Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Nature versus nurture

I know this has been widely debated and researched, but wanted any personal feelings about this. My DYS DS9 is in 3rd grade in a public school. We supplement his education with online courses and partial homeschooling. He is able to learn at a much faster rate than what is taught at school. Does he get ahead because of his natural IQ, or is it because we supplement him with the resources, and instill value in education, and have a positive attitude about learning?
What if we took 2 of the brightest students in each third grade class in a typical school and provided them with the same educational resources, etc. how many would be able to do just as well or better? Does the other student's IQ really matter or is it their work efforts/achievements that matter?Is my son special or is it the Environmental factors that contribute to his faster pace of learning what matters most? I would like to know if anyone has any ideas, feedback, or research that has been done on this type nature versus nurture questions.

The answer is "it depends."

IQ is only one factor in scholastic success. Other factors include motivation, the presence or absence of individual learning disabilities (e.g. dyslexia), physical health, the home environment, and etc. etc.

It isn't as clear cut. You talk of taking two bright kids - they might. What about 2 kids below 85? Below 70? 70 is only the same below as moderately gifted but kids at that level are usually obviously challenged. I suspect nurture works on top of nature.

This question always interests me - I never understand why it's positioned as an either/or (or "vs.").

Take two kids with equal, high intellectual ability. Have one slog through standard school curriculum while the other gets the enrichment, support, etc. as described. The latter is likely to have a better outcame.

Put a high performer and an average performer through the same process - wither standard or enriched, and the high performer is likely to have a better outcome.

"Does the other student's IQ really matter or is it their work efforts/achievements that matter"

"Both" seems to be the obvious answer to me.

Support and enrich an average performer and put a high performer through a mediocre, standard development process and, at some level, they'll have similar outcomes.

I don't think only one of them is important. They're closer to additive/multiplicative.

Theoretically let's say my son's IQ puts him at the one in 1:50,000 group. Therefore, according to IQ, it's pretty rare that another high achieving third grader in a typical school would be able to achieve as high as he could. But I am thinking regardless of the other child's IQ, as long as they are high achievers, they would be able to master what my son can master in that same amount of time if given the same opportunity. So really, I'm asking once an IQ reaches a certain level, for example >130, then are all kids capable of achieving the same great results given the same opportunities or would their mental IQ limit their learning ability?

I like to move the discussion to a different genetic variant that people are generally more comfortable discussing...height. Your kid has a genetic code that will allow him to be very tall (over 7ft). If he eats properly and avoids disease, injury, or growth-stunting medication, he will max out that potential. You could take in another student that could be 6'10 or 6'8 or maybe only 5'7 with those same conditions. Maybe you give that kid some hgh and they end up taller than yours. It is obviously not a perfect analogy for nature vs nurture, nor does it take into account some of the short-comings of using iq score as a proxy for intelligence, but it works for me.

In my area, there are tons of high achieving students - there are constant newspaper reports of kids maxing SAT scores, winning Science fairs, winning national math competitions, selling startups for millions, making remarkable inventions, playing their music multiple times at Carnegie hall, getting accepted to multiple Ivies etc. Given the sheer number of such reports and the sheer number of tutoring and mentoring opportunities in my area, I have come to the unscientific conclusion that kids who have an IQ higher than a certain cutoff will excel if they are given excellent opportunities to learn. And my unscientific cutoff is an Iq level of 135 and above. Please don't ask me for proof This is my unscientific report based on what I have observed. Take it with the proverbial pinch of salt.

Anecdotally, I have seen nurture trump over nature - a young person dear to me had severe auditory processing disorder and a lot of weaknesses in his early IQ test scores were attributed to it. This person's mother who is a music teacher taught him to play the violin and the piano starting at ages 3 and 4 respectively. He practiced every day of his life diligently. At age 16, now, he has no more APD (all the tuning and listening to tone and pitch has rewired his brain - neuroplasticity at work) and he also has high processing speed which is significantly higher than when he was tested before.

I went to an academically selective school with a whole bunch of smart kids from a whole bunch of different backgrounds. Some became academics, doctors, lawyers, etc., some dropped out of uni to make music, or babies, or travel, or pursue other non-academic things, and some took a more creative path opening galleries, working in theatre, making clothing lines,etc.

As a general observation, the students who became high achieving professionals were the ones that came from families that valued working diligently and consistently, and following rules, rather than exploring, creating and bending rules.

So that's my very un-scientific take on it. In a group of kids who are all (probably) gifted at different levels, nurture makes a big difference.

I definitely think it is both.

I would also like to add that when you consider who is high-achieving, we consider it from the lens of what we think is important, or what society thinks is important. There are very intelligent people who are stay at home parents or social workers, and that does not fit the definition of high-achiever for most people, even if they did very well in school.

Frankly, I think you are giving to much credence to IQ. We know that the upper ends of IQ tests occur more frequently than they should statistically. We also know there are many extraordinary thinkers with pretty normal IQ's (Feynman for example). I think executive function and some factors that we are currently not able to measure have more to do with success than IQ scores. I have a DYS daughter. However, she has exceptional EF and these two things do not seem to correlate necessarily. I think that it is the EF that make the IQ work for her and not the other way around. In her case she did not learn it from me (although her dad has great EF) so I think much of it may be genetic and is just a natural way of processing the world.