I think it is pretty sad that patience has more bearing on how well a child does in our current educational system than intelligence. Don't get me wrong; patience is a wonderful trait, and obviously one that is well worth having. But it doesn't make a child more likely to need special accommodations in school. In fact, it seems to me that it simply makes a child less likely to suffer the ill effects of not having special accommodations.
I totally agree here. In fact, impatience can actually be an advantage later on in a career (say a scientist who wants to gets results ASAP and works day and night and discovers something very interesting). I also wanted to add about the marshmallow exam. What about kids that don't like them? Or are not typically allowed sweets? It seems like that would affect the scores too...
As to the IQ test. That's talked about in Nutureshock some. I seem to remember that the 25% stat is funny. It's a reference to kids taking IQ tests at 4 and then compared to later ACHIEVEMENT tests when they are older. At least, that's what nutureshock said... Those could have very different results, especially if you're dealing with underachieving gifted kids.
I also wonder... Would a child hiding their abilities purposely answer incorrectly? Especially if they fell abnormal due to their intelligence? Something like that would show up much more at 17 than 4. What I'd like to see is try and do that same stat on kids that had proper accomidations at 4 and see how they progressed.
No5 also makes a good point. Most 4 year olds aren't going to go along with testing too well and I could really see how that would affect scores.
