What if a person has scattered skills in those adaptive living skills?
Do “IQ” numbers corralate to month age in the lower end of the scale?
Like does an “IQ number” mean that a person is basicly 36 months old or 5 months old or ten months old?
Saying that someone has “gone off the charts” is a bad way to put it. What is meant is that such a person has gotten a score of 160 on the test. His true I.Q. (whatever that means) could be 160 or it could be something higher than that. Saying anything else is purely a guess. It can’t come from the test, because the test doesn’t measure anything higher than that.
I don’t understand what sort of distinction you’re making between freakish and unusual. A score of 160 means that you’re one in 31,000 in the general population. Since far more than one person in 31,000 skips a grade (I would guess that at least one person in 200 skips a grade), if one relied purely on the test to tell if one should skip a grade that would say that you could skip a grade.
The standard deviation definition of I.Q. has been standard since about 1960, while before then the quotient definition was common. That means that while Marilyn Vos Savant can claim that her I.Q. was measured once as 228, since back then they used the quotient definition, anyone of my age or your age would have been scored by the standard deviation method. Anyone who claims to have scored more than 160 since 1960 has been scammed.
I was tested several times in school, having very limited verbal skills, and I’ve gotton use to seeing jaws drop when I measure in the 140-150 range.
Most people realize that someone with an I.Q. of 50 is different. But they don’t realize that someone with an I.Q. of 150 is just as different.
I’m truly interested in hearing from someone with experience with people with extremely low IQs. I regularly deal with situations in which people have measured IQs from the 50s-70s. But my understanding is that once you get below 30 or so, you are talking abut someone who is incapable of caring for themselves and needs pretty much ongoing care. I would be surprised if someone with an IQ of 20 were even verbal. I would really question the reliability - or usefulness - of drawing distinctions between individuals who were so profoundly disabled.
I do not know of any correlation between extremely low IQs and chronological age/development. If an individual is nonverbal and unable to use the toilet, how many months old are they?
But I have no personal experience and would welcome info from any who do.
Another thing thathas not been expressly stated here but goes without saying, is that an elevated IQ score may measure something, but by no means is it a reliable indicator of what we each would consider intelligence.
We see this comment all the time, usually with qualifiers like “reliable” tossed in.
Actually, I think intelligent people do consider (formal) intelligence testing a good indicator of intelligence. Sure; there are variations on trying to define intelligence but if we’re talking g or “smart guy” or whatever, it’s a pretty good indicator.
It’s a much poorer indicator for things like social skills, initiative, character, dependency…on and on…and those things (depending on circumstance) can be equally or more important in overall “success” in modern society.
As a rule of thumb, for most cognitive-intensive tasks, intelligence is necessary but not sufficient, and IQ is a pretty good marker for intelligence. Much of the unpopularity and criticism around IQ testing arise from either its misuse or from the fact that we don’t really liked to be ranked on such a fundamental skillset.
Of course, IQ tests reliably measure something. But what I was trying to get across was that people can disagree on how useful whatever they test is, or whether that encapsulates “intelligence.” As I intended what you quoted, the most significant qualifier was “what we each would consider” - not “reliable”. Sorry I did not make that clear.
I am far from an expert, but I’ve read many things suggesting that many folk believe there are several different “types” of intelligence or “giftedness”. Without researching, perhaps language/math/logic of the type IQ tests measure well, but also interpersonal, spatial relationships, perhaps artistic…
It is not at all uncommon to encounter someone with a “genius-level” IQ score, who is socially clueless. Do you believe that the high IQ score alone truly qualifies someone as “intelligent”? Maybe it is I who is being the pedant, but I believe intelligence is an imprecise term, and can legitimately encompass much more than what IQ tests measure. The same person can be a genius in some respects, and a fucking idiot in others. That’s all I meant.
I also believe that drawing precise distinctions based on IQ scores - especially testing done on children - is of limited practical use. Sure, someone with an IQ below 70 is going to have considerable difficulty doing many things that come easily to someone with an IQ of 100. And the 100 scorer will be the same with respect to 130. But once you get much below 70 or above 130 - and even moreso below 50 or above 150, I think the usefulness in IQ testing in delineating meaningful distinctions lessens considerably.
DtC claims to have an IQ which few of us can match. Yet he seems to go out of his way to offend people, and I suspect his abrasive approach turns off more folk than he convinces. Hell, he and I are usually at quite similar ends of most issues, yet I find myself cringing at many of his statements. So whatever his ability to obtain elevated test scores, is he “intelligent”?
IMO, intelligence does not exist in a vacuum, but instead, connotes some degree of “effectiveness” (yet another term requiring definition!) 
Nitpick, but: Is that actually so? I mean, sure, as a definitional matter it is. But in terms of real-world functionality, I rather doubt it. A genius with the appropriate skill-set, talking with (or writing to) an interested person of normal intelligence can make some fairly esoteric ideas understood, albeit at a basic level. That’s why there is a whole genre of popular-science books - it certainly takes genius to come up with a lot of this stuff, but once that’s done, much of it is comprehensible to people of average intelligence. I can understand what Stephen Hawking is talking about - not in detail, but the broad strokes - if I pay attention and I’m reading books meant for people of average intelligence.
I doubt that holds true for people with seriously below-average IQs. That is, I suspect that people of average intelligence have thoughts and ideas every day that they just couldn’t ever convey to a person with an IQ of fifty, even in broad outlines. Once you get below the level of intelligence needed for easy literacy, huge chunks of the world are cut off for you - permanently.
Going back to my Stephen Hawking example - perhaps I flatter myself, but I’d guess that it would be a lot easier for Hawking to have a sustained conversation about physics with me than it would be for me to have a sustained conversation about much of anything with a profoundly disabled person.
Good point, and I very much agree.
The other thing I was thinking about was the saying, You know how stupid the “average person” seems? Well, realize that 1/2 of the population is even dumber than they are!
He said it was a guess. It didn’t come from the test.
I just meant that their reactions were not particularly shocked. The shrinks didn’t act like it was all that remarkable, just like it was above average but not newsworthy.
Not exactly sure what point you’re trying to make here, but it wasn’t the only thing my parents were relying on, and my schools were willing to do it without any testing at all.
I don’t claim to have “scored” over 160. They said I was over 160, but that the test couldn’t measure it (I don’t remember if they literally used the phrase “off the chart.” That might have been my parents. It was 30 years ago. My recall isn’t THAT good). One shrink said he guessed it was around 165.
I asume the response to the question, is to have the subject’s handlers go through a series of checklists: (on a scale of 1 to 5 the subject can)
Can dress themselves
Can tell left and right shoes
Tie shoelaces
Feed themselves
Talk in sentences
Talk; undertsnad what they’re told
Follow instructions
Remember instructions for how long?
Use toilet properly
… etc.
I doubt anyone really cares about the difference between an IQ 40 and 45.
Also, you can use the above criteria to say the person functions as a “2-year-old” or “4-year-old” etc., which is how many news stories also describe “challenged” people too.
Hmmm… I took one or two informal tests that pegged me in the 130 range. I went to a private school thanks to my parents, but the shock was in dropping out of college and working in the lower end of the real world in an industrial job, and encountering really stupid people for the first time.
Also, there is a moderate correlation between marks and smarts, but not between smarts and success, especially in the corporate world. A lot of success I’ve observed depends as much on socializing (aka butt kissing). It won’t always make up for failure, but it will give someone the edge if they are minimally competent. Also, to be fair, a lot of management involves social skills over technical smarts.
Plus, many “smart” people seem to have Aspergers, which limits their social and empathic skills.
When I took the test earlier this year, they told me I was a 41-year-old with the intelligence of a 47-year-old.
As others have pointed out, measuring an IQ less than 40 is rarely done. Officially, an IQ of 40 means a 10 year old child has a mental age of 4. However, when you measure IQs at the extreme ends of the scale, you are talking about major differences in the results in minor score deviations. At that point, it simply gets inaccurate.
You can take a logical guess of an IQ below 40 by looking at the child’s mental ability and the child’s actual age. A ten year old child who has the mental ability of a one year old would have an IQ of 10.
Dinsdale and others, I can tell you why someone who may be all wrong about views and their thinking can test so high in IQ tests, the reason is they are not just testing intelligence at all, but MEMORY. Remember he said he need not take notes in class to do well? That isn’t being smart at all, it is having a photographic memory.
Yes, you can make a living and seem smart with just that. There are some jobs that is all you need in fact, teaching, foreign language interpreter being a couple of good examples. But it doesn’t mean a person is RIGHT or even smart, at all. We had a smartass at work who could recall every computer rule like a textbook, and as long as that was all needed to answer a question he seemed brilliant. Then he tried to get a high certification test, fails because it “isn’t in the book” but rather he must design something using the rules, see???
Memory is important and ought to be measured but separate from smartness or intelligence. I am just the opposite, brilliant with perfect judgment but with the memory of a Commodore 64. My intelligence is not measured properly by IQ because half or more of the test is a memory test when I had it.
How is IQ caluated at the lower ends of the scale?
Using the fingers, at least until you get as high as ten.
With respect, this isn’t so. Most modern IQ tests assess memory, sure - but they also assess analytical ability. (One very basic way they do this, though far from the only one, is through analogies - “Black is to white as up is to ___”, and so forth.)
Hasn’t everyone in the US been tested in elementary school? I remember my classmates and I taking tests back in the 80’s. And, IIRC, my HS psych teacher told me we could go to the DOE once we were over 18 and get the result.
I haven’t been able to find it again, but once I was reading an Internet site advocating the abolition of the death penalty for developmentally disabled convicts. It described one case in which the defendant had an estimated IQ of 37; he gave himself away by forgetting to conceal his feet when hiding under some bedding – the old pitfall of believing, “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.”
A couple of points: The old Stanford Binet did produce scores that could be converted to a “mental age”, giving laypeople a very rough idea of how the person performed on the test.
I don’t believe that’s the case anymore with that or any other good test.
Again, folks with very low IQ’s (presumed in some cases, because they can’t do much on comprehensive IQ tests) are measured in terms of their functional and adaptive skills. What can they do, and what do they need to be able to do right now. Focus on a needed skill and teach it. An IQ test score would provide very little in the way of diagnostic information beyond what is already known about the individual.
I agree with the idea that IQ measures the kind of intelligence that predicts academic performance potential. Simply put, folks with higher IQ’s may be expected to have an easier time in school and be able to go further, depending on their interests and drive. As has been pointed out, the tests do not measure many other areas that are vital to success in life. Folks with Aspergers, as mentioned, can score high on the test but be unable to carry on a normal conversation or make friends. Others with more modest IQ’s are become happy and successful by virtue of their personality, drive, and social skills.
There are only a handful of IQ tests considered to be comprehensive and which yield reliable and valid IQ scores. They are administered individually by a qualified psychologist and may take upwards of two hours complete. Other measures that may produce some type of ability score include brief tests, some of which test only one or two attributes of ability, group tests, which are often given in schools or by the military, and various other tests, such as the Wonderlic (given to NFL football players) and numerous others found on the internet (on which nobody can score below average…I’ve tried).
Excellent, well my test was long ago, but even then I do recall those awful anal-things you mention and tried after to find out how in the devil does one study for them? They would be fine if there was one correct answer, but in almost every one there are like 3 of 4 right answers and it is just someones opinion which one is “Better”.
That isn’t right way to assess intelligence at all. I remrmber writing down several of them and asking after the test, no one could say what was correct as all were. An example would be for an anal-thing for “Blue” where the choices are SKY, OCEAN, LAKE, Stream, Bird, etc. All can be blue, now which is the BEST?
I remember being very mad that THIS had anything to do with my intelligence, a brilliant person like myself wanted to mark all those, but the test clearly said only ONE to be selected, so I picked randomly. That didn’t measure anything, and yes the other kids said they picked randomly leaving out only wrong answers like say “rabbit” for the above. You are right that this part was not a memory test at least, but it would only measure anything if there was ONE correct answer only, not opinions.
So I have always called those opinion questions. Can anyone explain why they would have many correct answers? How does one study for this test, is there some trick to it?
More recently I tried the MENSA test, and found it was mostly memory test and not logic, and decided I want no part of that after trying a practice test.
Well, “studying” for an IQ test would defeat the purpose. The person tested needs to be completely naive to the test content in order to obtain a valid scores.
Some of the verbal analogies item you refer to are often found on the scholastic aptitude tests, such as the ACT/SAT. They are purported to measure higher level verbal conceptual abilities. They actually do that pretty well. You can “study” some sample items and tests which may help to some degree, but you still have to possess the reasoning abiilty to be succesful with them under actual test conditions with different items.