<p>And if so why and are you glad you did it, or do you regret it?</p>
<p>Sure, we had our kids IQ tested so they could get into a gifted school. I am fine with doing that, as they tested well, and we didn’t have a choice anyways. Plus, since I read that kids are usually within 8 IQ points of their parents, I feel that we can claim their scores as our own. Works for me!</p>
<p>We have never had either child given a formal IQ test. We did allow them to take lots of standardized tests, where they always tested well above grade level. Neither H nor I have ever had formal IQ testing either.</p>
<p>I did when I was little to get into a gifted program. It was useless since I switched schools. I remember the score range but it’s never done anything to help or hurt me.</p>
<p>Our 3 kids got tested by their school to see if they qualified as “gifted”. PA schools will do the testing for recommended students at no cost. The cut-off to be in the gifted program is an IQ of 130 but those with IQ of 120+ could still qualify to be in the gifted program if there are other indications of being gifted (e.g. high grades, teacher recommendations). Our three kids had IQ’s in a very close range (120-130) and their relative scores reflected accurately their relative intellectual abilities so our youngest child, who seem the most precocious of the three, had the highest IQ. I am glad we had them tested not just to get them qualified to the gifted program but also because the sub-scores in the test gave indications of their relative strengths in comprehension, memory, perceptual reasoning etc. For instance our middle child had lower scores in working memory so we were able to work with her in improving her ability to recall information for her school work.</p>
<p>Yes. Both of my kids. We suspected that both kids were bright and had learning disabilities. We were right about both, but the tests helped us both understand/explain what they were like and needed for schools. The testing was particularly helpful with the first one as the Verbal IQ was extremely high, which enabled us to explain to the schools both how unusual he was and why we needed them to do things differently. With the second one, the tests showed that she was quite bright, pinpointed the kind of learner she was (concrete rather than abstract) and eventually what the LD was. Unfortunately, the state of Massachusetts has $0 funding for gifted programs (I think this follows from egalitarian ideology), so the testing did not open up gifted programs for us.</p>
<p>I’ve never told either kid their scores. I believe I was tested but don’t know my scores. I think it is fair to say that my father was a genius – he was reading the NY Times at age 3 and was described at a National Academy of Sciences meeting as a virtuoso mathematician among physicists. So perhaps my kids and particularly my son inherited some of that – my son just told me that he was doing very well in his final math class of his college career in real analysis despite the fact that he didn’t have time to go to class because he found the material in real analysis intuitive. [I took real analysis in college and found it anything but intuitive. Everyone I know who took that course found it hard].</p>
<p>When I was in 2nd grade, I was tested at school and then offered a spot in Mentally Gifted Minors (MGM) now remorphed into GATE. My mom was mad because the school did not get approval or consent from her before testing. I don’t remember the testing but assume it was the Stanford-Binet but it’s hard for me imagine that a psychologist actually administered the test, so I don’t knopw if it is truly considered valid. when I was much older, say 18, I took another IQ test, administered in a psychology class, but again, was not administered by a psychologist, so not sure of its validity. IQ tests also might become less valid as one gets older because one “learns” the items that are being tested, thus theoretically scoring higher as one gets older. I do know my scores for both. When I was younger, I was lazier and knowing my score might have had something to do about this. I try to explain to my kids that perseverence and hard work matter more than pure IQ.</p>
<p>I went to lots of different schools. Some schools gave us IQ tests. </p>
<p>My offspring had them to get into a gifted & talented program.</p>
<p>We had our first son privately tested after he had scored 99.9th percentile in a gifted program admissions test. He was tested by an expert with lots of experience with the highly gifted and scored 156 IQ on the WISC III (99.99%) with significant ceiling effects on the subtests. His score on the Ravens was higher – above the test designer’s norms tables, in fact.</p>
<p>A lot of people don’t know that it is impossible to exceed 160 IQ (where one SD=15) on any modern IQ test which uses statistical derivations rather than age ratios. The reason for this is that any question which less than one person in a thousand can answer correctly is tossed out because it’s too expensive to group-validate for accuracy. The 180-220 IQs you read about are age-ratio IQs usually determined with the 90-year-old Stanford-Binet LM – in other words, a 6 year old with the mental ability of a 12 year old. By way of comparison, another youngster we met got a 148 on the WISC III and a 182 on the Stanford-Binet LM.</p>
<p>Anyway, my son started high school at age 9 and this official paperwork went a long way in helping us build our case to get him admitted (half time by special request).</p>
<p>Both our daughters were in the NICU at the UW after they were born which made them eligible for a research study on high risk infants.
Regular IQ testing as well as other testing was part of the study till they were eight. Medical insurance covered the whole thing.
They also had later testing which was only partially covered, but it was useful.
I dont regret it, the study gave us useful information and a lot of support.</p>
<p>My oldest also ended up attending a (private- need aware)school that required IQ eval as part of application process. Originally the school had begun as a pilot study of gifted preschoolers inconjunction with Harvard on the UW campus- and the psychologist at the UW who administered the testing had been advocating for several year that we consider the school but it wasnt until the kindergarten teacher at the local public school suggested that another school would be a better fit for her that we started to take the professor seriously.</p>
<p>In my defense I had never known anyone to attend a private school who wasnt Catholic- private school wasnt really our milieu. I hadn’t graduated from high school & if it wasn’t for metal shop, my H wouldnt have either! I guess I would say we are both very intelligent but sometimes not very smart.</p>
<p>I think Iq tests are useful, but how meaningful they are depends on the psychologist. The educational psychologist who administered the testing for the girls is one of the top people in the field of gifted ed.</p>
<p>Both kids had very strong areas, but a couple significant areas were much weaker indicating a disability, although even taking into consideration the low sections- IQ was reportedly in the upper 0.03 of the population for one girl- using the Stanford Binet which seems to score verbal ability higher than the Wisc/Wppsi( although as is recommended, the study included many tests, not just one- their annual appt- took all day, including a lunch break).
it wasnt the overall number that is helpful, it was breaking down the subsets and comparing the areas. I doubt we would have had them tested without the study though.
[Parenting</a> the Very Young, Gifted Child](<a href=“http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/robinson.html]Parenting”>http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/nrcgt/robinson.html)</p>
<p>No. IQ is nice, but it doesn’t always translate to better performance. “Results may vary”, and so forth.</p>
<p>I was gonna ask you why you were still awake, emeraldkitty, but then I realized you’re West Coast.</p>
<p>Younger son squeaked into the school’s gifted program via the non-testing options. We finally had him tested (by the public school psychologist at no cost to us), because of enough uneveness in his performance led us to suspect LDs. Nothing specific was found, but his sub-test scores were all over the place - average to topping out. He was indeed in the gifted range, but was also eligible for a 504 plan (which he hated and dropped in high school.) Older son was never tested because he was so precocious that no one ever questioned that he was gifted. I’d never heard the word before his first day in nursery school when his teacher said, “Did you know your child is gifted?” Well no, I just knew he was smart and an early reader like the rest of my husband’s family.</p>
<p>No, I never had my child’s IQ tested because there was never any reason to do so (i.e. no mismatch between ability and academic performance; no criteria needed for participation in a program). My IQ was tested in 6th grade as part of some district-wide study sample, but my parents never told me the results other than to say I "did well. I don’t think I would tell my child the result either; it might foster arrogance, or insecurity, or a feeling of having to live up to some arbitrary standard.</p>
<p>Incidentally, shouldn’t this topic be in the cafe? It has little relevance to college issues.</p>
<p>Oddly enough I needed my high school transcript when transferring colleges, and my IQ was on the transcript! I found that odd, don’t remember being tested…</p>
<p>My kids were both tested when we had them evaluated for learning differences. It was a baseline to say - they have this potential and are achieving this.</p>
<p>When my kiddos where little the district had a gifted program and they were tested at teacher recommendation. Once the oldest was in, started in 2nd grade they tested the other 3. Her younger brother was tested in kindergarten and after they moved him to a K-2 class in order to allow him to be in the gifted program in kindergarten even though it officially did not start until 2nd. That district was a pull-out program. We later moved and the new state/new district’s program was self-contained classrooms.</p>
<p>Worked okay for the two girls, not so well for the two boys. My youngest (last of 5) had several specific learning disabilities requiring an IEP from 1st-12th grade so he was also tested. The girls did not feel so left out anymore in their classes while the boys had a hard time fitting in. After a few years I moved them (boys) back into the regular classroom.</p>
<p>Of the 4, 3 were D1 athletes in college so the same as in college they were more comfortable/social with their fellow teammates (starting in elementary through high school). At one point they were all captains of their respective teams. My point being the boys were absolutely miserable in their self contained gifted programs. I just thought that was what was best for them based on the testing results. I should have listened to them, even though they were very young.</p>
<p>Heck, I should have listened to them because of what the testing said!! I have never told them the results, there is enough sibling rivalry as it is. They are a year apart and so very competitive. </p>
<p>As far as being related to my intelligence I can’t claim that since adoption factors into our family!! But I do believe they affected each other.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Our kids were tested for gifted and talented in kindergarten - no IQ test, but lots of other standardized tests. They had to score in the 96th percentile to be qualified, which they did. They’ve never asked about IQ testing. I do tell them that they have no excuse not to do well in school (no LD). </p>
<p>I think I had my IQ tested in grade school, but my parents would not tell me the results. They didn’t think it would be helpful to know and didn’t want comparisons between their kids. Results were what counted, not a number.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how much I believe in IQ tests. Our younger son was having a hard time learning how to read at the age of 8, so we took him to a highly recommended educational psychologist for testing. She reported that his IQ was just over 100 and that he might need tutoring to master basic skills.</p>
<p>We got tutors for reading (and also math, to be on the safe side), who worked with him for a year or two. He did better, but despite his huge efforts, still struggled through elementary and middle school. </p>
<p>However, he got a 4.0 in high school taking AP classes, and then went on to graduate with honors from a top university. We never told him his IQ, which seems like the right decision.</p>
<p>Isn’t over 100 better than average? Isn’t the test normed to 100?</p>
<p>Yes, my kids were tested to get into the gifted program but it couldn’t have predicted how well they would do in school. Personality is just as much an indicator of how well they might do in school. I wish they had also tested for that!<br>
My kids are labeled “gifted” but couldn’t be more different in motivation and work ethic.</p>