View From the Bushes

Here as promised is the big head story. Like all newborns, when I was born they measured the circumference of my head. Mine was above average, way above average, as in the 99th percentile of head size. I knew this, and I knew that it was tough to find a hat that fit and that because I was so top-heavy that I fell down a lot (I had stitches in my head on seven separate occasions before I turned ten), but I didn't think about it that much until I saw an advertisement for a study over at the University of Utah that was looking for people with head sizes in the 98th percentile (an autism specialist is quoted in this Newsweek article from the University of Utah, I wonder if she was involved in my study?). They were offering $100. I didn't know if my head was still big enough to qualify but it sounded like easy money, how wrong I was...

The study involved about 30 hours of testing. I took probably ten separate IQ tests: they tested my memory, my pattern matching skills, spatial awareness, vocabulary, general knowledge, plus a couple others I can't remember. They did a complete psych work-up on me. There were physical tests: jumping over a string and seeing how many times I could clap, walking backwards heel to toe on a strip of tape, they made photocopies of my hand. In addition to the 30 hours of testing I had to fill out a complete medical workup on everyone from by grandparents all the way down to my first cousins. Which may not sound like much to some of you, but my dad has nine brothers and sisters and I have over 40 first cousins.

Of course, in addition to the $100, part of the pay off was getting the results. I think we're all curious about ourselves and our abilities and we would all like to have some definitive answer as to what our strengths are. Plus, I think everyone secretly hopes that the tests will reveal some hidden super power or some world-class ability we never knew we had. Well, so eventually they gave me a letter which ran two pages (not front and back, you would expect more after 30 hours) and they gave me the results of a lot of the IQ tests and remarked that there was a pattern to my testing. Most of the results were on one level, while three or four were about one standard deviation lower. And those three or four were items that someone with dyslexia would have problems with, so the conclusion was I had Phonological Decoding Dyslexia... (to be continued)

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross