Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources What is intelligence, is everyone gifted?

Are the key points I want to address in my research paper for school.
So, please direct me to your favorite references regarding this subject so I can narrow down my focus.
Thanks!

They told me "intelligence" is a measure of the ability to learn. I had always assumed it included the flexibility to transfer that ability to any subject, given the right connection with a teacher, but have been told that's not the case. Guess adaptability really isn't a factor because what about the prodigies who are gifted in one specific domain? I also mistakenly believed speed was a part of it but sounds like they're phasing that out of the equation these days.
Carol Dweck has some published theories on intelligence. And Katelyn's mom just posted a link to another "nature bs. Nurture" article. That's always a big topic.

Lucounu just made a link in another thread that said my original belief about the adaptive nature of intelligence wasn't completely wrong. There's two things- one's fluid reasoning and one's crystalized logic. Ya learn something new all the time.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence?wasRedirected=true

That girl just sang Ave Maria on America's Got Talent. �Anyway, maybe this helps decide if "everyone is gifted". �Maybe everyone can be good at something, but I don't believe you can give every ten year old a voice like this with the range and the pitch.


�
Here's that little girl Jackie Evanco from a few years ago:


Why am I the only one posting here? �Am I talking to myself again? �At least I haven't answered myself yet. �I like this topic. �It's metacognition, thinking about the way we think.

Good luck.

See if you can get your hands on
http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Human-Intelligence-N-Mackintosh/dp/019852367X

IQ and Human Intelligence [Paperback]
N. J. Mackintosh

Is a book I really enjoyed reading 2/3rds of - too bad the library wanted it back!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Read "The Element". He thinks everyone just has to find the crossroad of passion and talent and that is your intelligence. It could be carpentry (I knew a master carpenter that fixed antiques matching the wood, the damage etc.) But does everyone have the level of talent and passion to really have the ability to do extraordinary things. He profiles extraordinary people in every field.

I do not believe everyone is so extraordinary, even if they could find their passion. And every profoundly gifted person is Feynman. He had a zest for life that few people match and with a brain to be envied. Einstein seemed to have broad interests also and enjoyed life and worked his brain.

It seems that most highly intelligent people can find success and contented lives, but not extraordinary lives. So who is more intelligent? A Jackson Pollock or some math genius who sits in a university and teaches math year in and year out and does nothing of note. I think that is his point.

Ren

Has anyone read the Psychology of Rational Thought by Stanovich? My library has it - just wondering if it was any good (according to the summary, he argues that IQ tests and SATs don't include a measure of rational thought/judgment as separate from intelligence; I wonder if he has proposed any solution for testing for that)

Try sections of The Bell Curve and Real Education , both by Charles Murray.

The Bell Curve has a lot to say about the nature of intelligence and how it's tested. Real Education discusses the idea in less depth and has a whole of good ideas about improving schools.

FWIW, I don't think that everyone is (cognitively) gifted (if everyone is, no one is). Different people have different strengths, but being a natural leader or a gifted athlete doesn't mean you can also learn algebra when you're eight. Conversely, being able to learn algebra when you're eight is no guarantee that you can run the hundred in less than twelve seconds, nor does it mean that you'd make a fantastic line manager.

For me, intelligence refers specifically to how well you perform on g-loaded tests (these tests measure cognitive ability). Obviously, people can have gifts in other areas (athletics, art, the ability to lead others), but that doesn't necessarily make them intelligent.

Val

I like the topic too, and talking to myself...

Speaking of intelligence/sats, what about gres? I seem to recall a logic score there. Is logic only learned or is it an innate ability?

Exactly! If everyone were (cognitively) gifted, it wouldn't be a gift, it would be the norm. Everyone may have a gift of some sort, although not necessarily everyone will find it or do anything with it. But no matter how much the PC folks would like it, not everyone is intelligent. To me, intelligence is the ability to learn and to apply and adapt knowledge. "Gifted" in the sense in which we generally use it here is roughly the same thing.

Another thought. Just read that a child adopted and raised by a high IQ mom will reap a temporary boost that will dissappear when they are older. �I have noticed that all the daytime cartoons like Dora, Umi Zoomi, Kai Lan, Agent Oso, The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all teach to the test already, teaching sequencing, pattern recognition, asking quiestions and pausing for an answer. �I was going to ask Dottie and Aimee what all the parts of intelligence are and then ask if they're incorporating those into early childhood education and entertainment, trying to raise the nation's IQ? �I mean there's the patterns, and the verbal reasoning in the morning cartoons. �So is this going to raise the IQ of the nation entering kindergarten? �If it's a temporary boost, how long before it wears off. �And why is it only a temporary boost? �Couldn't they keep feeding it? �I've also just read somewhere that the act of taking tests itself reinforces or fosters intelligence. �And everybody says they're emphasis is on testing kids too much these days. �Not saying some people aren't smarter than others or that others could all "catch up". �But everyone's got room for improvement, even if some could stay a few steps ahead of the others. �Is that what they're trying to do here? �If so, how do you see that working out?

Isn't also a phenomenon of kids with really IQs at 5 losing 20 points by grade 7th or the reverse?

Maybe we just give the child so much stimuli they test really high?

Is it the creative element that makes a real difference and emotional quotient where you can relate and deal with other people that ultimately defines your intelligence?

Einstein or Feynman were able to use their imagination and creatively apply math and physics to their ideas that made them truly brilliant. Not just their ability to do math.

If you ever read Reminiscences of a Stock Trader (written in 1923) it is an interesting look at the psychology of what are generally brilliant people being very stupid because of emotions.

Just watched Larry King (at 5 am this morning drinking my tea) on the brain. And they talked about how the emotionally part of your brain has all these connections to the frontal cortex but few going back. The emotions dictate our thoughts. So if you are emotionally a mess, then you can do a lot of stupid things. But a emotionally really stable person can be a lot "smarter" because they are guided by their brain and not their "heart".

Ren

This does happen, but it only happens rarely. It's important to remember that IQ scores are always inrelationship to the whole large population. So if a TV show made everyone smarter, then the tests would have to be renormed and there would still be a 'top 5%'

Also, at age 5 and younger, there are enough kids who are still busy with other developmental tasks that they will look rather more average at 5 than they do at 10 on a IQ test. Because the scores relate to the whole population, every time one of those later bloomers blooms, another gifted kid scores a bit lower.

But the whole point of IQ tests being useful at all is that they get it right most of the time, and wrong rather fewer times. Of course when it's your kid, it's still a huge pain in the neck. Just like most kids are ready to learn to count in Kindy, but that doesn't mean that our kids are learning to count in Kindy. It's really important to realize how tests act on large numbers of people - and it's a bit tricky, too tricky for most adults actually.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

And indeed, the environment has been changing so as to make the kinds of classification and abstraction skills that are valued by IQ tests more common, and the tests are renormed: the Flynn effect. I expect the OP already knows the book by Flynn that I keep plugging, which is actually called "What is intelligence?" - it's third hit when you google the question (and googling the question is often a good idea when you ask yourself a question that others must have asked - you often find interesting things!) I think it plus Outliers makes an illuminating combination for this kind of question.

It would be really interesting to see the long term outcomes of DYS grads. Just like the study that followed Hunter grads, finding the ones that started in grade school (as identified top gifted students) didn't do anything exceptional. Had nice, contented lives, but didn't find their "passion" to make their mark. While kids who entered in 7th grade had much more success, both monetarily and noteworthy. Is it because of changes in IQ or what is it.

Grinity, I respect your knowledge but until you actually see the statistics can you say for sure? From the psychologist I know, he owns a major clinic in NYC that works with kids and testing and he said it was more common than you would expect.

Ren

Do you mean, those "future leaders" experimental school in the sixties. I read about it in the book Smart Boys. I'd have to get up and look to see the actual name of the project. The story said they didn't do anything spectacular but succeeded in making themselves nice contented middle-management lives. Although it mentioned a disproportionate number of divorces. The reason they suggested was that smart boys in the 60's were likely to see a wife as another accomplishment. The more spectacular accomplishments, according to the book, were likely to come from single mothers and rough backgrounds. The author was a specialized gifted shrink, so I guess it's the same guy you're talking about. I don't know. I keep seeing the forums saying there's a difference between intelligence and productivity.

Ren
Where did you find that study. I only saw the one on Hunter adults comparing to telman and that used hunter elementary kids from the 1940s and 1950s. I'm very curious to see how they measured "success." Plus how does the study distinguish in terms of why those entering in 7th were "better" if you just use entrance then this study seems to imply that outerboro kids are smarter since only manhattan residents can apply in elementary. There is no way to tell what those kids were doing prior to admission. The queens kids could have had higher iq's but couldn't go until 7th

And I think your point to Grinity applies to the psychologist - in order to say
the IQ goes down by 7th grade you actually have to test it does your friend have both sets of scores and can document the frequency then he should publish it, there would
be a lot of interest in it. Otherwise it's equally anecdotal.

DeHe

Isn't it equating two non related points, or three actually. First who decides what is productive. One of the interesting things of the 2008 economic crash was what happened to the choices of the best and brightest from top schools, they stopped choosing wall street because there were fewer jobs and it had lost prestige. Each generation produces it's own definition of best and brightest. In 1789 the best and brightest were in government, is that where they go now? 2nd, so many things interfere between input and output, socials skills, opportunity, circumstance, puberty! And I forget my 3rd point LOL

DeHe

Yeah probably. �And now it looks like we're thinking of two different studies anyway. �I was replying to this because the other experimental school I had read about from the sixties seemed to think by serving the top IQ kids their students would be the future leaders and inventors, but like in Wren's referenced study they only made comfortable lives for themselves, no real mark on the world. �There's nothing wrong with that if you ask me, it's just not what they expected that time. �
��I don't know about DYS, but when I read about The Academy initially a year ago the emphasis was on fellowship and peers and a place to relax and fit in. �The sixty's school just wanted to influence the future and beat Russia. The DYS seems to be more interested in supporting the kids lives here and now. �Maybe that's just how I read it.
About the question, "what is intelligence?". Why do they say pigs are smarter than dogs, and rats are more intelligent than guinea pigs and what's the connection with the things they test for human IQ? �And what about artificial intelligence? �Isn't intelligence just problem-solving then? �
I think giftedness is different than intelligence because it just means natural born talent. �Find out if giftedness includes determination and perspiration or if only talent does.

I am sorry I can't research it now. But it is a well known gifted psychologsit who speaks at all the gifted conferences who went to Hunter. That is what prompted the study, she went there. I spoke to her. I want to say Rena something off the top of my head.

And I heard the same thing from a mother who son is now at Hunter in 2nd grade. They were worried because they were finding the findings worth noting. That the kids who got in K were not driven. They lacked ambition compared to the kids coming in 7th grade. Parents didn't like it.

Ren

Okay I found her, she was a professor at Hunter College in Education, Rena Subotnik. She created the Center for Gifted Education there but she is no longer there she is now the Director of Gifted Ed Policy at the APA (serious credentials!).However, I could still only find the study of the 1947 graduates and what they were doing. I couldn't find anything which compared the two incoming classes. Super frustrating as I have now read some of her stuff, very interesting and would like to see this. On the up side did read about the CGE at Hunter and they seem very connected to HCES so I am surprised that the parents are so frustrated. Do the elem kids have that much trouble when they get to HS?


the article which that quote came from mentioned clustering and chunking as the key to achievement and that Subotnik's studies of Westinghouse and Julliard people focused on the connection with mentors who kept them on task, the Westinghouse people went to college and typically abandoned their focus. Really interesting stuff. (back to the original post finally!!) How to be a genius

But I just stopped looking to post because you know what else showed up in my google search: THIS THREAD!!!! That was very disconcerting. After the discussion about facebook and twitter I still did not realize that the individual threads would show up in a google search!!!

DeHe

That's how I find things I know were mentioned here - google them! (add site:davidsongifted.org if you only want hits from here).

so this is sad, I am replying to myself!!! LOL

Actually I just thought of answer to my post and Ren's original point so I thought I would just do this rather than edit it. I was thinking about how I felt coming out of a regular school and then going to a gifted school, to me it was heaven - meeting my peers, not changing my behavior, finally being challenged and interested.

So perhaps the kids coming in at 7th grade have been so bored or so starved for work at their level that they soak it up like a sponge whereas the K kids are always received instruction fit for their needs so the drive is removed? Although the argument we are all working under is that finding appropriate instruction is a good thing, so it would interesting to see if meeting needs diminishes focus or desire?

I think I will stop talking to myself now!!
DeHe

These kinds of stories bother me, especially because of the assumption that anyone with an IQ over 130 who doesn't win a Nobel prize is somehow failing to live up to their "genius." Yeah, right. All you need for a Nobel is an FSIQ of 157! Poof! There it is! I just invented a cure for death because I'm so incredibly brilliant!

I'm going to add a second gripe about new stories about children with IQs of, say, 160. These stories seem to require use of the following terms:

* Genius

* the next Einstein

* so brilliant that...

Look, I know that an IQ of 160 is really high. But by my estimates, if the rarity is about 1:30K, we have 10,000 people with IQs at least this high running around the US right now, and over 200,000 in the world. Plus, there have been many others since, say, Newton's time. Sure, 200,000 in six billion isn't a lot. But it's a lot of people compared to, say, Nobel prizes awarded or great novelists or even the broader first authors on major Nature/Science papers.

I guess this stuff shows how poorly understood IQ is, especially by the general population (and/or the people who write this stuff).

Val

Sorry Dottie, I got the info from Rena herself. And then I talked to a mother who has a child (now in 3rd grade at Hunter) and she told me that there was a general concern at Hunter because they have noticed the phenomenom themselves as the orginal elementary students are not the top in the class when the new blood enters in 7th grade. They lack a drive. So much for the challenge theory....;)

Personal hypothesis here. First metaphor. There is this nervous woman in the neighborhood who got a dog in the spring. Cute little puppy. The dog attacks other dogs, despite being about 20 lbs. Everyone thinks it is just getting this nervous energy from the owner.

If DD had got into Hunter I would have had a pretty laissez faire attitude about her education. Since she didn't, I have been obsessive and now doing the CTY for math. She has to be getting that crazy anxiety from me on some (please let's stick with some, few) level. Maybe making her feel a little more competitive and ambitious about her learning. I notice that she wants more math at school. She hates when it is "babyish".

I know she is not thrilled with grade 1 curriculum. But art is art, she is learning Spanish at her school (they started in K so she is catching up), and chess. She has to write book reports every week on books she chooses, so that is how she wants to do it. And she has her supplemental programs of Mandarin, Science at the museum and piano. Plus her gymnastics and ballet. And she does the latter two at major competitive centers.

And she knows doing the accelerated math online is harder and different. Hopefully this is a kid that will go after what she wants. And perhaps is different than the kid she would have been if she got into Hunter. Now, back to topic. Would her intelligence be different? Would the neurons be connected so differently that her IQ would actually be different?

My personal hypothesis is they would be and I think the competitive edge with its adrenalin push when you get excited about something and push changes your behavior and the resulting ambition.

Ren

I have noticed this at my dd's school too. (Not gifted, but private.) I did an informal survey and realized all the students who are working up a grade level or more in math are transfer students.

There are different ways to look at this problem and what it comes from. On the one hand, it's possible that preschool test-prep mania in New York contributes to it. If a non-gifted child ends up in a class for gifted students, the learning environment wouldn't necessarily be appropriate, and learning would suffer. For me (could be just me) school should be about a creating an appropriate learning environment for each student.

On the other hand, I think it's important to remember that high achieving isn't necessarily gifted. And just because you're gifted doesn't mean you're going to be a super-high achiever. This is okay. It also goes back to my post in this thread about "genius" --- namely, just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you have some kind of obligation to become a famous <insert occupation> and that you haven't lived up to your potential if you don't.

Some people have a drive to do something significant, and that's great. And I think that drive is a quality that's internal: it can't be put there because of parental wishes or because of a teacher's opinion about potential, or anything else. Others can nurture it or damage it, but no one can put it there (and, sometimes, no one can take it away).

It occurs to me that leading "contented lives" (as was said earlier in this thread and in other places) could, in a way, be a situation that's easier to attain if you're gifted. And that's okay too.

Just my maunderings...

Val

You have honed in on one of my pet peeves. Are we saying that you need to do something noteworthy that gains public attention to be successful and live up to that "genius potential"? Just because someone is leading a contented, "ordinary" life doesn't mean that they aren't doing something extraordinary. I assume many of these "contented" geniuses are finding creative solutions to problems at their schools, places of business and their communities. These ordinary things don't get published or recorded. They don't garner the attention of the Nobel committee but they still have value.

Yes. I am with Nautigal. Everyone could be gifted with something, such as reading, running, shorthand, cooking... intelligence is inclined to the ability of learning. I think gift is connatural and intelligence acquired.

Just adding to the Hunter anecdotes. A mother I know, whose daughter just entered K, told me that she went through Hunter elementary and high school. So this would be 30+ years ago, before the prep testing mania.

She went to Tufts. I asked her if she applied to the Ivys and she said no because she didn't she was smart enough. She said the kids who entered Hunter HS and didn't go through the elementary seemed really smart and she didn't feel as smart and therefore didn't even apply. Just an add-on, this woman was also the grand-daughter of very well known New York politician, who struggled as an African american, became a lawyer and then involved in politics. So the family culture was one of ambition.

Ren

Maybe inner drive develops at a different time or needs a tweak at the pre-teen years?

A number of top performers faced a very difficult time at some point in their lives.

Going into Hunter at 7th grade has got to be "traumatic" in some fashion.

Perhaps there has to be some sort of psychic trauma or stress to help the child to become more focused? A sort of near-death experience?

A kid has to take a test to get in and top scorers get a spot. So a child has to choose to take the test, or the parent pushes them to do so. Kids at Hunter take the test as a matter of course. Some don't make it into the high school, but not too many.

As for the kids that are not at Hunter and take the test, there is a different dynamic. And that dynamic probably plays itself out in other ways. The parents are obsessing about where the kid is going to go to middle school and high school and testing is big for both and highly competitive for the top schools. So if the child comes from this type of background, there is ambition and drive for the education built into the family dynamic. While parents of Hunter kids may be more laissez faire, like I would have been, ...maybe.

So I do not think it has to be near death experience. There was young boy from Harlem, a few years back, amazing kid. Had a part-time job, traveled more than hour from school each way. Got into 6 IVs, including Harvard. This was a kid that had a tough life but not near death -- not one they mentioned, just a tough life.

Psychic trauma and near death don't make for drive, struggle does.

Ren

I think this is more about self worth and this woman's assessment of her abilities surrounded by gifted students and an ambitious family. At every gifted school there will still be a range of giftedness and the students will know who are the pg+ versus the hg+. So the question then is how someone becomes a striver when they aren't the smartest person in the room. IMO, that is personality, values and also educational experiences rather than IQ. The value I think of a place like Hunter is that the kids are in a classroom of people who also have asynchronous development and where being smart is not a social impediment. So many of the posts here are about getting the appropriate learning setting despite the social levels. At Hunter or schools like it, the testing eliminates or diminishes the tension between those needs. My question to the mother is why she felt she wasn't smart, and whether she simply was not pg in a room full of pg's or she was pg yet still felt diminished for other reasons. Also it is entirely possible that she rejected striving because she was surrounded by it at home and at school. She chose to opt out, without her scores all you have is her perception. A friend tells the story of his 10 year reunion from a gifted high school , everybody thought they hadn't achieved and was worried about telling their classmates their story because they were sure they weren't as impressive as the next guy. They all were impressive, they just assumed the other was more because they were sure their classmates were all smarter. Didnt mean their accomplishments were any less impressive.

DeHe

DeHe,

Your comments are really interesting. DH tells about 1 fellow from his "group" at Harvard. Most went to law school or medical school. Two guys who didn't and sort of forged middle class, manager at Sears, kind of lives do not keep in contact. Even when pushed, they do not respond to emails. One came to a party of ours (had a semi-reunion) got really drunk and talked about how he was friends with Michael and Caroline Kennedy (they were in DH class) and now....

The guy made choices and has a nice life but when drunk lamented. On the other hand, another got divorced because his wife decided she wanted a Nobel prize instead of children. But then she married a guy who got the Nobel prize so she has little chance of getting it.

In this case, the woman did not opt out of striving. But she clearly measures her intelligence against her experience at Hunter. When I say her grandfather was a well known NY politician, he was an amazing man and maybe that was a tough yardstick but I really think it was the Hunter experience as she told me the story.

Ren

The stories you tell are so interesting in comparison. The Sears guy did strive up to a point (or had help getting into Harvard) but the woman didn't even apply. I don't know, I guess I am just more suspect of her rationale. She didn't feel over her head enough to either voluntarily leave or be asked to leave (granted that rarely happens) and Tufts is a wonderful school. So clearly she is quite bright but didn't in her mind live up to the dreaded potential of her at 4, the Harvard guy in a sense fulfilled his potential and then "wasted" it. The 2 seem so different in terms of ownership, he seems to be owning that he had the key and threw it away, she seems to be saying it was the schools fault she wasn't more. Maybe I am reading too much into it. I don't expect all kids at Hunter or Stuy to be Nobel prize winners but I know deciding somewhere between 7th and 12th that you aren't good enough because there seem to be smarter people who work
harder just gives away that potential so it just seems psychological rather than actually intellectual. Really interesting that both lament in terms of intelligence and opportunity, the guilt factor, you are bright, you must be more, what in that scenario could ever be enough, would the nobel be satisfying? Really speaks to our job as parents to make them feel that striving is worth it in and of itself and learning should always continue and that their self worth can't be dependent on comparisons or awards.

And the woman who got divorced, one has to hope that the first rationale was just an excuse to get out of a marriage she didn't want because throwing away a dream as a consequence of marriage seems so sad.

DeHe

Thanks for all your posts!
I just finished Garder. I'm shifting through the Bell Curve now and hope to find a copy N. J. Mackintosh as my middle ground but my library doen't have it.

You mean Dan Peralta. The kid is an amazing Classicist. His life reads like one trauma after another. He was predisposed to bury himself in something as a way to escape.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2046122&page=1


I know two Nobel shortlisted men who suffered horrible injuries as children. They spent years reading as a result.

Milton became blind and was on the losing side of the English Civil War.

Patton had Dyslexia and nearly failed out of Westpoint.

I am not saying you need trauma, but the drive can spill over from mere survival to other areas.

I wonder if going into Hunter in 7th grade is like a mini-immigration experience? Wouldn't they have more to prove?

.

Agreed


Here is some research and thoughts on this topic of being driven: Angela Duckworth calls it Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Duckworth Research & apers - Grit etc.

Agreed. plus there is also the possibility that someone will be driven to contribute in a way that happens one-on-one and/or is not public

also Grit - Can perseverance be taught? Tedtalk(video)