High IQ but not achieving at school

[whatanewyear]

My ds is in year 1 and not achieving much at school. He may be average for maths, certainly is below for writing especially hand writing although he loves reading.

He was referred to a multi disciplinary team on the NHS for assessment last year due to a misdiagnosed medical condition and found to have IQ in top 1%. No concerns were raised about disparity between IQ and performance in school at the time. Now his medical needs have been addressed and take less of our focus we can see the huge disparity between achievement and potential. Whilst we understand that a high IQ does not ensure academic achievement school appear happy that he is progressing and seem content to aim for average results for him.

We are unsure how to progress this as we feel that if school aim for average results he would not have achieved potential and school should not be happy with this. We dont know what we should be asking for. School have indicated that they only give IEPs to the couple of children who are at the bottom of the class which he is not. School have so far indicated that whilst their aim is for every child to achieve potential they have not been faced with a child with an IQ report at this young age and dont have a policy to deal with the situation.

IS there anything we could reasonably be requesting? Should they have some sort of measure that follows him through primary school with a target to achieve faster progress each year than average and to reach above average by year 6 so each year teacher is aware rather than us having to discuss this each year. Would being on G & T help or is that irrelevant as he is not achieving anything at the required levels for G & T?

I have an IQ (146) in the top 2% of people tested and I certainly wouldn't call myself bright. I only got B's in my GCSEs and a 2ii in my degree. And I worked my butt off for them.

Having a high IQ doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to be genetic doctors or something, it just means you can process certain kinds of information very quickly.

I am baffled how having a high iq makes some one gifted and talented if schoolwork is average

Seems very obtuse to me for people not to be interested in a spiky IQ profile. I have a niece with a verbal IQ of 146. Her non-verbal IQ is 120, so whilst that's a big discrepancy, both are considerably above average (and within the non-verbal IQ are some high scores and some considerably lower scores). However, it caused her big problems at school - particularly in France, where neat handwriting is required before you are allowed to do anything interesting with your ability to write... In some ways, you could say you are only as good as your very lowest score and if there is a big difference between one part of your IQ profile and another (ie some parts of your brain work and connect better than others), I see no reason why that wouldn't confuse all sorts of skills that require an overlap that the IQ test doesn't test, because it's looking at isolated cognitive abilities that aren't generally used in isolation in real life. An overall IQ number is, basically, pretty useless information - it's what makes it up that can be revealing, along with the personality of the person who possesses the IQ. Waving a number at a school and telling them that, therefore, your child should be performing amongst the top whatever percent of children in the class is a waste of time. Life doesn't work that neatly. Unfortunately, schools are no more interested in the details than they are in the overall number, even though these could actually be helpful in explaining where the problems lie - since it is almost always as a result of problems, not success, that IQ tests are sought.

ps said niece didn't perform below average in anything, but then "average" is really not very bright, given that average IQ is 100...

().

ilovedjasondonovan - many schools select on the basis of IQ or at least VR so there must be perceived to be some correlation with exam results. I thought 146 was higher than top 2%. Was there no reason indicated by the individual sections of your IQ test giving a spiky profile or suggesting dyslexia or an area of concern? In my experience of schools selecting based on VR at your level then pupils seem to achieve top grades in GCSEs fairly easily and consistently.

Certainly agree that high IQ is not the only factor and application, personality, family support, school and many other things may determine academic success.

I think it depends on which test was used whatanewyear e.g 146 on one test may have been 156 on another iyswim.
When we had dd's test we were told it is the percentile that you need to look at rather than the iq score.

coccyx, there are lots of people who might be considered G&T who had average or below average schoolwork: Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Pablo Picasso, Hans Christian Anderson, Walt Disney, F Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Steve Jobs to name but a few.

A high verbal IQ is more likely to equate to success at school than a high non-verbal IQ, so for children with a discrepancy, it is far more advantageous at school (and in most areas at university) to have the verbal IQ as the higher score. Schools, particularly at primary level, focus on quite a narrow area of ability and do not really cater for unusual ways of thinking, which may in themselves result from very spiky IQ profiles causing the brain to interpret things in novel ways, rather than following a conventional pattern.

Sorry - I can't seem to write short answers this week :)

Got to agree with all those saying the full testing can give very interesting and helpful picture. I had full educational testing done along with other stuff for DD last year at age 4 yrs 2 months with psychologist due to various sensory issues coupled with other factors. She tested gifted in mathematics, probably gifted in language but came out with a huge discrepency in visual memory. Ed. psych said she had never seen such a discrepency before. It made perfect sense when we discussed it - DD cant do jigsaw puzzles for toffee and I could never work out why such a normally smart kid kept trying to stick straight edge pieces into the middle of the puzzle etc. Also one of the common traits given for 'gifted in maths' is good ability in puzzles so we had a bit of misleading evidence as it were - a little smokescreen.

Having her tested so young has been terrific - not because of the gifted assessment to be honest but because it did uncover this other learning problem which she now gets help with. Ed psych is confident that because of her age and abililty she will train her brain to overcome or cope with the deficit. If left the visual memory problems could have seriously affected her in areas like learning to read (I do see some problem in retaining letter knowledge and sight words in memory) and in geometary. Having identified her problems so young though I can work with school to over come or compensate (e.g. she can't cope with some continuous cursive letters because she can't decipher or retain the pattern so can't write it from memory and needs to use non-cursive). So although gifted in maths she may not 'excel' in it because of the VM problem but should at least be able to perform at the expected level later up the school. At the time of testing she was only performing at something like 6 or 8 months below her chronological age in terms of visual memory. By itself this would not have raised any red flags as it was still within the norms or average to be expected for a child of 4. However given her performance in other areas like verbal memory and her mathematics and language scoring it was a significant difference (as in statistically significant in the testing results which flags it to the tester as a problem). Therefore it is not about whether the teachers are 'ok' with 'average' results for your child - it is about whether there is a statistically significant discrepency between his abilities in one area and another.

I would definitely look to test because if you can uncover root causes of discrepencies at a young age then you can start the work of rewiring the brain and helping teach the strategies your child will need to overcome or work with their learning difficulty. As a teacher I welcome any and all information I can get about an individual child's learning profile (but then we secondary teachers are known for our caring natures :)).

You need to stress with the school this is NOT about the level of results he is achieving - and whether they are average or above average or below his potential - it is about idenftifying whether he has a learning difficulty with which he needs, and is entitled to receive, help. It is not about the 'label' gifted either and whether he 'meets' gifted 'standards' of achievement. It is about the fact there is a significant discrepency in his ability and his achievement and that should be a red flag that is not ignored.

The earlier he starts to receive learning support the better outcome he will have. Make sure they understand this is purely about working out whether or not there is a learning difficulty because, left unidentified, it can only go on to cause more significant learning problems later on. Just because he is coping now does not mean he will in later education without proper support. Finally, if he has a learning difficulty (dyslexia for ex.) then, when he comes to secondary school, he will be entitled to special measures in the gcse exams (extra time, possibly a scribe) but only if he has an IEP for the dx learning difficulty. You will not lose by seeking further testing or information.

I would also look to have the possibility of anxiety investigated as your child has been through a lot from what you have said. Children with high anxiety (like my lovely DD) can be so focused on searching for potential 'threats' in their environment that they do not have the mental focus to give to learning. If he has been in and out of hospital or exposed to (to him) inexplicable examinations/tests by strangers, or separated from his family, without much understanding of why and with anxiety about why you 'left' him or 'allowed' it (especially if the experience was frightening/painful etc.) then there is the potential for quite high anxiety levels, even if he seems to be happy etc.

coccyx - i was just asking the question re G&T as we did not think he was achieving anything at school at a high level so would never have considered it if we had known that it existed but last years teacher told us unprompted that he was on it.

I am not a teacher but my understanding is that it is just a totally arbitary thing when used in school as it is just the top percentage of the school so the achievements of the top few of some schools may be very different to others. I am not sure of the purpose but if it was intended to extend the able in breadth of experience rather than just more of the same written work then perhaps it could apply to those who have extensive verbal knowledge but cant physically write it down?? I have really have no idea as I am unclear as to the purpose of it.

I would guess I have a high non-verbal IQ as I was tested under exam conditions by Mensa at age 17 and it involved no talking (although there were a few sections on words).

I've also had to do an IQ test as part of a job interview age 28 and they marked it on site that day. They came back to me an hour later and just looked very oddly at me saying they had never seen one that high. So whatever it is I have got, I guess I've still got it.

But I'm socially inept, have no friends and average qualifications (although my degree was in Computer Science which is very mathematically hard).

yy re numerical results, even looking at ds's, 143 on the wiat is just superior on 99.8th centile, whereas the 156 goes over into vs. for the wisc, much lower numbers fall into the vs range - 132 is considered vs. on the wiat, it looks at though the cut off between above average and superior is around 130ish. soooo confusing.

ds's results overall (he had wisc, wiat, beery vmi, nepsy-II, conners, BASC 2 and the DSM IV child interview schedule) indicate he falls into the gifted range, and also highlight adhd. psych thinks that if he was medicated for the adhd, some of the areas during the testing would have been much higher, and so his overall scores would have been much higher. (no idea)

there are about 8 pages of suggestions for both, which school and i need to go over. the paed wants to medicate (well, she did before we did the testing, i can only assume she will want to now - the psych has suggested which would be suitable) and we have a follow-up appt next week to go over the results.

the written/ verbal thing is really interesting. dd2 has consistently been recognised as being bright etc, but even now can barely write legibly. in our last school, we were told she was not eligible for the regional gifted programme because she has to be performing at the same level across the board, and her handwriting wasn't good enough. ha. tell it to stephen hawking.

adoptmama, that's really interesting. dd2's issues are different, but of course she has always had therapy for her fine motor etc. so important to recognise areas of difficulty and work on them. and so many kids who are ignored because they perform to the level expected, regardless of actual potential.

any ideas for working memory?

Interestingly, a lot of the arithmetic side of maths is generally given as part of the overall verbal IQ score (which encompasses working memory subtests). Performance IQ (which I rather lazily called non-verbal IQ) includes processing speed and perceptual organization. Obviously, unusually low scores in processing speeds on one side of the IQ score and/or working memory on the other, can impact considerably on schoolwork and daily life, too, even if the rest of the IQ scoring is very high.

Very very interesting thread!
I don't actually know alot about the breakdown of dd's but she got
verbal scale IQ= 141 performance scale IQ=133 full scale IQ=145 99.9th percentile on the wechsler pre-school and primary,
there are then lots of other individual scores for things such as vocabulary,arithmetic and comprehension(which was dd's highest score at 1 point off the ceiling score).
Would that indicate that dd's isnt spiky?

what would you do with ds1, rabbit?
he goes from 116 (sentence composition) up to 156 (math problem solving)on the wiat, and according to the wechsler, it's his working memory and processing speed which are more average, with verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning noticeably higher. to make matters more complicated, they have apparently changed the scaled scores for wechsler now, so average is now apparently 10, not 100 (well, 8-12). (?) but the overall results are given in the old numbers... so 90 -100 being average. . i'm no statistician, but that makes feck all sense to me.

i can fully concur re 'daily life' btw... even if the scores fall within the average range...

x-post. am apparently half asleep!
why can't i see a verbal scale and performance scale?
hmmm. i'm going to go and find one of the others. ds's is too complicated.

Doesn't sound spiky - having a higher full scale IQ I guess means her processing and/or working memory are very good to have bumped up her score still further??? I know it was my niece's processing speed that lowered her performance IQ score more than anything else, which would explain why she found school so frustrating and anxiety-inducing, given that the work was too easy, but it took her a while to be able to prove it!!!! How the overall marks work depends on what they have included within each score, hence the need to understand what tests are included in what scores.

Sorry, outofbodyexperience, was replying to mrsshears in between supervising children who ought to be in bed! Will read your posts when I get a chance!

Havent read entire thread and may repeat what others have said but
My younger brother has high iq but means nothing iq has long been an outdated form of inteligence testing. Often children with high iq sort of level out after a few years and are on par with peers.
A child in yr1 being iq tested shocks me as I remember seeing an article years ago about young children in mensa and how the parents had such high expectations because of the iq results. a lot of these children end up either fed up of the pushing and expectations and quit to get some peace or feel they have let their parents down because they dont for whatever reason live up to the iq results. My own brother is excellent at practical activities but anything academic throws him. Sometimes a high iq result is a fluke or maybe just maybe the child is intelligent but the best reaction you can have is to encourage the child concerned and ignore the results as much as possible so that the child can have a reasonably normal life. If the child shows as they get older that they are just not challenged by the education recieved then step in and try to help but in all honesty in this case you say your child is yr1 so the best thing is to let them just be a child and help when needed if needed.
I have 2 intelligent children whom i educate myself and they have never had tests for anything as I've never felt it needed but(and its the same for schooled children) I encourage their passions and help where needed best thing to do.
I know I'll be blasted for this opinion but the pressure on my brother and others who have been in his situation I have known nearly killed some of them so it's why I feel this way
Sorry if I offend

not at all, singingmum.

the child in the op was tested for medical reasons, not because they were thought to be bright, so your shock is unnecessary.

we've been toying with he for ds for a while.

why will you be blasted? there is lots of understanding about the pressures on bright kids in this section.

fwiw, i do ignore dd2's results largely (and she was tested in yr r lol) but i do find her results a useful riposte when the public at large assumes she has a learning disability because she drools and walks like a drunk. or when she attracts unnecessary sympathy and head patting because 'it's such a shame'.

i'm trying to understand ds1's recent tesst results largely because he isn't happy in school. there are a number of reasons for testing, and a number of reasons why it might be useful to deconstruct the results a little (see adoptmama's post).

i am really interested in the 'proof of learning' debate and how it crosses over into anti-testing in all forms though. in some ways it is extremely sensible (i'm sure you are totally familiar with the measuring kids to see if they've grown analogy) but when you have other concerns (either disability or health, or even a vague feeling that something isn't quite as it should be) sometimes a bit of testing isn't a bad thing. it helps to be a bit flexible.

singingmum - please be greatful your DCs have never had the medical issues of our DS and have not been sent for tests. We did not request an IQ test we would have much preferred proper medical help for our son rather than the total incompetence we faced on the NHS. The IQ test was conducted on the NHS after initial referral from school due to the lack of medical diagnosis so this is nothing like pushing for mensa. I would not wish what we have been through on anyone and am still fighting to ensure it does not.

I have had years of worry about the medical condition and hence his health and happiness will always be my absolute focus. My DS is frustrated with the written side of learning and losing even more confidence but excels verbally. I want to try to help him to ensure he is happy and confident after all he has suffered medically which has no doubt had a huge impact, not to be a member of mensa or top of the class.

Hi, whatanewyear. Just typed a long missive that got lost by mumsnet because they'd logged me out.... The shortened version is: lots of other minor issues can impact on school performance. eg my niece has minor issues with her eye convergence - not enough to have picked up on a basic eye test and not enough to affect her reading (she was an early and copious reader in more than one language). However, it did cause her to have regular headaches, make apparently silly mistakes with lining up numbers into columns for maths so that they could be added up properly, and to be unenthusiastic about some more fiddly fine motor tasks. I think other oddities with the central nervous system (which may, eg, cause low muscle tone or co-ordiation difficulties) can also impact on a child's ability to peform in the classroom, exacerbating the effects of an already spiky IQ or possibly even sometimes contributing to an apparently spiky IQ test result. Such oddities can also increase the likelihood of generally uneven development, with some areas of ability seeming to lag behind others, but often catching up a bit later on (ie 5 or 6 is still very young to decide that a problem is lifelong). Maybe your ds is a bit like that, and very mild sensory or motor issues are adding to the problems in the classroom - in which case some of the strategies used for children with, eg, dyspraxia, could help, even if only the simple ones, like trying out pencil grips, writing slopes, etc, so that he can concentrate more on the content of his writing and less on the mechanics of writing. And of course, very intelligent children with certain deficits do find compensating mechanisms for a lot of their deficits over time.

My db was clearly extremely bright as a child, but often accused during his school years of being lazy. He wasn't really lazy, though - it is not laziness that makes you too slow off the mark to copy your homework off the board before it is wiped off, for example. It was also noticeable that he would apparently develop his understanding in bursts: for a while, he would seem to be working at a snail's pace, not really understanding what was going on, then apparently all of a sudden (but probably not in reality!!!) his brain would piece all of the information he had been given in the last few weeks together and he would be top of the class, with a far superior understanding of what he had been taught than anyone else and with a host of questions for the teacher than nobody else had ever considered. He is a very creative, original thinker, but don't ask him to work in a linear, ordered way, or to make a quick decision on anything!

One thing that has helped a little for my son is coloured lenses. He started complaining that the words on the page were blurring and splitting apart. They haven't been a magic cure but I am sure they have helped a little. On one of his IQ tests, he understood what he had to do but got muddled up going left, right, up and down but he still got an average score but this average score was by far the lowest overall.

As your son is similiar to mine, you may find, as I have, that beneath all the writing problems, lies an incredible writer. Someone who can repeat back massive chunks of books and use great vocabulary, should, in theory be able to write this stuff down. Beneath the terrible mistakes, I first noticed some amazing use of written language when he was about 7. Perhaps this is a common trait in all gifted or verbally gifted children?

At secondary school, he is finally getting some recognition and is actually getting good marks because he is able to "show opinion" which is what they are looking for. Despite below average achievement, he seems to have been put in one of the top groups for English which is a dream come true for me. Thank goodness I had the IQ test results as I was able to have a meeting with the SENCO who was incredibly understanding, also mentioned the G&T group and told me that they have lots of children like this! Wow!

But, writing is still incredibly hard for him - we often get ripped up paper and pens thrown across the room. It's so frustrating for him. I am hoping that being able to use a computer will be the key to him being able to express himself more easily. In other countries I believe they are routinely now teaching young kids to type. This could really help your son although school will be wanting him to reach writing levels that will get him through the SATS. He also dictates things to me so that he can express himself this way as well but this is strictly an outside school activity! You never know though, if your school are sympathetic, they may allow him to show off some of his written work and ideas through other ways.

Nora X