IQ scores - can they drop with age.....?

[papalazaru]

About 6 years ago my kids were IQ tested (WISC) because we were moving countries, schools etc.... At the time my daughters score was around 120 - which we were pretty surprised at. Fast forward to now, shes in Yr 5 and she's not doing so well at school, we have again moved country and system so part of that is understandable. She is also having a bit of a crisis of confidence.

I plan to go and talk to school and wondered whether I can still use this score to illustrate my point that she is a bright child and not achieving her potential, SATs were pretty average. Or is it possible for a child's IQ to actually drop?

IQ can sometimes change. It is just a test and a number not something set in stone. A change of more than 20 points would be unusual but can still sometimes happen. However, fluency in reading and spelling in children is not that closely linked to IQ - reading comprehension is to some degree - and it sounds to me that it is far more likely that she has specific learning difficulties than the initial IQ assessment was wrong. An educational psychologist could do another full assessment, but I personally think it doesn't help children to get too hung up on IQ. It would be more important to get her some specific tutoring so she doesn't feel so behind.

My DDs both have specific learning difficulties, the younger one has now had three Ed Psych assessments and the scores for verbal and non verbal reasoning that are used to indicate ability / potential do vary a little from test to test. She was first tested in Year 5 (we strongly suspected Dyslexia and she had intensive intervention in Year 2 but we were advised that testing before age 7 was not reliable) and the scores were higher in the test she did at 14 and then lower in the most recent test at 17, but the variation was only 3% (sorry don't recall raw scores but in terms of the percentile of the population her scores were at). We were advised that it was normal for scores to vary according to what happened on the day.

Aside from the value of understanding where her weaknesses lie and getting help with strategies for coping with them, we have found it invaluable to actually understand exactly how able she is, she is dyspraxic as well as dyslexic and very slow which can lead to teachers seriously underestimating her.