-=> Quoting Sondra Ball to Robin Arnhold <=-
Hi, Sondra,
 SB> Whether English is or is not the official language does not justify
 SB> *labeling* a person retarded on the basis of a test they cannot
 SB> understand.  I'm sure you followed the case of the Indian woman who
 SB> was released from the mental institution where she had lived for many
 SB> years simply because she spoke a different language and came from a
 SB> different culture, so they thought she was crazy!
Yes, I did hear about that woman.  I'm glad she was finally released.
Then there is the Mexican who was executed in Texas last week on the
basis of a confession that he signed that was written in English, a
language he couldn't read.  Now maybe that man committed the crime for
which he was executed and maybe it's legal to execute somebody on the
basis of a confession written in a language that somebody doesn't read,
but it just isn't _right_.
 
 SB> I remember being given one of those stupid IQ tests when I was a
 SB> child, about seven. And I not only spoke English quite well at the
 SB> time; I also read it fluently. I still did quite poorly on the test; I
 SB> rated high level retarded on it, as a matter of fact. I know this
 SB> because I saw the score later in a portfolio on me in one of the
 SB> schools I attended for a short while during my childhood.  I even
 SB> remember some of the questions: things about bathtubs and doilies and
 SB> other stuff.  I had never bathed in a bathtub at that point, or used an
 SB> indoor toilet; and I certainly had never seen doilies.  
Most IQ tests, especially those administered to large numbers of grade
school students, are quite biased culturally.  To put it in another
perspective, I don't think too many American kids would do well if the IQ
tests assumed a knowledge of such things as shadow puppets, Tibetan
prayer wheels, and stupas.  Doilies, though, are pretty much a cultural
artifact now and not many people have them.  I tend to associate them
with my grandmother, who crocheted many, many doilies over the years.
 SB> But I had read
 SB> "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Stevenson; and I could do
 SB> multiplication.  That score never marred my life, partially because I
 SB> attended school so seldom that usually by the time my records arived
 SB> anywhere, I wasn't there any longer anyway; partially because it was
 SB> probably pretty clear to anyone I *wasn't* retarded; and partially
 SB> because I had outstanding acheivement test scores.  I'm sure many kids
 SB> like me *did* have their lives messed up because of those test scores,
 SB> however. 
I think a lot of kids did, too.  You moved around enough that your
records never quite caught up to you.  While this is frequently
disruptive for students, I don't think it is any worse than staying in
one place and having some low test scores dragging one down, which
happens a lot more frequently.
Take care, 
Robin
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.20
---------------