Gifted kids may face more scrutiny

Some still believe 'boy genius' is gifted

Julie Poppen, News Staff Writer

Published March 18, 2002 at midnight

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Those who worked closely with Justin Chapman -- the Broomfield County 8-year-old whose mother has admitted manipulating test scores and falsifying documents to bolster claims that he was a genius -- are still uncertain what to believe.

Justin's troubled life was profiled Feb. 13 in "Boy Genius," a Rocky Mountain News special report that raised questions about such claims as a recorded IQ score of 298, the highest ever, on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Form L-M).

Linda Silverman, the head of the Gifted Development Center in Denver, who had administered the test, described Justin as "the greatest genius to ever grace the earth."

Although Elizabeth Chapman acknowledged on March 1 that she had cheated on her son's behalf, Silverman said she still thinks Justin has special gifts. She said she doesn't believe the more recent tests that place Justin's IQ in the "average" range.

Silverman said that on Thursday she re-read many of the e-mail messages she had received from Justin after she had first met him. He was living in New York then, and she was impressed with a Web site that he had reportedly created.

"When you read these, they were written by a kid with a brilliant mind," Silverman said. "I feel more strongly this morning than I have since the end of October that those e-mails were really from Justin.

"If Justin did create that Web site and if he did correspond with me and with several other people in the field himself, then he would easily be close to that (298) IQ."

Silverman agreed to discuss the Chapman case after learning that a trial to determine whether Elizabeth Chapman had neglected her son was canceled. Silverman had been called as a witness.

Silverman said she has no regrets about how she handled the IQ testing.

"I feel that whatever was going on, it was so convincing that everyone I knew was equally convinced," Silverman said. "I'm not convinced to this day he wasn't brilliant, and lost it. I don't know."

Tracy Neal, director of the Malone Family Foundation, was far less charitable. The Malone Foundation was created by Denver cable magnate John Malone and his family to provide funding for, among other concerns, programs for low-income gifted children.

Neal provided emotional and financial support to Elizabeth Chapman, but has since severed ties.

"I'm really shocked and horrified at her misrepresentation of her son's abilities," Neal said. "I hope that Justin's true best interests can take the forefront."

Neal adamantly defended Chapman when Broomfield County decided to remove Justin from his mother's care, but she now says Broomfield officials did the right thing.

Neal said that psychologists and testing centers can learn something from the Chapman case.

"Any organization that selects children for giftedness should . . . independently verify the information they're given," Neal said. "The only reason a child should ever be advanced is for their mental health."

Dorothea Brooks, editorial director of Paradigm News Inc., which syndicated several columns purportedly written by Justin, described the firm's relationship with the boy as a good one.

"We figured the professionals were validation of what seemed to us to be legitimate," Brooks said.

University of Rochester officials in New York plan to scrutinize future applications from children. Justin audited a course in fall 1999, then was officially enrolled in spring 2000 through the Taste of College program, university spokesman Robert Kraus said. In fall 2000, Justin was enrolled as a non-matriculated student in three courses. The following spring he was taking four courses before he left campus.

"As each case comes along we look at it very carefully and decide whether to admit that student," Kraus said. "Will we look more carefully at things next time? I think we probably will."

John Fox, principal of Florida-based Cambridge Academy, acknowledged that stories about Justin "put a little bit of doubt in my mind" about the boy's high intelligence. But he said he stands by the high school diploma Justin received from the online school.

"We followed our procedures," Fox said. "To the best of our knowledge, he did the work. He's still a bright kid, even if she coached him."

"I feel sorry for Dr. Silverman," he added. "She got taken in and it all flowed from there."

Contact Julie Poppen at (303) 892-5176 or poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com.

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