Neurodiversity by Thomas PhD Armstrong

Author:Thomas PhD, Armstrong
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780738214115
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2010-05-24T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The Rainbow of Intelligences

How much gentleness, insight and wisdom would be lost from our cultural heritage if we were to screen out . . . “defects” and narrow the human genome. Although I anxiously await the benefits that modern genetics may bring us, I am perplexed by the thought of how little of human nature we can truly measure with superficial tools such as the Intelligence Quotient.

—ROBERT D. SHEELER, M.D.,

MAYO CLINIC

In her biography The Strangest Song, Gloria Lenhoff is described as a woman in her midfifties who is short in stature (four feet, ten inches), wears glasses, and has an elfin nose, puffy eyes, and an expansive mouth. When she walks, she walks on the balls of her feet. She can’t make change for a dollar, can’t subtract seven from fifteen, can’t tell left from right, can’t cross the street alone, and can’t write her name legibly. She has an IQ of 55. But she can sing opera in twenty-five different languages, including Chinese. As a small child, her parents noticed her interest in music and, to encourage her, showered her with musical toys and rhythm instruments—tambourines, flutophones, drums, xylophones, and toy pianos. As she grew up, they sought and found teachers who could help her develop her musical skills. She can’t read music, but she sings, plays the accordion, and has perfect pitch. She needs only to hear a piece of music once or twice to be able to remember it in its entirety. As a result, she has a repertoire of thousands of songs. Her mother, Sylvia Lenhoff, doesn’t think that she is a savant. “I think she has an ability, a proclivity, that had to be developed. It took a great deal of time and hard work for Gloria to become the musician she is today.”1

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