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IQ and what it means in adulthood



 
 
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  #81  
Old November 17th 07, 09:41 PM posted to misc.kids
[email protected]
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Posts: 125
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 13, 12:09�pm, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

So, when one puts on one's parental hat (this is, after
all, a parenting newsgroup) and asks what
factors one needs to influence in order to provide
children with the best start in life, coughing up some
high-IQ gametes just isn't anywhere near enough.


This expression made me giggle. Maybe there's another reason we call
them "eggheads"? ;-)

--Helen
  #82  
Old November 18th 07, 01:45 PM posted to misc.kids
Welches
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Posts: 849
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood


" wrote in message
...
On Nov 13, 3:23?am, Chookie wrote:


.. Actually, I have a problem with these definitions. ?For most of the
research
I've seen, gifted means either the top 10% for IQ or (more frequently)
IQ130,
which is the top 5%. ?THe definition of 'bright' is rather too broad here,
and
I wonder how the stats would look if the authors had used a
better-accepted
definition.


Small nitpick: an IQ greater than 130 puts you in the top 2 percent on
any modern test, not the top 5 percent. (Well, slightly over 2 percent
-- I forget the decimal, but definitely not more than 3 percent.)


I've seen a lot of gifted programs that started at the 90th
percentile, but most of the literature calls 90th percentile either
"bright" or "mildly gifted."


I also wonder if it's more demoralizing to be considered far less
bright than one's sibling than it is to grow up in a family where no
one stands out much. I can't help wondering if some of those less
successful kids got a lot of hassle about "Why can't you be like your
brother/sister ..."

My mum was considered la lot ess bright than her older brother. I don't know
why this was decided but it lost her a lot of confidence and gave him too
much confidence. It wasn't true either. He dropped out of uni in the second
year, and she's MA (oxon).
I think it also effected the next sibling to her, in regard to confidence in
her own ability, in that if she didn't do something as well as mum then she
felt that she must be terrible.

From my own experience, my older sister is a very good allrounder. She could
have done anything well except music (she's tone deaf) or games. I'm very
one sided (maths) and am much better than her at that, she was better at the
rest (except music and tennis). I don't remember it ever being said at home,
just it was obvious. It made me lazy at other subjects. If I wasn't going to
do as well as her it was less humiliating to do less well without working,
than to work hard and still not do as well.
Debbie


  #83  
Old November 18th 07, 03:13 PM posted to misc.kids
Rosalie B.
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Posts: 984
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

"Welches" wrote:

" wrote in message
...
On Nov 13, 3:23?am, Chookie wrote:

. Actually, I have a problem with these definitions. ?For most of the research
I've seen, gifted means either the top 10% for IQ or (more frequently)
IQ130, which is the top 5%. ?THe definition of 'bright' is rather too broad here,
and I wonder how the stats would look if the authors had used a
better-accepted definition.


Small nitpick: an IQ greater than 130 puts you in the top 2 percent on
any modern test, not the top 5 percent. (Well, slightly over 2 percent
-- I forget the decimal, but definitely not more than 3 percent.)


I thought one had to be higher than 140 to be in the top 2 percent
(??) I'm not sure what you mean about a 'modern test'. DD#3 was 135
and she was no accepted in to the gifted program, although I never saw
any real significant difference between her and her best friend who
was admitted except that her best friend was more of and artist which
wasn't surprising because her dad was a professor of art.

I've seen a lot of gifted programs that started at the 90th
percentile, but most of the literature calls 90th percentile either
"bright" or "mildly gifted."


I also wonder if it's more demoralizing to be considered far less
bright than one's sibling than it is to grow up in a family where no
one stands out much. I can't help wondering if some of those less
successful kids got a lot of hassle about "Why can't you be like your
brother/sister ..."


My mum was considered la lot ess bright than her older brother. I don't know
why this was decided but it lost her a lot of confidence and gave him too
much confidence. It wasn't true either. He dropped out of uni in the second
year, and she's MA (oxon).


I don't think the finish point of one's education has very much to do
with defining the intelligence of a person.


DD#2 said when she graduated from HS that her goal was to have a
higher rank in class than DD#1. She did (dd#1 was 7th and dd#2 was
3rd), but when she said that, dd#1 commented that she didn't know it
was a competition. I think dd#3 is by far the most intelligent, but
her rank in class was much lower because she was interested in other
things other than grades.

My mom's mother graduated from college and her father had only an 8th
grade education. That was due more to the family situation than to
the innate intelligence. My mom's mother's father was a college
graduate and I think most of his nine children had some college. My
mom's dad's mom died when he was barely 15, and his father was a
harness maker. His 6 years older brother graduated from college and
then seminary, but he apparently did this mostly on his own.

Also, depending on the age of your mom, there is still a lot of places
where the education of women is considered less important.

I think it also effected the next sibling to her, in regard to confidence in
her own ability, in that if she didn't do something as well as mum then she
felt that she must be terrible.

From my own experience, my older sister is a very good allrounder. She could
have done anything well except music (she's tone deaf) or games. I'm very
one sided (maths) and am much better than her at that, she was better at the
rest (except music and tennis). I don't remember it ever being said at home,
just it was obvious. It made me lazy at other subjects. If I wasn't going to
do as well as her it was less humiliating to do less well without working,
than to work hard and still not do as well.
Debbie

The family dynamic is pretty complicated. From something my sister
said, I've concluded that she thought I was smarter than she was, and
my mom told me that was correct because her score on an IQ test was
lower than mine. I don't think it was a hugely significant amount
although Mother didn't say exactly and I think it is primarily because
I'm a good test taker.


  #84  
Old November 18th 07, 09:46 PM posted to misc.kids
[email protected]
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Posts: 125
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 18, 6:13�am, Rosalie B. wrote:
"Welches" wrote:

" wrote in message
...
On Nov 13, 3:23?am, Chookie wrote:


. Actually, I have a problem with these definitions. ?For most of the research
I've seen, gifted means either the top 10% for IQ or (more frequently)
IQ130, which is the top 5%. ?THe definition of 'bright' is rather too broad here,
and I wonder how the stats would look if the authors had used a
better-accepted definition.


Small nitpick: an IQ greater than 130 puts you in the top 2 percent on
any modern test, not the top 5 percent. (Well, slightly over 2 percent
-- I forget the decimal, but definitely not more than 3 percent.)


I thought one had to be higher than 140 to be in the top 2 percent
(??) �I'm not sure what you mean about a 'modern test'. �


The really old tests had ratio scores, so there were no stable
percentile scores, but there were predictions given for the general
prevalence of certain scores (140 and up was about one percent of the
population under that scoring system). The Stanford Binet was later
reformatted to give percentile scores (with an extended scoring system
for scores above 164 that was basically a modification of the ratio
scores). For a long while the SB tests had a standard deviation of 16
and the Wechsler tests had a standard deviation of 15, so you had to
do some dancing around with the different numbers. (For instance, 148
and up on the Stanford had the same rarity as 145 and up on the
Wechsler -- both being a little more than a tenth of a percent.) These
days, both the major IQ tests (the WISC-IV and the S-B V) have the
same scoring system: 100 is the median, 15 the standard deviation.

In reality, the test isn't actually normed at all well for scores
above 130 or so -- we really have little idea of how common incredibly
high scores truly are, except that of course higher ones are rarer
than lower. They don't necessarily fit the bell curve all that well.
Certainly there are more scores above 150 than the bell curve would
predict.

--Helen
  #85  
Old November 18th 07, 09:56 PM posted to misc.kids
[email protected]
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Posts: 125
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 13, 3:23�am, Chookie wrote:
�For most of the research
I've seen, gifted means either the top 10% for IQ or (more frequently) IQ130,
which is the top 5%. �


I think I figured out where you got the 5% figure. Going by the bell
curve, most of the population (about 95%) falls within two standard
deviations from the mean, or between 70 and 130 -- but the other 5% is
*divided* between the below-70 group and the above-130 group, it isn't
all on the upper half.

--Helen
  #86  
Old November 19th 07, 01:31 AM posted to misc.kids
Pili
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Posts: 2
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 12, 11:52 am, "
wrote:
On Nov 11, 2:35?am, Chookie wrote: In article ,
"Donna Metler" wrote:


My totally uninformed guess is that you'll probably find more "successes" in
the second band of IQ-the high achievers for whom things were easy in
school, but who weren't "out there" to the point of being misfits.


Leta Hollingworth defined the IQ band 125-155 as "socially optimal
intelligence" back in 1926!


However, the IQ scores she was talking about aren't directly
comparable to today's scores,


They're pretty comparable. The overall statistical rise in scores is
small, and while it can be explained away as stastical drift, even if
it is significant, it's not that significant.

The range of socially optimal intelligence remains the same, by the
usual measurements.

and there is no simple way to convert
them to today's scores (as in those days ratio scores changed with
one's age).


As they do, still, in many of today's tests. My housemate spent 10
years (around 1991-2001) testing for a living, in various settings.
There are still lots of different tests. How do you know what tests
people are talking about here?

I'm assuming we aren't talking about online tests, but Stanford-Binet
or the like. It's still given.

If I were going to figure out what figures Leta
Hollingworth would use today, I'd have to see what age most of the
children she was working with were tested at, and find out what the
standard deviation was for the scores for that age.


She incorporated the standard deviation into the range. That's one
reason there's a range, and of course, the figures were age-adjusted.
No one would report aggregate IQ stores on an age-adjusted test
without accounting for that fact, unless they were stupid, and
Hollingworth wasn't stupid.


Just to take a wild guess, I'd say socially optimum intelligence these
days would be roughly one to two-and-a-half standard deviations from
the mean, or 115 to 137. But I suspect that "socially optimal
intelligence" varies a great deal by circumstance -- a severely
unintellectual environment being hard on persons of almost any level
who actually care about learning.


It isn't the tests (or IQ) that's changed, if you're right. It's
society. Stupider is better. Remember what H.L. Mencken said about
Americans eventually getting their way and having even their president
be stupid?

"Socially optimal" depends on the society you're in. I think we have
several societies now. Personally, the people I know (and myself)
aren't in a society that has a "socially optimal" range of 115 to
137.

I agree with Ericka about the difference in average IQ levels between
breastfed/formula-fed populations not being the real concern. To me,
it's a question of whether something, who knows what, is happening
that affects brain development adversely in formula-fed children. The
other thing that always bothers me is that you can't tell from an
*average* difference how large the *maximum* effect might be. I mean,
obviously in this case it's not possible that 9 out of 10 are
unaffected and the 10th takes a hit of 70 points, but there's nothing
in the *numbers* that eliminates that possibility.


Good words.

Incidentally, 7 points sounds high -- I thought once confounding
factors were out of the question, and when you weren't talking about
premature babies, it got down to more like 3 points? But there are of
course a bunch of different studies around.


There are indeed, I'm off to ask my roomie about this, she'll know
more. We are subscribed to several medical and nursing journals and
synopses services, and the subject of formula comes up all the time,
but I haven't heard any convincing studies about the relation to
breastfeeding per se. Hard to isolate that out from the things like
frequent ear infections.

Pili

--Helen


  #87  
Old November 19th 07, 03:33 PM posted to misc.kids
Beliavsky
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Posts: 453
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 17, 3:26 am, Akuvikate wrote:

Well, I think you and Beliavsky would be a poor father-daughter match
long before the reproductive years. If I recall correctly you have
some issues with cerebral palsy, and I think a lot of the worldview
he's stated in this thread would indicate to me that he'd be someone
who might have particular difficulty adapting to having a child with
disabilities.


Why? I think one can reduce the chance of one's children having
problems by marrying someone with good genes, but I also understand
that there are no guarantees in life. Some of one's kids will be
smarter/better looking/more charming than others, but a parent should
support all of them and encourage them to do their best. A parent who
minimizes the importance of genetic differences can easily fall into
the trap of berating a child who is not doing as well in school as his
or her siblings for "just not trying hard enough".

Granted, I'm sure he'd do better dealing with physical
disabilities rather than cognitive ones, but even so I'd think that
eugenic tendencies and "imperfect" children wouldn't happily coexist
in one family. Over time I'd hope that it would be the eugenic
tendencies that suffered the most, but still.


snip

Getting lead out of gasoline has done more to improve social IQ than
any smart couple's large family.


Maybe, but a couple has much more control over how many children they
have than over any social policy.

It's egotistically satisfying to
think that making more people like oneself is the way to improve
society, but there's a much deeper satisfaction and more measurable
impact from rolling up ones' sleeves and tackling social problems.


I'm quite interested in tackling social problems the Right way, but we
have very different ideas of what that entails.
  #88  
Old November 19th 07, 05:20 PM posted to misc.kids
[email protected]
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Posts: 125
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

On Nov 18, 4:31�pm, Pili wrote:
On Nov 12, 11:52 am, "

However, the IQ scores she was talking about aren't directly
comparable to today's scores,


They're pretty comparable. �The overall statistical rise in scores is
small, and while it can be explained away as stastical drift, even if
it is significant, it's not that significant.


They're not comparable, period. Ratio scores change with age -- the
standard deviations for the 1937 Stanford-Binet scores varied from 9
to 32! That means *some* 1937 scores of 118 were the same as today's
130, and *some* 1937 scores of 164 were the same as today's 130,
depending on the age of the people who took the test.

Of course Leta Hollingworth made the most meaningful generalization
she could in the context of the scores she was using at that time. I'm
just saying that you can't repeat it today in a different context
without footnoting the change in scores.

The Flynn effect (which I think is what you're referring to in "the
overall statistical rise in scores") is not even a consideration when
you're looking at scores with such different metrics, and incidentally
measuring such different abilities. (Indeed, if I remember correctly,
Flynn first noticed the effect on tests of nonverbal ability such as
the Naglieri -- very different from anything assessed on the early IQ
tests, which were mostly verbal.)

--Helen
  #89  
Old November 25th 07, 11:47 AM posted to misc.kids
Chookie
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Posts: 1,085
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

In article
,
" wrote:

On Nov 13, 3:23?am, Chookie wrote:
?For most of the research
I've seen, gifted means either the top 10% for IQ or (more frequently)
IQ130,
which is the top 5%. ?


I think I figured out where you got the 5% figure. Going by the bell
curve, most of the population (about 95%) falls within two standard
deviations from the mean, or between 70 and 130 -- but the other 5% is
*divided* between the below-70 group and the above-130 group, it isn't
all on the upper half.


Quite right; I was having a Senior Moment!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/
  #90  
Old November 25th 07, 11:59 AM posted to misc.kids
Chookie
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Posts: 1,085
Default IQ and what it means in adulthood

In article
,
Beliavsky wrote:

On Nov 17, 3:26 am, Akuvikate wrote:

Well, I think you and Beliavsky would be a poor father-daughter match
long before the reproductive years. If I recall correctly you have
some issues with cerebral palsy, and I think a lot of the worldview
he's stated in this thread would indicate to me that he'd be someone
who might have particular difficulty adapting to having a child with
disabilities.


Why? I think one can reduce the chance of one's children having
problems by marrying someone with good genes, but I also understand
that there are no guarantees in life. Some of one's kids will be
smarter/better looking/more charming than others, but a parent should
support all of them and encourage them to do their best. A parent who
minimizes the importance of genetic differences can easily fall into
the trap of berating a child who is not doing as well in school as his
or her siblings for "just not trying hard enough".


One might debate whether that is better than having poor little Tarquin
stagnating because after all, his IQ is a bit low, so we won't push the little
guy too hard. Most high achievers put in a lot of effort to achieve their
goals.

Really, I don't think either extreme is helpful. You don't berate children
for failu you put them where they have some successes (to build their
confidence) and some failures (to build their resilience) and you encourage
them to have a go at everything and to be gracious in defeat. To do that, you
have to know them well, and knowing them won't be just a matter of a test
result.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/
 




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