I am new to this. My oldest son is in first grade. Scored 146 on the Naglieri Test (ability test), which is the 99th percentile. Also have performed WISC-IV by a psychologist. Overall score was 134, but he did extremely well on the perceptual reasoning portion of the test, score of 141, again 99.7%.

As for school, in kindergarten he was above grade level by second quater in reading, writing, and math. It was a half day program. First grade is more of a challenge. He started off the year being one of the strongest readers and is now considered average. Even regressing DRA reading levels because he is not telling a good story retell. He is extremely competitive and rushes through his classwork to be the first one done. Otherwise, he gets "G" or good for grades. Even in math, he received an "O" or outstanding for his math effort, but only a "G" for his achievement level. Teacher says she does not really give "O"s in 1st and 2nd quarters. To me, I see my son starting to shut down - does not want to do a retell with me to save his life. Does not want to do a math enrichment (puzzle) pullout.

I am struggling trying to figure out why his abilities do not match his achievement. The psychologist believes that he is extremely bored and that I need to place him in a private gifted program today. She questioned the quality of his programs citing his inability to hold a pencil correctly and the variance between his verbal and nonverbal scores. School says he is not bored and may not even be gifted program material - not exceptionally curious, etc. They are not going to place him in a gifted pullout session that is starting soon because of his reading level.

Sister in law is out of state, who is an educational tester, thinks that he might have a learning disability. If it is a disbility, the school would not provide sevices anyway because he is performing at or above grade level.

Need suggestions and help....Not sure where to go from here. Is he gifted and I should be persuing this more? Should I leave him in general ed. and roll with the punches? Should I be sending him to private school that we could barely afford to get over the boredom factor until the 3rd grade full-time gifted program starts at the public schools? Would it be a bad move to place him in a gifted program and he really isn't gifted - would he become more fustrated? Thanks for reading and any advice!

I think it is really achievement is not matching potential. Sadly thousands of kids have to find a way through... I would make sure you rule out any basic barriers. And then start looking at your options... will any other school districts with better gt let you in without residency (not common these days but worth checking), what are all the non-your- district options do you have, "private" for gifted can in some cases be charter or catholic schools which - in a few cases - will get you small class size and more attention.

To all, always try to find a word choice other than bored in conferences - rubs them the way false claims of differenciation rub me ;-)

I'm not sure how your district keeps a 134 out of the program. Read the policies on their appeal process - as it sounds like you have test scores and a pysch eval on your side. Advocate and appeal (and make sure barriers are not around) before tossing out your retirement savings ;-)

imho

I would say if your child scored 146 on the Nagleiri, he is mostly certainly highly gifted (or more), at least from a visual spatial angle. The NNAT's highest score possible is 150. Our district uses the NNAT and scores above 140 are considered ceiling level for the that particular test. I had a kindergartner that presented very similarly. I had no idea he was GT before I got these scores, but I did know he wasn't very happy at school. His achievement took off soon thereafter Now he is in 4th grade, and his achievement scores are at that PG level. He actually had quite a bit of intensity as a preschooler. But he invested that energy in using the computer, mastering lego sets for much older kids, reverse engineering duct work and plumbing system, and asking a zillion questions. He never learned to read until he jumped 5 or 6 grade levels of reading in kindergarten. He just didn't have the interest in "school" type work early. He was just intense and curious. I knew nothing about GT until I got the NNAT scores.

I am truly stunned your school doesn't think your child is GT material with those scores, curious or no. I think young boys can have a very hard time if they're not engaged. If you have a GT program available to you, I would jump on it. Your child may be heavily visual spatial too (which would be consistent with an extremely high score on the NNAT, lower score verbal). So that may be something to think about. Anyway, I would definitely tend to believe your testing psychologist!

No, unfortunately our schools are run at a county level. The next county over would not allow us to attend their schools and they in fact have less of a GT program (only a 1 day/week pullout).

Our county providss full-time GT services beginning at grade 3. However, you have to qualify for the program. High test scores is one part of it. A high teacher rating is another part of it and sometimes appears to be more important than test scores. I could apply to the county full-time program from a private school. I think right now might have a better chance in getting into the county program from there. I am just worried if I go that route that maybe his current teachers are right - he is not GT material and will not be able to keep up and get him more frustrsted. I also think by sending him to private for a couple of years that he will regain his excitement because of the small teacher ratios at private school (1:9) and their teaching style (hands-on, individualized approach). The private school is a full time gifted program.

Repeat after me until you believe it "My child is GT material!". I know exactly what you're going through. But you're child is certainly GT. Picking which kids should be IDed gifted by teacher recommendation is ridiculous IMHO, unless these teachers have done some fairly substantial GT training.

This road led to homeschooling for us. I know that option is not available or desirable for every family. But look at all your options and choose what you think will work for a year at a time. You can always re-evaluate later!

The issue with the story retell is that he summarizes too much, which the teacher says is a 2nd grade skill. We need to get him to tell us all of the details, page by page. We have tried practicing with him and he is does not want to do it at all. It is very conflicted in our house about it. I have hired the reading specialist at another school to try to help him gain this skill.

His achievement was above grade level in kindergarten and we are just watching him not progress this year like he should be. Yes, he definintely could be trying to blend in.

The psychologist truly believes that he is GT material and said she would be shocked if he did not get into the fulltime program at 3rd grade with his scores. That anyone who knows how to read scores would know that he is GT. She said she would help us fight it on appeal. The problem is that we live in a good school district/high performing school. Our school sees lots of smart kids. It is the ones that are motivated too that they seem to provide the additional services to. Also he was pulled for a GT pullout in the beginning of the year, before we had any scores. The GT teacher showed up at a conference with me and proceeded to tell me that my son wss not GT because he took longer with the puszzles that they were doing and needed more help than the rest of the class. Psychologist says he is just slower because he has a lower processing speed because he is taking everything in.

I am really just struggling with what is right for my son. We have a 2 day visit scheduled for the private school this week. I guess we will send him and it will help us decide after that.

Generally, I don't think schools have the expertise to help kids like yours. You may want to start reading everything you can and look around at schooling options. Homeschooling is one way to go. Some communities have homeschooling social times and activites.

In our prior school, the GT gave my child extra work, instead of just appropriate work, after they said she wouldn't. Now, I am dealing with underachievement as the result.

You may want to consider a weekend or afterschool activitity that can foster ambition and love of learning. Some ideas - Music lessons, Nature Center Classes, Art, Science, Natural Hist. Museum Classes, Robotics, Chess.

This obviously proves that he isn't good at reading - at least reading and obeying the book called: 'This is how normal children develop.'
((shake and shiver))
Google 'Tall Poppy Syndrome'
more later,
Grinity

Thank you to everyone for your help. His other WISC-IV acores are Verbal Comprehension (VCI) - 121; Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI) 141; Working Memory (WMI) - 110; Processing Speed Index (PSI) - 109; Full Scale - 134. Hope that helps with someone with more experience than I try to figure this out.

My son is really shutting down. Does not want to retell, does not want to do a rain forest project that the GT kids are going to do. Teacher says that his reading level is not high enough for it and he is not motivated to work on reading to do the rain forest project. Does not want to do the GT pullout for puzzles that he is eligible for. It is like he is checking out and it makes me very upset to see this going on.

Oh also I think that his personality plays a factor in this retell nonsense. He is not a flowery language kind of guy. Very cut and dry.

Yes you are right about the scores not adding up. The psychologist is updating her report and I should have another copy tomorrow.

I agree 146 is a very high score and should qualify for gifted program in most school districts. Just to clarify though, our school district uses NNAT2 too, and the ceiling score is 160. For old NNAT a couple of years ago, it was 150.

Yes, we took the NNAT2. The highest score was a 160.

Oh ok - our NNAT was the NNAT 1 evidently. But regardless, you definitely have some VERY GT scores there.

What a shame. The fear is that the extreme emphasis on reading skills in the first couple grades of elementary end up causing your clearly gifted son to identify himself as not smart, or just average, and have that attitude become ingrained. Will the general attitude of "I'm so so" or "school's not fun", learned now, affect how he feels years from now even in subjects he would naturally excel at (like math and science).

What do you think is the root cause of the competitiveness? Does the competitiveness extend to the pull-out groups in which its harder to finish first? I guess I am wondering if he finds the pull-outs more stressful than regular class, for some reason which then has to be figured out. The pull-outs ought to be fun and interesting. Do the rest of the pull-out kids happen to be advanced readers so that the group teacher assumes a reading level that makes him the last one finished?

Polly

You might want to review this information. Wrightslaw

[/quote]
This road led to homeschooling for us. I know that option is not available or desirable for every family. But look at all your options and choose what you think will work for a year at a time. You can always re-evaluate later! [/quote]

It lead to homeschooling for us too! The very best decision we've ever made.

Your son is in 1st grade -- full day. A whole day where he gets feed back from a teacher who doesn't understand or know what a gifted kid is like.

Gifted children are asynchronous. Not everything develops at the same speed.

I've heard many parents on this board and other places, Jan-Feb is when things start to fall apart for a lot of kids. They may have been excited to go to school and learn in Sept, Oct, but then they get negative feed back about their work and they aren't really learning much. It is really tough on the kids at school who are advance.

Just a thought for you. My kid scored better with the Gr. 3 reading material and answered comprehension questions better because there was more meat to it. The Gr. 2 material, my kid only did so-so. Good thing our psyc-ed tester knew to keep going and see what would happen.

Try it. Give your son at home something more challenging and see what he thinks.

Do also read up on perfectionism as that is often an issue with gifted kids and it starts early. Gifted kids often judge themselves harshly expecting themselves to perform at a higher level.

Best wishes! Let us know how it goes...

We're facing an almost identical issue with my son (5, in Kindergarten in a Spanish Immersion program). He is reading fluently, but didnt do well in the "retelling" and especially "making connections" part of the reading assessment. I have been advised to work on these with him since the school can't advance him to a higher reading grade till he passes the comprehension tests.

We tried a few simple readers at home, and I think I noticed a couple of problems. For one, my son reads so fast that details don't really register in his mind (this is a kid who reads a 150 page book in an afternoon). He is a perfectionist, and unless the book seems to make an almost perfect connection in his mind he tells the teacher he can't think of anything. And the main problem is that the first grade readers are so, well, boring, that it is hard to remember the sequence of events

FWIW, my son tested as EG/PG and does not present as exceptionally curious either. He is really quiet and uncommunicative and tends to clam up when the teacher asks him anything. In the earlier grades its the verbal, assertive, confident kids who the teachers consider smart, not the quiet/introspective/shy ones

OP here: Well we did end up moving my son to the private gifted school.

Our thoughts are that we would try the public again if he is accepted into the full-time gifted program in 3rd grade. The psychologist and the private school had both said that they will help/fight for us to get into the program.

Interestingly, the private school assessed his reading level at high 2nd grade. This has made me relax a bit and I am not as worried about a disability or a discrepency between his achievement versus his ability. Obviously I cannot completely rule out the possibility of a disability without more formal testing.

However, right now I believe that my son was extremely bored by reading the "Dog ran to the store" when he is capable of reading so much more. It makes me very mad that the public school was not identifying him as gifted and not offering him the GT pullouts that might have been able to spark his interest in things a bit. There reason - because of his reading level which was low because he was not retelling the story in a certain way. Agh!!! So upseting.

Yippee!
You worked fast! Very brave of you - well done! I believe that this school is your best path into the 3rd grade gifted program in the public school. Strange that a school system that 'gets' highly gifted kids enough to support a full time program can be so clueless about how gifted kids act.

I think you should celebrate by looking through this book

ShrinkLits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down to Size [Paperback]
Maurice Sagoff

I need a laugh after hearing the inside-out logic that was being used against your son.

Sigh,
Grinity

lovemykids....
Your school district is very similiar to ours. the 3rd grade is when our magnet program starts. There is a gifted program for second grade but nothing before. We are finally (in first grade) starting to see differential homework AND class work. Our district will not grade skip and they frown upon subject acceleration... although we will push for it again for math. reading is at level so that isn't an issue for us. Frannie is reading 5th grade level books... just an issue finding content appropriate.

The one positive we have is Frannie will have the same teacher next year for second grade (she is in a multi-age classroom first/second). Her teacher has been great in providing us with gifted advice. She is not her math teacher tho and thats where we have had trouble. She will be her math teacher for second grade.

Our issue was that the school was not seeing my son as gifted, despite his test scores, and therefore was not willing to differentate for us. In fact, his teacher said to me that there are gifted taxi cab drivers - my guess is because of teachers like her who did not look into why someone's ability tests were so much higher than where they are performing and appropriately challenging them.

I am so proud of my son's reading level despite what the public school was doing to him. Imagine what he could have done if someone was there to encourage him more.

Well, need to make our dinner. We are only eating ramen noodles these days so that we can afford the private school.(joking..)

LOL! I think that there is some truth to this, but like to look at it in the larger context:

There exists the idea that working class jobs and gifted don't go together.
The reality is just the opposite. Considering the vast differences in population, my guess is that there are many more gifted kids in working class neighborhoods than in the few 'very best' neighborhoods. I'd love to see some numbers, but I won't attempt it myself.

There also exists the Idea, that the US has a 'pure meritocracy' so that gifted people will rise economically on a consistent basis. I haven't seen this happening in a absolute way at this time, although I think it's a great direction to head in.

Then there is the confusion about economic success being the only important outcome. What I've seen is that for most optimally gifted folks, the usual rewards are just fine, but that as one gets farther and farther into the tail, other things in life become more and more important, sometimes eclipsing economic success to a greater or lesser degree. Females in particular, often find that if they partake in the adventure of parenting, that the deck is quite stacked against making a full economic contribution.

And then we have to take into account personality, drive and twice exceptionality. If a person is PG enough to create a product that is so far ahead of it's time that there is no market for it, economic success would be the worst scale to measure that contribution on.

And -
Phillip Glass, one of my favorite composers, drove a cab for many years.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Just taking the point about a PG person creating a product so far ahead of its time...

It is not about the market, it is about taking away market sometimes.

I had this conversation last week with this Quality Engineer from GM, while vacationinng in Mexico.

I mentioned that the chief engineer from Oldsmobile had this amazing production engine. Articles were written how it was the best production engine ever designed. You walked into his office in Lansing during the 80s and this engine was right there. It was never put into production. Went against Roger Smith's assembly plan of optimized production along each of GM's cars. Just plain stupidity. This quality engineer told me that Ford has this thing, where you stand behind your trunk and you can wave your foot under the car and the trunk opens -- when your hands are full of groceries -- and mentioned GM had this for years but never put it into the car.

On the other side, I remember someone telling me that Cablevision was shown "tivo" technology years before it came out but they thought it would destroy their service pricing model. Not that the technology wasn't good, but why destroy your money model before you have to.

And I bet many great money makers are not developed by PG because they are simple and cool -- like that Tingler -- which I bought 3. The best engineering designs on the assembly floor at Ford were done because the UAW VP made the engineers -- who usually just sat in their office to design the assembly -- come down to the floor and do the job so that they would know how stupid some of their designs were and how to optimize and create better quality.

Ren

WTG Grinity. I'd wager there are plenty of gifted cab drivers. Especially with the number of immigrants who may have been professionals in their native country.

Also, one of my family members, quite gifted, drove cabs for 20 years--own boss, set your own hours, always a different work day meeting different people and going different places.

Money is not the driving force for everyone.

Nor challenge it seems. So why challenge them in their school work?

Ren

I guess it boils down to what you think school should be. I don't see school as a means to a high paying career. I see it as a means to developing individuals and improving society. A society that needs cab drivers and all sorts of people to keep it running.
Why challenge them in school work? If you stifle a child in school, you are not developing them. They need challenge in order to develop.

Great question -
Answer: Because loving challenge is an aquired taste, so if we don't challenge everyone in school, then we lose the chance for folks to find out if they are some of the ones who enjoy challenge.

You're making straw man arguments. I don't know who has asserted that there are no gifted working class children or that the U.S. is a perfect meritocracy. What has been documented in books such as The Bell Curve is that IQ and socioeconomic status is positively correlated, and that IQ somewhat heritable, which explains the empirical finding that a higher fraction of rich kids than poor kids are gifted.

Do you think that same fraction of cab drivers' kids and doctors' kids are gifted?

I think it is likely that a far greater fraction of cab drivers' kids are unidentified gifted kids.

I think it is likely that a far greater fraction of the middle-class and poor have not been identified as children or adults.

I would like to add that a great number of gifted girls and women are never identified and they spend a large part of their life feeling isolated and misunderstood and asking themselves what is wrong with them, when there was nothing wrong to begin with.

sigh

While I agree with the posts that there are definitely gifted (both identified and unidentified) in every walk of life, I think that in LMK's post, it was meant differently, although I could be wrong. I read this as LMK saying the teacher used the comment that there are gifted taxi cab drivers to argue that there was no need for differentiation for the child in question.

I would figure that a lot of people have heard such statements from educators/administration, used as their explanation of why the child requires nothing other than what is being currently offered. I recall a meeting where DH and I were expressing our worry about DS not learning how to overcome challenge. The teacher's reply was that "there are some people who just find everything easy all through life and never have to work at it." She was arguing DS needed no challenge in class -- no harm, no foul. Drove me nuts! I wanted to say, "How about we don't assume that DS will be one of those, and just try actually teaching him something? Maybe just for yucks?" Of course, I held my tongue and tried to be a little more polite than that....

I don't think schools that have gifted programs typically require parents to pay for IQ testing. So what do you think causes underidentification of the non-affluent?

But when you take a look at Murry
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20040302_book443.pdf
at the begining of chapter 2, he says that he broke his groups down into 5 classes at the 10th,25th,75th,and 90th percentile.
So as far as I know, there is no data looking at income in Optimally Gifted, Highly Gifted and Profoundly Gifted catagories, no matter what definition one gives them. The majority of kids in the 'over 90th percentile' catagory can be expected to get a decent-fit education without their parents doing much of anything.

So I would suggest from personal experience that HGs and PGs vary all over the map on many personal characteristics, including income.

I heard about something in medicine once called the Starling Curve, and the expression 'falling off the Starling Curve'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_function_curve
and I've often thought that a lot of natural phenomenon must mimic this. One can be under pressure and rise to the occasion to a degree, quite sharply at first in fact, and then with increased stress, the gains get smaller and smaller, perhaps even being lost. My hunch is that the income/IQ curve is quite linear throughout most of the trip, but resembles more of a Starling Curve as one gets up in the HG/PG zone. Afterall, if the income curve was perfectly linear, and at least 2/3rd of HG/PG kids came from HP/PG parents, there wouldn't be much discussion about how to negotiate with schools, and more about how to find the best private tutor, yes?

Or do I have more straw between my teeth?
Grimity

I'll bet there isn't any one answer to that, Bostonian.

Probably because:

• underachievement is encouraged in those groups
• schools without any resources for G/T kids certainly won't go looking for them
• adults who could identify those children don't know to look (lacking understanding of what G/T traits actually look like)
• adults who could identify those children believe that GT children look like ________ (which is often more a mark of higher socioeconomic status than anything else)
• PARENTS can't/don't know how to advocate for those children (for a variety of reasons)
• cultural factors lead to a parental/familial reluctance for "identification" as gifted (or anything else)
• cultural pull against G/T push leads kids ot underachieve/mask very young in order to fit in
• proportion of 2e kids in that group is likely higher (due to environmental factors), and therefore G/T may be well-masked.

Take your pick-- any and all may be reasons why a child isn't identified.

In our state, and many others, there is no gifted program, no IQ testing except if an LD or other learning challenge is suspected. At least in those states, parents paying is the only route to identification.

It depends on how you define "gifted" for the purposes of creating an appropriate learning environment, which I think is the question at this point in the discussion (not the OP's question...).

I define it as the top ~2% (+2 standard deviations) in a given population. Narrowly, this is "in a particular school" and widely it's "in a small number of schools that are near each other." The first definition would probably work in rural areas. The second would be more useful in suburbs or cities.

For me, "gifted" means that the way you learn is sufficiently different from most everyone else that you need a learning environment that's different too.

Again, this is mean to be about creating appropriate learning environments, rather than picking an arbitrary number such as 130. An IQ of 130 may be +2SD in the US population as a whole, but this statistic doesn't necessarily describe four neighboring schools in the Bronx or a college town in northern New Hampshire.

In our district, they only test kids with a teacher referral. A MG kid from a non-affluent background might not "look" as gifted as a normal-bright kid from an affluent background. Not getting enough food or sleep, having a lot of life stress, having to work to support the family, being responsible for younger siblings, not being exposed to educational resources - all those things are more common in less-affluent households, and can mask giftedness.

Love this! Brushing the dust off the quotes thread.

In NYC, they went with the OLSAT so they could identify cheaply across the whole city. Anyone could take it, it was free -- though I do not know how well it identifies.

Anyway, the result was that there were less kids identified as "gifted" in the low socio-economic groups. Asians do the best, whether in low income groups or not though. In fact, because so many kids did not qualify in lower socio-economic groups, they had to close some of the classes they had before the OLSAT testing, where they just relied on putting "smart" kids in them. So here is an experiment to identify kids in a very large urban environment. And the testing goes from pre-K through elementary grades.

And if challenge is an acquired taste, then isn' it a matter of habit and confidence. I know my kid would rather play with friends than do homework or practice piano but that is not an option. And when kids are encouraged and build their confidence, they rise to challenge, whatever their IQ. What does giftedness have to do with it?

Ren

IQ testing isn't usually what is used to id kids as gifted. Group ability tests, achievement, and scales filled out by teachers are the std fare. Affluent parents with gifted kids who underachieve or who are not convergent thinkers who are identified on multiple choice group tests may be able to pay for private IQ testing. Poor families usually are not able to do so and also may just take at face value what the school says -- your kid isn't gifted b/c his group test scores say so.

Use Occam's Razor. Much research has found East Asians to have an average IQ of 105, and blacks to average 85, so big "disparities" in the fractions of the two groups scoring above 130 should be expected.

My life experience tells me that for purposes of school Giftedness has nothing to do with any specific IQ score. Giftedness is having special educational needs due to being advanced relative to what is expected in their neighborhood school. Teachers have to try and reach the majority of kids in their room. Only a few very skilled teachers can create workable experiences for every kid. Thanks so much for those few but for now the conditions just don't exist for every or most teachers to do this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/12/race-intelligence-iq-science

Leon J. Kamin is professor of psychology at Northeastern University; he is author of The Science and Politics of IQ, and with R. C. Lewontin and Steven Rose of Not in Our Genes.

His article is an expanded version of a review that appeared in Scientific American February 1995.
"The publicity barrage with which the book was launched might suggest that The Bell Curve has something new to say; it doesn't. The authors, in this most recent eruption of the crude biological determinism that permeates the history of IQ testing, assert that scientific evidence demonstrates the existence of genetically determined differences in intelligence among social classes and races. They cite some 1,OOO references from the social and biological sciences, and make a number of suggestions for changing social policies. The pretense is made that there is some logical, "scientific" connection between evidence culled from those cited sources and the authors' policy recommendations. Those policies would not be necessary or humane even if the cited evidence were valid. But I want to concentrate on what I regard as two disastrous failings of the book. First, the caliber of the data cited by Herrnstein and Murray is, at many critical points, pathetic and their citations of those weak data are often inaccurate. Second, their failure to distinguish between correlation and causation repeatedly leads Herrnstein and Murray to draw invalid conclusions." (pp 81-82)
"Herrnstein and Murray rely heavily upon the work of Richard Lynn, whom they described as "a leading scholar of racial and ethnic differences", from whose advice they have "benefited especially". "

"I will not mince words. Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity. But to anybody familiar with Lynn's work and background, this comes as no surprise. Lynn is widely known to be an associate editor of the vulgarly racist journal Mankind Quarterly; his 1991 paper comparing the intelligence of "Negroids" and "Negroid-Caucasoid hybrids" appeared in its pages. He is a major recipient of financial support from the nativist and eugenically oriented Pioneer Fund. It is a matter of shame and disgrace that two eminent social scientists, fully aware of the sensitivity of the issues they address, take as their scientific tutor Richard Lynn, and accept uncritically his surveys of research. Murray, in a newspaper interview, asserted that he and Herrnstein had not inquired about the "antecedents" of the research they cite. "We used studies that exclusively, to my knowledge, meet the tests of scholarship." What tests of scholarship?" (p. 86)
That is the kind of brave new world toward which The Bell Curve points. Whether or not our country moves in that direction depends upon our politics, not upon science. To pretend, as Herrnstein and Murray do, that the 1,000-odd items in their bibliography provide a "scientific" basis for their reactionary politics may be a clever political tactic, but it is a disservice to and abuse of science. That should be clear even to those scientists (I am not one of them) who are comfortable with Herrnstein and Murray's politics. We owe it to our fellow citizens to explain that the reception of their book had nothing to do either with its scientific merit or the novelty of its message." (p. 105)

he arguments they promote are used widely by white supremacist groups to legitimize racial hatred.


http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/genes-race-and-iq.html
"The racial I.Q. gap, he argues, is �purely environmental.� For one thing, it�s been shrinking: over the last 30 years, the measured I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped from 15 points to 9.5 points...As for the alleged I.Q. superiority of East Asians over American whites, that turns out to be an artifact of sloppy comparisons; when I.Q. tests are properly normed, Americans actually score slightly higher than East Asians.

If I.Q. differences are indeed largely environmental, what might help eliminate group disparities? The most dramatic results come from adoption. When poor children are adopted by upper-middle-class families, they show an I.Q. gain of 12 to 16 points."

And since I don't trust myself to be restrained in my own words this is from the NYT review Andrew Sullivan linked to above:

"Although hereditarianism has been widely denounced as racism wrapped in pseudoscience, these books drew on a large body of research and were carefully reasoned...its real value lies in Nisbett�s forceful marshaling of the evidence, much of it recent, favoring what he calls �the new environmentalism,� which stresses the importance of nonhereditary factors in determining I.Q. ... evidence � drawn from neuroscience and genetics, as well as from studies of educational interventions and parenting styles."

deacongirl,

It is clear that the scientific evidence shows that the presence or absence of an enriched environment starting very early in life has a profound impact on later IQ. It is worth noting that the early environment in many poor families is not only not "enriched" but is, in fact, profoundly deprived in many of the dimensions that we know directly impact IQ, such as levels of verbal interaction and direct parental involvement, duration of breastfeeding, presence of adequate nutrition, early exposure to books and quantitative concepts, and opportunity to engage in exploratory play. Deprived environments depress IQ scores regardless of the "genetic potential" of the child.

... and to continue that thought, many of the adults in homes like that are simply not in a position to do much advocacy on a child's behalf.

It may be a matter of financial resources, lack of parental education or awareness, or a matter of a simple lack of time in a single working parent, but most kids from socioeconomically disadvantaged homes won't have guardians/parents that can help them to be identified even if they should be.

Where would most of our kids be under those conditions? Languishing in classrooms where they are slowly crushed into conformity? Or labeled as "problem" kids who are disruptive and defiant?

Most teachers would not identify such children as likely candidates for the relatively scarce "extra" resources of a gifted program, assuming that one even exists in the first place (and in many low-income neighborhoods, it does not).

__Parents who went unidentified may have little reason to suspect that a child who seems "just like I was" is a gifted child, and as most of us know, schools aren't necessarily going to bring it up if parents do not.
______________________

Heritability of cognitive potential exists, certainly. Twin studies have shown that it may be as high as 80% correlatable to genetic potential, in fact-- but that says nothing about racial characteristics, and the fact of the matter is that most adoptive homes are likely to be on the "enriched" side of things as well. Few adoptive parents are going to be in the socioeconomically disadvantaged category and have an adopted twin for a study, so I'm guessing that the relative differences between adoptive homes show only the limits of just how much heredity can contribute-- rather than how little it may matter under truly dreadful conditions.

Ergo, ideal conditions may produce cognitive ability which is limited mostly by genetics... but abysmal conditions may themselves limit potential to far less than genetics would otherwise predict.

Aculady, yes, that is perfectly clear and I totally agree with you. I do not agree with a previous poster throwing out a very debatable and highly offensive claim that has been used to justify racist policies as if it were uncontrovertible fact.

Bingo.
This is so patiently obvious when it comes to eating lead paint chips, but I wonder that people don't get it when it comes to less dramatic situations. There is also the question of converting giftedness into a product that can be recognized and societally valued. I just watched a TV show "Shameless" where there is also a significant thread of giftedness floating through.(We don't get Showtime, but were at a friend's house for dinner - everyone was over 18, thank goodness!) One young man in the TV show makes pocket change to feed his sibling by taking the SATs for his classmates. At least in this example the Giftedness is pretty obvious, but still not a societally acceptable way to use it. The hallmark of human beings is that they adapt to their environment more than any other mammal I can thing of, so my guess is that lots of poor gifted kids find ways to use their giftedness that go under the radar.

Anyway, my guess it that this thread is probably not really going to go anywhere productive, and it's time to start posting recipes on it. I'm making short-ribs in the crock pot for dinner tonight. What is for dinner at your house?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

How can we have an honest discussion about something when people shout others down just for bringing up the idea?


This was an Acknowledgement for advice on "psychometrics and testing." It was in a list of other names. Dozens of people were named in the Acknowledgements section. The "leading scholar" note was in a different part of the book and referred to a review Lynn wrote on IQ in Asia.

See, this is what I mean about shouting. The guy who wrote the Scientific American article was distorting the truth.


The Bell Curve has ~1,000 references. Exactly 24 of them are Lynn's. Chapter 13 is the first/main chapter on race/IQ differences. It includes references to critiques of Lynn's work (e.g ref #s 3, 4, possibly 1). It makes 24 references to Lynn's work and 126 to other papers. Half (12) of the Lynn references refer to a single point. There is also a very, very big discussion about difference of opinion on the subject and the importance of environment. More distortion.

The Bell Curve is a dry scholarly work that cites the literature every time a claim is made. It says that "the first thing to remember is that the differences among individuals are far greater than differences between groups. If all the ethnic differences in intelligence evaporated overnight, most of the intellectual variation in America would endure." (p. 271.) The Preface indicates that many of our social problems come from failure to acknowledge that some individuals just aren't as smart as others. I submit that encouraging everyone to go to college is one example of a bad way to try to solve a social problem.

I'd like to toss out some thoughts in a very gentle way.

Folks here complain regularly about teachers who don't believe that HG+ kids are as capable as they are --- almost as though such a thing as reading by age 3 is simply not possible. Many of us have also complained about the damage caused by those who are uninformed about giftedness and ideas such as "all children are gifted." It's as though people use these ideas to deny the reality of HG+ kids. Perhaps the truth of a self-taught toddler-reader makes people very, very uncomfortable. This can't be.

I would like to submit to the group that the data in The Bell Curve also makes people very, very uncomfortable. This can't be.

Well, why not? No one disputes that other differences between races/ethnic groups exist (skin color, height, eye color, hair color, ability to win marathons, ability to jump, etc. etc. etc.). Why not IQ? This is not a judgment of anyone's relative worth, nor does it claim that everyone in a group has a certain IQ. Individual differences exist.

I believe that pretending they don't creates barriers to solving problems, just like pretending that everyone evens out by third grade creates a barrier to educating gifted kids.

I admit to being baffled by this statement, even though IANASANPTBO. (Requests by PM to explain this standard acronym will be satisfied with alacrity.) I would think that if adoptive homes did tend to be similar, it still wouldn't show the upper limit of how much heredity can contribute because that's in tension with the unknown quantity of how much the environment can contribute. I guess I don't buy the idea that environment matters only up to a sufficiency level at or below that of the average adoptive home, or, if you like, that the average adoptive home is ideal.

Val, I get what you are saying. Yes, there should be a place for uncomfortable discussions to happen in a respectful way. But when the IQ data based on race is presented as if it is univerally accepted fact (which it is not), I strongly object.

I agree with what you say here (sorry don't know how to do the quote thing):

"The Preface indicates that many of our social problems come from failure to acknowledge that some individuals just aren't as smart as others. I submit that encouraging everyone to go to college is one example of a bad way to try to solve a social problem."

But to me the following is crucial:
From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09nisbett.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
"Nearly all the evidence suggesting a genetic basis for the I.Q. differential is indirect...In fact, we know that the I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped to 9.5 points from 15 points in the last 30 years � a period that was more favorable for blacks in many ways than the preceding era. Black progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows equivalent gains. Reading and math improvement has been modest for whites but substantial for blacks.

Most important, we know that interventions at every age from infancy to college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic achievement, sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as a society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to develop their minds."

You've got a point, with our current educational system, where I believe we still have some graduating high school seniors who read poorly or not at all. Those people should be encouraged to become garbage collectors, unless we actually care about them. But if the elementary and high schools everywhere were "optimal", I think anyone with average or better biological attributes would be well-prepared for college-- even, if their interests so lay, for tensor calculus.

I agree wholeheartedly that we shouldn't be afraid to discuss racial (and class) differences. I see any racial genetic differences in intelligence potential to be small potatoes compared to educational problems today, though. This is especially true since here in the US, certain minorities and social classes are educationally disadvantaged, with effects far stronger than those from any biological differences.

I agree, and would add that any conclusions based on physical differences in the brain are bound to be problematic, because of how the environment affects the brain (London cabbie effect and scads of other evidence), even in utero (subpar nutrition of poor mothers, who of course are disproportionately minorities, can affect birth and brain weight).

I would also expect the Flynn effect to be working overtime for less-disadvantaged-all-the-time minorities, as long as they haven't reached the plateau.

Charles Murray has addressed these issues as well (e.g. see Real Education. Again, he cited sources for every claim he made.

He presented pretty convincing evidence that adoption at birth has a lasting, positive influence on IQ (a pretty very strong argument for an environmental influence). He argued that black improvement on IQ and other tests was environmental.

No one is arguing that children at both ends of the IQ scale shouldn't have "ample opportunity to develop their minds." This is another misconception that's thrown at The Bell Curve. "Differences exist" is simply a statement of fact, not a prescription for how to educate.

Pulling this out:


You're implying that genetics plays no role in IQ. If this is true, why do so many HG+ kids here have at least one HG+ parent and/or other HG+ family member?

It's universally accepted that genetics plays a role in hair color, skin color, susceptibility to breast cancer, height, and so on. I don't understand why people pretend that it can't play a role in IQ. The argument doesn't make sense.

Obviously, environment has a role. Heavy cigarette smoking during pregnancy can depress IQ, just like smoking
can increase the risk of developing lung cancer. I'm not talking in absolutes. Biology is very complex and there are no simple answers. But I just don't see how anyone can deny that there is a role for genetics in IQ.

I'll explain my thinking here, if you like, since I think it relates to the concepts under discussion.

The thing I'd caution, though, is that if one believes that environment is the ONLY limiting factor in cognitive development, then any evidence that is suggestive of another causative mechanism is likely to be rationalized away.

The problem that I see with twin studies in their attempts to tease apart nature versus nurture is the flip side of the economic disadvantage coin. That is, adoptive homes are probably more like one ANOTHER than they are as different as two homes from the full range of the socio-economic spectrum.

Therefore, the argument that adoption studies of siblings or twins can represent the influence of "environment" is highly suspect to start with, in my estimation. It's a sampling problem. Adoptive homes cannot POSSIBLY represent the various extremes of environment that exist in biological childrens' homes-- or the adoptions wouldn't have ever been approved in the first place, at the low 'enrichment' end of things. Does that make sense?

So if a 'terrible' environment is a zero and one which is the stuff of fantasy is a ten, then most adoptive homes are probably between a 4 and an 8. For the same reasons that I'd speculate that children born of fertility treatments enjoy an environmental advantage-- because adoption or fertility treatment both suggest a particular environment. One that is advantageous to children-- that is, those are going to be home environments where children are: a) treasured, b) prepared for in every imaginable way, and c) relatively affluent (since adoption of "normal" newborns or fertility treatment is pretty expensive).

Perhaps more useful and objective would be data from homes in which some children are biological and others adopted (provided that one knew the biological parents' IQs)-- are there meaningful differences in cognition between the two categories of children in that kind of home? I'm not aware of any studies on the subject, but they may well exist.

deacongirl's quoted statement, with a bit more context, was:


At least at that point, by adopting that statement, she wasn't trying to say that genetics plays no role in IQ, but that any racial difference in IQ in her opinion has no genetic causes.

I guess an adoption study, dealing with IQ traits of minority and/or lower-class kids raised by non-minority and/or upper-class parents, would seem to control for a lot of racially- or class-aligned environmental differences. Of course, originally socially disadvantaged adoptees might have been environmentally challenged in the womb, and not by genetics. It's an interesting debate.

- Your referee-friend, who will have to read "The Bell Curve" for himself one of these months.

To quote, "press the quote button at the bottom of the post. �That simple."
Eta: if you'd like to quote just a short quote from a long post:
.select
.cut
.paste

Note: just make sure the thing you're quoting stays between these brackets
[don't write here] "what goes here is what gets quoted" [don't write here]

HtH lol bff's

So this will teach me not to delete my posts. Right after I posted that message, I posted another one saying that follow-ups have shown that IQ jumps after infancy don't last. The references are in Real Education. The evidence points to adoption at birth or soon after as being a solid driver of IQ increase. Other interventions...not so much.


The Bell Curve is big and complex, but Real Education is a much easier read (readable on a Saturday). I pulled up some of the papers Murray cited and basically agreed with his conclusions.

I'd like to hear from deacongirl; the statement still sounds absolutist to me. Could be me.

Oh, FWIW, I'm a strong advocate of ensuring that poor people have access to nutritious food and solid healthcare (especially of the pre-natal and pediatric variety) as a way of improving socioeconomic gaps.

Val

Lucconu, haven't you been paying ANY attention to the rumor mills and urban legends about IQ, and education, and etc. The racial disparity has as much to do with what the tests are testing, who's writing the tests, and what the tests are relevant to. When it comes to the final outcome I think doctors kids become doctors and mechanics kids become mechanics (or something in the same paygrade) and the stories we hear about anything different is probably the exception, not the rule. An iq's not an aptitude test, it's more of a scholarly aptitude test, right?
And that's not mentioning what I almost posted last night but I don't why I would hesitate to be so opinionated, maybe because many people HERe, probably made it on their own. Buuuut, most people I know below the middle class who got a higher education it's because their family helped them. And that's never been just for "oh, they've got a good brain, let's develop it.". It's been sacrificing and prioritizing by their family members, risk-taking outside of the family's comfort zone. Also, according to urban myth, this is why foreign kids study harder because they do owe it to their families and their parents will make them quit school and get a job if they don't get straight A's. (at least that's what they tell their friends at school.). Poor American families don't have to threaten to make the kids quit school and get a job, they have to work hard on top of everything else to also make sure the kid doesn't make that popular choice.

Val, I learned that lesson on another forum. I typed something, deleted it to post on a new thread. Someone cut it and pasted it out of context and made it look like I erased it to hide what I said, which was not the case. And then she pm'd me that you cant take back what you say in real life, neither on the webs. So I try to not edit my comments, only to add stuff.
Also, I thought I was being funny because I put your name in deacongirl's quote saying you don't know how to use the forum. Ha-ha-groan.

It's important to note here that IQ may be fairly immutable...

but IQ isn't "performance."

Tools which measure IQ are inherently flawed for that purpose since they by definition measure some form of "performance."

Because of that inherent factor, there will always be some degree of bias no matter what sort of tool is used.


One could design a perfectly valid tool for assessing 'street smarts' in urban, minority children from low-income homes. Chances are very good that my child, being suburban and fairly sheltered, would not perform well on such a test.

On the other hand, it is very obvious that measuring cognitive ability using test items which rely upon situations that my daughter is familiar with (such as purchasing produce, or a lengthy car trip) would be relatively unfamiliar to that hypothetical inner-city child.

Is I right or is I wrong that the tests in use measure academic potential? Legit question. Is that what they're for? I get that the subtests help note which skills the kid draws on more easily and what parts may be frustrating their efforts by not keeping up with them.

Well, theoretically, they do-- but the problem is that any tool for that purpose MUST use examples and problem-solving scenarios that may (and almost certainly DO) introduce bias into the tool itself.

How does one measure cognitive potential with NO reliance upon previous experience? Answer: this is a trick question, because there really isn't any good way to do that.

Someone who has seen a particular type of puzzle has a significant performance advantage over someone who has not.

Ergo-- enriched environments lead to children who 'test better.'

George Carlin said, "Some people see things that are and ask, 'Why?' Some people dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?' Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that ..."

Heehee.

True 'dat.

Yeah, but what's the point of teaching them to test better if they're only likely to follow through with an education only so far, limited in part by 1 someone putting a roof over their head past the age of eighteen, 2 peer pressure to study or get a job, car, and gas money, 3 a nagging supportive loving mother (gotta feel useful), 4 hormones and the early pregnancys and/or weddings.

That's got more to do with finishing an education than being prepped to pass a test earlier than everybody. So the test shouldn't be changed to reflect street smarts because street smarts lead to non-academic life choices. I'm sure there's a study or article somewhere to quote to prove this.

But IQ affects performance when the task at hand requires cognitive ability. And this is where people get uncomfortable.

When, schools fail to acknowledge that individual differences in IQ are real, the system fails the people it's supposed to serve. You can see this in NCLB's assumption that everyone can meet age/grade level expectations or the idea that "everyone evens out by third grade." Society fails in this regard when we promote the idea that "most people should go to college."

Some people need more time to master material. When you push them too fast, they can't learn and get permanently behind. No wonder they can't pass the high-stakes tests. This is just my speculation, but I expect that people in this situation can't develop in ways that are critically important --- not too mention the fact that many probably shut down and learn less than they would have if they'd just been allowed to slow down.

Some people need less time to master material. When schools force them to go too slowly, the same problems are created.

Finally, not everyone is smart enough for college. And this is okay, just like the idea that not everyone can earn a varsity letter is okay. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.

Yet we have a myth that college is essential, so colleges have to offer easier courses for less-bright students. Many people go to college to earn an arbitrary credential (the BA) that is (wrongly) seen as a qualification for many jobs.

The result is indebted people with degrees who haven't learned how to think critically and who don't find jobs that excite them. I've seen studies recently saying that the number of hours spent studying in college has been declining since the 60s. This is hardly surprising if lot of people who aren't smart enough are in college. They don't have the ability. Many can't focus on English lit. for long, and many don't want to anyway. And besides, they're there for a credential and not out of curiosity or love of learning. This is not okay.

I wish we'd use our "you must go to college!" energy to help people find what they're good at and encourage them in those directions. I stand by my statements that the world needs electricians or plumbers far more than it needs more marketing managers or sales reps.

The corollary to that idea is that hothousing is not the same as having a high IQ.

Yes, yes: enriched environments are better in so many ways. But if you give everyone the same environment, there will still be differences in IQ, just like there are differences in height and ability to run fast. And that's okay! I'm not judging or saying anyone is better. I'm saying that differences exist.

Val, you can't say that too many times. "you be you, let me be me, the only possibility I can see"- an old hippy rhyme
Ooh, ooh, maybe an iq test measures "a hunger for things scholarly", that explains better than "an aptitude test".

This thread looks like it has run its course, so I'll lock it for now. Please send me a private message if you have any questions.

Mark