Henry the Human: The Boy from Out of this World

If you haven't seen Martian Child, you should watch it. :)

 Today I met a 10 year old - Henry - who profoundly impacted me.

His Grandma was looking for a campus map and I happened to be venturing by and offered my assistance. While escorting them to a map, I noticed that her grandson, Henry, was wearing a NASA t-shirt. Because I'm intrigued by space I asked him about it.

Henry knew a lot about space. I heard more intelligence come out of that boys mouth in the span of 12 minutes than I have from a multitude of professors in three years of college lectures. We talked about space exploration, different gizmos that NASA has created, the difference in liquid versus solid fuel in rockets and the purpose they served, black holes, and CERN's particle accelerator (one of my favorite things in the world!).

That might not sound super typical of a 10 year old boy, and my suspicions that he was autistic were confirmed by his Grandma.

"He has Asperger's, but his IQ is 136." - she whispered to me.

For those of you who know what Asperger's is, it's a form of autism that is not really going to be an existing diagnosis after the next DSM comes out. The Psychology major in me was compelled to tell you that.

In case psychology tests and IQ never came up to you before, let me give you a quick lesson on the two main tests and what the range is and the numbers mean.

1. The Weschler Scale uses a series of intelligence tests to distinguish between different types of intelligence (creative, practical, analytical - Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Human Intelligence) and is the most widely used IQ test. The IQ (Intelligence Quotient) range is used as follows:

130 +         Gifted
120-129      High
110-119      High Average
90-109        Average
80-89          Low Average
70-79         Borderline
Below 69    Extremely Low

2. The Stanford-Binet is the best intelligence test for predicting future academic achievement. IQ range is as follows:

145 +           Genius
120-144       High Above Average
110-119       Above Average
90-109         Average or Normal
80-89           Dull Normal
70-79           Borderline Deficiency/Mild Disability
50-69           Moderate Disability

**for more information on IQ ranges, click here.

I knew from taking enough Psych courses at this point in my life that a 139 IQ for anyone, let alone a 10 year old was a pretty....not exactly average, thing. And I had guessed about the Asperger's/Autism thing because Henry had a subtle, but consistent hand-flap gesture he made whenever he spoke to me.

All those things aside, here is what most profoundly impacted me out of our short interaction together. After walking Henry and his Grandma to the front doors, I shook his hand and looked him in the eyes and said - "Henry, it was my pleasure to meet you and talk to you. I want you to learn at least an extra six things for me today."

After agreeing, Henry said one more thing, speaking as though these types of casual thoughts had just stumbled into his brain and tumbled out through his mouth. Looking back on today's events with DOMA and Prop 8, I couldn't have thought of a more fitting way to say what Henry did in a few seconds myself.

"You know, humans are pretty awesome."

I agreed.

"No, I mean, humans are amazing. I don't know why they use labels. I have Asperger's, but you wouldn't have known that unless I just told you. I think that humans shouldn't use labels, because we are, well, we're all still...humans."

Then Henry walked down the steps, through the revolving door, out of my life and into my blog and heart and I hope a few of yours as well.