u/Extension_Citron_176

Things have never been easy in my childhood. School, people with judgements, meltdowns. Everything. But here i am, building a life of my own and getting into the profession of childcare myself carrying insight most people never get.

All of it is thanks to the people who raised me. They listened, learned, made mistakes and pushed on anyway. Even when school, adults thinking they know better or even I made it very difficult.

Not every child will end up like me. Whether it's the local law, profile of the child or whatever else, it's never a guarantee.

So I just want to say thank you for trying and giving so much anyway. To work so hard to make the world a safe place for our kids and make their life worth living. I can't promise you things will turn out alright but the fact that you are here reading this with the others in this Subredit tells me enough.

I've said it and I'll say it again. Thank you.

I'm curious about this type (so not just the Mensa one but also in general) of test as it's part of many IQ tests and from what I've read it's often quite close with actual IQ. A school where I’m doing an internship uses a Progressive Matrices corresponding to age to screen for giftedness so that made me curious on what this actually does. So I bumped into the Mensa Challenge. And I decided to try it out of curiosity as it seemed to match with the test format at the school.

Context: I've been lurking around this sub as someone interested in developmental psychology and IQ in particular. I'm an elementary school dropout due to autism. Or more specifically: sensory overload, as well as executive functioning (or maybe dysgraphia, I dunno) difficulty making math terribly exhausting. But this test was actually doable for me despite school dropout, unlike most online tests. And I could find out what test the kids in my class took.

I was quite surprised to get 133 out of it as being gifted never crossed my mind. And as someone studying psychology I also liked seeing how it works. Using pattern detection, abstract reasoning and problem solving without relying on learned knowledge like math or reading.

Though of course this matrix test does not determine IQ, as it’s also usually a subtest within an actual IQ test. But it does seem like a highly usable tool for screening. No test is perfect for this but this one seems to at least avoid a lot of bias and provide a decent estimate.

I don’t feel any need to find out my actual IQ btw. Mostly curious about all of your takes on this and decided to provide my own context for your brains to mess around with while we’re at it.

I'm curious about this type of test as it's part of many IQ tests and from what I've read it's often quite close with actual IQ. A school where I’m doing an internship uses a Progressive Matrices corresponding to age to screen for giftedness so that made me curious on what this actually does. So I bumped into the Mensa Challenge. And I decided to try it out of curiosity as it seemed to match with the test format at the school.

Context: I've been lurking around this sub as someone interested in developmental psychology and IQ in particular. I'm an elementary school dropout due to autism. Or more specifically: sensory overload, as well as executive functioning (or maybe dysgraphia, I dunno) difficulty making math terribly exhausting. But this test was actually doable for me despite school dropout, unlike most online tests. And I could find out what test the kids in my class took.

I was quite surprised to get 133 out of it as being gifted never crossed my mind. And as someone studying psychology I also liked seeing how it works. Using pattern detection, abstract reasoning and problem solving without relying on learned knowledge like math or reading.

Though of course this matrix test does not determine IQ, as it’s also usually a subtest within an actual IQ test. But it does seem like a highly usable tool for screening. No test is perfect for this but this one seems to at least avoid a lot of bias and provide a decent estimate.

I don’t feel any need to find out my actual IQ btw. Mostly curious about all of your takes on this and decided to provide my own context for your brains to mess around with while we’re at it.

A five year old in our class is a very social animal and helps everyone. She's very verbal and developmentally ahead in meta-cognition, always being a very good child in class. She might be gifted but lacks the drive to learn ahead and is more social. But she can get overwhelmed and then sometimes cry on longer days. Afterward she feels bad about it as she doesn't want to cry and the teacher wants her to "get out of the emotion". But i noticed that after a short cry she actually feels better and can proceed independently.

So one day I noticed her tucked in a corner, during a group game, being hardly involved. After the game was over I told the others to go back to class and talked to her for a bit.
So I asked: "How does your head feel?"
Her: "Buzzing and it hurts. I feel tears."
I asked: "Do you think you need to cry? Would that feel good?"
She made this very wide nodding motion with her head as her face got tense. I offered her my lap and she got on, laying against my shoulder in the fetal position, and the tears came quickly. So I told her: "Just let it out. You'll be okay." It was a very soft and quiet cry, with some sobbing and mostly a lot of tears.
After about three minutes she said she wanted to go back to class. She got up and slid off my lap, dried her tears and went on with her day.

For most kindergarteners tears mean they need help to deal with the emotion, but sometimes it's a pressure valve. And a very damn healthy one as well. If anything, I mostly wanted to share this experience here to show in how many ways kids can behave and how possibilities can be missed. Kindergarteners learn about emotion daily and it's about finding what works for them in my opinion.

Thanks for reading <3