Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment IQ and grade level

Is there an accepted rule of thumb, or something, for how much acceleration a child with a particular IQ might need, say, something like +1 grade level for 1 SD above the mean, +2 for 2 SD, +3 for 3 SD and so forth? I'm not talking about achievement as demonstrated on an achievement test, but where they fit comfortably in terms of actually doing the academic work (not necessarily in terms of classroom dynamics). I realize that children vary a lot, but still, there must some correlation to IQ.

Any ideas?

Not enough data.

At +1SD (so an IQ of 115), you're sort of borderline for whether acceleration should be considered, even if all other factors are in favor, going by the Iowa scale.

+2SD (so an IQ of 130) is right in the middle of what some people consider "optimal IQ," so likely will do fine with no acceleration unless there's some other issue going on.

+4SD is generally the ceiling of the test. So unless you're going to use extended norming, or an outdated test, or in some other way fiddle the numbers, you don't have very much spread in the numbers to run the statistics. Dottie or someone could probably tell you the SEM for a score of 145 (+3SD) - I'd guess there'd be enough noise in the numbers that trying to draw distinctions between a kid with a 145 and a kid with a 155 based solely on one test would not be good science.

Plus, there really aren't that many kids who are skipped a grade - much less multiple grades. And lots of reasons other than IQ for a given kid to forgo a multiple-grade skip (or any skip!).

Ideally, you'd have a study whereby kids are randomly assigned to skip zero, one, or more grades, and the results are compared to those kids' IQ scores, but I'm not sure you could find an Institutional Review Board to approve it. Or a pool of parents willing to have their kids randomly assigned. Lacking that, you're unlikely to get any statistically meaningful data. And even given that, I'd think you'd be ethically obligated to try and help each kid succeed in the grade placement they got, and that would confound your results, too.

I don't think there is much correlation. This depends on the environment available. For a kid able to get real differentiation, 150+ in a regular classroom might be fine. For a kid with access to a highly gifted program, no skips may be needed. For a kid in a lousy school with no group ready for more advanced work and IQ of 150, many skips might be needed. For a kid in a high-performing school with an average performance well above grade level, grade level may work fine even for a very gifted kid. For a super social kid mostly interested in social dynamics at school, academic level may not matter much compared to social fit.

I think achievement is much more relevant than IQ. If a kid scores 150 IQ but has severe dysgraphia and cannot write 20 pages a week, then taking AP literature at 10 may not be appropriate. If a kid with a 125 IQ loves literature and writes easily, the course might be fine.

Keep in mind that IQ is only part of the picture. The child's temperament, social emotional skills, interests, organizational skills and other cognitive factors all play a part in how easily and quickly a child learns.

I've seen plenty of children with relatively high IQ's (high average to superior), that are better off in the regular curriculum. I've also seen plenty of kids with lower IQ's (Average to high average range) that progress quickly and are class leaders.

I'd say that while there might be guidelines, it is important to look beyond the numbers. There is a lot of gray area when it comes to learning and academic success.

Just throwing out a random thought -

If you assume normalized IQ score is strongly correlated with ratio IQ score and then use the normalized IQ score to come up with an "equivalent age" then maybe you could make an (easily disputed) argument that this age would correspond to the maximum appropriate age mate group (assuming that the child's raw intellectual ability exceeds the child's achievement, social maturity, study skills etc.).

For example, if your child has an IQ of 140 and is 10 years old:

(equivalent age/10) * 100 = 140

equivalent age = 14

So an upper bound for acceleration would be four years.

I'm not actually suggesting this be used in practice. I think the other responses are correct. Obviously few 10 year-old children with 140 I.Q.s should be grade accelerated four years and some 10 year old children with lower test scores might be ready for extremely advanced material in some areas. Also, it seems unlikely that you would want to grade accelerate a child with an IQ of 110. But it might be just one way to start to think about an upper bound.

Hi JaneSmith - I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me will be able to provide more insight, but I don't think the AE scores on modern tests are in any way comparable to ratio IQs. Certainly my daughter's AE scores on her SB5 don't correlate in that way (though as I understand it the SB5 AE scores can be unreliable anyway). I might well be wrong though!

I agree that there are so many factors contributing to actually grade skipping - I am wondering though Kai, whether that is what you were asking or if you were wondering if there is a correlation between IQ and the ability to understand work a given number of grades ahead of chronological peers (as opposed to whether it is actually suitable to grade skip them or any accommodations that might be needed to help them actually do the work)? In which case I have no idea - but wanted to check I understood the question. I guess there might be if there were a standardised curriculum (though if a child was not globally gifted then obviously different grade levels would apply depending to their different levels of ability).

Yes, this is indeed what I was thinking about as I realize that the actual skipping in a classroom setting is riddled with extraneous factors.

I always assumed that the scale for the normed scores had been chosen to correspond with the older version of the test. But it was just that - an assumption. I know that super high numbers were more common with the ratio IQ tests, but I ASSumed that when you got closer to the middle of the distribution they were strongly correlated. is that completely wrong? Is there a table somewhere?