Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Can someone tell me what I should think?

Wow...I've had a very similar experience! My IQ was in an average range, yet I was able to increase all of my MSA scores if they did need increasing, and I, too, truly feel that my IQ is higher than a 97, as do my mom's numerous friends. I also think your son is gifted, and in my opinion, IQ scores don't thoroughly test your child on a multitude of areas: they only seem to care about critical thinking. It's great that he improved, though! ^^

Well if you believe that he's at 150, but performing at 125, then obviously there's a performance gap.

With great strengths, there are great weaknesses and it seems to me that the weaknesses are dragging the feet.

How's the emotional and spiritual development? Does he look happy? Is there something that fires his heart?

In my study of successful people, intelligence means nothing. It all depends on one's meaning in life and the passions that ignites the heart.

Find what you love and be the best you can at it.

What does he cling to, what's the thing he can't get enough of, or is endlessly fascinated by? I bet you a million dollars, it ain't IQ tests.

Don't need a fancy shmancy school or program to provide for his passions. Sometimes, a simple set of glass/plastic lenses will do just nicely. Tight budget? Try a eyeglass shop for throw away or defective lenses. He'll probably reinvent optical physics in a few years.

I'll agree wholeheartedly with the second sentence but beg to differ on the first. I don't care for what I do, yet I am quite successful at it and make a decent living to boot. I could not solve the problems that I do without my brain.

your path to success requires the brain that you have.

My position is that one only needs enough brains to be functional. Even loosing exactly half of the brain qualifies as functional (there's a case study out there and BBC covered it).

However, there are other paths or definitions of success that requires minimal brain power and in some cases, none at all (some may call them just plain lucky).

The average definition of success requires the average stock of intelligence. Those on the fringes will need to reevaluate their measure of success.

Dave Thomas of Wendy's fast food created his success without a high school diploma. Ken Robinson wrote about how great people found their epiphany, some of whom were hopeless in school and yet made millions of dollars.

In the realm of success, intelligence is generally overrated and mis-characterized. It's not that having intelligence makes people successful, it's really about life long learning.

A person with high IQ who stops learning after college will be quickly surpassed by a retard who persists in learning. Hard work and neuroplasticity generally take over. It's also interesting to note that neuroscience has determined that emotion is the activating agent for brain optimization and for strong memory. (the brain geeks out there can reference the BDNF gene)

The greatest memorizers in the world use the story method to attach some form of emotion to a huge pile of boring items to memorize.

After these foundations of success are in place, natural intelligence is a huge leverage. It's along the same lines as natural athletic ability.

The lack of a high school diploma isn't proof that a person isn't intelligent. It's only proof that a person didn't get a high school diploma.


Hmm. A lot of your message didn't make much sense to me. For example, I don't get this point at all.

Research has shown time and again that intelligence is the single most important predictor of success at almost anything. For example, the Armed Forces use an IQ test for recruits and places people by their scores. Even the NFL gives an IQ test called the Wonderlic test.



Okay...there's so much garbage in here, there's not much point in even trying to point out the misconceptions and outright false statements. Plus, the use of the word "retard" here is of dubious value at best.

Think I'll go plasticate my brain now; my BDNF needs polishing.

Val

Nowadays the military is testing for intelligence and this little thing they call perseverance - apparently these two factors tend to separate the successful from the less successful.

I also thought that the original iq-test guy, Terman, really was confounded by his test subjects - he followed them throughout their lives, many of them failed to live up to their 'numbers', and many scholars and scientists have puzzled over this ever since.

To answer the original question, no, no one can tell you what you should think.

HG+ kids are considered high risk in school for dropping out, depression, and drugs (to name a few). I find her argument valid in that most 'successful' people who really make a difference in this world are of above average intelligence but not in the HG+ range.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that an HG child will be *working* 3-4 grade levels above grade by age or that they will *test* 3-4 grade levels ahead?

Hi Cocomom,
Would you mind sharing what makes you think this? I'd be interested to hear.

I realize that you aren't the one who came up with this estimation, but I'm really not comfortable with defining LOG like this. It is clear that a child who is working 5-6 yrs above grade level is probably quite bright, but I am not sure that all children who are 1-2 yrs above grade level are even MG. There are a lot of bright avg kids who could easily read or do math for a grade or two up. And my dd11, who is not EG or PG as far as I can tell, has easily read over 6 grades above her grade level consistently from 2nd-6th grade (when they stopped testing reading level) even with a grade skip.

Actually, I'd really hate to see a parent look at this guide and think that a kid who is reading 4 or 5 grades above level is HG+. Dd has friends who barely squeaked by into TAG programming with repeated tests of the CogAT, OLSAT, and WISC and finally got in with a lot of test prep and low to mid 90s on the verbal part of one of the group tests (but not even close on the WISC). These kids do test above grade level by 3-4 grades on reading.

Is Ruf referring to a composite score on an individual achievement test like the WIAT or WJ rather than being that far ahead in one subject? That would make more sense and probably be more accurate. My dd11, for instance, was about 3-4 grades above level on the composite score on the WJ in 2nd grade, which would line up with HG, where I believe she falls. Her scores ranged from barely at grade level on her weaker areas to a grade equivalency of 18+. I do believe that the spread would be less now a days as she has evened out somewhat and is above grade level in all subjects as well as being older so having an 18+ is less impressive in her strengths.