Every time they run footage of 45 bragging that him passing the dementia test proves some how he's smart and going on about how hard the last ten questions are, I sort of lose it. See, as part of the disability process you get accessed for mental competence a lot. I also had a lot of old fashioned IQ tests as a kid because of where I went to school. (I am not going to give y'all my long ass rant about IQ tests not actually testing intelligence, how they were normed and the ways they have been used and misused. I've done that periodically in writing over the years and i used to give a verbal version of it multiple times a day to my 8th graders when we did "Flowers for Algernon," as the only people in the room who'd taken one were me and the kids with disabilities and a rant from someone who routinely tested "genius," even though that really means very little, about why the test is a mess was apt to mean a lot more than it might from someone else, and I never ever wanted to single of the kids with disabilities especially in this context, though over the years I had several of the more popular ones volunteer because here was something they had expert knowledge about). Anyway, various types of intelligence and cognitive tests are something I've experienced, though I'm not an expert. (I've administered some specific, specialized tests for special ed assessments professionally, but not this kind of test). Consider me an interested amateur. I recognize components. I can list the most common words they generally have one repeat at regular intervals from the people I was tested by in the last decade and a half (In no particular order: horse, ball, tree, pencil, snow, grass). I was told last time that they are meant to change them up, so the fact that I expressed surprise at a different word set means that the the previous three testers were likely not doing it right. I know I'm not as sharp as I was as teen as I used to do strings of 8-10 numbers reversed instead of 5-6 like I do now. Obviously, I don't have dementia, but they like to check Medicare recipients periodically just in case and my youth just means I can tell them no if I don't want to be bothered.
Anyway, I know that test they gave him, as it was the last one I had, several years ago. It is DEAD EASY. It is literally testing for serious brain damage and doesn't have as many of the elements scavenged from the old IQ tests of my youth, as the broader assessments they do with disability screening. As long as there isn't a serious language barrier between tester and test subject, and the subject's hands were all right for drawing a clock face (I had a lover once with no hands and the prosthetic he had for the part of an arm he had on the one side was no good for drawing or hand writing, though he could type with it. I've had friends with CP and benign tremor who might have had a hard time with the mechanics for physical reasons), the only other reason it would be difficult is if something were seriously wrong. Bragging about not having serious brain damage or advanced dementia seems... odd to me, especially since he's making claims about what it proves that one can't really make about the broader spectrum tests that are mostly testing the ability to memorize in various forms. It just doesn't at all match the test and what it's for, so I must wonder is he lying or is he unable to understand the explanation of what that test is for. If he thought a so simple a kindergartner could do it test hard and was unable to understand the explanation of what the test is for.... Let us hope he is just lying as is his custom.
I have been trying to hold my peace on this, but it seems to be dragging on and on and I feel like there is a lot of false information 45 and allies are putting out about the significance of him getting all the questions right.
