2 interesting articles about functioning

I think it's mainly the difference in terminology between science and everyday usage? 
In psychology "functioning" mainly just refers to "cognitive functioning", which is largely IQ and executive function.
But people more familiar with the layman's term might misinterpret the term?

Which suggests a certain degree of myopia on the part of psychologists .

I think it's just different meaning of the word, and misunderstanding between the scientific community and laypeople community. I personally often find it quite frustrating when laypeople misunderstand the psychology word referring to "cognitive functioning" and then criticise the term functioning... 

For example, when scientists are specifically exploring question "cognitive functioning" alone as a specific research question, laypeople criticise them for not thinking about other types of functioning.... a similar scenario would be as asking a physicist studying "electric cells" why aren't they thinking about other cells, like "animal cells". You can't say the physicist studying electric cells has myopia when it is their research interest to focus on that.

Another example I've heard is that people think of "functioning" as describing machines, and feel it's inhumane to study autistic people like that. But this is wrong too, as "functioning" (i.e., "cognitive functioning") is a very common psychology word and is used when studying neurotypicals too.

I think there will be less confusion if the general community understands the psychology term. I mean DSM-5 changed it's classification of ASD, and requires the assessor to specific the diagnosis "with or without accompanying intellectual impairment" and "with or without accompanying language impairment", etc. I suppose that kind of better clarifies what "functioning" means, but still focuses on IQ.
https://www.autismspeaks.org/dsm-5-criteria 

I agree that there are other "types" of functioning, that are not captured by IQ. For example, social functioning and emotional functioning, etc. And it's possible a high-cognitive-functioning person to have lower (in layman's terms) "functioning" in real life than a low-cognitive-functioning person. For example, a a high-cognitive-functioning person might have come from a abusive family with no support and experience depression and anxiety, while a low-cognitive-functioning person might have a supportive family and have lots of access to government support and do not have to worry about daily living. 

And it's not that psychologist are blind to social and emotional functioning, it's just different areas of research - a cognitive psychologist would use functioning to refer to "cognitive functioning", and a social psychologist might use "functioning" to refer to "social functioning". 

I don't think there's anything wrong when one want to focus on talking about IQ, and I don't think there's anything wrong when one wants to focus talking about emotional and social support either. But I don't see the point in arguing about the term when people are just focused on talking about different things. Neither of them is wrong. They are just using the word to mean IQ or social support. 

Here are some examples of different scientific and layman words. Some words are used very differently in different fields of science too, for example "model" requires mathematical formulas in some fields, but only a general outline in other fields. 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/just-a-theory-7-misused-science-words/

For me it's that IQ is still used to categorise people in terms of the help and support they need,and that that is counterproductive . I agree that  the  point where we differ  is  on how many psychologists rely on IQ as the primary tool to judge functioning levels.

You have more rose tinted glasses as to the approach of psychologists and I am more cynical  as to their approach.

For me it's that IQ is still used to categorise people in terms of the help and support they need,and that that is counterproductive . I agree that  the  point where we differ  is  on how many psychologists rely on IQ as the primary tool to judge functioning levels.

You have more rose tinted glasses as to the approach of psychologists and I am more cynical  as to their approach.