To think that if you have an IQ of 170 it wouldn't go unnoticed at school?

[MarksandSpencerfoodjunkie]

Just that really. My MIL says SIL was tested age 7 at school (we are based in the US) and was told she had this IQ. Mil kept it quiet from DS - my now DH - in case he felt inferior with his 140 plus IQ. But my MIL was later told SIL was dyslexic because she wasn't getting on at school; this was in the UK as they both went to school in the UK for a while. But SIL was and is a good reader - she sometimes misspells too and to and their and there but has a good job. She didn't do A levels in fact fought against doing them and went to a technical college instead. My cousin who is a member of Mensa (and quite an oddball it must be said) has this IQ and argued with me that either SIL was badly let down by the education system in both the US and the U.K. Or my MIL's memory isn't all it should be. or are IQ tests just pants?

Isn't 130+ already two standard deviations to the right of the mean? And isn't 140+ a "genius?"

I'd take it with a grain of salt.

I'm in my mud 40s and have now come across more people with IQs above 150+, than is statistically plausible.

Your MIL 'going on' about SIL's IQ might be her clumsy way of bolstering SILs ego? I tend to bolster my dyslexic dd's fragile ego by talking up her achievements

I don't know - if she was dyslexic, and then also if she was the type (like me) to daydream rather than playing up when bored then it's quite possible she would have drifted in and out of the UK education system without much fuss. I did all right but there wasn't any gifted and talented stuff at my school - my English teacher did open his book cupboard to me, but that was about the only "advanced" thing I was offered.

at Arfarfanarf

Spot on!

It's a fact that IQ levels have risen significantly over the past few generations. No one knows why for certain, however children are not any brighter than they were in the past.
Depends a lot on what is being tested and there is a significant cultural level to the tests.

Except for the bit where you say you are as thick as mince - that can't be true!

I had my IQ tested as a child and it was quite high, not in the region of 170 though. While it is obvious when I do courses and tests that I can learn and regurgitate information with relative ease, this ability hasn't helped me to be 'successful' in life when I have other difficulties as a combination of poor parental supervision, poor decision making of my own, low self esteem and depression, and not 'bouncing back' from certain tragedies and horrible experiences.

So I conclude from my experience that although having a high IQ is useful for quick ability to pick things up, lots of other factors have to align in a person's life for the high IQ to translate into what's considered a traditionally 'successful' life.

The difference in mine and the older of my brother's IQ is only a couple of points, but his life has taken a completely different path. Looking at the differences in our lives, I can see that the intersection of parental involvement and other factors like gender expectations, health, personal decisions and personality types, along with tragedy and trauma has an impact in converting IQ into 'results'.

There are also other types of intelligence that are ignored by IQ tests, which must have an impact on life outcomes too. Emotional intelligence for example - those with a higher emotional intelligence will be more easily able to influence others, and able to profit from better interpersonal skills that enable them to have successful partnerships with people, in the personal-relationship as well as business arena.

Therefore IQ tests measure IQ, which can be one measure to indicate future outcomes, but are not that useful in isolation.

I could of course be talking bollocks. I've never researched IQ tests, and have drawn my conclusions from looking at my family and people I went to school with.

IQ tests for children are age adjusted so I think it's entirely possible if she was a bit ahead for her age. I took the IQ test for Mensa entry at 11 and was scored at 172, I was bright and did well academically but I'm certainly not Stephen Hawking! The various silly online tests I've taken as an adult put me around 140 so I suspect I was just ahead of what they expected for my age group at 11.
All that said, all IQ tests measure is how good you are at taking IQ tests! They have no relevance to the rest of life.

Just for the opposite- i took an iq test as a child.

I did very very badly :). I just cannot do those type of questions where they ask you to figure out patterns. Not quickly, anyway. I think I came out in the region of 70.

I now have a phd.

I know three people with IQs of over 160.

The first only just got 4 O levels due to his behaviour. He came from a very working class background and lived in a very working class area and went to the very average local comprehensive. When he was going through school, he was just viewed as trouble and was suspended more than he was actually in school. There was never any question of him going to university due to his background and the expectations of his parents. He left school at 16.

He's since done really well for himself.

The second only had severe dyslexia diagnosed at university. This was missed during school, because he was able to pass tests and developed coping strategies of his own (due to his IQ), and got higher grades than all his peers so no one bothered to check if there was a problem there.

He had a middle class background, but lived in an area which was mainly working class and deprived. The school, whilst the best in the area was still pretty average by national standards.

During school he had behavioural issues but the teachers didn't do anything about it either to stop it or to help him achieve his maximum potential. He frequently used to point out that the teachers were making mistakes. His parents were unsupportive as his elder brother was the golden child and his behaviour was written off as him merely being difficult or the second child.

He's also done well for himself too now.

In both cases they were ultimately let down by teachers and a school culture/environment that didn't encourage them to study or achieve.

The third, came from a middle class background, in a good area and went to a grammar school. He is the only one who was aware of his IQ during his school and not after he left.

He went to Oxford. He's done well for himself, but of the three of them, he is the one with the career that has been 'least successful' when compared with the others.

All of them didn't have exact IQ scores, because they maxed the tests they were given so they only know they were above 160. They are all great friends, even if they are frustratingly annoying and know everything about everything!

I'll leave it to you to draw further conclusions about why but yes it is perfectly possible for such high IQs to go unnoticed throughout school, and IQs of 160+ do exist.

Kids who are smart are very good at finding ways to compensate for dyslexia etc etc and they do often miss out on help because they aren't completely overwhelmed. They probably don't reach their potential a lot of the time.

IMO how sucessful are person is stems from desire to succeed in combination with IQ level but of course opportunity etc play a part too.

I have a Mensa level IQ or at least when I was a teen and it seemed very important. The key benefit I have noticed is the ability to get the gist of things quickly and see my way through a problem. However, the fact I have a good job owes a lot more to hard work, enjoying learning, reasonable people skills, ability to cope with stress and dumb luck.
I've worked with very clever people who fall apart under stress. A high flying high stress job is a nightmare for their mental health.

Now I want to start a thread inviting those of us with Mensa level IQs to share our daftest moments. How about the time I was on the Prague underground and a plain clothes ticket inspector stopped me, and I thought she was a beggar trying to hassle me, and in the end I tried to escape her by running all the way down the platform? It was only once she heard me shouting at her in English that she figured out I was a bloody stupid tourist and went TICKET. YOUR TICKET. It took me about 3 days to see the funny side .

People who feel the need to tell you about their IQ, or the IQ of their children, are probably arseholes.

Older IQ tests used to go up to 200, but now 160 is the maximum, so it's not impossible, and that still makes her very bright. But not at the level of Steven Hawking or anything .

But more seriously, the pattern of a v bright child having some kind of learning difficulty like dyslexia but it remaining undiagnosed because the are doing fine at school still happens. And a lot of children don't achieve their potential because of that.

So people who are dyslexic shouldn't be doing ok?

There is way more to dyslexia than reading and spelling difficulties.,

Yes, an IQ of 170 could go unnoticed in a UK school. UK schools are currently set up to ignore extra talent for as long as possible, to get everyone to 'fit in' with other children the same physical age. Bright sparks are not welcome because they can be more difficult to manage and can be disruptive to the steady drone of teaching. Bright kids (in our family) get bored and into trouble, or learn to underachieve -hiding their light under a bushel - and thereby stay under the radar. I don't know what the system is like in the US. In NZ they will promote according to ability, so if the IQ test confirms other results the child may go up a class / year.

No, sorry, that's not what I mean at all.

Child is v able at school work, but ability + dyslexia means that they are working at the average level of the class.

Parent goes into school and says, I am worried about DC's achievement, but is told everything is fine because they are doing averagely.

So the dyslexia remains undiagnosed and they don't get any coping strategies, while the ability is also unrecognised. Child is shortchanged.

I don't agree that IQ tests are pants. They helped show why DS needed an IEP so badly because his was skewed so badly that the psychologist doing it refused to give him an overall score because she said it was meaningless in his case and instead reported each subscore on the report.

It might be that the test was done using a slightly different scoring system from the modern one?

This isn't uncommon. MENSA, for example, use a scoring system that is higher than the normal WAIS tests used by most educational psychologists, so it would be very possible to score, say, 144 on MENSA but only 125 on WAIS.

I would think the profile ought to be broadly the same, though. It could be that your SIL is a bright person badly held back by dyslexia. This does happen.

IQ tests are not really measures of how well you do in life, though, especially if you are dyslexic. My IQ is 99, which is one point under the average of 100. However, I have never felt at a huge disadvantage in life - though I did when I was a child, and it took me a long time to catch up with some skills.

Both my DC have SpLD (one dyslexic and one dysgraphic) and knowing their IQ was useful as part of the Educational Psychologists report as it showed they were clearly underperforming their abilities in certain areas.
The problem is a bright child gets labelled as a bit below average because they can compensate enough to keep up but are not fulfilling their potential. That is where measures like IQ can be useful to flag a potential mismatch between ability and performance.