Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

[james_davis_nicoll]

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Comments

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I have not read Flowers since I became a special education teacher and actually worked with kids at that cognitive level. I suspect the result would not be positive.

IQ 70 is now considered to be the dividing line between learning disabled and intellectually deficient (the term now used for mental retardation). Charlie Gordon would be a high-functioning person under today's special education standards. He sure as hell would know how to spell his name correctly (the reversed R is not that typical of dyslexic disability, and does not necessarily appear in intellectual deficiency--reversals are more common in d and b because of the mirroring effect, there's no such thing for R).

Any more of this and I'm going to go out screaming ARRRRGGGGH.

Then again, I've actually worked with a few kids in the 60s IQ range. The level of disability portrayed in Flowers is closer to a disability level in the 40s. I only worked with kids that disabled during my student teaching....arrggh--must...stop...before...ranting...

[gohover.livejournal.com]

At the risk of utterly discombobulating you, what do you think of IQ tests? They were criticized in the comments here on More Words Deeper Hole somewhat recently, and it would be interesting to hear what a special ed teacher thinks.

(I'm really curious, but please don't answer if you won't enjoy answering!)

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

There's a long and complicated history with them. First of all, they depend on the testee having a useable language processing system. There are nonverbal IQ tests which are frequently used with English as a second language students, but even when administering the test in the same language as the testee's primary language, there can be problems if the testee has expressive or receptive language processing issues. In those cases there are also good cross-testing instruments available in the speech-language pathologist world--the CELF (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals) is particularly key to use to determine the degree of language processing impairment in those situations.

The single-number IQ (generally generated using the Weschler batteries) is not one I necessarily support. My preference is for a different battery that, while it can generate a single-number IQ, is more accurate looking at seven broad areas of cognition. The Woodcock Johnson Tests of Cognition utilizes the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of intelligence, which holds that IQ is divided into nine broad areas (Comprehension-Knowledge, Long-term Retrieval, Visual-Spatial Thinking, Auditory Processing, Fluid Reasoning, Processing Speed, Short-term Memory, Quantitative Knowledge, and Reading-Writing). Generally the last two areas are addressed using the WJ Tests of Achievement while the previous seven are measured using the Tests of Cognition. There are narrow performance areas identified with each of these areas which...I find gives a better diagnosis than a single-number IQ.

Um, I'd better ease off here. It's not discombobulating but rather I don't know to what degree people want to know the details of special education identification. Let's just say that IQ is a number, and it needs to be correlated with other performance factors. Also, it's a construct that really hasn't been measured that long, and we're still finding things out.

Go to this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcock%E2%80%93Johnson_Tests_of_Cognitive_Abilities for more details on the WJ Cog, and

this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell%E2%80%93Horn%E2%80%93Carroll_theory for details on CHC theory, which is now the theory of art for measuring cognition.

[connactic.livejournal.com]

Charlie Gordon didn't get to use today's special education programs, though. He went to school some time in the 1940s/1950s. His level of disability may have been an accurate portrayal of someone with a 68 IQ who spent his entire education in a system that basically regarded him as dross.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If I remember the dates in the short story correctly, he might even have been in school in the 1930s. He's roughly the same age as my parents.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Still not representative.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I just finished working with a student whose IQ was not that far off from Charlie Gordon's. He's working and will graduate from high school. In that era he would have been even less noticed because he would have been tracked into a functional job track rather than a college track. There were more options then than there are now in the US, thanks to No Child Left Behind and its school reform spawn.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

We also have to account for the Flynn Effect. Per Wikipedia:

Ulric Neisser estimated that using the IQ values of 1997 the average IQ of the United States in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80.

...

Some studies have found the gains of the Flynn effect to be particularly concentrated at the lower end of the distribution. Teasdale and Owen (1989), for example, found the effect primarily reduced the number of low-end scores, resulting in an increased number of moderately high scores, with no increase in very high scores.[8] In another study, two large samples of Spanish children were assessed with a 30-year gap. Comparison of the IQ distributions indicated that the mean IQ-scores on the test had increased by 9.7 points (the Flynn effect), the gains were concentrated in the lower half of the distribution and negligible in the top half, and the gains gradually decreased as the IQ of the individuals increased.

So it's quite possible that Charlie is an accurate portrayal of what a 68 IQ was at the time Keyes wrote the story, but would score 10 to 20 points lower if given the test today.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I think that was true then, as well (in fact on an IQ test with a standard deviation of 16 rather than 15, an IQ of 68 would itself be right at the borderline). But the taboo about acknowledging any "normal" person having an IQ under 100 means that 68 or 70 sounds a whole lot lower to most people than it should.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Performance at the level of Flowers would be closer to mid-range Down syndrome functioning that is possibly comorbid with autism or another language processing disorder (yes, I know autism is more than language processing but degree of language processing impairment in autism is one factor in functional performance). You would not necessarily notice someone functioning at an IQ of 68, depending on how intact their language functioning is.

You would notice someone functioning at an IQ of 48.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Also, there are a lot more people functioning in the 80s range of IQ measurement than neurotypical folks may realize. These kids tend to fall into the cracks in the school settings because the IQ needs to be below 70 to even consider eligibility for intellectual disability (correlated with both academic measures and life skill performance measures--one can have an IQ below 70 but not be intellectually disabled if one can perform self-care functions and function in home, school, and public settings with minimal impairment). The cutoff for specific learning disability identification is an IQ measure of 90. Kids in the 80s are considered to be "slow learners."

[kjn]

Daniel Keyes used his experiences as a special education/needs teacher when he created Charlie's language. And in the short story, Charlie does know how to spell his name correctly.

As for the beef about the IQ, that's the kind of detail that's (a) easy to get wrong, (b) has utterly no relevance to the story if it changed.

[litalex.livejournal.com]

I read this because an intro to SF Chinese book (but about English language SF) recommended it. I, um, not like, but appreciate the book a lot. I personally find it really sad and poignant...

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

I imagine the impact would have been even greater on your stereotypical "fans are slans" young male SF fan.

[(Anonymous)]

For some reason this comment made me remember Terry Carr's pastiche of "Flowers for Algernon" - "Egoboo for Algernon" http://ansible.uk/misc/egoboo.html

[(Anonymous)]

Has anyone ever encountered someone who doesn't think of "Flowers" as SF - I've run into a few (and heard of others) (see here for a link: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5775967&postcount=94 - the discussion gets a bit heated).

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you get this in the sf-is-a-ghetto type crowd; the work is too good, therefor it can't be SF cause all SF is junk/crap/pulp/whatever.

[chrysostom476.livejournal.com]

"Sf's no good," they bellow till we're deaf.
"But this looks good." – "Well then, it's not sf."

--Robert Conquest

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Charlie knows how to spell his name, but did he originally drop the "l" or is that a typo?

[philrm.livejournal.com]

I have not gone back to reread this in a long time; as you say, it's probably best to consider it as a period piece. Nevertheless, I think I can say that when ~ 13 year-old me encountered this (in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, which I think was 1971) it was the first short story I read that broke my heart.

[laetitia-apis.livejournal.com]

I read the story when it appeared in the magazine, and my first impression was "Everybody in the whole world has got to read this."

I never had the nerve to read the expansion; there is no way the short story could be improved.

[philrm.livejournal.com]

I never read the novel either, for the same reason.

[(Anonymous)]

"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" did an adaptation of this too. Presumably having their least intelligent character already named "Charlie" was a coincidence.

[monte davis (from livejournal.com)]

It is interesting to see how far back [the Manic Pixie Dream Girl] character type goes…

Wikipedia spots it in film as far back as Kathryn Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938) and Claudette Colbert in The Palm Beach Story (1942)... and of course Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, almost simultaneous with Flowers, is definitive. Eleanor Savage in Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise (1920) fits pretty well, too: lots of overlap with lots of flappers.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

The word "Bohemian" is a hint; it might be fruitful to look for examples of her among the "Bohemians" (note: not actually from Bohemia) of the 19th Century.