But maybe my own perception of "ND" is more like 115. (I'd love to be wrong, LOL!)
Dottie: I'm not sure if this is what you meant or not <I have been kind of skimming the posts today>, but I thought I would throw this out there.
DS's school collects IQ data for all of the kids in 3rd grade. The average IQ in our school district is 116. So for our school system, ND is one standard deviation above the 100 average. So I would say that most of the kids in our school district are tightly packed in the 115-125 IQ range, with a 130 score being defined as gifted. I think this leads to problems for HG+ kids in that a WISC score of 145 doesn't seem to unusual to them. <but that is a whole separate issue!>
I think, when you are born, you have a certain IQ potential. I believe that if you place a child that has a high IQ potential in a non-stimulating environment, then they may not reach their full potential. Or after underachieving for a certain amount of time, the child may surge ahead when given the proper intellectual stimulation. But you can only stimulate that intellectual development up to a certain point that was determined by your genetic or inherited make-up. It is like a gas tank on a car. You can fill up the car with any amount of gas that you can provide. But at some point, the gauge reads "full". Different people are born with different sized tanks.
It does call into question, though, if humans really have an average IQ of 100, or if we have been under-filling our kids during the past century. In previous years, kids did not grow up with the expectation of going to college or focusing on intellectual pursuits when there were farming chores or trade jobs at hand. Maybe the Flynn effect is a realization that kid's intellectual tanks are larger than we have been willing to admit?
Sorry for this rambling post. My brain is so on vacation today. Speaking of the effects of sleep on IQ.... sheeeeeesh!
