Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Are siblings usually gifted also?

This has recently been de-bunked, using an elegant twin-study method: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10519-012-9552-z?LI=true

That is, boys do seem to have greater variance in cognitive traits, but the X-chromosome hypothesis of why that would be so appears to be false.

Yes, x-linked traits with high heritability show up in particularly distinctive patterns in family pedigrees... and while in some mental health disorders, this pattern HAS emerged (notably, in schizo-affective disorder and in some work in personality disorders, though N's tend to be small); it's not ever been shown convincingly in an empirical population study of human intelligence that I'm aware of.

Even a putative x-linkage in some known and fairly well-defined psychosis-producing and highly heritable mental illnesses has been VERY hard to pin down.

Ask families thus affected and they definitely all know it is true... but there are a lot of other genes involved in the population-wide phenomenon, apparently, because only SOME of the families have the x-linked variety.

Personally, I suspect that this is because the empirical endpoint (a complex behavioral construct) is simply a common endpoint for a wide variety of independent underlying causative mechanisms.

Asthma has also been discovered to be like this; it describes symptoms, if you will, not a disorder with a universal mechanism.

I don't know of too many neurological phenomena that this is untrue of, in fact. MOST complex behaviors have several independent underlying causes. No reason to think that inherited intelligence would be any different.

Just wondering if there is as correlation beyond level of giftedness concerning area of strength? Obviously, kids with mathematicians for parents will be exposed to more math. But do math parents always produce gifted in math kids? Or is it just as common for a musical or verbal, or whatever domain, to spring from such parents? Do kids with LoG in all domains come from same type of parents? Or is it just as likely that they come from parent/s with only a single strength?

Our most 2E child has exactly 15 points difference in FSIQ from her sister, more like 20 in VIQ (same tester and test used), more like 10 points in NV... The youngest has not been tested and is very different from both her sisters, but also similar in many ways. At a guess she will be within 5-10 points of miss HG+.

This article from 1996 says that intelligence is x-linked. I followed the advice in the last sentence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/brainy-sons-owe-intelligence-to-their-mothers-1339099.html
Brainy sons owe intelligence to their mothers
GLENDA COOPER

Intelligent men owe their brains to their mothers, according to research published today in The Lancet.

Growing evidence shows that several genes which determine intelligence appear to be located on the X chromosome, the one men inherit from their mothers .Any mutation on the X chromosome has more effect on a man than a woman because a woman inherits X chromosomes from both her parents, which tends to dilute the gene's impact.

But a man only has one X chromosome inherited from his mother, which is paired with the much smaller Y chromosomes from his father. Therefore, an intelligence-enhancing X gene has more of a chance of becoming the predominate gene, determining the man's basic intelligence, looks and character. It also works the other way; if the predominate gene is not as strong as it should be, the man is more likely to suffer mental retardation.

Professor Gillian Turner, the author of the study, said: "If the gene is the one that increases intelligence then its full effect will be seen in men, while in women the benefit is less pronounced. This explains why some men are extraordinarily intelligent." She concludes that if a man wants smart sons his best bet is to marry a smart woman.

I have three that could be identified as "gifted" depending on your definition. My older two have been identified by the school system based on COGAT (they both had the same composite percentile but a very different subscore profile). My youngest has not yet been tested by the schools but we have independent WISC scores for all three. Their FSIQs are slightly more than a 10 point spread, but mine with the lower score has motor/visual integration issues, which likely impacted her testing (e.g. block design).

That being said, the one with the lowest WISC score has a significantly higher VCI than both her sisters. And for what it's worth, I even questioned whether the one with the highest WISC was gifted at all. In other words, not all gifted children, even siblings, are gifted in the same way.

Certainly not. My father is very gifted in math. I am definitely not. None of his children are gifted in math, actually. I don't think any of us even took calculus.

We actually have extreme, prodigy-level math talent in the extended family (more than one person). I think my father is still hoping those genes will pop up again. (We'll see.)

My dad is pretty smart (he doesn't have an IQ score but you know smart when you see it) and has an engineer degree and began in computers when they took up entire floors of buildings.

My mom isn't unintelligent but she was no student in her day. She has very good intuition and organizational skills and problem solving. If I had to guess above average in intelligence but horrible study skills.

My parents have two HG/PG sons...one mathy (CFO of a company) and one has a career in words.

I never had a IQ test like my brothers and always felt "less smart" than them...but other than procrastination school was pretty easy for me. I tend to think my thing is words and arts and creativity but I liked math. I just didn't live for math. I could have kept going and held my own I just didn't need it and didn't see the point. I had the ability just not the love.

I have a sister who took on the role of the ditzy one of the family but it is all an act that she turns on and off as the situation changes. If I had to guess probably above average but not gifted and it was probably a defensive mechanism living as the baby in a family with a bunch of older HG/PG kids and dad. She is also very creative/artistic with a career that uses that plus business (so math isn't scarey to her).

I don't know the answer to if your parent is Mathy will the children be mathy. I know that all of us (well maybe not my sister) could have gone as far as we wanted to in math but only one had the love to follow that path and we all had different strengths.

My DD chooses to use her brain on different things than I would, and vice-versa, because we have some significant differences in personality. But I tell her that I have the user's manual to her brain. How she learns, how she processes information, and how she expresses information, are mostly mysterious to my DW, and very familiar to me. For instance, when DD was 3 and telling an anecdote, she'd reach for stuffed animals or the salt/pepper shakers to reenact the incident, DW thought it was so bizarre, and I was like, "Oh yeah, I get that."