A little story about choices.
My little great-grandson was born at 25 weeks’ gestation. He spent 18 months in the hospital getting stronger before he was able to go home. When he was tested for entrance to the school system’s preschool program, the folks doing the testing told his parents that he had “low affect” and did not have “object permanence”. Interestingly, in regard to low affect, he tends to respond to situations with a normal range of emotion. He smiles when he is happy. He complains when he is unhappy. He laughs at the Roadrunner. So…? In addition, in regard to object permanence, the testers hid their toy truck behind their blanket. My great-grandson did not go to look for the toy truck. Therefore, they assumed that he had no object permanence (being able to look for something when it has disappeared). However, when the same child went to visit relatives out of town for the first time in a year, he went directly to their sandbox to find the toy truck toy fire truck he had left in that sandbox the year before. So, for him, object permanence is relevant to things of interest to him. He knew the fire truck was missing, and he knew exactly where to find it, one entire year later. The truck belonging to someone else was not particularly important to him.
Many years ago, when in various classes studying school psychology and counseling theory, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with William Glasser’s control theory. He basically posited that people, like a thermostat, control for a set point or comfort level. People would control generally for one of four things: love, self-worth, fun, or freedom. If the mouse in the maze ignored the cheese it was likely because he preferred to find a way out of the maze. We are not all the same, and we cannot be so easily categorized. Herein lies the problem with checkboxes and standardization. It just doesn’t always work, because we are all individuals, motivated by things that we personally have determined are of importance to us