"It's immaculate!"

We went out to the local donut shop today for coffee. Our bill came to $3.61 and I gave the young woman at the cash register $4.01 to pay. She looked at the money in her hand and was puzzled. "How much do I owe you?", she asked. "I'm bad at math." Well, I told her the change due was 40 cents, and since we are regulars there, she believed me and gave me the 40 cents. Later, when we were headed home, I told Donna how much we owed and what I gave the cashier, and I asked her how much the change would be. "Forty cents", she replied without much thought! I'm telling this story because recently we found some old papers from twenty some odd years back and Donna's social worker at the time described Donna as a boarderline retarded young woman! I was appalled, to say the least. If she is retarded what does that make the young woman in the donut shop who had a normal high school education. I have heard similar stories from severely disabled people with speech impediments. One woman is a college graduate who was similarly mis-diagnosed when she was young. Because of the severity of Donna's disability she could not hold a book and turn the pages when she was in school. In fact she has not read a single book in her life. It's too difficult for her physically. As a child in school she never had homework, and she has at best a fourth or fifth grade education from a Cerebral Palsy school where many of her classmates couldn't talk or write or hold a book. Her foster mother had to fight to get her into a mainstream school for one year of high school, but she had a very poor educational background previous to that. She struggles with a very poor self-image because of her mis-diagnosis and her poor education. But, I'll always remember the day I cleaned Donna's apartment for her, and her coming into the living room and looking around and declaring, "Wow, it's immaculate!" I suppose that's the kind of vocabulary you would expect from someone who is mentally retarded! How can they accurately test the IQ of someone who can't hold a book and turn the pages, and who's speech is often very difficult to understand. On top of all her physical handicaps, she was on very strong anti-seizure medications when she was young that caused her to have difficulty remembering; plus she often suffers with blurry vision. Should her intelligence be measured against kids who have none of her disabilities? But the geniuses who test people like Donna do just that. They measure their performance against the performance of children who have none of their impairments. Is that fair? I have been around highly intelligent people all my life and have a B.A. from a highly regarded university. When I was in high school I consistently tested in the top 1% on standardized intelligence tests. I know when I am around someone who is bright, and I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty that Donna has at least an average intelligence, possibly way above average! If she had the proper encouragement, guidance and support when she was young, she might very well have turned out to be a college graduate. Instead, she has lived with a poor self-image for most of her life. There's a lesson here for anyone who has a child with a disability like Donna's. DO NOT take the so-called authorities at their word. You know your child better than the so-called experts, and if you know that your child is bright, fight to get him/her a decent education, no matter how severe their disability.