Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment "within ten points" questions

So we have all heard that siblings are within 5-10 points of each other and children are 10 points or so from parents, but what if one parent has a much higher IQ than the other parent: is the child likely to be ten points from EITHER parent and therefore as likely to be close to the lower one as to the higher one? I am not sure if there is a simple answer for this but was just curious if anyone had any ideas. Thanks.

I don't know if there is any truth to it, but I heard once upon a time that a child's IQ was likely to be within 15 points of his or her mother.

Good question. I thought I had read somewhere that the children will be around the "average" of the parents IQ. Not sure where I saw that. I've also read that children tend to move toward the mean (going lower than parents.)

We've got 3 tested kids (so far) and there is about a 25-28pt different between the highest and lowest of the three (still think our lowest child is higher than IQ test is showing...)

We have one child testing higher than the highest IQ parent and one child testing lower than the lower IQ parent. And then one child right around average of the two parents IQs......

My father is PG in math and science and my mother is average in those subjects. I ended up average to maybe a bit above average in math and science - definitely beyond 10 points below my dad. My sister is better at math than I am and so is my brother. My dd, on the other hand, seems to be very bright in math....not as much as my father though. We figured SOMEONE had to get at least some of his brains somewhere along the line.

(My dh is also pretty average with LDs).

The GDA in Denver has done some studies on this; but it is all very limited.

Now, it is important to understand that all of this will give, at most, are statistics. My favorite example for this is that "men are in average higher than women" is a true statement inferred from statistics. I am taller than many men, and that doesn't contradict the statement, nor it disproves it. In the end, you can't predict anything for one particular individual.

Without all formally having been tested, I am sure that 3 out of the 4 of us siblings are gifted; probably one HG. I am pretty sure our spread is much more than 10 points.

My youngest dd's number is an underestimate (English is her 2nd language), but it looks like it is going to be similar to her sister's (with likely the older one stronger in performance). They are both in that gray zone, between HG and PG, HG according to some definitions, PG from Davidson's definitions. That is where their dad is, his IQ scores from long ago were a few points shy of the PG mark. In our case, it looks like both are closer to their dad than to mine (MG).

But then again, this is all anecdotal.

My third was just tested. His score is one point difference from his brother and 5 points from his sister.
We have speculated about whether both parents have to be gifted in order to have three gifted kids. I was identified as gifted in school, but my husband was not. He never cared for academics and spent his time playing sports. Now, at work they think he's some kind of genius, but at home he can't figure out how to run the vacuum or scrub the toilet. Makes me wonder just how smart he can be.

Yes! Thank you for stating this so clearly! <applause>

The little bit of study that has been done suggests that MOST (not all!) siblings are within 10 IQ points of one another. That is in no way a guarantee that all are. For that reason, this is inaccurate:



In fact, the only thing that we know for sure is that NOT all siblings are within 10 points of one another because not all who were studied were. One exception disproves the rule.

The meager evidence does seem to support the "Test one, test 'em all" approach though, since there is a good possibility of GTness across families.

I haven't read anything that I can recall about parents IQs and their kids. Certainly nothing as throughly cited as the "10 point siblings" study.

According to what a GT educator told me she had heard that kids tend towards their mother's IQ. I think she said some studies had been done?

If it gets him out of doing those things than REALLY smart. LOL

My kids are about 20 points apart.