[jph00]

Amongst groups for extremely gifted kids I’ve seen, well over half are neurodivergent. It’s a well understood issue in gifted kids psychology. When these kids are accommodated appropriately they ace their classes, and when not, they fail out entirely, even at the most basic levels of education.

So the statistics mentioned in the article are not necessarily inconsistent with what we’d expect, since Stanford is a highly selective school that’s by definition going to be picking gifted kids over less gifted ones, and from that group will pick those that were accommodated appropriately.

(There could also be cheating - I don’t know either way. I’m just commenting on the premise of the article. One person in it claims the kids aren’t really disabled because they don’t have wheelchairs. Hopefully it’s fairly obvious that this claim is totally illogical. Such an obviously unreasonable claim on a website called “Reason” makes me wonder what they are actually trying to achieve there.)

[beambot]

Just curious: If non-neurodivergent children are given the same accomodations (which are?) do they significantly outperform their peers too? For example: it's well known that 1-on-1 instruction time correlates to better academic outcomes.

(I'm not an educator; I have no idea.)

[mrgoldenbrown]

Similarly getting extra time on a test sure as heck would have improved my scores in many cases.

[jph00]

I don't know about Stanford, but in earlier schooling accomodations can include things like being allowed to sit on a bouncy chair, or use a fidget toy, or type instead of hand-write (physical asynchronous development is a common issue), or wear headphones, or take more frequent breaks.

I do think that more flexibility in educational environments might be good for most people, yes.

[veilrap]

100%, it's one of the irksome things about the education system in general - resources are limited. It's a hard problem to solve.

[dkarl]

My current employer had me answer the question of whether I'm "disabled." I've never answered "yes" to this question since I've never been diagnosed with any form of neurodivergence, though therapists have suggested that there's a good chance I'd be diagnosed if I saw a specialist. But this time I noticed that my employer's definition of "disabled" included not only neurodivergence but also depression, which I do have a diagnosis for. So... now I'm disabled.

I have no idea what use the label is when it's so broadly defined. It doesn't give my employer any information that would help them support me in any way. Fingers crossed there is some benefit to it.

[nickff]

It probably helps the employer demonstrate that they hire and retain disabled people, likely assisting with some government quotas, and defenses against lawsuits by aggrieved ex-employees.

[aeturnum]

It is interesting to consider that disability may enable much higher academic performance as long as people get the proper accommodations. After all, wouldn't it be interesting if people we think of as disabled can - under the correct conditions - be more productive than 'able' people. An individuals' capability is generally pretty circumstantial and I think we should be open to asking questions about how optimal our current social structure is for productivity and capacity going forward. We may need to imagine new ways of living and structuring work and society to reach even higher levels of productivity.

[frm88]

^^This! Our current societal and cultural structure is not adequately set up to deal with, for example climate change and subsequent mass migrations, widening wealth gap, increasing authoritarianism, centrlising of control and power and a myriad of other problems, not to mention any second and third order effects; let alone improve to higher levels of productivity.

[dyauspitr]

What is neurodivergent though? If it’s a third of people, you can probably deem that normal.

[Spivak]

I think, broadly, this is what neurodivergent people want. Nobody considers having poor vision a disability despite it nominally being one since it's so well accommodated. And it's so well accommodated in part because it affects so many people that it's normal.

The world right now doesn't do a great job of "by default" accommodating people with the broad class of difficulties experienced by people that fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence and takes as given that everyone is in the 70-80% group. So now it's a disability with doctor's visits and paperwork and specific individual accommodations when it very well could not be.

[jph00]

A third is about as common as astigmatism in >50 year olds (like me, for instance!) I wear glasses to accommodate this disability, and as a result have nearly no practical problems due to it.

I don't think a problem having a high frequency means that we should decide it doesn't matter or need rectification.

[swiftcoder]

Current estimates place it around 20% of the population. Wouldn't take a whole lot of sampling error in admissions to result in 40% of admitted students

[ok_dad]

It's a way to separate us so that we can fight about it and not focus on the important aspect which is to provide everyone the help they need and deserve to make a successful life for themselves. Some may need more help than others, and so the powers that be who want to keep all that profit for themselves target those who need more help with dumb articles like this one which spread FUD.

[fsckboy]

>It’s a well understood issue in gifted kids psychology

if it's a well-understood issue in a scientific field, it's basically well-understood through the work of neurodivergent scientists.

[rahimnathwani]

Your point about Stanford having a larger-than-average proportion of 'extremely gifted' kids is reasonable. Perhaps the smartest 20% at Stanford are drawn from the smartest 0.1% nationally.

But I think you're too dismissive of this part:

  The professors Horowitz interviewed largely back up this theory. "You hear 'students with disabilities' and it's not kids in wheelchairs," one professor told Horowitch. "It's just not. It's rich kids getting extra time on tests."

You said "One person in it claims the kids aren’t really disabled because they don’t have wheelchairs" but this is a straw man. The professor did not say this.

If you read the statement charitably, the professor only pointed out two things that are probably true, which I paraphrase below:

- most people, when they hear about students with disabilities, imagine physical disabilities

- the professor has seen that a sizable proportion of students classified as disabled do not require accommodations

Now, we could argue about what are reasonable accommodations and which are not. This is where I'm interested to hear your perspective.

I assume you are in favor of these two:

- kid needs wheelchair and a ramp, so kid can attend class

- kid needs glasses, so kid can see the whiteboard

I assume you are not in favor of this one:

- kid cannot find the derivative of 2x^2, so kid is allowed to use a CAS calculator for Calculus 1 exams

What do you think about this one?

- kid can pass the English Composition 1 exam, but only if given twice as much time as other students

[hackeraccount]

There's a difference in kind not degree to the two sets of questions.

It's the difference between someone giving me a ride to work and someone doing my job for me. If the the point of the Calculus class is - ugh, it's been awhile for me so I might be messing this up - to teach the power rule or the thing being taught in English class is how to write a cogent essay in a set period of time then giving a student a calculator or more time is doing the job for the kid.

If they're incapable of doing the work why are the in class? Maybe there's a different class that's more appropriate for them?

[jph00]

Your request to read charitably is not supported by your followup of cartoonish straw man questions.

You are using rhetorical trickery to make a point rather than engaging in honest dialog.

[swiftcoder]

> Such an obviously unreasonable claim on a website called “Reason” makes me wonder what they are actually trying to achieve there.

Libertarianism, it would seem

[woodruffw]

> Libertarianism, it would seem

In some peculiar, perverted sense, given that evaluating claims of disability requires breaching students' medical privacy. You wouldn't normally expect libertarians to so overtly be okay with invasions of personal privacy.