Yikes! Eight hours of neuropsychological testing today. You can stick a fork in me – I’m totally done.
Neuropsychological testing is to evaluate how effectively (or ineffectively) various different parts of your brain are working. It’s sort of like a massive IQ test filled with activities that seem like they should be pretty simple and straightforward, but turn out to be incredibly difficult. The testing will be helpful because it will uncover where I might not be firing on all cylinders so I can figure out workarounds. Goodness gracious, though… it sure was tough! I suppose they need to figure out where each person’s capabilities fall in each activity, on a scale from very basic to wildly complex.
Functionally, this means that if you are somewhere in the middle, you’ll reach a point in every section of the test where your skills just aren’t up to the challenge. The question is – how soon does a person hit that point? Another question – how in the hell can human beings hold and process numbers in their brains well enough to perform math problems on short deadlines? Isn’t that why calculators exist? They may as well be asking me to swim the English Channel or write a symphony. I’m pretty sure I’d have a better shot with the English Channel than on some of the tests. lol
No results for another week or so, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I actually have an old IQ test, so even though this wasn’t quite the same thing, perhaps it will provide some kind of baseline for comparison. Who knows? Maybe it will show an increase. We did ask if they could add some bells and whistles while they were rooting around in there. If he managed to up my IQ, I’ll definitely need to send a Dr. Ferreira a card.