Q: Where can I find a valid online IQ test?

A: It’s not really possible to get a valid IQ test online. They have to be administered and scored by humans because there are a lot of judgment calls involved, and a multiple-choice format simply doesn’t lend itself to that kind of thing ( Read more... )

We don't actually know that much about hyperlexia, even though it's fairly common. Hyperlexia is a weird cross between learning disability and splinter skill, and it’s found on the autism spectrum quite a lot. Hyperlexia is associated with atypical development, especially developmental disabilities, but it can be found in otherwise typically ( Read more... )

I'm on the last day of finals week, finishing up a term paper for a fetal behavior class. My paper is on the neurological development of the premature infant, but along the way, I came up with some interesting ideas that can't go in the paper... so they are going here ( Read more... )

Among the uninformed, autism is often associated with savant syndrome. You know--Rain Man, counting cards. Or calendar calculation, or memorizing books, or drawing something with photographic accuracy after having seen it once. It's always flashy and exotic-seeming, like savant syndrome is so hugely outside everyday experience that autistic people ( Read more... )

(This is a follow-up to a previous post, The Cat and the Mirror.)

You may have heard of the mirror test. It's an experiment designed to find out if an animal has an idea of what "me" is, by using the animal's ability to identify its own image in a mirror.( How to test your cat's mirror savvy )

In my psychology classes, I learned about something called the "Mirror test", which is designed to determine if an animal has a sense of self. Human infants can pass this test at 18 months ( Read more... )

When a person sets out to learn something, there's an important emotional issue affecting their ability to learn:

Which is stronger: The desire for success--or the fear of failure?
( Read more... )

I have developmental prosopagnosia, or "face-blindness". Mine's relatively mild; I can recognize family and years-long acquaintances, and I have a system of memorizing clothing, hair, unique features, voices, body shapes, and other identifying markers that let me recognize people ( Read more... )

A strategy that some people want to take when they try to increase acceptance is to emphasize the similarities between a minority individual and the "norm"; to try to explain to people that, "He's a lot like you. There's no need to reject him for being different because he's not really that different." It works pretty well with racial minorities, ( Read more... )

You hear the stories all the time, don't you?: All his life, this autistic guy has been thought to be mentally retarded. And then, suddenly, he figures out language for the first time... and they give him an IQ test... and it turns out he's "actually gifted". Suddenly, people look at him differently. He jumps from the object of the sentence to the ( Read more... )