71–80 of 1001 posts
I have a sneaking suspicion that a surprising number of these disabilities require treatment with performance-enhancing drugs.
> the current language of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows students to get expansive accommodations with little more than a doctor's note. Isn't that... good? What else would be expected if you have a disability, and need accomodations?
Buying an advantage for your children in this way is widespread. This article suggests that it is even more widespread than I imagined.
I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…
Is it much though? 38%? I haven't seen one in 15 years across 5+ different companies.
> there's a big cadre or neurodivergent people that are just in the line where they are very productive workers anyway
Alternatively, it just became popular to label others or oneself that way. And tech elites have nothing better to do in free time. Also DEI benefits! Who else would be allowed a medical break due to a burnout and stress?
What the actual... Lack of journalistic integrity rears its head once again. Executive function and social challenges do not make a person "not smart."
Going back to the core of the problem, I feel that this does need to be controlled. It's one thing to disability signal online to gain clout, it's a completely different thing to drain resources from genuinely disabled folks. Disabilities need to come with diagnoses.
- You're lying to yourself about how good of a fit your are for the program.
- The professor/administration is getting inaccurate data about the teaching efficacy.
If you want to know if you can be a civil engineer despite your disability, the last thing you should do is correct for the disability in your primary success metric.
> "It's just not. It's rich kids getting extra time on tests." Talented students get to college, start struggling, and run for a diagnosis to avoid bad grades. Okay, I was an undergrad at Stanford a decade ago, I graduated with two majors (math, physics) and almost another minor (CS) so I took more credits than most and sat in more tests than most, and I don’t think I’ve seen a single person given extra time on tests…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, "disability" used to be something of a stigma. Now it's celebrated, and people proudly identify with it. If you're saying that people always try to game the system, whatever it is, then I agree however.
>If you're saying that people always try to game the system, whatever it is, then I agree however. This isn't even true either. In the past there was a huge emphasis and effort made toward character. Going out of your way to do the right thing and be helpful and NOT getting special treatment but choosing the difficult path. Now everything is the opposite it's about getting as much special treatment as possible and sh…
In my current school district, IEP (Individual Education Program) is assigned to students that need help, and parents are actively and explicitly ask for it, even if the kids are borderline. Please note that, this doesn't take away resource for regular kids, in fact, classrooms with IEP student get more teachers so everyone in that class benefits. IEP students are also assigned to regular classroom so they are not treated differently and their identities aren't top secret. Mind you, the parents here can easily afford additional help if needed.
In other neighborhood, a long time family friend with two young children, the older one doesn't talk in school, period. Their speech is clearly behind. The parents refuse to have the kids assign IEP and insist that as long as the child is not disruptive, there is no reason to do so. Why the parents don't want to get help, because they feel the older child will get labelled and bullied and treated differently. The older child hates school and they are only in kindergarten. Teachers don't know what to do with the child.
I think there's a non-malicious explanation for a percentage of this. As I grew up in the 80s, there were two kinds of gifted kids in school: The kind that would ace everything anyway, and the kind that, for a variety of reasons, lacked the regulation abilities to manage the school setting well, with the slow classes and such. A lot of very smart people just failed academically, because the system didn't work for the…
I agree with almost everything you say here. However, I wanted to point out that you make the same mistake the articles author does. "Disabled" and "Diagnosed" are not actually the same thing, even though we do describe ADHD and the like as "learning disabilities."
Being diagnosed with a learning disability or other type of neuro-divergency does not automatically entitle someone to special treatment. The vast majority of that 38% are likely just "diagnosed" people who are asking for no special treatment at all.
That doesn't fit the authors narrative, or trigger the human animals "unfairness" detector though so it makes a far less interesting article.