Autism
So, I had a thought the other day about the recent epidemic of autism – and mind you, this is definitely tinfoil hat territory.
I think it’s possible autism is enhanced – made to be a more prominent trait – by standardized testing.
So, the basic thesis works like this. Natural Neural networks are always adapting to whatever load is placed on them. Standardized testing encourages them to develop more black-and-white thinking. I think professional educators often forget that the minds of the students are still adapting during the test itself – that the test itself is causing them to learn something, but it’s probably not anything you’d call good.
And, of course, we run our children through many, many standardized tests these days. I think it’d be really interesting to run some large advanced ANNs through standardized testing and looking to see what happens to the structure of a mind that is adapting to standardized testing.