New Method Of Scoring IQ Tests Benefits Children With Intellectual Disabilities (MIND Institute, a CA UCEDD)
January 5, 2009
Parents of children with intellectual disabilities have long been frustrated by intelligence quotient (IQ) testing that tells them little to nothing about the long-term learning potential of their children.
That's because these tests are scored according to the mean performance of children without disabilities. The result is that the raw scores of many children with intellectual disabilities are converted into the lowest normalized score, typically a zero.
"We send back these reports that don't tell parents anything about their child," explained David Hessl, an associate professor of clinical psychiatry and a researcher at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute.