Ms. Chapman said Justin never took the SAT's. Instead, she scanned the score report sent to a former neighbor's son into a computer and substituted Justin's name. When Justin, at 3, was given the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised, he completed only 2 of the test's 13 subtests. Ms. Chapman said she later filled in the rest.This really, really chafes me.
Ms. Chapman also said that a month or so before taking the Stanford Binet, Justin found a copy of the manual in the University of Rochester library and memorized the answers.
She denied coaching Justin. But she said she did tell him: "When you take the test, make sure you don't say the full answers and make some mistakes."
Ms. Chapman said that although she lied about the records, Justin demonstrated his own abilities in his college and high school work and in the syndicated column he wrote, called The Justin Report.
"The problem is that it's hurting Justin because he is still a really gifted boy," she said.
"I know what I did is wrong, but what social services is doing now by treating him like an average 8-year- old is also harmful," Ms. Chapman said.
What we have here is an extended exercise in how to really mess up a kid. Mom is a clearly an idiot in so many ways that it would be difficult to recount them all in one sitting. On the other hand, I have nothing but sympathy for her fear that social services are going to mangle the kid up even worse, by making sure he becomes the correct 8-year-old square peg. They'll probably put him on Ritalin and give him a pamphlet explaining why.
I can't help but think all this would have been avoided if people realized the purpose of Justin was merely to be Justin, and be accepted as such, instead of being a tool to fight Mom's neurotic insecurity or a cog in the gears of formulaic state-sponsored compassion.
