I spend a lot of time talking with students who have complex communication needs (CCN) and use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). I also spend a lot of time talking to others ABOUT students who have CCN who use – or don’t use – AAC. As I spend more years doing this, I’m realizing in many conversations, disagreement ABOUT students is not truly about that individual student. Instead it’s a philosophical difference of opinions.
I’ve been on two cruises. One of my favorite times is when the ship is so far out to sea that you can’t see land. Only dark blue water extending until it meets the sky on the horizon. If you let your eyes travel along the entire horizon, you can see the curve of the earth. I’ve wondered how early explorers could think that Earth was flat when you can see the curve.
But one morning, I was thinking that maybe I could only see Earth curve because I already know it’s round. So I looked out again over the sea and thought, what if I believed that Earth was flat? And I could see it. If everyone I trusted told me that the earth was flat, I could imagine looking out and thinking that the ship could sail right off the edge of the earth and into the black space of the universe. Today that seems ridiculous. But think of the amount of courage it took for those first explorers to step onto a ship and sail out into the ocean, thinking they could potentially reach an edge. Imagine their relief when they didn’t.
Is Cognition Round?
If we never question the boundaries and borders, we’ll never find out what’s beyond the edge. How many beautiful worlds would we miss if someone didn’t consider the possibility that we could be wrong about the edges? Someone had to believe that just because we can’t see beyond the edge, it doesn’t mean that there is darkness. It only means that someone hasn’t had the courage to step onto that ship and venture into unknown territory.
I think that’s true of the way students with CCN are evaluated and educated today. I’ve written about this before (here and here), and it’s likely that I’ll write about it again. But I still see and hear people refer to students as “low functioning” or “high functioning” when discussing their cognitive skills. It’s used as a justification to decide whether or not someone is given access to a robust AAC system or something more limited…or nothing at all while they work on “pre-requisite skills.”
Someday, humans will look back and think of us and our views the same way we think of people who thought the earth was flat. Maybe some of them will be compassionate towards us and say, “Well, they didn’t know. They were only going by what they could see.”
Today, we know without a doubt that the earth is round because our advances in science and technology have been able to prove it. We can see satellite pictures that provide photographic evidence of its roundness. Earth’s shape never changed; our perspective of it did.
The Measurement Fallacy
When students have complex communication needs, many assume that they also lack intelligence. Currently, we measure cognition using language. Some of us can see the flaw in that system as clearly as we can see the curve of the earth. Students who struggle with language, aren’t able to accurately express their cognition. We’ve seen the “proof” in our practice and experience. We see students score in the .4 percentile for cognition. However, when they’re given expressive language and learn to communicate, we learn that the test scores were inaccurate. Those scores actually reflect our inability to accurately assess cognition in someone with CCN.
The limitations are in our measurement tools. If a thermometer only measures up to 110 degrees, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t temperatures beyond those limits. It just means that we can only get accurate information if we’re measuring a temperature that falls within those parameters.
Knowing that there is intelligence beyond our current measuring capabilities for SOME students lets us allow for the probability that this is true for ALL students.
Could I be wrong?
Oh most definitely. But what if I’m not? I’m willing to take my chances on proclaiming that intelligence is “round” instead of linear. And I’m not alone. There’s actually research that supports a growth mindset of intelligence (the roundness). That research also says that our expectations of others changes their actual performance outcomes.
If you look towards the edges of intelligence and cognitive testing, maybe you’ll start to notice that they’re actually blurred. If you can change your perspective and have high expectations now, you’ll start to see the different types of intelligence that standardized tests don’t measure. You’ll see potential instead of limitations. Even with years of education and experience, we don’t know the limits of another person’s ability.
There are realms of the brain that we just don’t have the technology to visualize…yet. When we do, it’s not the individuals who have CCN who are going to change, it will be our beliefs about them that changes.
We can do that now.
And we already know that it makes a difference. Besides…There are some beautiful worlds beyond the blurred lines, just waiting to be revealed.
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