I have a cousin with Down syndrome, I think his iq has been professionally tested around 50-65 or so. Anyways, I decided to give him a few iq questions because he was willing and rather excited to do so.

Here is what I noticed. When presented with a pattern, like red blue red blue red blue, he knew the next was red. I repeated this pattern to where the correct answer was blue, he was right. Then I did the same pattern with shapes. Square circle square circle square circle, he got it.

Then, I decided to draw one block two bocks three blocks. He did not know the next one was four.

Likewise, I gave my wife the CAIT and we went through the figure weights test together afterwards. I think it was question ten or so where a square and a circle and a star is the same as a square a circle and a rectangle or something. She got all the questions correct before, but could not understand why the star and rectangle must weigh the same no matter how hard I tried to explain it.

Does the existence of IQ imply hard and strict limits in abstraction? Or is it a matter of being less likely to understand rather than certainly won’t be able to? Let’s assume I am the perfect teacher (: