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?

Actually Richard what jumps out to me really strongly from this thread is how very often high 'IQ scores' (for whatever they're worth) coexist with SpLDs or other difficulties. Almost like a balancing out.

And how frequently reality (because of effort, provision, whatever) defies the theoretical scores.

Does anyone remember when they did them on TV on a Saturday night with someone like Phillip Schofield? They were brilliant fun when a bit pissed although ex-H got a bit annoyed when I was better at maths than him.

I scored 10 points more each time I did one (were they on every 6 months for a bit?) which goes with the learning how to take the test theory, although it gave me the start of my self esteem, everyone had always let me think I was stupid (I have a tendency to do the odd stupid thing from time to time )

Not much help to the OP at all but I did love the idea of Saturday night TV being national IQ test night.

That's interesting Just5 (AWESOME NN btw) I strongly suspect I am dyspraxic/ASD like my eldest son, just went to school before it was a common diagnosis. Everyone just told me I was clumsy and made me feel like an idiot. Well not that I expect I do really have a high IQ, there is a possibility that tests taken via the medium of Saturday night TV whilst speed drinking aren't as accurate as the proper tests!

You're the same kind of vintage as me then maybe slant?

I used to be told I was 'cack-handed' a lot as a child. Which was nice

Oh yes, very 'cack handed' . Now doing a second degree in very hard subjects and loving it, I might fall over a lot and get caught on every door nob but actually that is no indication of my intelligence. Thank god

The thing is IQ isn't just one number. There's a whole list of bits you get scored on.
For example most of my scores come in at around 120-140, but then I have a single score of 89 for one aspect (processing issues caused by dyspraxia and dyslexia).
That doesn't have anything to do with my actual intelligence. And frankly I agree with Stephen Hawkin when he was asked what his IQ is, 'I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.'

I just wonder who writes the IQ tests. Is it harder to write an IQ test and know that it is an accurate IQ or to do the test? I'm sure there are different tests though that use different scales. My boys have fairly high IQs but due to their autism are never going to be particularly academic, I don't see that as a fault of the education system, it is just life.

Actually Richard what jumps out to me really strongly from this thread is how very often high 'IQ scores' (for whatever they're worth) coexist with SpLDs or other difficulties. Almost like a balancing out.

I am not convinced that there is a correlation with SpLDs and high IQ. To be diagnosed with something like dyslexia I think (not an expert) you generally have to have a battery of tests in areas including IQ and you have to show a mismatch to be diagnosed with a SpLD. That makes some sense in that it is a specific LD - so confined to a particular area. But, as a byproduct, that means that many people going through that diagnostic process find out their IQ. So it is not that disproportionately more people with SpLDs have high IQs than the general population, but that more know their IQ and they can't have a low IQ to get a diagnosis.

IQ has been correlated with many things, but I don't think a correlation with SpLD has been identified.

I think it's all much more complicated than that Quack and I wouldn't go as far as 'correlation' anyway.

There are dyspraxia and dyscalculia assessments that can be undertaken without IQ testing. I suspect you're right that the same isn't true of dyslexia.

So there are plenty of people who have SpLD dxs but have never had their IQ assessed. And many people vice versa. But lots who have had both because of the SplD, who, as you say, would never have had an intelligence test in the general run of things.

There's also the processing speed issue, as Seryph said that can skew full-scale IQs downwards. But I suspect a lot of us tested 20+ years ago were tested by a protocol that didn't measure processing speeds. So all IQ tests are most definitely not the same anyway.

Spiky profiles still often show prodigious abilities in one or several areas.

Similarly, not every individual with every SpLD will have a slow processing speed.

Like I said; massive complicated. But interesting, if largely theoretical.

But I don't blame people who tested as having high ability in any of the domains in childhood, and yet weren't catered and stretched educationally, for being annoyed about it. I would be in their shoes.

And we still haven't found out what the MIL in the OP was trying to compensate for, by harking so far back.

Christ, that reads like gobbledygook. I think my brain's melting in the heat.

I suppose what I'm crawling towards is that yes, lots of IQs are unreliable because they're spiky (some so spiky they're actually incalculable), which pretty much renders them meaningless (all of them) but the fact that there are so many spiky ones around (or would be if all testing was done in the same way) is fascinating to me; that so many people (on this thread and IRL) have such highs and lows in their profile).

Spikiness is sort of the opposite of the 'g factor' that psychologists have been trying to develop IQ tests to measure - a general underlying factor for intelligence.

IQ tests test your ability to take IQ tests and nothing else. There's a reason schools don't use them.

Yes. What do you make of that?

I'm trying to google to find out exactly how many IQ tests have been in mainstream use in the last 40 years, and exactly what they measured, but I don't think I'll get an answer by bedtime.

I mean what do you make of the whole g factor idea quack?

When I was at uni I had an assessment for a disability grant (as I had CFS/ME) and the tester thought I might be dyslexic. It was flagged as a possibility to my parents when I was at school, that and dyscalculia, but nothing ever done.

So I got tested by an educational psychologist using the WAIS and came out with an IQ of 140+.

I have 3 degrees, one a masters and I'm absolutely no better off for any of it. IQ is fundamentally flawed imo. I suspect my ASD DS will also score highly, but he doesn't get on well with the standardise national curriculum. School notes he has 'flashes of brilliance' but are otherwise uninterested, much like it was for me - they were so busy making me do handwriting drills because my writing was scruffy, they didn't notice I was programming the school computer. And as my IQ hasn't helped me one iota, I don't have the money to send DS to the posh independent montessori school I think he would thrive at.

*standardised

Claim ridiculous IQ, can't fucking spell this is why they thought I was dyslexic

Interesting indeed that so many high IQs co-exist with some SpLDs. In my case it's ADHD, not a known thing when I was at school. We had IQ tests when I was about 10, but when the outcomes were being given to pupils to show our parents, the teacher stopped at my desk and said "This can't be right. I'll get it checked". Heard nothing further.

School performance was up and down, a model pupil in the interesting classes, a disruptive delinquent in the boring ones. Didn't get great qualificiations. Like a PP I joined Mensa to prove (to myself mostly) that I wasn't an idiot. Decided to have a crack at college as a mature student just six years ago, found it too hard, but on the advice of an acquaintance I spoke to my GP, got assessed and diagnosed for ADHD and got all the support I needed to finish college, then went on to do a degree. I nearly quit so many times but I made it.

I can understand schools not picking up on these issues one way or another. When I was good I was very, very good, but not enough to be outstanding. When I was bad I was below average - how would anyone have given me a second thought? Having a high IQ with a LD, especially when many of them are still not fully understood, will always mean that each issue somewhat tempers the other, making them both much harder to spot.

My study support worker, on hearing of my very late ADHD diagnosis (50+) told me that after the diagnosis I needed time to grieve for the life I could have had, which I thought was a tad dramatic. I don't feel let down by anyone, or by the system, my life may or may not have been different, but that doesn't mean I regret the life I've had.

I eventually took the Mensa thing off my CV because no one was impressed and it started to feel a but wanky. But I retain my membership because I'm so unused to achieving anything that I keep thinking my degree was a fluke, and one day the uni. will realise their mistake and ask for it back! Whereas Mensa will only throw me out if i stop paying.

And as my IQ hasn't helped me one iota, I don't have the money to send DS to the posh independent montessori school I think he would thrive at.

I know exactly that feeling.

At least the psychologists are doing okay out of the whole thing

I really don't know. I haven't studied this stuff for so many years that I am certainly out of date and rather hazy on what I do remember. In developing IQ tests, g probably has a place in sorting the wheat from the chaff. But that still leaves the bigger questions of 'what is intelligence?', 'what are IQ tests actually measuring?' and 'do IQ tests measure intelligence?'

IQ tests are nonsense in my opinion.
They they are often multiple choice and not in real life scenarios. Take no notice I would say.

IQ tests are useless

Sorry - repeating myself (as usual)

I have done various online tests and got wildly differing scores.
My own observation is that shoolwork in non-STEM subjects , especially up to GCSE, often requires very superficial straightforward answers which 'deeper' kids find difficult

My Mum was a member of MENSA when I was a kid. It was a BIG DEAL in our house, and was mentioned as often as possible. She was devastated to realise I was just a massive spanner who laughed at her own farts. I think she still imagines that out there wandering the earth is the DD she was supposed to have. Lunatic.

My Dad always said that common sense was different to IQ, and whilst my Mum was smart, she was also completely without the practical skills required to survive. He's right; she has no common sense at all.