Danalys said:
that's because they diagnose based on symptoms rather than cause. since they don't know the cause when it's first diagnosed.
so therfor many different problems can be all under the same umbra term. so the actual route of the problem needs to be discovered no matter what the diagnosis. over wise they could give some one something that wont help them and could even harm them.
My Non-Verbal Learning Disability is supposedly caused by a discrepancy between my verbal intelligence and performance intelligence. "Performance" is like math, spacial relationships, and pretty much everything other than verbal stuff.
My verbal intelligence rated in the "high superior" range-- 135, where 100 is average.
My performance intelligence rated as "average."
Somehow, that screws up stuff in my head. I don't know if I'd be better off in general if my verbal intelligence was average to match my performance intelligence or not. I probably wouldn't have heard so many people say over the years that, "he's really very smart... he just needs to apply himself," and so forth.
Then again, it could be the other way around. I could be very smart in verbal capacities
because I'm nothing special in the other capacities, to compensate. I know that
is true to a degree, but how much? Does the brain of a young child somehow know to adapt itself so drastically because it isn't good enough as other people's in certain capacities? 135 is more than half-way between "average" and whatever the term they use for geniuses. Even for just a verbal score, that's pretty significant increase from "average," so that's a pretty amazing adaptation, depending on where the supposed starting point was.
I grew up in a place with a very high education rate, and my parents are both very smart and reasonably successful. If I was surrounded by "average" people growing up, would I have had to compensate in the first place? That's one big factor in the credibility of IQ tests and general diagnoses of intelligence. How do you know what average is, or how and to what a young child can adapt?
One direct effect of the discrepancy is clear to me.
It is typical of children with NVLD to impress their parents and teachers at a very young age with their verbal intelligence. Aw, look how smart the little darling is. He'll take the world by storm and outshine his parents. I'm so God damn proud! And then, when the child is a screw-up or just a little bit slower than the rest of his blossoming social network, people are disappointed with their performance and/or often assume the child is just being "lazy" or not "applying themselves." Raise expectations, then fail to reach them. That helps cause depression and anxiety. Then again, those things can also be hereditary and genetically programmed as well. They are in my case.
Intelligence is believed to be hereditary, too, to some degree. It's very obviously environmentally influenced as well, so if you grow up in an environment with your parents, from whom you receive your genetic endowment, it's very hard to separate what comes from nature or nurture. In a highly intelligent and educated family, you are no doubt more likely to be more intelligent, barring any extreme anti-intelligence factors like mental disabilities and toxic ingestion.
I feel a little hypocritical saying this, since I personally have no hope for my own future, but here goes:
If anyone else here tends to take things very literally and has high verbal intelligence, there's hope for you in the professional field. Be a lawyer, or some other kind of profession where you argue a case. Strip away the politics, corruption and personal prejudices (yeah, right) and the law is about language and the interpretation of that language. Interpreting things literally doesn't necessarily limit your options; quite often, it leaves more options. Think about it in your daily life. Hell, a lot of you are lying, scheming teenagers, so you probably already know what I'm talking about. "I didn't
technically lie...."
By the way, I'm not pushing for people to become defense attorneys. Yes, they're necessary, but they suck anyway. There's other kinds of law than criminal law.
