Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Large drop in IQ between 5 and 14

Hi, this is my first post here, I am making it as I am still searching for answers regarding my drop in IQ. I am currently 16 years old, and in a very tricky situation with school, which I'm trying to solve, and I think that knowing whether my drop in IQ is indicatory of a drop in actual ability, or whether I'm still gifted would help.

Before starting elementary school, between the ages of 5.5 and 6, I was tested to determine my eligibility for a gifted program, presumably with the WPPSI-III. I am quite confident that it was in fact an IQ test, as it was individually administered, and I remember some of the object assembly items. My mother recalls the score obtained as being in the 140s, but I believe that the cutoff for the gifted program was around 130, so even if her memory is faulty, I know that my score has dropped significantly.

In elementary school, I usually tested well on the achievement tests, especially reading comprehension, consistently scoring several years above grade level, yet I still had some trouble with math. It's my weakest subject, but I still tested okay in it during elementary school. As for my experience in elementary school, I was miserable most of the time. I was bored, most of my time was spent watching the clock to see when I could go home. I refused to do homework, and even once put it through a document shredder.

In 6th grade, I didn't get along with my teacher, so that was the worst year I had in elementary school. It was also the year where they did testing to determine eligibility for the gifted program in middle school. They switched from using individually administered tests to using the CogAT, which I didn't perform great on. I did okay verbally, but my NV scores were around average.

After that, I ended up missing a lot of middle school. I believe a lot of it was due to my delayed sleep phase syndrome, which wasn't diagnosed until recently. I missed over 300 school days in middle school.

In 2018, I was seeing a psychologist about some family issues, and about my struggles with school attendance. They never diagnosed my delayed sleep phase syndrome, but they did diagnose ASD, and they put me on a SSRI, which killed my appetite, causing me to lose a lot of weight. They tested me with the WISC around that time, determining me to be a "slow learner". I don't know if my weight loss and inability to eat around that time lowered the score, but I just thought that it was a factor that I should mention. The test was also in the morning, so I was pretty tired due to my sleep disorder, but again, I don't know if it could have caused that significant of a drop.

On the WISC, I obtained a slightly above average verbal score, but a very low processing speed score, in the 70s, and low average scores on the other performance indices. The FSIQ was in the 90s.

I did okay in High School when I was attending consistently, I got A's in all classes, but I was pretty bored, got sick, and then my sleep got off, which caused me to once again stop attending, causing me to fail classes. My high school GPA was 1.3. I didn't enroll for the 2019-2020 school year, as my school counselor reccomended going the GED route, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it, because of the math.

I originally wanted to go to college to study Molecular Biology, and I still do to an extent, but at this point I simply feel that it isn't realistic, so I'm planning to pursue a career in either retail, or food service.

What do you think caused my drop in IQ? I guess maybe I was precocious at first, and that inflated my first score, but as I got older, my below-average cognitive abilities became apparent? I'm wondering if my hatred toward school in Elementary school was due to me being placed into a gifted class while possessing below-average intelligence.

AEH will have better info but although IQs can be unstable when young it is more likely in my opinion your health issues, ASD and maybe another undiagnosed learning disability have caused problems. If you can get an A in a high school class if you try (assuming an academic class) then 90 is probably not an accurate score. Did they do a gai?

It was high 90s, I don't think they did a GAI, but I estimated that it'd be slightly higher than the FSIQ, maybe by a few points with the lowest index score taken out (the PSI).

The high school I went to wasn't a "rigorous" high school, it was a public high school in a not so nice neighborhood, so I think they were lenient with grading. I had a shortened schedule in the term where I got all A's, with 4 classes, all "academic", but I slept through a lot of class time, due to the sleep disorder.

I did suspect NVLD, but that doesn't seem too likely, as I don't really have trouble with physical coordination (PE was my favorite subject in Elementary school), and when I was younger, I would initiate projects that require spatial ability. I think when I was 8, I took up an interest in electrical system design, and initiated a project to run electricity to our detached garage. I did most of the planning, and I worked with my dad to install it. I also planned and built a 1500 gallon pond and filtration system a few years ago.

Welcome!

I'm sorry you've had such a difficult path through school, and with regard to your health. Before I get into the question of your formal testing, I do want to encourage you to keep a positive outlook on your future options. Although it may feel like you are irredeemably behind academically at this moment, you are not. Plenty of people go back to school much later in life than you are now to study all kinds of subjects, including topics even more complex than molecular biology. (I met someone once who started college in her late 70s, finishing her bachelor's degree in her 80s.)

With regard to your formal testing scores, there are a few factors to consider, on both the early testing and the recent testing. For the early testing, it is true that testing at about 5 years old cannot be considered extremely stable--but it also doesn't typically drop by 40-50 points, as you appear to be reporting. So even if it was slightly higher than your lifetime IQ would be projected to be, it probably wasn't completely out of the ballpark. I think we can safely say that the early measure established that you were notably above average in cognition, on the skills assessed, even if the extent is a bit vague.

The recent testing is also subject to some caveats. You report that you were not sleeping well, on a psychotropic, dealing with mental health issues, and disengaged from your education. All of these are factors that can affect the validity of assessment, especially of cognition, generally in the direction of lowered estimates. So generally, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, the newer WISC weights verbal and nonverbal tasks a bit differently than the old WPPSI did, with a bit more verbal on the old WPPSI than on the new WISC. So someone with a skewed profile like yours might see more of an impact on the FSIQ than someone with a more balanced profile would.

But I do see some patterns in your historical record of testing that are worth considering. Your history of group and individual testing is consistently higher in verbal areas, and weaker in nonverbal domains, which can be characteristic of certain types of learning differences. At the least, they suggest that you are likely to be most successful in areas that value verbal thinking and problem solving, rather than spatial (sometimes mathematical) thinking. Your testing profile appears to be average in math-related cognition and achievement, and above average in language-related cognition and achievement. That does not rule out molecular biology, by the way, as biology is not nearly as visual spatial a STEM field as, say, physics or mechanical engineering. It's harder to say whether the low processing speed score is meaningful, as that and working memory are the two cognitive domains assessed on the WISC that are the most likely to be affected by the interfering factors we've already listed. Functionally, of course, it had significance at the time, in terms of how efficiently you were able to produce volumes of work on demand. I don't know if that continues to be the case, or if conditions have changed.

Your negative elementary school experience could have been owing to any number of factors, including an unidentified learning disability (even in the context of above average intelligence). Actually, the 2e (twice exceptional) profile often feels the struggle even more than an evenly-developed slower learner, as the gap between your highest strengths and your lowest vulnerabilities is even more frustrating than just finding school generally a little bit more work. And GT programs tend to treat all gifted students as being globally moderately gifted, rather than being as diverse (or more) a population as the middle 68% are. Consider that you appear to have been underplaced in your language arts instruction, but either on-level or overplaced in your math instruction. Then you had about a half-dozen years of limited access to instruction, due to your attendance and social-emotional concerns, which would impact your acquisition of skills across the board. (BTW, even though the WISC is supposed to be a measure of ability, and not acquired skills, it unavoidably is affected by acquired skills--and hence access to instruction--as we use some acquired skills as proxies for native ability.)

In summary, the drop in assessed ability likely resulted from multiple factors, including lower score stability in young children, and interfering factors in early adolescence. You are still a capable young person with many possible good outcomes before you, and every right to pursue whatever healthy dreams you have.

Thank you, hopefully I'd be decent enough at spatial reasoning to be successful in molecular biology research.

I scored decently on the end of year math achievement tests, though, but they did timed math tests in first grade, and that's when I started disliking math. I also refused to wear glasses through elementary school, maybe due to sensory issues, despite having a decently strong prescription for high myopia, and that may have interfered with my ability to learn math, or to even perform optimally on computer-based tests. I think at the end of 6th grade, they did an out of level math achievement test normed against 7th/8th graders, and I think I scored around the 80th percentile.

I made a post regarding projects that I've worked on which may have required spatial ability, but I don't think it has been approved yet.

Welcome!

You've received a great response above.

It is possible that stress and/or meds may have had an impact, lowering IQ. Assessments and tests are a snapshot in time; results may vary, and your IQ, if measured today, may be higher than the results you reference. Research studies may be of interest and several can be found summarized online.

A few links which may be of interest:
1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117081/
2) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...ligence/201104/where-did-my-iq-points-go
3) Hoagies Gifted Education Page, including why IQ test sores vary, and Level of Giftedness
4) video: Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses
5) book: Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses
6) Davidson Gifted Database, including https://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entry/a10226
7) wrightslaw, including https://www.wrightslaw.com/info/autism.index.htm
8) Understood.org, including https://www.understood.org/en/learn...en-executive-functioning-issues-and-adhd

If you want to brush up on math skills, consider taking a look at Khan Academy.

When deciding whether to study Molecular Biology, you may want to make lists of tuition, housing, and other costs you're likely to incur, as well as possible uses of that degree for your future.
- college websites, and summaries of information including niche
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS)

Once you get started researching online, you will quickly filter information, finding what is of interest to you, and what is not.

I'm not an expert in IQ or testing, but wanted to encourage you to not give up on yourself. You write more coherently than many people I see on the internet and I suspect you are more than capable of success in college. If your grades or other circumstances are such that you would find attending a four year university difficult, community college is always an option, either full or part-time. Taking the basics may help you decide on a career. Try not to worry about IQ, or the past, which is something you have little control over.

If you wrote your post independently, I strongly suspect your IQ is above the 90s.

I did write it independently, and I scored higher than that on the VCI.

I wrote two other replies, but they haven't been approved.

Anyway, it appears that posts that I'm making are showing up now, so I'll re-write what I tried to post earlier.

I have thought that I could have NVLD, but when I was younger, I used to initiate projects for mental stimulation, most of which required at least some degree of NV ability. Like when I was 8 or so, I planned / designed an electrical system for a detached garage, using the guidelines that I had read in books, and then I worked with my dad to install it, and now our detached garage has power when it used to not. Also, when I was 10-12, I planned and built a 1,500ish gallon fish pond, but the pond took a while to complete, and I had to make some revisions to the design of the filtration system. I'm not sure if the need to revise my design for a filtration system was due to NVLD, or just a lack of experience with building pond filtration systems.

My biggest struggle has been with math, by far. They used to do timed math problems in first grade, and I disliked math after that, as the time limit stressed me out. I usually did okay on the end of year math tests, at the end of 6th grade, I scored above the 80th percentile on an out of level math assessment normed on 7th/8th graders. I did worse on assignments, as I had trouble solving problems using the particular steps that were supposed to be used. I refused to wear glasses in Elementary school, despite having a strong prescription for myopia, and that made it hard to follow what was being taught. I think that for multiple-choice tests, I would use my own heuristic methods for solving problems, and that would allow me to score well, but that wasn't sufficient for assignments, which required the "correct" steps to be demonstrated sequentially to get to the solution. Using a purely heuristic approach would leave me unable to demonstrate the "correct" steps to find the answer, even if the answer was right, unless I was able to work backwards from the answer, which I couldn't always do.

The cognitive profile you post could be construed as consistent with NVLD--but it's important to remember that NVLD does not represent a clear consensus or DSM-established diagnosis. It's more like a useful construct for discussing a collection of learning profiles. Some people with your apparent test profile have social vulnerabilities, and others don't. The functional manifestation of the cognitive profile does tend to be coincident with relative weaknesses in math--but not always all specific areas of math (usually geometry more than algebra). And those with strong fluid reasoning separate from visual spatial skills can find other approaches to success in math.

There are also other possible interpretations of the data you've presented, which we've already established have limitations. For example, you mention being stressed by timed math problems, having a strong visual prescription for corrective lenses, and very low visual-motor processing speed. All of these could be suggestive of, among the possibilities, weaknesses in one or more of: visual spatial processing, visual acuity, visual convergence/divergence, or fine-motor coordination (ocular or hand).

In order to tease apart the various possible factors that could be affecting your past and present educational experience, and to accurately inform your future planning, it may be that a more comprehensive evaluation (preferably when you're in a relatively stable moment in your life, so that some of the factors that interfere with test validity that we've discussed before are minimized) would help you understand yourself better. Although you were tested under two years ago, you are old enough for the WAIS-IV now, so you could be re-tested with a good cognitive instrument if need be.

I'd probably start by getting a better handle on your vision and fine-motor skills though, including not only your straightforward acuity, but other aspects of visual processing, such as those assessed in an occupational therapy evaluation and by a developmental optometrist (especially convergence/divergence and visual tracking). These would be conversations to have with your parents/guardian, guidance counselor and your primary care physician. Your health insurance may cover the cost of at least one of those evaluations. (And even if your parent/guardian does not have insurance, and doesn't qualify for state aid, you personally may qualify for state-subsidized health insurance under SCHIP, since you are still a minor.)

Again, your data and your writing both present as that of a very capable young person. You have a lot to offer, and a tremendous opportunity to turn the struggles you've lived through up until now into compassion for others. It takes inward strength to move forward through adversity, and to see not closed doors, but new ones opening. I see the evidence of that strength lurking in you, as you so clearly are here looking for solutions and new possibilities in your future path.

I wear contact lenses now, and I can perform okay on fine motor tasks, I'm good at soldering.

That's good to hear. I'm still curious about tracking and convergence, though. And maybe fine-motor speed, as separate from dexterity. Being good at soldering is also not incompatible with certain specific fine-motor weaknesses, and certainly doesn't address the question of fine-motor speed, since there are no bonus points for soldering more quickly. (E.g., one of my siblings was slow to develop fluent handwriting, but took to soldering and electronics in general rather easily, and also is very good at removing splinters!) If you don't have evaluations in these areas, though, it won't ruin your life or anything. It's just another piece of information.

From a practical standpoint, I actually don't think you need to focus too much on these past test results. They document that you have strengths in learning ability--which you already know from the most productive parts of your educational history--and that you've had challenges in the past, many of which were not academic in origin. That's enough to say that you should feel free to pursue any educational and career path now that comports with your interests, life goals and personal values, while working on making healthy life choices for growth as a whole person.

I can still type fairly quickly, but if I try to go too fast, I end up sacrificing accuracy for speed.
My result from a typing test I just did:
https://i.postimg.cc/pr1XksDv/10fast.png

I just wonder how much I really "regressed" IQ-wise.

If you want the short answer: don't know, and it's impossible to quantify with the existing data sets.

As I've explained in my longer responses above, there are too many factors that could have been interfering with your formal test performance at the time of your second set of results to determine how much of that was regression to the mean from your very early (and consequently also lower reliability) testing, and how much was the interfering factors. Whatever your "true" numbers might look like, you're clearly intelligent enough to do whatever you have opportunity to do and commit to.

Your IRL performance data are more important anyway. Do what you can do to get yourself to an emotionally and physically healthy place, and then pursue whatever field of study floats your boat, keeping an open mind about natural changes in your interests that may occur along the way.

All the best.

It turns out that I wasn't tested on the WPPSI like I had thought, I was tested on the KBIT-2. All I was able to obtain was the letter with the percentile ranks, I scored above the 99th percentile verbally, but only in the 79th percentile for NV. Is it likely that I am still currently 2E, or just "bright" along with a few disabilities?

This data is essentially compatible with our prior discussion. It establishes that your personal and normative strengths in language-related domains were evident early on, and validates the achievement pattern you've observed on standardized testing since.

A few notes on the KBIT-2: This is more of a screening instrument than a comprehensive assessment of cognition, consisting, as it does, of two motor-free subtests. This also means that processing speed is much less of a factor, both because it is untimed, and because you don't have to manage any materials. It does imply a little bit less score stability even than we were already assuming, as now we are dealing with not only an assessment of a very young child, but also an assessment using a screening instrument. But that it has the same profile you've consistently had throughout your education suggests that it does have some validity.

In summary, this recent clarification of your early testing results doesn't significantly change our overall interpretation, which is that you are above average in verbal cognition, and at least average in nonverbal/visual spatial thinking, with verbal reasoning likely well above average. The distinction between 2e and bright/LD (which I don't think we can definitively make based on your existing data) is less important than most people think, in terms of your experience of and options for life.

My advice remains the same: work on your overall health, and then do what you love.

The map is not the territory.

Human concepts, like "gifted" and the various levels thereof, and various disability labels, are attempts to categorize the wide variation that exists to make more sense out of it. The boundaries of a naturalistic concept are not going to be sharp and clear. The question is what categorizations are useful to make.

At this point, it doesn't really seem to make a difference which side of the "gifted" line you fall on (different people will draw that line differently, anyway). I understand the curiosity, but there is no One Real Answer Out There to find.

I have a friend who, while not a psychologist, has studied psychometric testing and for that reason happens to possess materials for a foreign version of the WAIS-IV, and under the understanding that it wasn't any kind of "true" assessment, he timed and recorded my responses to the items for three PRI subtests: matrix reasoning, visual puzzles, and figure weights. While I understand that the accuracy of such an informal / unofficial "assessment" is reduced when compared to one administered by a licensed psychologist, it still yielded some results which were interesting to me, so I decided to mention them. I heard that foreign versions of the WAIS-IV typically use the same items for PRI subtests as the American version, and I verified that the raw scores were timed / recorded properly. The raw scores were 26/26 on matrix reasoning, 23/26 on visual puzzles, and 24/27 on figure weights. I was told that this implies a PRI in the gifted range. This was surprising to me, since in the past, I was always comparatively weaker in nonverbal areas. I wonder if this implies any change in latent variables, or if it simply implies that I am also strong in at least some nonverbal areas, while simply performing less reliably in those areas due to extraneous factors.

I do have to preface this with a small unfortunate caution, which is that informally completing the PRI subtests of the WAIS-IV, even in an overseas edition (since they are substantially the same stimulus items), formally invalidates any administration of the WAIS-IV for the next 24 months. That is, you now cannot be assessed with the WAIS-IV for another two years (presumably after you are out of high school). If you do end up being evaluated in the next 24 months, please disclose early on that you have seen these three WAIS-IV subtests, and share the results, so the evaluator can select a different instrument (there are a couple of other options, but since the WAIS is the most widely used, absent a specific reason, they would probably default to this). It is also possible that the timing of publication will work out for you, and the WAIS-5 will be released while you are still in high school (likely some time in the next year or two).

As to the findings of your recent exercise: yes, these are consistent with a PRI in the GT range (although this specific collection of subtests would not have generated a PRI under standard rules, as one of the core subtests has been substituted). As we have discussed previously, there are many factors that could have impacted your prior testing to reduce its validity. I've also noted that your fine motor speed has been reported to be a possible area of significant weakness both on testing and functionally, which could also have impacted your past measures of nonverbal ability. Notably, the subtests your friend showed you are all motor-free, and the one you did the best on (in terms of scaled scores, not necessarily raw scores) is untimed (assuming your friend did indeed use the correct timing procedures).

The summary continues to be that you have documented strengths in verbal thinking and problem solving, and a history of interfering factors that leave the question of your assessed visual spatial and nonverbal reasoning skills open. Your recent anecdotal evidence, as well as some of your personal life experiences, suggest that your formal tests were more likely than not to be low estimates--but by how much is unclear.

In any case, I think we have established that you have enough learning potential in all discussed domains that your short- and long-term outcomes remain principally a function of what you do with your capacities.

On another note, how are you doing with all the changes resulting from the current public health emergency?

I have been tempted a few times to have my son (now 15) retested (as I did with his older sister who was tested at 3 and retested at 9), since his estimated FSIQ at age 4 is almost certainly an underestimate (the experienced psychologist even advised at the time that she strongly suspected this was the case - quantitative reasoning was by far his lowest score and he has been invited to the AMT Selection School), but he has always been an independent self directed learner who found opportunities to learn & develop in every situation, so it didn't really seem necessary (so I haven't). I've had a couple of discussions with him over the years in case he felt differently, but he is confident in his intellectual abilities and doesn't feel the need for further formal validation.

A formal IQ assessment is useful for younger children in order to ensure that their intellectual growth is adequately supported, but by the final years of formal education, particularly with the broader opportunities afforded by digital technology, outcomes are increasingly self determined.

BTW, my work includes some molecular biology. It's not a particularly difficult field of study for an enquiring mind (which your post seems to suggest you have) with appropriate mentors. If you are truly interested in this field, I hope you find a way to pursue studies & a career in it. Otherwise, I hope you find something else which is intellectually satisfying.

I also have a background that includes molecular biology, and I would agree.

We also have not chosen to pursue formal assessments for our own children, as there hasn't been a compelling functional reason for it up until now (and we have one who has passed the K-12 stage). Granted, it is likely that my estimate of my children's IQ is more accurate than average, for obvious reasons. But more importantly, we haven't needed that quantitative data for advocacy or problem solving, which are the principal reasons for obtaining it. (They've been mostly homeschooled, and when advocacy or problem solving was needed, I was able to do so largely on the weight of my professional credentials and skills.) Testing under these circumstances would be more to satisfy my own curiosity/validate my private estimates than to meet any real needs for my children. IOW, it would be for me, not for them. Which is why we haven't done it to this point.

At least in the technical sense, I just "completed" high school by passing all four sections of the GED, even though I really only managed to attend high school for half of a semester of 9th grade, I believe in part because of my circadian rhythm sleep disorder, and in part due to a lack of motivation to work on my sleep schedule in order to be awake during the day, which I think was because I felt that little actual learning occurred in public high school, and that was disconcerting to me.

I got 91st percentile on the Science section, 87th on Social Studies, 75th on Language Arts, and 63rd on Math. I am surprised that I didn't fail math, as I didn't really do any actual "studying" for the test. I'm also a bit surprised that I didn't get a higher score on Language Arts, but I think I finished each test with 30+ minutes remaining, and it should be noted that those percentile ranks are derived using a normative sample consisting of individuals who are at least two years older than I am. I also somewhat regret not reviewing my responses before submitting the test on the sections other than math, but at least I passed.

Congratulations, viktor! I'm proud of you for completing your high school requirements. You did well on all of the sections, and are able to identify something that you might be able to improve on in future opportunities, both important points. Now is a good time to reflect on how you might take these accomplishments into further growing as a human being.

Again, you did well!