Intelligence and Disability

I've been mulling this one over. I know some very smart women with disabled kids, and it strikes me that people don't talk about one of the hardest things for parents w/disabled kids, namely when they realize their kids aren't going to be as smart as they are. I'm someone who once threw an IQ test across the room. To this day I won't even mention the number to friends because it was too painful (and I don't want them to think of her that way, but mostly because it's painful for me to remember it). "But she's smart," I say defensively to the people who evaluate her. "Yes, of course she is," they tell me, and I think they're lying and placating me. I remember reading on one of my lists: a woman realizing one day, "Oh my God, my poor little boy is so stupid." And I remember another evaluation at a very fine university, the name of which happens to rhyme with Male. The IQ was thoroughly lackluster: a different lackluster from the previous time, but still lackluster. And I scrawled "That SUCKS" in pencil across the report, and I don't remember much else that the evaluators said. Even though it was my audience with the Autism Pope.

I'm not sure why it's so painful, or why I think a lot of parents won't talk about it (maybe admit that we are so invested in our children's intelligence? That more important even than being happy or having a good job is the thought that our child won't have a clue?). I just know that it's the single thing I'm most defensive about. My child scores very, very well on most academic measures, and it's a highlight for me when we get the WIAT scores. When she doesn't score well, or when a number seems out of whack, I'm all over it: could that possibly be the right percentile? The SD number looks wrong. Could you check the scoring? I wonder if educators know this: I'm sure they do. I'm sure many of them think that Mothers from Hell are motivated at least in part by anger and rage about their child's disability. And I think that's patronizing and oversimplifying. But I do think there's a lot of pain and anger that sometimes we can't face because it seems an implicit criticism of our children.