’t lazy or stupid for not being able to do something someone else can do. Everyone is unique and intelligent in their own ways.
