Reply to Wall Street Journal on rampant growth in percentage of college students with “disabilities”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I just wrote above about intelligence, talent, and creativity in kids who previously would not have received accommodations, but should. So this is an interesting claim.

So let me ask you this -- honest question, and I'll listen to the answer. Please be honest back.

If your child (or your mom, or you) is going into surgery, are you okay with knowing that the surgeon has a simple average working memory? That the surgery won't probably not be "BOTCHED" botched, but just not as good?

For most people, not totally "botched" is not good enough. And not as good as it could be is not good enough, either. Someone with average working memory shouldn't go into surgery.[/quote]

For most types of surgery, yes.  I know people with life altering (fortunately not life-ending) results from botched surgery.  In every case it could have been prevented by the team actually caring about the patient and/or communicating better amongst themselves.  If you want the best results, you want to have a surgical team who's worked together many times in the past and have smooth communication, you want them to leave their personal lives outside the room, and you want to be scheduled earlier in the day.

I meant that while you may say the word talent, you're still defining people by their disability regardless of their talent.
[/quote]

I don't think you know what I am thinking or how I define people. You seem to be making assumptions without realizing it.

Are you aware of the literature on medical and surgical error? About how what actually happened (based on intensive investigation) differs from the story that was initially given? And about how much error goes unreported or unrecognized?

Surgery is an intensely visual field. Whether you are looking back and forth  from a electronic screen with magnified field to the instruments in the body, or holding the architecture of an MRI in mind as you dissect, or what have you, the working memory has to be top notch. Things happen quickly, right in front of you, and you need quick visual processing speed also. This is not true in many other areas of medicine, such as infectious disease or genetics. But it is true for surgery.

From what I understand, trial lawyers rely on auditory processing speed and working memory in cross-examination. Probably not so much in contract law.

I don't know what you rely on in engineering. I trust you are a better judge of that than I am. I've never done it, but I have done surgeries.

There is absolutely no reason not to make accommodations so that each child can succeed to the fullest of their potential. Each child's potential is not going to be the same, though, even if we make accommodations. Each one will have some strengths and some weaknesses.

Don't go into surgery if you do not have excellent visual working memory. Not yet, anyway.

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