Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Do you know your IQ? Your childs IQ?

Yes I am sure she doesn't test in the gifted range. She was tested quite extensively with full reports and sub tests and not just by the schools. Because of a birth defect she started in speech at 2 and walked into the school system with an IEP. Working with a private educational therapist, and resource teachers at school she has learned how to succeed in school despite it. Her problem has been language processing, while she could decode words she struggled with comprehension. The best explanation is in her younger grades when one would ask her to read out loud, she would skip words, often little but important works like not, up, under. Words she could decode if you slowed her down, but changed that changed meaning of the text entirely. She often doesn't get a joke until 5 minutes later, it takes a while for her brain to process it.

She is now a sophomore at a art school across the country studying photography. She is happy, getting good grades, doing well with living independently. I have no idea what she will do after college but I am very proud of how hard she has worked to get where she is now.

I was never tested or accelerated as a kid - I was just a horrible misfit and was constantly stressed as a result. I got tested in my late 20s and scored in the HG range (150+).

My DS was tested but an IQ couldn't be calculated because the range between high and low was too broad. Currently he scores way ahead of age level in some achievement areas and below in others (a classic 2e thing). I have NO idea if he's NT, MG, HG... not a clue. Based on his capacity for abstract thinking and the speed at which he learns, though, I doubt very much that he's NT.

My DD has had very similar behaviours and milestones as me, so I estimate she could be HG. The only testing she's had was in math in grade 2, in which she scored about 3 years ahead.

So... yes for me, no for them...

I was tested, DD has been tested many times. I just think there are different types of gifted. DH was PG sequential, I am VS. Verbally he made me look like an idiot, his ability to debate, but I was way ahead of him in the ability to strategize and I am guessing the math was much easier for me but I didn't know him young.
I have a childhood friend, PG, did physics, then nuclear engineering, so brilliant, they came and offered her classified research positions. Talking with childhood friends, parents apparently noted me. I stood out as the most brilliant or whatever, but my friend flew through undergrad physics with perfect grades. Then went into a PhD nuclear engineering program and I think she is far more brilliant than I. But we are just different. A director from GM asked me about a choice they made for the new CEO and I made a very specific statement about what was wrong with their thinking. 6 months later he wrote me a letter (yes, that long ago that I got a letter) that I was right. It reflected an ability I have as a VS.
For the umpteenth time,I will state, that the thing I have learned in this forum is that there is no one size fits all. PGs or HGs come in all types.
Someone made a statement at my dinner party last week about gifted and Aspergers. In researching it, I came across some info about Aspergers being the engineering disease. This fellow noted that offspring from MIT grads tend to have a high percentage of Aspergers. And there is a high percentage in Silicon Valley.
So does having Aspergers make you even more brilliant as an engineer?

Yup. I agree completely.

Yes, we had DS tested (based on the rather common here experience of being told he wasn't gifted and just a behavioral problem in a rigid classroom where he was not learning a single new concept or fact).

DH, no, he doesn't know, but has vivid memories of being highly bored (although he was a "good student" and studied, unlike his wife) in a pretty good school system. I would think somewhere in the gifted range, certainly. Excellent memory, quick math ability, catches on to most subjects right away.

My school had no g&t programs. I don't know my IQ, but based on other tests I qualify for MENSA, for whatever that is worth. Throughout high school I rarely studied (which was a problem once I hit college and actually needed those skills) and was either a teacher's favorite or a PITA for those I deemed boring (was not afraid to challenge them). I must have been a delight.

I knew I was smart, but didn't think I was all that smart (always knew others with better grades or scores). Professionally, especially within the last few years, when I've had anonymous feedback surveys, I've been surprised by the number of comments about my intelligence. I'm not saying that to brag and hope it is a safe comment here, it's just odd to get that from coworkers ("scary smart" is one of the comments that stands out) when I've tried so hard to fit in... for so many years.

Of all the places in cyberspace, this is probably one of the safest to make that comment. I've had this experience too. I thought I was blending in and didn't stand out for being "smart." Looking back, I realize I've been trying to fit in since the age of 6 or 7, but the reality is that other people still picked up on it. The great thing about getting older though (and now having a kiddo who is far more gifted than I am) is that I'm finally coming to terms with what my giftedness means in my life - the good, bad, and ugly. There is a certain freedom to owning it, right?

This is why I tend to back away slowly when someone starts trying to tell me how smart they are. My experience has always been that someone who is really smart doesn't have to talk about it. People notice.

For example, we might meet some adults at the park, who observe DD and say, "She's really smart." They're not telling me anything I don't already know, but I'm certainly curious how they do, on account of my DD has been running around as a giggle-monster the whole time.

People know. That's why I say you apparently tell like you can tell how tall someone is.

I still think that the problem is that we are looking at something that is imperfectly correlated to what we actually are trying to articulate.

When I was 14 I had the IQ of a 25 yr. old. I had my young son tested. He does not qualify for DYS at this time. I might try again when he's a teenager. Maybe he didn't take it seriously. My dad and aunt were tested when they were teens and they would have qualified. I don't know yet if this is that "regression to the mean" I've read about, or if we tested him too young. Me, my dad, and my aunt, with our outrageous scores, did nothing noteworthy as a career. My grandfather and great uncle had noteworthy careers. My dad wonders why I read about giftedness at all, since gifted people are normal folks, besides being smart, and says, yes, you have more to deal with than most people, but you have more ability to deal with it too. It would have been nice if my son qualified for DYS because I would have felt less like I was guessing at my parenting choices. The local public school is rural and less than half of the kids are on grade level. I was going to let him go, but I learned that he didn't do any of his work in class for four or five months and I said that's a horrible lesson for a five year old. There's an out of district Harmony math and Science Academy I would have asked for out of district placement, but the tester said, don't go there. They don't take the cream of the crop anymore. They give the kids tons of homework to keep up their scores. I've read about that scenerio here being described as negative, so I took the advice. But without that advice I would have thought being around kids who actually do their work would be the better situation. Without any advice I could get I decided to homeschool. The school said his not doing his work was a maturity issue and he would outgrow it. I said, "well, if he's killing time until he matures he can do that at home and not learn bad habits of not doing any work.". He does 2-3 hrs. of mandatory work at home on a school day. I just see disadvantages of all three situations and still agonize over the decision. I know this is more than the question asked for, but this is what knowing four IQ scores has meant to me.