Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research IQ levels can greatly fluctuate over time

I am no expert, but I thought that most kids (and adults) have fixed IQs that may fall in a range based on the type of test. It is interesting to read this article that says that the IQ level can fluctuate a lot! An old article, but I came across it today and thought I would share it here.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203935604577066293669642830
The interesting part for me was this:
Schooling in general raises IQ by several points a year, based on research by Stephen Ceci, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell, and others. "If you look at an IQ test, it asks things like, 'Who wrote Hamlet?' or 'Why do we pay for postage?' You are most likely to come across the answers in school," Dr. Ceci says. Even nonverbal abilities such as solving puzzles and spatial tasks may blossom because math classes today include visual reasoning with matrices, mazes, blocks or designs, he adds.

Knowing who wrote Hamlet is part of an IQ test? Wow! If I were from a different culture, I might have a really low IQ if this was the case.

Many IQ tests do still have some cultural bias, but much less so than in the past. And there have also been clear moves to distinguish between crystallized (learned) knowledge and fluid reasoning (more innate ability).

33 subjects, ages 12-16. If one wanted to cook a research design related to IQ and brain changes, you couldn't do much better than straddling puberty with your testing. Considering IQ is age normed, and the brain does change through puberty, nice. It's probably a better argument that kids develop at different rates and that intelligence+maturation has a relation to brain structures than it is to conclude that intelligence is generally volatile.

And on the other side of head scratching is the professor suggesting that IQ changes are related to school learning in the context of an age-normed test amongst kids assorted into school in age cohorts.

Some things my DS said about his IQ test indicated cultural bias to me... One was the postage stamp question! Apparently he got that wrong because we pretty much never deal with postage stamps at this house as we do just about everything online! I remember my mom doing bills and writing letters when I was kid and helping her put the postage stamps on them. DS never sees a postage stamp. LOL. The other thing that he mentioned that really got me was one of the picture tests. I don't know what the "question" was but he said he was confused by one of the pictures on the picture test because it had what looked like a keyboard but no screen attached! He said he figured paper went with the picture but wasn't sure b/c it was only "half" of a computer. "Mom" he says to me "no computer has just a keyboard! some types of computers have just screen with no keyboard but none the other way around, right?!" He added "that he looked very closely for a picture of a printer but didn't see one." LOL. I realized the picture must have been of a typewriter - again something else DS has never seen. And, just the other day, I pulled out an iron we had in the basement and was thinking of donating it to goodwill. DS asked what it was. I told him. He asked "so it gets hot, then?" I said yes. he said "darn! now it makes sense!" Apparently there had been a picture of an iron on the picture test and he didn't know what it was. When I was a kid my mom would watch soap operas and iron the laundry. Obviously, I never iron - we use "wrinkle release" and the clothes dryer! LOL.

SO I realized there may be quite a lot of "cultural" bias in those IQ tests!

Both of my kids scored 18 and 19 on the Matrix Reasoning and Picture Concepts sections of the WISC and the two of them aren't even genetically related to each other! What are the odds? I am wondering if it is because they both spend so much time playing Minecraft or if they play Minecraft because of their abilities in that area. They both scored quite a bit lower in verbal--maybe if they spent more time reading books and less time playing video games we wouldn't have that gap.

DS was tested back in May and again a couple days ago (just on the working memory section the second time) and his score went up from 110 for WM to 116....maybe within the margin of error, I don't know. Is he improving with WM or just had a better day?

The problem being, of course, that in order to properly answer the question you have to understand what the question is talking about in the first place.

But if IQ is normed against the age population surely a general increase due to schooling would be compensated for?

That is one of the puzzling things for me. Also, they talk about "erosion" of IQ at college age. What really brings that about? Do you lose it if you don't use it? Is that what that is about?

Irena, on the same vein, my 4 year old took an IQ test and came out and asked me what a candybar was. We are a sugar free family and I do not feed my child any sugary food. So, he had not eaten a single piece of candy until age 4. I was taken aback that he would stumble on such a question because of our lifestyle choices. So, I took him to a store that day and bought him a candybar and told him to try it. Though he is not a great fan of it, he knows what a candybar is now.

mine didn't know what a baby sitter was.

We've made quite the game of this now with our 14yo-- introducing her to all manner of offensive/biased/appalling slang and cultural references.

She finally knows that an a-shirt isn't really called that by most people, for example, and that "It puts its shoes in the basket" had a lot more to do with parental frustration than helpful scaffolding.

I mean, I kind of think that Silence of the Lambs questions are likely to be few and far between. But we want her to be fully prepared. {ahem}

Why don't they put references to Monty Python or Fawlty Towers in these tests, instead, if they insist on including irrelevant pop culture references? Now THAT would be a true ability differentiator. The 5-year-old who can discern sarcasm from irony is far more sophisticated than the one who can identify the nauseating Disney princesses.

FWIW (which isn't terribly much), I think parents who choose to eschew "cultural" North American foods and media are wise, though I can also appreciate the perspective of parents who feel they need to "play the game" to prevent their child from being disadvantaged on content.

Sounds like these items may be known to adults but not to most children due to technology changes throughout society in recent decades. Some may say that age or generation, not culture per se, would be a factor in being familiar with these items? Possibly all children of today are equally disadvantaged regarding these items? While these items were familiar for many decades, possibly the tests are now outdated and need to be updated periodically?

Tests are renormed every decade or so, these cultural reason plus the flynn effect are why you should always use the most curret test... But there's been rapid change in the last decade in a few areas. My DD was asked a question for which the correct answer was newspaper. In her life newspapers are for wrapping things when you move house and lining cat litter etc. She'd had no experience ever of them being purchased new or actually read.... That's what the iPad is for :-). 10 years before she was tested newspapers WERE still viable businesses...

... postage stamp... typewriter... iron... newspaper... hope the test companies take these into account as nostalgic items from days of yore.

I still get the Wall Street Journal daily, and my children browse the weekend edition. We get lots of magazines. Some newspapers and magazines are still viable.

Add a pot of ink and a fountain pen to your list. My child has never seen anyone use those. I did a futile search for them in my neighborhood stores to show one to my DS. He even told me that a feather quill was what was used with a pot of ink because that is what he had read about in a book!
In this era of twitter and facebook and viral information spreading to all corners of the world, it seems really strange that these IQ tests are renormed every decade. I would love a job that involves IQ test renorming - I might get busy once in a decade (just kidding!).

Not an IQ question, but DD8's math homework recently had a word problem featuring a certain famous, household-name basketball player from Chicago's heyday who wore number 23. He played his last basketball game two years before she was born... nevermind that we're a basketball-free home...


LOL... those aren't irrelevant in our home. DD8 has been watching random clips from Holy Grail and Life of Brian with me for the past two evenings.

Add The Far Side.

My DD knew who Gary Larsen was before she recognized Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse either one, and she knew all the words to The Lumberjack Song well before she hit pre-algebra...

ROFL.


Of course, she's also a kid who is fascinated by the moderately archaic, so the souvenir that she wanted when we visited Trinity College, Dublin? A German-made FOUNTAIN PEN in the college bookstore. She also possesses a watch which must be wound, and has a grandparent who has been a passionate philatelist for a lifetime. So she is reasonably familiar with many of those things, but that's in part (again) due to our relatively quirky lifestyle. Up until a year ago, she hadn't ever held a smartphone or seen a GPS up close. So.

I had a German made fountain pen and used it regularly as a kid (a long, long time ago)!
Now that you mention GPS, I pulled out some old AAA paper maps from my garage storage last year and showed my DS what real maps looked like when dad and mom used to naviagte using them on trips. He saved a few and plays with them often.

i'm relieved to hear that a few others' kids would also be ok on the arcane objects.

DD5 loves paper maps, writes real letters every week (stamps!), is learning to touch type (typewriter!) and flips through the Sunday NY Times every week (to research her football picks.) she is also campaigning for me to buy her bottles of ink and fountain pens. the iron on the other hand is not getting much use around here, but i swear we do have one... i should ask DD if she knows what it is. we also have a gramophone amplifier, but it's for the ipad - so that may or may not count toward our status as completely insufferable luddites.

and i'm with y'all on the Monty Python/Far Side/Fawlty Towers - if we can add Yes, Minister to the test, we're all set.

Apparently I was a Fawlty Towers fan at DS' age. I've lent my set out to a friend, but maybe I should have it returned and diversify DS' viewing menu.

And Yes, Minister...to die for.

We have noticed an unholy obsessions with baseball and basketball in DFD's homework. DD really does not care about these sports so she is perpetually mystified. Recently she had to fill in the blank with the word "foul" (the player "fouled" another player). Her only context for this word was "disgusting," so she was extremely confused.

There was something else lately where she was supposed to know what a triple play was.

I think these may be intended to make work more exciting to boys? I don't know, but seriously, they exclude some children.

Part of cultural literacy is knowing the basics about the major American sports, including what a "foul ball" or "triple play" is. In the business world knowledge of professional and college sports is an important ice-breaker.

Generally useful, but unimportant. Adults should be able to find common interests with each other that can act as social lubricants. Entertainment, travel, business experiences, and family are all similar, non-controversial topics.

However, in certain circles it's VERY important, because it ensures an executive is doing business with the "right kind" of person. Good-old-boys and glass ceilings, etc.

After all, just as ultramarina indicated this sort of thing excludes certain children in school, it's also quite handy for excluding certain adults in the business world.

Are we writing as parents or social reformers here? It looks like you don't disagree with my advice if that if you want your children to do well in business, have them know something about sports.

Yes. And ideally, you played several as well.

Aren't we as parents, on a micro level, both?

As a way to break ice with a wide range of people, I would encourage her to develop a wide range of interests. If one of them happens to be a sport, so be it.

But since my DD is highly unlikely to be initiated into the good-old-boy club (seeing as how she is only one of the three), I do disagree. As a parent, I see little future financial value in educating her on the niceties of the infield fly rule.

I think his point is that you have to at least be able to pretend to get along with the relevant people because otherwise you will remain irrelevant.

Oh, I agree you have to pretend to get along with people. I just think there are a lot of ways to do that.

Only random Monty Python, Doctor Who, and Star Trek references truly let you know who the right people are, however. Everyone knows this. LOL.

Oh, sure-- some of those people also love sports. Some of them love chamber music. That is merely coincidence, though.

I've educated my spouse about early music notation and he's educated me about the niceties of a "perfect" game. In spite of irritating questions like "Shouldn't a pitcher really have to only make 27 pitches if he were truly having a "perfect" game?" I still maintain that this is a perfectly valid line of reasoning, but whatever. He seemed to think it was hopelessly gauche. I defer to his judgement on baseball, and he defers to me about composers. Ken Burns' work seems to suffice as common ground here, supporting Dude's assertion.

Isn't it interesting how these "necessary" cultural literacies are male-identified?

(I still don't know how football works. I don't care about sports at all, though I do enjoy the Olympics. Who freaking cares? I have many other interests and can talk about other things. If you exclude me from employment/promotion consideration based on that--if that is seriously a problem--then that's pathetic.)

+1, and potentially illegal.

Yup.

Well said.

What are you talking about?

I absolutely despise sporting events and it definitely hurt me in my career.

This has nothing to do with male/female.

The more important question is how you feel about Boba Fett; which Doctor Who/Star Trek character he reminds you of the most, and why.

Everyone who matters has considered this, and this is why I trot it right out when sports comes up.

Actually, that's not true. I just stubbornly ask obnoxiously stupid and ignorant questions that suck all of the joy from the discussion of last night's game, or the speculation about next weekend's big match-ups. What? They're just questions. They demonstrate my eagerness to learn about what matters to others... heheheh...

Subversive IS my middle name, yes.

PMd you, Jon, so we don't derail the thread. If anyone wants to join the offline debate, LMK.

My understanding is that there is some regression to the mean until about 10 years old. However, after about 10 the range is typically stable. I have heard of children scoring in the 150's on a WPPSI at 5 and then being tested again at 10 and scoring high 120's low 130's. Primarily because verbal skills were way above average for their ago but then other children caught up, at least in terms of what is measured on an IQ test.

I imagine that as a relative measure comparing an individual to other people their own age, they'd have to go down just a bit over time as the stupidest ones die off. You'd all be regressing towards the mean until the very end.

(In case it isn't obvious, that was intended to be humorous.)

Are you trying to imply that your disregard for sports is somehow related to your gender? I'm a male who couldn't care less about any of the major sports. I have less than zero interest in football, basketball, baseball, hockey, etc. I find them all to be pointless wastes of time and don't understand in the slightest how someone becomes a fan of a sports team with which they have no tangible connection. (I do understand being a fan of individuals with great skill or a positive attitude.)

I think we argued about this particular off-topic thingy a few months ago on this thread.

"Are you trying to imply that your disregard for sports is somehow related to your gender? I'm a male who couldn't care less about any of the major sports."

As they say in the New York Times comments sections, "My recent study on my own personal experience indicates that you're wrong. N=1, p<1.0001."

Men and women both like sports and fashion, but men are more likely to be into sports, and sports fans are more likely to be men. This skews test results over the population, but for the individual, there will be no sex-related trend, because sex does not change for the vast majority of individuals over time. Even if he takes 10,000 IQ tests, the sex will always be "male". So you can't test that hypothesis by using your own experience.

Thank you for your post.

I am regularly hoping that all human IQ raises to a great level sooner rather than later.

That sounds wonderful. I would love to have the experience of feeling what that would feel like.

I would love to hear more great public discourse and see terrific media programming. I am 100% for increasing human IQ in a healthy, natural way.

I really hope it happens soon. Fingers crossed and wishing!

Of course IQ can change significantly throughout one's lifetime; so too can height, weight, and visual acuity. In the prepubescent years of a child's life his or her IQ can vary considerably as a result of genetically programmed growth spurts, which is confirmed by measuring and comparing the IQ's of monozygotic and dizygotic twins. IQ can change in the later years of one's life as a result of cognitive diminution (Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and the like).

Yay!

One of my posts that used the word "thingy" was raised from the dead.