I never had my IQ tested...I never did the SAT and just barely made it through highschool. I did college courses in highschool for English and Literature and graduated with 9 credits already but after 2 years of college I dropped out. I moved out at 17/18 as soon as I barely graduated highschool and have been working full time and being to independent. I would have never considered myself smart. My husband is book smart, my father is one of the top engineers in our state and my mom is a retired teacher who now is our kids "daycare". I have very intelligent people in my family and although hubby would like to take credit for our sons and daughters brilliance I wouldn't necessarily agree lol...but I won't tell him that. My parents continue to believe the kids got my inteeligence and hubbys book smarts but I just don't agree. Anyways according to specialists we have seen they believe giftedness is a maternal genetic component...anyone agree with that?

IQ seems to be a combination of genetics and environment, as well as the test itself (the measurement tool).

And a child's mother is *both* genetics and environment.

I have no idea what the current thinking is on the complexity of human inherited traits, but the gist of what I've read over the years is that intelligence is really much more complex than "maternal genetic component".

It's intelligence even considered to be something that is directly heritable these days? I thought that too many genes and possible gene combinations were involved.

By maternal genetic component, do you mean passed from the mother's side?

That's certainly not true in my family's case. My mother's intelligence is probably close to average, whereas my father is clearly PG, and I am likely PG (never tested).

Going to the next generation, my wife is probably MG, but for our two kids D is HG-PG, and S is most definitely PG.

I am not aware of the latest studies, but older research indicates that intelligence is highly inheritable.

An anecdotal observation: When our son was 6 weeks old, we took him to a pediatrician, who had been practicing for almost 40 years had treated thousands of kids over his career (he has since retired). We knew him well because he had also been the pediatrician for our daughter, who was 3 years old at the time. After the 6-weeks exam, the pediatrician told us jokingly "don't bother saving money for college with this one, he will get scholarships for everything". He said this because our son was unusually attentive relative to the many other patients he had.

Since then DS, has been tested and found to be PG. Obviously at six weeks there was no unusual nurturing for DS compared to DD, so the difference was really nature.

This is all interesting to me. I would never consider myself gifted or intelligent. Hubby does but it certainly isn't from his family lol. Compared to my siblings I'm not even close ha! So I just figures it was something he got from my dad and brothers. But the notion of it being genetic I intrigues me.

Intelligence is one of the most heritable traits--but it's a complex inheritance. Many, many genes are involved, and they are transmitted from both parents.

If you follow some of the links attached to Bostonian's recent posting in GT Research, there are some summaries of genetic findings on intelligence.

Yes, it's highly heritable, and yes, it's also quite complex.

Besides, looking at an individual and trying to gauge relative levels of cognitive ability via performance proxies is really just a guessing game unless you know that you're seeing glimpses of what that person is truly capable of, and that they have no other disability/challenge which is preventing that kind of performance.

Without all of the adaptive tech, Stephen Hawking wouldn't still be able to wow people with his insights, YK?

That's an extreme example, but just because you didn't finish an undergraduate education, that doesn't make you less intelligent.

My father was definitely PG-- certified by the Navy repeatedly, in fact-- but his path was a non-academic one, by and large.

My family and my DH's, our paternal genetics is where our cognitive outlier status comes from. DD seems (from a functional stance) probably PG, and family who have known them both well compare her to my father. In my DH's family, there is no comparable person. My family produces the occasional PG person (seems to be about 1 of 20 or so), among a backdrop of a majority of people who are MG, and a regular sprinkling of those at higher LOG. I'm at least EG, depending upon which instrument one considers. I'm not in my dad's league-- using the same instrument, his IQ was over 10pt higher than mine (SB-LM). On the other hand, mine is ten points higher than my DH's.

Functionally, there isn't a TON to separate my DH and myself in day to day life. I'm a little quicker than he is at strategic thinking, but he's faster than I am computationally.

My mom and my DH's mother were both 'bright' at most. But both had siblings who were clearly gifted of one variety or another.

We expected DD to be gifted. Maybe even HG. But I'm not sure that any parent is truly prepared to deal with a child who turns out to be PG. There is no preparing for it because that kind of extreme asynchrony turns out to be a developmental arc like a fingerprint-- almost unique due to the shaping forces and number of influences swirling together. Those things, in turn, push the individual into outlier range in various dimensions of human experience, and ultimately produce an adult individual who is still an outlier because of a lack of peers with shared experiences.

My dad found me enchanting intellectually-- my cognitive abilities delighted him. We have found our DD to be a similar delight. There is no need to over-simplify concepts or conversation with such children. A lifetime of that kind of intense relationship is an amazing bond to share with your child.

You can compare it to the heritability of height. Two moderately-tall people can have short children, medium-height children, or tall children, just as two tall people can have a very short child, for example. But on the average, the female offspring will be the mid-parental height (average) minus two inches, and the male offspring will be plus two inches. It has historically been observed that the first generation after immigration to the first world is taller than the parental generation, and that the generation after that is still taller, but that after a few generations, the height of the population stabilizes. Height and intelligence are both continuous traits, with strong effects from genetics, but also effects from environment that you can conceptualize as nutritive.

And yes, I would agree that the measurement tool is a factor. I would add, as a corollary, that the traits valued by a particular community might be involved in the definition and measurement of intelligence.

My eldest's pediatrician said basically the same thing about my son at the same age. At checkups starting at 2 or 4 weeks, he would get him to do things like follow an object or turn to a noise, and then exclaim, "99th percentile!" My daughter was probably more obviously gifted as a newborn, and her pediatrician commented on her too (we had moved). My second was born early and didn't meet milestones the way his brother did until he was around 5 months old. His verbal abilities are better; math, not so much.

All I know about my IQ is that the tester told me I was past the 99th percentile. I suspect I'm well past it, based primarily on how long I can concentrate (many hours), how quickly I pick up things, and how much I can teach myself (and the results of my son's test, I suppose. Before it, I had always thought we were of roughly the same intelligence).

When DH and I talk about the cognitive strengths our kids have, we can see traits that they get from one or both of us; there are traits from both that seem to surpass what either parent has. This apparent synergistic effect may be related to environment, though, as neither of us was encouraged cognitively the way our kids are.

I agree about the high heritability of intelligence and also understand that there is an environmental component. A good environment can presumable help a child reach his full cognitive potential, whereas a bad one can presumably do a lot of damage.

I suspect that intelligence is complex and multifactorial, but that IQ tests are a good place to start.

When DH and I talk about the cognitive strengths our kids have, we can see traits that they get from one or both of us; there are traits from both that seem to surpass what either parent has. This apparent synergistic effect may be related to environment, though, as neither of us was encouraged cognitively the way our kids are.


That mirrors our household, as well. DD is both the sum of, and more than, either of us as individuals. I think that what makes us not automatically think of her in exclusively those terms is my father, who shared a certain personality and set of strengths/interests with her. But we also don't have any way to see them side-by-side-- so she reminds people of him. People who knew my father remark on it.


She was another one who was extremely remarkable as a newborn and young infant. Her level of motor control, curiosity, and alertness raised a LOT of comment from every one of the professionals in the delivery room. We have those exclamations on tape.

DD's brain functions most like mine, mine is most like my mom's, and hers most like her dad's. So it would seem that if there's any pattern here, it's fathers-to-daughters, and mothers-to-sons.

Except, my mom has 5 siblings of mixed genders, and all of them exhibit some traits of giftedness, though all in completely different ways. I suspect that the apparent pattern has more to do with inheritance of a peculiar set of personality traits in addition to the intellectual component.

So yeah, my anecdotal observations support the "it's complicated" hypothesis.

We have one of those medical professional exclamations on tape, too. It was in the delivery room. DD wasn't even out yet.

I read (I haven't the foggiest notion where, so don't ask me for a source) that a loto of the genetic information that influences intelligence is located on the X chromosome so boys inherit most of their cognitive traits from their mothers side, whereas girls may inherit equally from their mother and father.

In DS8's case, we happen to know that he has inherited my fathers X chromosome, because he is color blind like him, and his cognitive traits remind me very much of my father - a fairly equal distribution between verbal and nonverbal strengths, with interest and passion skewed strongly (even more strongly actually, probably gets that from his father) towards the sciences.

Due to his odd testing history, we have three wildly varying scores for him, from average to EG, but I'd say he is definitely HG+, like I'd think my father must be. DH and I grew up in a time and place where testing for a healthy child was unthinkable, so we can only guess as to what our various scores might be (or might have been, before three pregnancies and three high needs kids and the resultant sleep deprivation fried my brains).

I know that I skew strongly towards the verbal and musical intelligence, with DD being somewhat like me, but with a totally different personality, and DH skews strongly towards the nonverbal side, unlike DD, but her personality is definitely inherited from his side of the family. (I must have been so compliant as a kid it was unreal, whereas my kids, and most definitily DD, are NOT). I'd guess wed probably both score MG altogether, with HG+ scores in our areas of strength and rather lower scores in the others.

Finding out what DS2 can and cannot do will be really interesting - he has a major physical disability and Is speech delayed, but performs far ahead on nonverbal tasks. In his case, we believe he is not color blind so it's my mothers X chromosome he has inherited.

Someone correct me if I have messed up the genetics here - as I have mentioned, I am NOT the scientist in the family.

DH tested as HG+ (PG by most standards), I was placed in the gifted stream but don't know my LOG, my father was tested as EG in the military, and my mother is untested but doubtless some form of gifted. My mum's college friends lament that while they would be studying for exams, my mum never studied. She was routinely out partying or at the movies the night before exams, and she would top all her courses. Her roommate would ask my mum hard study questions in her (my mum's) sleep, and she would answer correctly.

DH's parents are untested, but likely both gifted based on the scale and scope of professional attainment.

I like to think DS has inherited the best of each of us. He is a formidable little dude.

I have been wondering about this a lot lately. I consider myself bright but have always felt bad because when tested at an early age (7?) I scored too low to be included in the gifted pull-out activities at my public school. My school recommended testing because I scored in the 99th percentile in all categories on the state achievement tests. My parents reluctantly agreed because they always made fun of parents who felt their kids were gifted. I grew up in a poor, working class family in a community where there were very few college educated people. My parents had high school educations and had come from really rough backgrounds. My mother barely spoke English (but didn't try speaking to me in her native language). My parents loved me but they were abusive. They never read books to me. We didn't have money for many toys and I mostly played outside or watched television. When I asked questions my parents usually either answered, "because" or "stop asking so many questions." I never attended preschool and was an only child so I didn't spend much time with other children before kindergarten. My mom stayed at home but she didn't really believe in playing with me or reading to me.

When I entered school, I quickly learned to read and became an obsessive reader. I remain one today. In elementary school I read through entire sections of the library- every single book. The librarians changed their lending policies so I could be furnished with adequate books. I really feel like books saved my life. I continued to be at the top of my class and to score in the 99th percentile on achievement tests through graduation but was never again tested for giftedness. I ended up leaving my small town to attend college in New York and later attended law school. I was the first person in my entire family (in this country) to get a college degree and have accomplished a lot considering my background but I have always felt not quite smart enough because of that one IQ test. I have no idea how I scored- my mom said the psychologist said I was bright but not quite gifted. She has no idea what my score was.

When a psychologist recommended testing our son last year, I hesitated because of my own experience. I finally agreed because we were applying to a school that required an IQ test. Our son is gifted and his younger sibling is maybe even more gifted (but not tested yet). I often attribute their brilliance to my husband, who is HG. In the last year I've done a lot of reading about gifted traits, however, and it has made me wonder. I have so many of the traits and so much of what I read has helped me to make some sense of my childhood . I wonder if I was a late bloomer or if my background in some way affected my score, even though it shouldn't? I read about how tests can vary and wonder if I just had a bad day. Or I wonder if being in school helped me to grow smarter after a terrible beginning. Or maybe I'm just one of those people who are bright enough to succeed but not gifted and I happen to have two gifted sons. It really doesn't matter because I don't care what my IQ is but reading about giftedness in order to understand my sons better has made me think about this issue again and it matters only because it may be a fine opportunity for me to put lingering feelings of inadequacy to bed.

I should add that we now live in a house overflowing with books and toys. I spend hours every day reading to my kids and doing science experiments and art and hiking with them. It feels so good to give them the experiences I missed as a child!

Lepa - do you think you would have achieved as highly as you have done had you received a gifted score? Irrespective of the number you're clearly clever and motivated, do you think you would have worked as hard as you did if you'd a "gifted" label?

I didn't find out my score until recently and while it was in the HG range, for me, it was better not knowing. I was happy at school and while some parts were far too easy, others weren't. I did have a bit of fuss made over me and was offered some extension work which I enjoyed. Had I known my score I might have relaxed a bit more but I was determined to get into medical school and thought I'd have to work really hard to be accepted.

At medical school pretty much everyone there has topped their high school, or come close, and the general consensus amongst my cohort was that the work wasn't too hard but the volume was huge. For me, the volume would have been overwhelming had I not already established decent study habits. True, there were some amazingly brilliant people who seemed to coast with minimal effort but they were rare. In fact, the woman who ended up topping our year at the end of the degree wasn't neceassarily the cleverest but she was definitely the most organised. Overall I was probably above average throughout those years, although I shone a bit more in my specialist exams.

Anyway, I think intrinsic motivation is a better indicator of academic success than just a number. Furthermore, "not quite gifted", could well have been gifted on another day and with another tester.

Thanks for this, Tigerle! I'm glad I'm not the only one horrified at the idea of being tested at this stage of their life. After a decade of sleep deprivation, some days I'm not sure I could break 100.

I was identified as gifted in third grade. After experiencing my now 18 year old son, who has dyslexia, I'm pretty sure that I have it as well, though not as severely as he does.

My husband entered school a year early, not necessarily because he was considered gifted, but because he was the third child and his mother was...tired. He went on to get a PhD in chemistry at a top ranked university, so I'm assuming he is gifted.

My father is profoundly gifted. He went to a tippy top ranked science and engineering school for both his BS and his PhD and was a professor at a top ranked institution for his entire career. He is known for his creative solutions to physical problems and his ability in applied mathematics.

My mother was a top student in school and she got the highest score you can get on the Miller Analogies Test, which I assume means something.

My grandfather on my mother's side was, according to family lore, a math and music prodigy. He was given a full scholarship to a prestigious school and skipped three grades. He had to drop out of school at age 13 or so when his father died.

My husband's father was a very successful electrical engineer and later an even more successful businessman. He was very obviously gifted, though I don't know if he was ever identified as gifted in school.

My husband's mother was identified as gifted in school. Both of her brothers are/were very successful in their careers (physician and professor).

I have one 2E kid who tests as HGish and another kid who tests as HG+. I see bits of myself in both of them.

Wow. This board does do wonders for my humility!

Regarding nature/nurture, researchers have suggested that nurture begins pre-birth, as the fetus can hear and the stimulation "may be shaping their child's brain." In this way, the heritability of intelligence may be due in part to lifestyle choices and not entirely based on genetics.

I've never had an IQ test and neither has my DH. I'm likely at least moderately gifted, but I also suspect that I have ADHD. Most of the males on my side of the family tree are super smart, and have what appear to be language and social disabilities. We never had names for these issues...now ASD, ADHD, specific language disorders would be on the menu if any had ever been evaluated.

My DH is extremely intelligent and although he has a great career, I think he's a significant underachiever-- guy who dropped out of hard science major in college because he liked to party.

My DS is HG+ and twice exceptional. We were wholly unprepared for our DS- a brilliant kid with social and language impairments.

I found my old IEPs last year and saw I had been tested 3 times with the WISC over a period of 10 years and the scores showed my numbers increasing each time. I know I must be at a minimum MG (which is where my last scores put me) considering what I accomplished despite the significant 4 years delay in language acquistion due to late diagnosis of my disability and the one writeup attached to one of the IEPs showed the person who administered my testing felt that my true potential and abilities were not reflected in the testing.

Neither of my parents are native English speakers and my mother did graduate work at a high level US university and became a computer programmer while my father holds two law degrees - one from a prominent law school and one from his native country so he practiced law in both countries. However he was definitely what they called a late bloomer. My mother from the start was 2 years younger than the rest of her classmates and still excelled academically (socially was a different story).

DH's parents were not tested but both had PhDs in hard sciences and although he was not tested, he had a sibling tested as HG+ at the least.

DS's WPPSI scores shocked us especially with ceiling the verbal section and placing him into a gifted environment where even though he is the youngest in his room, he is thriving has validated what his tester told us. DD is still young although her daycare teachers have pointed out how advanced her verbal skills and awareness of her world she is.

I'm not, but my husband and sister are. My husband's siblings are not gifted (I wouldn't even consider them bright), but many of their children are. Two of my sister's kids are gifted, and one is average to low average.

I would consider my sister to be gifted in mathematics only, while my husband seems to be gifted in all areas, his biggest strength is math though too. Our son's strength is also in mathematics.

The inconsistent pattern of heritability in our families is interesting to me. We are really in the beginning stages of understanding how genetics influence intelligence. I wonder how much more we will learn in next 50 years or so and how such knowledge will influence society and education.

I kind of feel like an idiot after reading all the posts lol. I'm not remotely close to being like everyone else but hey I would rather my kid be intelligent I guess lol. But it is very interesting to see how our kids seem to take after their parents!

I do not buy into the 'nurture' begins in the womb myth and believe it to be complete and utter poppycock.

My mother was born in a Japanese internment camp which which is about as far from a comfortable high SES home environment as it gets and still went on to be valedictorian at her high school and get an undergraduate degree (at the top of her class) in Mathematics in 1961. There are numerous stories of Concentration Camp survivors including those born into camps who went on to over achieve. Neither Japanese internment camps nor Nazi concentration camps were environments in which a fetus would have heard an abundance of nurturing sounds of that I am certain.

Interesting question. Nobody except DS has ever been tested, so all the following is based on observation. DH and I, yes. My brother also. My father yes (despite a *very* rough and nonacademic upbringing), my mother probably only above average. On my father's side, his brothers and sisters not (mostly below average) - but don't know enough about the grandparents (they were farmers). On my non-gifted mother's side, my uncle yes, likely my aunt, certainly my grandmother - one of the most brilliant people I've known. On Dh's side, father probably, mother definitely not (average), sister not sure (certainly above average, but also dyslexic).

Yes, there are many anecdotes of survival and overcoming great adversity. That said, the article linked did not refer to "comfortable high SES home environment" but rather to a research study of sound pattern recognition.

The concept of nurture as described in the article did not equate "nurture" with "nourishing" but rather with environment as distinct from genetic material (frequently called "nature versus nurture"). A consideration of "nurturing sounds" as positive, nourishing sounds is possibly a separate point unrelated to the study.

Anecdotes and research studies co-exist and may sometimes point in the same direction. Both can provide important insight.

I believe the influence of sounds in the womb relates to language acquisition, not to whether they are nurturing.
As far as actual nutrition during pregnancy is concerned, I read when I recently got seriously into this (again, don't make me cite sources, we're just having a conversation here, right?) that it is the quality of nutrition before, not during pregnancy that counts. Children born during famine do not show much impairment. Children born to mothers who have lived through famine but born after the fact show a lot.

My Dad...yes..(no test but HG engineer), My mom...probably not but probably above average. Older brother PG (saw his testing), me (not tested), younger brother PG (saw his testing), sister (not tested). I would guess both me and my sister are just garden variety gifted but my sister always played the role of the spacey/ditzy sister (although she really isn't). She also is the most socially savvy/gifted of all of us.

My two sons...one is PG or HG (I have two different scores) and one tests solidly gifted with very very low processing and ASD and I really think without his 2nd E he would be PG too.

My FIL is really smart but not tested. Talented artist too. MIL not sure. DH I would guess mild gifted. His sister has a PG son and another son who is probably gifted with social anxiety and late bloomer academically (coming into his own in high school). He is a very talented musician (as in music teachers are constantly saying he has outgrown them).

Ditto! I often say it's a good thing I've seen all the answers at this point, so I'll never be tested again.

I'm with you, I don't know how smart I ever was, but I'm definitely dumber now, after nearly a decade of lost sleep, split attention, and a focus on wiping butts and noses. Thank goodness both kids had early academic interests or else I'd never have a chance to learn something. I'm just coming out of the lingering intense babyhood season of life and it's surprising me how much it is affecting my sense of myself. (The joke now is that DS4 still wakes me up early in the night sometimes, and then quizzes me on math all day. Some kind of torture!)

Anyway, I'm one of those who realized how I line up with gifted checklists as I was reading to learn about my first child. I was a Regent's scholar here in California (as was DH), and I made a top group of 70 writers out of the whole state once as a teen, for a college summer program. AP, 4.0, all that. But I always just said I was a hard worker. Now I see my sensitivities as part of the deal, and finding friends in a new town, as an adult not in school, made me appreciate my nerdy, probably also gifted friends. I was never in the gifted program in elementary, because my parents thought "those kids were weird" and probably just couldn't handle driving me to a different school. Of course by mid high school I finally had a good group of friends, who had all been in the gifted classes together their whole schooling lives. Meanwhile I was hitting ceilings on big benchmark tests and reading assigned books in one day and having a hard time socializing. Ah well.

DH is probably smarter than me, although it's hard to tell as he's STEM and I'm humanities, in terms of strengths. His mom used to take workbooks to school because he already knew what they we're learning. He graduated suma cum laude, and is a very successful programmer.

But we both think DD is smarter than us. Maybe because she presents differently, so we are impressed, but she seems way beyond where we were as kids. And now DS is really starting up with math and science, too.

DH's dad is an accountant, and my mom is a childcare provider who won a scholarship to the UC system back in the day. She just dropped out because she got married and had a kid, and then wanted to do something where she could be at home with us. But she's pretty smart. DH and I are the big nerds of the family, though.

I'm one of those poster kids for undiagnosed gifted girls I think. I am not sure what my log is/was, but I know that I scored in the top 5 (not percent) in the country (Australia) in a test they give all year 7's. I was always in the top group for everything but because I went to 6 primary schools I never got the basics of maths so pretty much failed math all the way through and thought I was terrible at it. I'm now doing some self directed study in astro physics so maybe not so bad at math after all?
I always felt a fraud and I pretty much just showed up for high school and barely scraped through with a score suitable for a bottom rate university entrance. Because I didn't put in any effort I was never offered or put forward for the "smart kid stuff" which I think only exacerbated the feelings of fraud. Anyway I eventually transferred to a top rate uni, got a very interesting degree in political science and subsequentially never worked a day in my chosen field (ARGGH) I did eventually sit our states public service exam - I believe it takes 3 hours? I'm not sure but I did it in an hour and I may have been under the influence of something green at the time, turns out I scored above the 99.99% yay me, was headhunted by the military which would have been fab, but eventually decided that I would rather travel and settled down into a nice lovely life with the kiddos.

I think I tested DD4 so young because although I have reached a point myself where I am content with my lot, I would hate for her to go through the low self esteem etc that I went through. My estranged father turned out to be a powerful lobbyist, my mother is one of those people who has no common sense what so ever (note the 6 primary schools above) yet can recall any fact ever known to man (plus a few she makes up on a regular basis). My sister followed a similar path to me but has now worked her way into a high level project management career.

So yes I do believe it is genetic, but if the parents aren't switched on, or are distracted by divorce like mine, or have low self esteem/issues related to gt then I believe generations can not realise their potential.

Anyway I sound like a total whinger, and yes I did have to swallow some bitter pills, but I do firmly believe that intrinsic motivation is what determines your success not your upbringing, sadly I have been very lacking that department! onward and upwards though!!! lifes not all bad :-)

It' interesting to read everyone's family history

My father's family has produced many MDs and Ph.Ds. I am almost certain that my father is 2e. His sister was probably PG. My father said she was the only one he ever encountered growing up who was clearly smarter than him. She scored perfect marks on her college entrance exam but her father refused to allow her to go to college. I hate to say this but her children (2 girls and 1 boy) weren't very smart. My siblings also struggled at school too.

SO comes from a family of engineers and musicians. I think one of his great aunts was the first female engineer in her country.

The funny part is, when I was expecting DD, SO and I used to argue about the pros and cons of retention. The idea that our unborn child might be bright or talented never crossed our mind. I don't think of us as being all that smart.

My Kids are both HG+ but I don't think I am. I was bright at primary but bored rigid and eventually switched off. I am also not good with authority and inclined to be blunter than I should be because I don't know how to go about it properly and can't be bothered anyway.
Gifted doesn't really exist here and kids were never told how the did in the annual national tests so I really don't know. I could be poster child for how to wreck an HG kid or I could be 2e but MG. The boys dad is probably HG+ but he wouldn't have been tested either.

Or I could be where I thought my kids were - sort of 115 to 125.

Puffin that's how I was. I was in honor programs but that doesn't mean gifted but oh man I had issues with authority lol I was a horrible teenager.

Both my half-brother and I (same dad) are MG. My paternal uncle also has two academically gifted children and my paternal aunt has two academically average but artistically gifted children.

My maternal grandfather could make a house out of a toothpick and a piece of string cheese. Academics were not his thing but he can think up anything in his mind and then build it. He drew his own house plans and executed them with only a high school education. His sister was an award winning artist.

Hubby's parents seem above average and they produced DH (PG), middle BIL (no idea on this one) and younger BIL who is a successful professional musician.

I'll be interested to see what DS is like as he grows up. DH can sneeze and learn a new language and DS is extremely verbal at his young age. DH's PhD is in humanities and mine is in STEM so maybe eventually we can tell who's brain contributed what to DS.

I am not gifted, I would put my IQ around 120. Bright.

My children are both gifted.

My tested IQ in elementary school was in the PG range, although I feel barely average after surviving the preschool years of two kids. I think DH is probably HG.

We had the same experience with a very experienced pediatrician commenting on DD when she was a tiny baby. At the time, I was weirded out by it because she was a tiny baby.

I tested as gifted, but with a very uneven profile. DH has never been tested (his schools had no gifted services), but his GRE scores qualify him for any high IQ society out there, though I'd consider that a rough measure myself.

My father is obviously (to me) PG. He's an insane autodidact who knows everything about everything (he can fix your car, plumb your house, teach you physics, lecture on the fall of Rome, and recite romantic poets at length at the drop of a hat) and has published articles in journals in fields not even his own. Unfortunately, his gifts and feelings of being misunderstood probably contributed to some of his issues. So, those genes are out there in the family.

DH and I are both probably gifted. We both had high SAT scores and were always the 'smart' kids in class and had good scholarships to college. I was tested with a 145 IQ when I was like 6 but I have no idea how accurate that might be. I have a PhD in Neuroscience but currently stay home with my son. DH tested out of all the math possible and used to program his calculator to do calculus; he's a great software engineer and has been programming in some shape or form for basically his whole life. DH has an amazing memory, while I think I'm better with general figuring things out types of thinking. My long-term memory kind of stinks. Both my DH and I are the 'smartest' kids in our families but the other siblings are intelligent as well.

I think I inherited most of my intelligence from my dad's side of the family - they have a ton of brilliant people who unfortunately also struggle with drug and alcohol addiction (probably depression?). They have that spark of curiosity about things though, and most of them read deeply and have strong artistic/creative traits. My dad escaped the worst of the environment and I think he's totally brilliant although he didn't finish college. He's well-respected in his field (deep-sea oil exploration), reads and learns outside of work and is just overall impressive to me, especially considering his background. My mom is also quite smart and had good grades in school, etc. Both of my parents grew up in impoverished backgrounds.

So far my DS (who is only 3.5) reminds me a lot of my husband. He's got the crazy memory (which is so far directed towards learning car makes and models) but shows less interest in reading than I evidently showed at his age. Right now the plan is to try to keep him age-matched with peers so that he can get along socially but we'll see how that goes.

Still not certain that our DS (turning two in March) is gifted, but since he read his first word this week, I'm beginning to think it's sealed...

DH is a year away from his PhD in economics--has never had an IQ test that I'm aware of, but he's got to be at least moderately gifted to get where he is. He also has uncles and cousins who have engineering degrees. He has at least one cousin on the autism spectrum.

I've never been tested either, but I'd guess I'm roughly around 120-130 range. After my telling my parents about my toddler's abilities recently, they started telling me stories I'd never heard before about how my brother knew the alphabet backwards at 2 and how I myself read "early." I am now a proofreader/editor.

DS definitely takes after me in interests and I think he gets the intensity from his father. DH suspects he himself has dyslexia, but DS and I have the opposite ... hyperlexia? At 18 months old DS was picking up smooth stones and telling me "zero" and "D" as he handed me one rock that was oblong and another that was flat on one end and round on the other. The kid sees letters in EVERYTHING.

According to my mother, I was the highest score the tester had ever seen at the school (I generally regard this as a myth lol). She tells me 'the number' was 165, but I have no idea what test this would be. It would be most likely around 89/90 - so whatever was popular then, I assume. Honestly, for a long time I never gave it any thought. It wasn't until we had our daughter and she was clearly advanced that I begin to do research. And then I started talking to my mother about it more and I feel through the research I've done for my daughter, I've learned a lot more about myself as well. I definitely don't always feel "smart". I put an extreme amount of pressure on myself. But, I recognize so many of the gifted traits in myself and my daughter. I don't know for sure where I actually fall in the scale, and I don't really care too much. It won't make any difference in my current life. My mother is highly intelligent, as was her father.

My husband, I believe is very likely gifted as well, but I can't say where I feel he falls either.