ID, IQ and why grad school rocks.

This semester in my diagnostics class has been odd. The parallels between my life and the class have been amazing.

Of course, we are going through the 3 year re-evaluation process with JT, so there's a lot of 'diagnostics and assessment' going on. That's a big part of it.

Last week was huge, though.

Our discussion was on Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and IQ tests.

Part of JT's 3 year re-eval is the IQ test. When JT was diagnosed at 2 with autism, they also told me he would likely never speak and that he was likely 'severely mentally retarded' (their term, the correct term is 'cognitively impaired' now). They said I should get an IQ assessment done around the age of 7 (IQ tests aren't reliable before then) to confirm.

Since that day, I have been terrified.

I cannot explain why. He has autism. I know this. He has difficulty with many things. He has depression. He has OCD (part of the autism). He has anxiety (also a part of the autism).

But an ID? I just couldn't handle that.

Until last week and our class discussion.

We talked about a lot, but here are the things that I have highlighted in my notes:

IQ is what a child does, not what a child is. 
It is not fixed or unchanging. 
It is not a measure of potential. 

It dawned on me that it doesn't matter. IQ isn't reflective of what your child can accomplish. It doesn't mean you put restrictions on them or lower your expectations. It is just a snapshot of right now how they perform on this test versus their peers. It does not define them.