The Attention Test

Hi there, this is kind of an interesting story. I was going to some "neuro-psych" testing to follow up on some reading problems that I've got going on, that was never realized until the end of my first year of grad school. Apparently, it is normal for people in med school and in PhD programs to not find out that they have a "learning disability" until they are in these programs. This apparently is normal because most of them are smart enough to function on what was described to me as “half” of their brain. But when they get to these high-level programs, they compete with people who are not only smart, but can also use their whole brain. Long story short, I’m a really slow reader (about 1/3rd the rate of the normal adult) and we’re trying to figure out the exact problem so that I can either compensate for it or improve by working on some things. Generally speaking, I think this is good.

This testing however was quite comprehensive. It was 6 hours long (2x3 hour chunks) and my brain hurt afterwards. I did some IQ testing, some general knowledge testing, some reading stuff etc. They also tested some attention stuff (apparently it’s normal to just test for everything).

This attention test was pretty interesting. It was on a computer and the screen was completely black. It would flash some white letters on the screen and every time I saw the letters, I had to press the space bar. But not after the letter X. This is harder than it sounds. Sometimes, the letters would flash very quickly, sometimes slowly and sometimes the duration of time in which the letters would appear on the screen changed. I had to do this for a whole 10 minutes. It was brutal. This was harder than when I was asked to do calculus in my head. Random side note- the test didn’t use the letters B, G, H, J, K, P, Q, R, S, U, V or W. At the end of it, the doctor (who isn’t more than a couple years older than me) said “let’s see how you did”… long story short, I think the test tested more than just whether or not I pushed the space bar after the letters. It probably also tested how long it took me to do this etc. etc. Not really sure. I’m meeting with her on the 14th to discuss all aspects of the testing to see where I could use some help honing my reading skills.