Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Do you know your IQ? Your childs IQ?

And if so what tests did you use to determine it? At what age? Are there other tests you used to determine your child was HG+ or PG?

I ask because I've been feeling a bit uncomfortable in some of these threads because I don't really KNOW "how gifted" my DS15 is because he has never had any sort of formal IQ testing. Upon reading the descriptions about the levels my guess is he is HG, but not HG+ or PG.

We never did an IQ or WISC on my son because the OLSAT was the only test we needed to get my son into the gifted program at my school district. My son took the OLSAT in 3rd grade, but we never receive complete scores only the percentage. He scored 99%, ie in the top 1%. But according to the reading I've done on these boards the OLSAT is more of a achievement test than an IQ test. Every teacher/administrator who has interacted/observed my child in school comments on how easily my son picks up new topics. Entrance into the standard gifted program through 8th grade was never really a problem.

I really don't have much perspective. My husband was considered PG when he was a student, although I don't know his actual IQ. His parents probably knew when he was a kid, to get him the services he received. I was labeled as gifted as a child but I know I'm not on par with my husband. My older DD is not gifted and I do have her IQ somewhere in the piles of IEP documents and and testing done for her LD. I wasn't that concerned by the exact score and she was listed as above average in intelligence, but because learning disability she struggled with achievement.

I'm not likely to get my son tested at this point as it will have no direct effect on H.S. class placement. I've just become insatiably curious.

No idea on either count.

I was in the gifted program and offered multiple grade skips at 8 after taking a test (I have no idea which), which was the earliest age for the GT offering locally. My parents didn't need to advocate because the elementary school psychologist had determined I needed substantial acceleration and offered an initial double grade skip. (I was a "showy" child, like my DS.) So ?G for me, based on that limited info.

DS2.25 is like I was as a child, but on a steeper trajectory. When I benchmark his milestones against the Ruf estimates and the children of other parents here, he looks at least HG.

DS had the WISC IV done shortly after he turned 6 and had a traumatic brain injury. He had had the WPPSI done when he was 3 but he was so young and uncooperative that I never really took the results that seriously (he didn't even finish the test). The WPPSI was done because of developmental delays. Then the WISC was done after the skull fractures/brain injury but I didn't know the neuropsych was going to do any IQ testing. When I figured out that's what he was doing (the test was sitting there) I was hoping he'd come out somewhere above 100, esp. considering he was still affected by the brain injury with poor motor skills and impaired vision (I really wasn't expecting great scores from him, I just would have liked to see something that was at least 50th percentile), so everyone was surprised by the perceptual reasoning score of 141. His GAI was in the 130's.

DD took the CogAT in second grade with disastrous results (she didn't finish half the test), and she needed an IQ test for possible entrance into the gifted program. I didn't want the school district to do it so I took her to have it done privately. I was hoping she'd score at least 132 and her GAI turned out to be 150+. I see her and DS as very similar in terms of their non-verbal ability so I was expecting high scores from her based on his results, I just wasn't sure how high. She did much better than him in verbal ability which I was expecting as well.

My guess is if you think he is HG, he probably is. Both of my kids scored higher than what I would have expected (on the WISC at least).

I don't know my own IQ and don't really care, but my PSAT scores were around the 97th-98th percentile, which is the closest thing I've taken to an IQ test. I don't remember my GRE scores. I show an opposite pattern than my kids in that my verbal ability is stronger than math/non-verbal.

My DH and I both know our IQ's. We also know the IQ's of both of our fathers and mothers, and a few other first degree relatives of those people. Everyone in that group is between 140-ish and 17o-something on the old SB-LM, with two NT exceptions. Within that framework, it is amply clear to us that our DD is at least EG, and almost certainly PG. "Very, very bright" is sort of an expectation in our families. Our yardstick is basically one that runs from "bright" through "PG." It's hard to keep that in mind, but on the other hand, it makes DD feel less freakish, I think, so that may be a good thing.

DH was tested in elementary school; I was too, at least the first time, though the SB-LM was used on me when I was about 11-13yo, I think. Happily, this also means that those values are directly comparable to the other individuals whose results are known to us.

DH is HG and I'm well into EG-- my father was PG (170+). Everyone who knew my father has spontaneously remarked on how similar DD is to him. I'm out there enough that I can see how she thinks, even if I can't always keep up with her. My DH can't always follow her 'jumps' the way that I can, which makes sense in light of the numbers involved. She is doing things at 14 that I couldn't do until I was 18-21 (and then some, actually-- since she was about 10, she has done some things that I simply CANNOT do). Interestingly, I'd have said that the Ruf levels were full of... well, something... until relatively recently with DD. I had my doubts about where she was (HG/EG/PG) until she was about twelve or so, and then she took off. Again.

Anyway. We've never seen the need to have the number for my DD. Like your DS, there was never any question of admission to program content that was appropriate for her, and she was very readily identified as "GT" through sheer (half-hearted) performance measures. Whatever has been (realistically) available, she's had access to, so no need in our minds. Even without the number, a 3y acceleration wasn't a problem-- and wouldn't have been at our local B&M schools, either, which is saying something, as we have a LOT of TigerParents here. So the sum of that is that yeah, she's almost certainly PG-- everyone else seems to think so, at any rate, so we're okay calling it that too.

Knowing wouldn't gain us anything, and truthfully we question how accurate it would be if she refused to fully cooperate (and she might).

It's been a decidedly mixed bag to have it, in the experience of the HG+ among us. It was used as a way to 'shame/guilt' many of us for underachievement-- hopefully that wouldn't happen now, but still, the possibility to internalize it exists, certainly.

Life is about a lot more than that value-- it can easily turn into a burden, a legacy, an excuse, a prison, or a curse, after all.

The nearest proxy for an IQ test I have is my SAT, which I took early in my HS junior year, after no prep work, got the results and said, "good enough." Mensa still considered it a proxy for IQ at the time I took it, and the score qualifies me for membership, so I'll go ahead and call myself gifted.

DD took the RIAS as part of her screening for G/T at school, and scored in the 99th percentile. There are other tools that can be used for a more reliable and complete picture, but for the purpose she was testing for, the result was plenty "good enough," so we're not pursuing it any further.

I saw both my brothers IQs by mistake (one older and one younger) both profoundly gifted and I assume my engineer father is profoundly gifted. I saw the numbers when I was an adult.

I never had an IQ test and always felt less than smart because of their abilities but I have come to learn that I am no slouch just not 99.9 percentile. So when people say there is a big difference between pg and mildly gifted, I know first hand.

Both my sons have been tested on a WISC. One at age 8 and one at age 14.

No idea about my own IQ. I know my husband is in the gifted range, but I don’t know the exact number.

We do not have an IQ for DS3.5, nor do we plan on getting one unless the need arises. It’s clear that he’s to the right of the curve, but I have no idea how far. I doubt he’s PG, but the Ruf Estimates book brings me to the conclusion that he’s about a level 4 (note - this is the book, not the online questionnaire).

I understand feeling uncomfortable on the forum from time to time. It’s such a unique population that I often find myself slipping into thinking, “Oh that’s gifted! My DS certainly isn’t doing that, so he must not be gifted!” Honestly, there are times when he blows my mind, and then times when I’m left wondering if he’s just average. It’s like he has bipolar intelligence - but that might just be the fact that he’s 3 1/2.

It’s more the comments/reactions of others that keeps me grounded. We’ve struck up conversations with strangers that say, “Oh! I’ve heard about him! He’s really bright, right?” Really? Because I can assure you that we don’t advertise that! (It’s hard enough to find friends as it is!) It came to the point that the teachers at our play-based preschool told us it was time for him to move on to another school because they just didn’t have enough to offer him in the classroom (e.g., only a couple of 25 piece puzzles and no real peers). We had never complained. I just figured he was happy playing all day.

I have had to be tested a few times for various reasons and am generally in the high 140s, That is how I knew my DD10 needed much more because I knew hers had to be higher than mine. She has WISC-IV for the Davidson application and she is GAI 155. My DD8 is probably closer to me, but i haven't had her tested officially. She has only taken the OLSAT at school in prior years and her scores were erratic.

No; do not know my own or DH's, have chosen not to have DS tested.

One reason: as a child (around aged 10, while preparing for a school entrance test) I once did a whole book of "Know your own IQ" tests (aimed at adults) [gosh yes, that cover's awfully familiar!] over the course of a few weeks. Now, of course this is not the same as a real IQ test. But... from what I can gather it wasn't all that different in terms of the question types. My scores came out all over the shop, from 140ish to ?220, I forget, ceilinging the test, anyway, and not in any particular order - it wasn't a practice effect, just random variation with time of day/mood/whatever.

Anyway, it was enough to prime me to the idea that IQ might not, for an individual, be as stable and repeatable as all that. Since then, while I haven't made a careful study of the research, I've seen nothing to convince me that the probability of getting a number which is 10 or 15 points away from what it would be on another day is low enough to make it worth having a number that might be misleading in that way. I'm quite prepared to believe that for the purposes it's intended for IQ is quite good - but honestly, it isn't intended to distinguish 135 from 125 or 145, and I know I'd have a hard time not imbuing a number with that significance that it shouldn't have. So, better to look at the child.

DS has had some online verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests at school (all the cohort did) and we haven't been given the results. I think we're legally entitled to them, but I also think I shouldn't want them. Can you tell I'm having a hard time with whether to insist?!

The real problem seems to be that we need to figure out developmental arc over a lifetime, which I.Q. tests apparently can't do very well.

I suspect that such arcs are reasonably fixed, with some wiggle room, but not much.

The significance is the nature of the arc for the individual, not the score on a test on a particular day.