Well…following some poster’s child score of 200+, it isn’t that impressive. 
We’re at 200 !!! Did I hear 250 on my left? Who’s a taker at 250?
I know it sounds like bullshit claire. I was concerned that it would seem too far-fetched. But I assure you, at 14 he can blow most adults out of the water in just about any subject you care to discuss. Compared to most 30 year olds that I know, college degree or not, unless it is in their specific field of study he’s gonna know a lot more than they will on average.
He and I have been having adult level discussions about math and the various sciences for several years. He actually was awarded citizen of the year by the mayor a couple of months ago. It was based on his academic and various other achievements, letters written by his teachers, scout masters, and coaches. Also included were contributions to the community, fundraisers and several other charitable events in which he participates. ( ie: labor of love, MDA telethon, Children’s Miracle Network, habitat for humanity, adopt a highway and more.)
So, is a score 200 an accurate representation of this young man? Who knows for sure. Will it level out? Maybe, but it hasn’t so far. His questions are getting tougher to answer all the time. He has surpassed me in some areas already.
Do I think 200 means a whole hell of a lot? Not really, it’s what you do with what you’ve got that counts. It simply means that he knows what a person twice his age should know. I’m 3x his age and he’s catching me quick and my score wasn’t or isn’t exactly low. I read a lot, always have. I think that is probably the most influential factor, (that and a good understanding of math) in how well one scores on IQ tests.
Back to what the scores indicate. Not much IMHO. I mean really think about it. GW’s not exactly the brightest bulb in the room but look at what he’s accomplished. :rolleyes:
Sorry 'bout that, I couldn’t help myself.
BTW- IQ scores aren’t necessarily carved in stone. They don’t usually change but can if you really apply yourself.
hopefully for the better
Well, being that I’m painfully norm in the area of IQ, I think I’ll just slink in and back out of here quickly, although perhaps not as quietly as I should.
Something we must consider when discussing an individual’s IQ and the school programs for which they are eligible (special ed as well as gifted) is that entrance is rarely granted based on a single measure. One’s IQ, measured by a standard test (Weschler, Stanford-Binet) gives us a picture of capacity…how much learning this child is capable of attaining. This is balanced against the child’s achievement, or how much learning is actually going on. I find that many people confuse achievement tests with standard IQ tests…they are not the same and aren’t intended to measure the same stuff. Placement decisions are often based on disparities discovered between the two scores. A child with an IQ of 89 who scores x on an achievement test may not qualify for services while a child with an IQ of 120 with a similar score would. In my experience, although this isn’t standard, gifted programs often use a similar matrix, the logic being that a 150 IQ who is doing well in school doesn’t need the services of a gifted program, while a 150 IQ whose achievement scores are in the toilet needs some different programming.
Do that, it’s a very interesting read.
To clarify, it wasn’t the plague, although it sure played a part. It was the act of domesticating animals and living in close quarters with them. From the animals came all sorts of desease; measels, chicken pox, small pox ASF. Humans that survived the exposure to these deseases lived to an age where they could breed, thus reinforcing the trait that made them survive in the first place. For most humans today, getting the measels (measles?) is tough, not lethal. Diamond’s argument is then that ‘we’, descendents from agricultural societies, have survived because our pre-historic forefathers and mothers were resitent to bacteria, and we were not selected for brains. When reading the whole book, I must say that he makes a compelling argument.
As for culturally free tests, no I haven’t seen them and you’re right - a lot of the questions, not all I think, can be read either way. Still, is pattern recognition a sign of intelligence?
I can also recommend Emotional Intelligence byu Daniel Goleman. It’s not a wishy-washy self help book and it talks about a lot of the subjects in this thread. I’m to lazy to write a whole summary, but if this topic interests you, I think the book will give a nice perspective.
Wow!!! you mean we can estimate our kids IQ on the basis of how smart we think they are?
Why has your kid had every IQ test you can think of then, if all that is needed is your estimate? Why indeed would you have the kid do IQ test after IQ test anyway? People who do this are often living vicariously through their kids achievements.
Also somewhat confused by your constant references to CA/MA ratios that haven’t been used, in the Wechsler tests at least, since the 1930’s. I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but a trip to a library and a couple of hours with a psych assessment text book might be of help.
Umm IQ tests are a measure of ability, not achievement - therefore they are not testing “what” he knows, or at least only a small proportion of the overall test does this, but his ability to solve problems, his working memory, his processing speed, etc. Do you honestly believe an IQ is going to increase with his obtaining more knowledge as he grows older? What an IQ score is, is his rank on the Gaussian distribution compared to his same age peers. Please take some advice t-keela and use the prodigious reading talent you claim to have on reading what IQ tests are actually about. For a start you could have a look at “Psychological Testing” by Anne Anastasi - a very well used and respected undergraduate textbook on the subject.
This is not the way IQ scores are calculated. This ratio system was formerly in use for some IQ tests administered to children, but has largely been abandoned because it does not produce particularly useful information. If a five year old scores as well as the average ten year old on a test, this does not mean that five year old actually has the mental abilities of an average ten year old. It also does not mean that this five year old is equally as gifted as a ten year old who scores as well as the average twenty year old on the same test.
Any respectable, modern IQ test is going to score participants based on a deviation system – how well they perform on the test compared to the general population. This is one of the two most important things to understand about IQ tests, but unfortunately it’s not something that many people seem to know. In answer to the subject line’s question, an IQ test does more than measure your ability to take IQ tests…at the very least, it measures that ability and then compares it to the average person’s ability to take IQ tests. The major IQ tests, the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler (WISC), are administered to thousands of people in order to get a baseline for comparison. Scores are plotted on a standard bell-curve with the mean set to 100, and a standard deviation of 15 or 16 depending on the test. Roughly 50% of the population will score 100, with 1/4 above and 1/4 below.
So…
Why you are meeting with skepticism here, t-keela, is that you are talking about the outdated ratio IQ system. A score of 200 on a current deviation IQ test would mean that your son was the smartest human being on the planet. Even if that were the case (someone has to be the world’s smartest human, so I guess it could be your son…if it weren’t Uncle Cecil, that is), the only way to be sure a score that high was accurate would be to administer the same test to every single living person and then check to see if your son outperformed them all.
This brings us to the other important thing to understand about IQ tests. They were not invented in order to show us who is the smartest of the smart. From a clinical standpoint, there would be no purpose to such a test. IQ tests were invented in order to identify children suffering from learning disabilities and mental retardation, and they do a pretty darn good job of this. If a child is incapable of performing a task that others in their age group can usually perform, or if it takes the child much longer than average, this is usually a sign that something is seriously wrong. It is also worth mentioning that the father of IQ tests, Binet himself, did not believe that IQ was set in stone or that low-IQ children were doomed. He wanted to identify them young so they could be helped, so their IQs could, in effect, be raised.
I am the youngest of three brothers; all of us were tested in grade school using one of the supposedly-impossible-to-study-for IQ tests.
My oldest brother took the test first. Afterwards, he checked out the literature available at the public library, and taught my middle brother how to do the test. When my turn came, both of my brothers helped me to learn how to do the tests.
The result was that my oldest brother scored lowest. Both of us younger brothers did rather better, although objectively speaking, my oldest brother is a genius (he is a professor of theoretical physics today) whereas my middle brother and myself are more average.
The tests consist, if I recall correctly, of various forms of pattern recognition. Once you understand the general principles and have done many of these tests, it is relatively easy to do well at them.
The lesson was not lost on me. When I wanted to apply to Law School, once again a standardized test - the LSAT - was required; once again, the rhetoric of the test-takers asserted that “you can’t study for this test”. Nonsense. I studied hard, with many sample tests in hand (and a stopwatch) - and did quite well.
The question I suppose is what this says about the tests. Do they measure “intelligence” or not? I used to be very skeptical, and in some ways I still am - but I will note that they do measure such things as family support (having sibs or parents teach you to do the test), or self-motivation (willingness to learn how to take the test).
In other words, to an extent it would not matter what the content of the test was. The test may not measure “intelligence” per se, but it does measure “willingness to perform this difficult task in order to gain an abstract reward” - something that most people are more interested in than “intelligence”, anyway!
In fact IQ tests are used in the U.S. legal system. IQ scores are part of the process determining whether a convicted murderer gets a sentence of death or some other punishment. Linked is the Supreme Court’s holding in regarding the use of IQ in Atkins v. Virginia
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-8452.ZO.html
Here is a quote from that decision —
And as I think you meant to state - scores from about 91 through 110 cover 50% of the population. I suppose the range depends on the standard deviation of that particular test. The other 50% fall above and below that range. Below is a chart I pilfered from the linked site – not sure how this will paste on the board however. Scroll down to the middle of the linked page for a related chart.
http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/IQBasics.html
Classification ______IQ Limits______Percent Included
Very Superior______128 and over____2.2
Superior__________120-127________6.7
Bright Normal______111-119_______16.1
Average___________91-110________50
Dull Normal________80-90_________16.1
Borderline_________66-79__________6.7
Defective__________65 and below____2.2
They are used for that purpose, but they weren’t invented for that purpose. However, the use of IQ tests within the legal system usually does fall within the general category of “identifying the mentally handicapped”. That’s at least in the same ballpark.
The use of IQ tests as a predictor of success for people in the above-average range is a bit more questionable. Someone with an IQ of 160 is going to be much more successful than a severely mentally retarded person with an IQ of 40, and will probably be considerably more successful than a perfectly average person with an IQ of 100. But will they be significantly better off than someone with a “mere” 130? I can’t think of any profession that Mr. or Ms. 130 would be unqualified for based on intelligence alone, nor can I think of any profession where advancement is based on intelligence alone. All other things being equal I’d give the edge to the higher IQ, but other things are so rarely equal. There are many useful abilities (some of which could be considered forms of intelligence, like artistic talent and good people skills) that won’t register on an IQ test at all.
That said, IQ tests can tell us something about a person’s ability to perform many kinds of important mental tasks, like recognizing patterns, remembering things, and organizing information in a logical fashion. Being able to do these tasks more quickly or accurately than the average person has obvious advantages. It’s just not clear that being able to do these tasks more quickly or accurately than other above-average people is likely to give you much real-world advantage over them. The law of diminishing returns seems to kick in here as it does in other areas.
Lamia if you accept the SB LM as a valid IQ test, then 200 is far from the highest score recorded on that test. I don’t know that number but the child who had the highest known score on that test was reading at 18 months, offered a college place at 8, presenting at conferences at a very early age. He makes T’keela’s kid sound ordinary.
If you read Gross or Hollingsworth, it is clear that IQ over 160 for most kids is difficult socially and academically. It’s pretty rare for them to be globally gifted.
I personally don’t think much of the SB-LM. From your earlier post it looks like you don’t either. Unlike other IQ tests the SB-LM actually was designed with the intent of identifying and ranking highly gifted children, but I wouldn’t bother having my hypothetical highly gifted children take it. (Even if it were updated and I trusted its accuracy, I don’t see much point other than bragging rights.) This is not my professional field so I’m not going to pretend that my opinion is worth a lot here, but I do know there are many psychologists who refuse to administer the SB-LM or who will only use it if parents demand it.
Anyway, the main point is that the SB-LM is not the usual IQ test, and as you know a score of 200 there doesn’t translate to a 200 on the SB-V or WISC-III. And it seems that t-keela’s son did not in fact score a 200 on any test at all, that’s just her estimate based on the ratio system. Perhaps it is an accurate estimate under those terms. I just wanted to make it clear to her that people are going to question claims that her son has an IQ of 200 because the ratio scoring system is no longer in common use and the deviation scoring system cannot accurately test that high.
*Heck, my IQ is significantly below 160 and I certainly had enough difficulties in school. I wouldn’t say no to a 160 IQ now, but as a kid I’m sure it wouldn’t have made me any happier. Far from it. I probably would have done better socially had I been more…normal. I suspect the same goes for most of the highly-intelligent adults I know, many of whom are quite pleasant and well-adjusted, but all of whom had difficulty fitting in with the other kids when they were young.
This is another reason that leads me to suspect that most people are likely to get “maximum return” on their IQ at (or perhaps slightly below) two standard deviations above the norm. Higher than that and the drawbacks to growing up as a brainiac freak may balance or outweigh the advantages of higher intelligence. Of course, this does depend on the individual’s personality and background as well.
Heh, no, I’m not a fan of the SB LM and I’ve not had either of my kids tested on it. My older child is a poster child for an OMFG score on the SB LM but it would have given me no useful info and I don’t do the bragging thing with the number. I also don’t believe the IQ scores from the SB LM. There’s entirely too many kids with insane high scores even if you believe the theory that there is a hump at either end of the bellcurve. Ummmmm by hump I mean little curve so it’s got 3 bellcurves. Does that make sense?
Hollingsworth in her book Children with IQ 160 and above talks about an ideal level of IQ and it is 2 standard deviations above the norm. Those people tend to be socially appropriate and have an easier time all around.
I know there are some parents who think it’s necessary to pin down high scores more accurately so their kids can receive education appropriate to their level, but I’m unfamiliar with any school programs that actually distinguish between “gifted” and “super gifted”. It seems that the better programs generally give students a lot of freedom to pursue independant study and work on their own projects, so it’s not like the mega-geniuses are going to be stifled by sharing a classroom with the slightly less brilliant. It would be nice if mainstream classes could be structured the same way so above-average kids wouldn’t feel stifled there either. I was lucky enough to attend an alternative high school that did things that way, but I don’t expect to see it become common in the US anytime soon.
*Yeah, I understand what you mean, and you’re right – it would have to be a darn big “hump”.
It just occured to me today because of this thread that I may actually have taken the SB-LM myself as a child. My mother is in cognitive research, so between school testing and being “volunteered” as a subject for people she knew who were conducting studies or training to administer IQ tests I had my IQ tested more times than I can recall. But I do remember that when I asked her about it years later my mother gave me a general idea about the kinds of scores I’d made, but refused to tell me how I’d done on a particular one of the school tests that I had noticed was different from the others. She said it was outdated and produced inflated scores, especially in young children. So although I have no idea what my SB-LM score was (if it was in fact the SB-LM), it was probably much higher than what I made on the SB-IV, WISC-R, and WISC-III.
*Really? I thought that was just my own pet theory. I’ll have to look into the book and see what sort of evidence she has, because everything I’ve got is purely anecdotal!
Yet another misconception. There cannot be any humps in the curve, the IQ score is defined in terms of the curve.
I swear some folks would argue about anything. The OP regarding whether IQ test only measure the ability to take IQ tests was the point. Hopefully my longwinded response expresses my belief that they don’t only measure testing ability. As far as my simplistic ratio = IQ example goes, I am well aware of the intricacies involved in IQ testing. But generally speaking knowledge/age x100 is still a fair description when casually discussing what an IQ test “measures”.
Why so many tests? Because in Pre-K at SHSU he was in a study at the University. The next year when attending the public school system they were skeptical of the results done at Sam and had them done over at their own expense. The following year I graduated from SHSU and we moved away from Huntsville to UT where I went to Grad school in psych. In order to get him into the GT program he had to do more tests…okay
AND of course there are several standardized tests that students have to take every year anyway. He usually completes his in a few minutes as opposed to the several hours that it normally takes. He has scored perfect in most of the tests he has done.
Am I living through him…jesus, get fucking real. I have simply tried to do my best in raising my family. My daughter is physically challenged with Muscular Dystrophy as is my wife. My daughter was in special ed. classes all through school and is finally taking regular classes. Her type of MD has some mental retardation but she’s holding her own and is regularly on the honor roll, despite an IQ score in the mid-sixties. She can’t write and has a wheelchair and uses a respirator. At sixteen she weighs about 80 pounds. It’s been a fulltime job keeping them both on the right track. (Both extremes on the scale.)
My wife…MD too. Can’t work even though she graduated with honors from UT. Physically she’s just not able to do much. Things like cooking and cleaning…driving, shopping, etc. belong to me.
Has my son had problems at school? Hell yes, every f…ing year it’s the same old thing. He’s bored to death because they’re teaching shit he learned forever ago and he eventually acts out. Not in all of his classes. Most of the teachers like him but there always seems to be one (every year) that they just don’t get along.
In the second grade he and I were doing some long division and I asked him what he learned at school and he just rolled his eyes and said, “Dad, they’re still coloring blocks and adding two plus two.”
Sorry if y’all think I’m full of shit. Ya know what, I really don’t care if you believe me or not. I sat down the other night at a friend’s house and taught his four year old son how to read a little music and also his multiplication tables up to the 10’s (and NOT by rote). It took about an hour AND he got it, the synapse fired. Math and music are now his friends. Damned fine potential there. The boy was asking me when I had to go, “let’s do more.” His old man was almost in tears. If y’all can’t understand that, then you lose. g-day 
If you don’t understand it, how the hell can you teach it? How do you expect them to learn it from someone who doesn’t know it themselves? I’m done now, bye.
No, it isn’t. It just isn’t. When people talk about IQ tests they are generally talking about deviation scored tests – tests that compare the individual’s performance to that of the general population. Even if they don’t actually understand how the scoring system works, they may know their own score or the scores of other people and have some idea of what such scores might indicate in the real world.
Discussing IQ based on the ratio system instead, especially in a casual conversation, is needlessly confusing. The ratio system was never of any use except for fairly young children, and in the opinion of many experts it’s not especially accurate or useful even then. That’s why it’s fallen by the wayside.
You are absolutely right Lamia, I don’t why t-keela doesn’t understand this. I am a post graduate psychology student so I think I can claim to know something about it as well.
t-keela’s apparent claim that he
has to be taken with a grain of salt I am afraid, unless he did this many years ago and hasn’t looked at an IQ test since, which his contribution to this thread seems to indicate.
The idea of a “true” anything is one that i find interesting. That’s a subject for another post, however.
I’m not sure I place much stock in intelligence testing, especially the ones administered to small children. I was nearly held back in kindergarten, myself, because I gave answers on one such test that the test administrator wasn’t satisfied with.
example: Q: What do you do when you’re hungry?
(me at age 5) A: I ask my mother to get me some food.
“correct” answer: I go get some food.
Yeah. Answers like that lead whoever that was to believe that I needed to be held back a grade. Keep in mind that, at the time, I was already reading on my own, and the rest of my time after kindergarten in “gifted” classes.
And, lest we forget, Einstein’s teacher thought he was stupid.
That said, do they give kids IQ tests, nowadays? Why would someone get such a test in adulthood?
bamf
If this happened as you say, then the test administrator was a twit who had no business performing that task. There is not one “correct” answer to questions like that on an IQ test. I’ve seen the materials given to test administrators, and an answer like yours should have been considered perfectly acceptable. It may not have been one of the example responses listed (although if it wasn’t, it should have been, as I’m sure it was a common answer), but that’s why there needs to be a human being administering the test and making these kinds of judgement calls. The person you’ve described could just as easily have been replaced with a Scan-tron machine that checked whether you’d circled A, B, or C.
To the extent that IQ tests have value at all (and that is a subject open to debate), they’re only worth anything if the test is a properly designed and normed test administered by a competant trained professional. Given the truly incompetant school testing that’s gone on, and the popularity of completely bogus online IQ tests, it’s no wonder many people have a hard time taking IQ tests seriously. But it is important to make a distinction between the “real deal” and stuff with all the psychological validity of a Cosmo quiz.
*Not as frequently as they used to. However, IQ tests are often administered to children suspected of having learning disabilities. They are also used to rule out the possibility of learning disabilities in cases involving children who are performing badly in school for some other reason. And some schools use IQ scores to determine whether kids go into “regular” classes, “gifted” classes, or “special ed” classes.
*Again, primarily because they were having difficulties that might be attributed to learning disabilities, mental retardation, or some form of brain damage. For people of at least average intelligence there’s not much reason to bother unless they’re participating in a psychological study. Some people are just curious of course, and some want to join one of the various high IQ socieities like Mensa.
That might be true, but does not indicate an IQ of 200, which would probably made him the single most intelligent individual on the planet or something similar.
It doesn’t work like that or else, there would be people (him included, actually, since you’re three times his age) with IQ of 300 or 400. And on the other end of the scale, there would be retarded old people with an IQ of 10 or 20, since they’re less smart than an average eight year old. And your IQ or your son’s IQ would decrease each year, since you’re growing older. Comparing two people of identical average intelligence, one being 100 y.o. and the other 20 y.o., then either the first would have an IQ of 20 or the second would have an IQ of 500, if it worked this way.
And by the way, extended knowledge, since you mention it, theorically shouldn’t being taken into account in the IQ. An illiterate shepherd could have a very high IQ, despite totally lacking what is usually considered basic knowledge (though he might be exceptionnally aknowledgeable about sheeps).