Leiter intelligence test for non-native, and Spectrum kids?

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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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13 Feb 2014, 1:26 pm

Roy Grinker is an anthropology professor, and he has a daughter on the spectrum. The following is from his book:

Quote:
Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism, Roy Richard Grinker, Perseus Books Group, 2007, pages 189-90:

http://alturl.com/8d725 <-- short url to google books

'But Isabel's team--our psychiatrist, psychologist, and speech and occupational therapists--insisted that Isabel belonged in a mainstream classroom with aide support. To help us make the case for inclusion, a psychologist in Baltimore recommended Isabel take an intelligence test called the Leiter. It's not a new test--it's been around since 1927--but what is new is that it is being given more frequently to children with autism to demonstrate their nonverbal strengths. The test was designed specifically to be nonverbal, suitable for foreign children who may have just arrived in the United States and for whom the appropriate educational environment needed to be ascertained. Some people believe the test exaggerates the intelligence of children with language impairment, and this may be one reason the psychologist thought the test might help us in our efforts to get Isabel mainstreamed.

'The Leiter tests children ages two to eighteen for conceptual and problem-solving abilities but involves no language at all, and it uses only the minimal motor skills necessary to grasp and arrange small cardboard cut-outs into a frame or to connect puzzle pieces. Children match squares by their image or color, solve small puzzles, sort a group of pictures that tell a story into a sequence, and the like, and the tasks get more difficult and abstract as the test proceeds. It looks for attention deficits, learning disabilities, and neuropsychological impairments, and it appears to have little or no cultural or language biases. The Leiter is scored much like an IQ test, with 100 as the mean. Isabel received a 146, a score that on a typical intelligence battery like the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children would put her in the range of near genius. Whether one believes the score or not--it does seem inflated--it affirmed our belief that she was bright, and it gave us some ammunition in our argument for inclusion. We would use the score every time the school system tried to pull Isabel down to a lower academic level.

'Isabel was moved to the mainstream classroom. The struggle took a lot out of us, and it was only the beginning. We'd have to fight to get her more aide support in the mainstream classroom, fight to get the aide some training in autism, and fight to get the teacher and the aide to communicate with us about Isabel and the work she was supposed to do. But the fight was worth it. After four months, she was doing better than we, or the school, had expected. . . '