I mean, what was the standard deviation for the difference between firstborns vs. second borns…that’s something you’d have to look at the study to know, I believe. In other words, if firstborns and second borns are 3 IQ points apart on average, since there is presumably significant variation in how far apart siblings are, how far from the average is the variation, on average? If the standard deviation were large, the effect becomes even less striking (I think).
Mandabplus3…why would anyone prepare a child for such a test? It defeats the object ! To pay for a cheat test when the whole object of the test to find out why … in my case…whats wrong with my child…she wasnt happy… has issues with learning. I might be too brief previously in my reply but for your misjudgement, I only saw one bit of the test when the psychologist showed me which section of the test my daughter had lost interest in. That was my thoughts at the time when I saw what this is all about. Just shapes and logic sequences etc. It was too easy for her and she drifted off and no she wasnt a maths whizz but could probably only count to 50…cannot add or subtract anything…not a math EL. Hence a math whizz could top this test in their sleep.
I dont believe any parent would put their child to such preparations…unless the goal is to put the child into some prestigious school. My daughter is attending a public/state school. So no we didnt cheat if thats what you are suggesting. We did come out with answers after the test was done and some understanding to why she wasnt happy in a montessori enviroment doing strict repetitive learning. So thats all that matters…oh but it does feel great to have such papers in hand! lol
Diva7, I have actually been discussing the ethics of test prepping offline this last week. Some of my thoughts…
I think the most important thing is to know your objective. Is it to get into an elite school? I think this is the main reason MOST parents use the test preparation questions that are available. In some countries the gifted and talented and elite schools are the only place to get a good education. To get into them, you need to get your kids in at age 4. Which has been proven to be an inadequate age to assess giftedness, as it often shows up much later. On that basis many parents prep their kids to ensure they pass the tests and get into the school. If you have an EL child who is obviously well educated and needs more than a standard education, then I see getting them ready for an IQ test as something sensible to do. If you are already aware that your kid needs a better education this is just one way to ensure they get it. I don’t see it as cheating, any more than teaching 2/3 year olds to read is cheating the education system.
Why use test prep material other than to get into the good schools? Well this was my main question. After careful consideration I decided that if I could teach my children to think in the same way that gifted children seem to think ( you know that creative, information manipulation and connection stuff) then I have succeeded as a mum! It is kind of the ultimate aim of education, to develop kids who can think for themselves, learn, make connections, and be inquisitive and creative in their learning. These test prep questions (might?) help children learn to think that way. The questions can also highlight areas of weakness and strength.
If you need to actually know how gifted your child is, then I do think testing under age 8 is probably not that accurate, ( IMHO) but it’s often better than nothing, as like you say, that piece of paper is power, especially with schools! Your testing has helped your child get what she needs from her education. I think that’s pretty much what all parents want. It’s just that some parents want different things for their child’s education.
Oh for the record for those interested in testing moms website. It is quite a bit cheaper than I thought. For an email address you get 100 free questions to try out ( online only, mixed ages) and for $39 you have access to every question she has, all available to print but not save. So if you want to go on a printing frenzy it’ll cost you $39 plus ink and paper for all 20000 questions. That should be more than enough to produce a genius, if that’s your goal :wub:
Thanks for the explanation. I am in Australia…theres no such preparation here, not that I am aware of atm.There are cram schooling(extra tutoring) to get ahead but never heard of IQ prep tests here! I havent been online (here)for a while. :biggrin: Would need to catch up on all the info!
The only requirment to get into a gifted and talented class here would only require a child who is just ahead through tutoring or any other means. Dont require IQ tests for entry.
I have not checked out IQ style tests preps such as TestingMom but I have seen test prep for SATs (American standardized aptitude test for college admissions) and my son has critical thinking books and apps that are full of logic, analogies and more. These kinds of books and apps are touted to be good for test practice for tests to get into prestigious preschools, and for standardized IQ tests.
My son is not going to a prestigious school, and I don’t have any intention for him to take a Gifted and Talented or IQ kind of test. I use these work books to foster a different type of thinking. They are so rich and full of activities that i can not find in any of the humdrum workbooks he has. I personally have always found these types of critical thinking books fun. I used to do the logic puzzle books for fun as a kid just like people do sodoku or crosswords. So far James is loving the work and is thriving. I see no reason not to let him enjoy it.
GENERAL TESTING
I know this is controversial: I went to school in QLD (Australia) and though testing is not as rigorous as the US (where I live now) we were taught to test. Nearly every class I was ever in had a little segment on testing strategies and test preperation. I am so greatful for having this. It made testing a breeze, not just for me but for the majority of my classmates. When I took the QCS test back in the late 90s the whole atmosphere for students was relaxed and all my friends did well. I took the SATs in the US several years later and the anxiety in the room was palpable. Sadly the anxiety and stress is as high in the elementary schools here also. And many kids have such high degrees of test anxiety that testing is not a good measure of their capabilities.
Oh, I’ve really missed you guys and am tickled by everyone’s interest in all of this! 
Independent of the current IQ/test talk, I have a few random thoughts and some rambling on giftedness that I would like to just put out there. So here goes:
Is it nature or is it nurture? I think it’s both, really, but mostly nurture in today’s world. When it comes to what schools and the general population would term ‘gifted’, it’s based on producing scores to demonstrate capability in a particular field and comparing them to the norm. Well, I’d say hands-down that today’s well-educated/literate child will outperform the custodially-cared-for/normal preschooler whose care-providers merely ensured that the child survived and was potty trained as required sometime before attending school to be officially taught by someone else finally.
Too many parents have an aversion to teaching their children and I’d guess it’s due to 1)a bad taste in their mouth from their own (mis)schooling, 2) being conditioned to believe that they can’t do as good a job, and/or 3)a forced condition in which they must work and rely on a ‘normal’ care-provider. All of this, I’d say, results in a lack of exposure/experience in the normal child, thus distinguishing the well-educated child as ‘gifted’ for having received such exposure/experience. Nurture, in this case, more than likely wins because the well-educated child’s mind was given the opportunity to do what I believe comes naturally, like walking and talking.
Imagine the result of binding a child to a stationary object or not giving a child the opportunity to engage in conversation until he/she were 5 years old. The devastating results have been documented, and yet we engage in similar activities in the first few years and think that the ‘normal’ child is ‘normal’. ‘Normal’ may be the result, but I don’t think ‘normal’ is necessarily right, neither for the child nor humanity. Do I believe that there are children who are genetically more ‘gifted’ to excel in particular subjects/fields? Sure, but considering today’s lack of ‘gifted’ training, I don’t think that the spread would be so dramatic between the ‘naturally’ gifted and the ‘intentionally, well-educated’ gifted child.
It’s like swimming, I suppose. I’m not a ‘swimmer’, although I know how to swim. Most here could say that they aren’t ‘gifted’, but that they are ‘well-educated’. Now, last I checked my uncle who is, well, 25+ yrs older than me still couldn’t swim. Does this mean that his brain just couldn’t do it? No! It just means that he never got around to the proper training. Don’t ask me how - He was born and raised on a small island!! LOL Clearly it wasn’t necessary for his survival (or maybe by the time and in the manner he was finally exposed, his instincts told him that avoiding the water was best for his survival!). Could he ever learn? Sure, I think that if he somehow mustered up the confidence and desire, then yes - when it comes to swimming, he would be a non-educated becoming educated. Do I think that at this point he’d ever be as good as, say, PokerDad - nope!
However, if I told you that my uncle had been adopted and comes from a long line of Olympic swimmers, which isn’t true but let’s pretend, we could guess that he may have had a chance of also being an Olympic swimmer, save for the fact that he wasn’t introduced to the sport. Having hypothetically come from a line of swimmers, my uncle’s genes may have been such that he had an extra vertebra, which allowed his lungs to be massive compared to the norm (great for holding your breath underwater and providing necessary oxygen to the body). This was the case for my father who was an excellent swimmer and consequently became a SEAL. One could say that nature guided his interest to swim, especially if his genetically large lungs resulted in his receiving accolades, even if solely from peers and parents, for his ‘natural’ water skills as a child. My cousin has the same build. Is either of them an Olympic athlete? Nope, one could argue that they may have been designed for such, but that their genetic ability wasn’t nurtured enough. Their training and environment weren’t such to develop their natural swimming abilities to the fullest … or at least not to the point of proving it at the Olympics. 
A non-genetically adapted swimmer may be an Olympic winner, though, if he were given the proper training and this were the first year that the Olympics were being held. I think as far as Olympics go, the bar is pretty high now, whereas I believe that our culture is still in its pre-Olympic days when it comes to testing and fostering true genetic giftedness in the non-sports fields, not just IQ, but in multiple intelligences, as Gardner coined it. And yes, sensitivity is a characteristic shared by many of the ‘gifted’ whose minds have realized the importance of taking in detail but not yet the importance of filtering.
By the way, I find it very interesting that so many memory-challenge winners start as adults (I strongly encourage you checking out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-E9MMTciBo&feature=related), and that the pilots, as adults, successfully learned to retain a photographic memory (may read more here: http://figur8.net/baby/2011/07/19/right-brain-education-developing-the-photographic-memory-function/). What does this tell you about the lack of stimulation in our environment and our brain’s capabilities, even as adults, when coupled with curiosity?
My argument is not that we can’t be curious and learn as we get older, only that if done right, we can trigger it earlier in our kids, and if we nurture it, we can produce a life-long love of learning and hopefully inspire future generations to create a better world. I’m tired of seeing so much potential wasted around me. I would argue that as humans, collectively, we possess much more potential than any other resource on this planet.
Maybe your perception is different, but I see our world being destroyed in so many ways because our minds are just not seeing the problems and our children, overall, aren’t growing capable enough of stepping up to the challenge to solve it. Failure to figure something out in a particular subject squelches interest and dwindles their desire to do anything productive in that field. Failure to understand in multiple fields devours confidence and fear of failure produces apathy, further exacerbating the problems in our world, as these ‘turned off’ children become parents who produce children who, unless sufficiently influenced by an outside force, are that much more apathetic and ill-equipped. My experience is that the gap between the creative and the apathetic is growing and I would go so far as to say that our species has cancer and that we need to do something asap to radiate and survive.
So, here’s the thing about giftedness, especially with regards to written literacy, that I think is so neat: that we’re all pretty much capable of it. Why? Because, as I’ve mentioned before, I think that the bar of expectations is too low, so whenever a child is in an environment that encourages their brain to function, guess what - it does. Why? I’d say it’s because we are all born to survive, to decode and adapt to our varying environments as young children to ensure survival as a diverse species. So, a parent who loves swimming and exposes his child to his loved sport will produce a swimmer. A parent who loves physics and their child stumbles upon their notebooks, will understand the language of physics. A parent who is artistic will expose their child to the arts. And a child’s love for their parent’s/peer’s interests will accelerate the child’s curiosity and knowledge overall. That is, until that child is put into an environment where his survival instincts tell him that such skills are no longer necessary.
Multiple parents have already posted on this thread instances in which younger children adapted up to mingle with their older siblings. The article talks about children throttling to match their environment. It’s not just our youngest who are throttling by the way. Look around and you’ll find too many adults who are dissatisfied (a sign that there is a problem to be solved), and yet they continue this way because their desire to remain in their environment is greater than their desire and or confidence/ability to change whatever has them dissatisfied. As humans we are born seeking to understand our world and our purpose in it; we want to “fit in†but we want to feel authentic as well, and when the two are in conflict, one is somehow sacrificed.
Overall, our educational and resulting cultural systems are failing our children - as if we didn’t already know. And this is why there are an overwhelming number of ‘gifted’ children who become disenchanted with the school system and don’t go through the motions of higher education. They care more about self-developing and the challenge that comes from discovering and producing in the ‘real’ world than they do about jumping through hoops in a classroom for the benefit of a paper whose purpose has yet to demonstrate any true meaning to them.
If our system allowed our children to learn more through experience than textbooks that require them to draw from inexperience, and instead guided them through hands-on projects, pausing to analyze, evaluate, create, etc, then I think we’d find the results much more successful. As it is now, ‘gifted’ children, whether verifiably gifted or not, are underachieving left and right and our society is suffering the consequences. I haven’t checked the stats, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of ‘gifted’/well-educated adults is growing smaller in the population over time. Degree or no degree, verifiably gifted or not, I think more people should be inspired to ‘do good’/create positive change and not just sit around all day idly wasting away. How many ‘problems’ could be ‘solved’ if more minds were inspired and equipped to make learning natural, yet trained to value the commitment required to resolve a challenging puzzle/problem/issue/conflict?
And what of giftedness and literacy? Well, I for one agree with annisis who wrote earlier in this thread that in addition to noticing gifted children’s ‘creativity’ outshine their ‘intelligence’, "Gifted children seemed, to me, capable of seeing things differently than the average child or adult. This was, of course, coupled with a strong desire to learn, and an insatiable curiosity, either in specific or general topics. Gifted learners also tend to want to overdo projects, or in more common terms are over-achievers. "
My theory is this: reading is a beautiful puzzle, and the sooner we teach them to enjoy decoding their world, the more they will want to understand it. Again, if we take it back to a child’s natural gift to be curious about their environment and decode, create & communicate to ensure survival of the species, then literacy in any field, not just reading, means that the brain has figured ‘it’ out. And having successfully overcome one challenge, it wants to devour another challenge. Until it finds that doing so is not socially acceptable or necessary and must then adapt to conform to the norm.
As I stated before, until we raise the bar as a society, children who learn to read by 3 will be gifted bc they are being compared to the non-reading, non-decoding, non-experience-enriched norm. Reading is a form of problem solving. It gives meaning to a particular order of squiggles, letters and words, no differently than numbers to a formula, musical notes to a song, body language to a plays, or words to an object, action or feeling. Through reading alone (or any of the above examples) the el child will start school ahead of his/her peers because of the years of experience solving problems, interpreting the data, and eventually applying and creating from it when they incorporate it into their dialogue, writings and performances.
There is a relatively new pearson poll that summarizes, among a few other notable facts, how the American population realizes the importance of early reading, but very falsely assumes that the non-book-exposed preschooler will just catch up to his book-exposed peers in a short amount of time. Alarming in this poll is the connection that drug, alcohol, high school difficulties, adult failure & poverty have with not having enough exposure to the written word. I definitely encourage you to glance at the short poll here: http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/downloads/Pearson_Foundation_Early_Childhood_Education_Percpetion_Poll.pdf.
Life is a beautiful mystery and the gifted, whether verified or not, are those who are curious enough to realize this, capable enough to figure any of it out, creative enough to make an improvement, and communicative enough to share their findings with others and ask for help along the way, propagating this cycle in hopes of yet another doing even better (this reminds me of those Olympic commercials where a teenager would watch the Olympics and claim the winner’s score as their new goal). There are so many nerves in the brain when we’re babies willing, ready and able to soak up anything that is stimulating because it may be necessary for survival. Well into adolescence the brain is still seeking efficiency, testing the limits of our boundaries and purging what is deemed unnecessary. So, yes, the window is open wide right now to be titled ‘gifted’, but aside from seeking the title to ensure that our children are receiving properly challenging material, the reason we should embrace ‘giftedness’ is because it’s about developing the curiosity necessary for unlocking the puzzles in our lives, and unleashing the creativity within us to leave the world better than when we got here.
Thank you so much for sharing these links! They were so essential and wonderful to review!! Now that k is 1 and doing so much more, I have seen the competition factor skyrocket with j, and have caught myself and others around him getting into the bad habit of praising his efforts at doing simple things that k is trying to do - just to get more attention. I am really looking forward to working more at offering him challenging, yet similar tasks, and helping him understand that he is more capable and should therefore step up to the challenge of pushing past his own limits, not hers. 
so happy. thanks!!
Queriquita, I quite enjoyed reading your ramblings over my morning coffee today :yes: I think it shows you have well thought out ideas and the makings of a plan also. I think overall I agree with you.
Diva7, I am also in Australia. ( Queensland at the moment) I consider myself and my children quite lucky that here any child who is academically ahead can join a gifted and talented program, with or without the IQ test paper. My kids are not yet in a gifted program as near to where we live they are only available for high school students. I have carefully selected the most compatible school for them in the area. Unfortunately they often hit the ceiling of education possible at this school and spend quite a bit of the day unchallenged ( or even a year flying under the radar!) I have looked for another school but havnt found a better fit yet, hence I after school them. I do this mostly because I want them to still love learning, be curious about the world, as well as continue their advancement to ensure that the option of a gifted high school program is still there. In a standard school system it is so easy for kids to plateau and learn nothing for over 12 months due to poor teaching…or lack of open need questioning in tests.
In Australia we only have a few national tests. One of my children sat the NAPLAN national test this year. I decided to give her some training in this test, to ensure she was comfortable sitting it and actually received the mark she deserved. She is lazy at school ( it’s all to easy) and both her teacher and I were concerned she would just stare out the window and not answer the questions. We just went through a couple of tests at home in the weeks prior. Many schools here actually test prep their students for months prior, my daughters school did minimal test prepping. Anyway in the end I decided I am all for test prepping, even her teacher was surprised she knew all the answers and got to the end of the test ( ie she hit the test ceiling in 2 of the tests!) I don’t have her results yet but she already knows she made a few silly mistakes in the math, it’ll be interesting to see how the school interprets the results. ( they still seem to think they are responsible for my children’s academic and athletic success! lol )
Anyway I do believe in Australia test prepping is far less important for IQ test scores than it is overseas. But I can see a good case for using the questions to develop critical and creative thinking. Bsed on that I shall check out testing moms questions.
Does anyone know of a good IQ Testing APP for children? Not for results but for practicing the types of critical and pattern thinking questions. All ages would be great!
Thought Experiment
Suppose you took the highest IQ male & the highest IQ female on earth today and had them procreate. Or better, suppose we found a way to isolate high intelligence genes and then genetically engineered the most intelligent person possible and did this right in a lab somewhere.
Then we did the unthinkable and locked that baby in a dark hole beneath a house somewhere hooked up to some feeding tube that kept the baby alive (and in my thought experiment we made sure baby was otherwise healthy and well nourished). When we come back in 7 years, or approximately when IQ begins to stabilize itself, what do you think the IQ of this child would be?
For comparison, suppose you found a very low IQ baby at birth (perhaps a crack baby), got them clean, gave them EL rigidly and then came back in 7 years (after rigorous 7 years of education) to measure IQ.
Which child would have the higher IQ?
Would one child be more gifted than the other?
I’m fairly certain I know how most on this forum would think (if all the responses in thread would indicate)… so if it’s too simple a task to answer, how would you argue against someone taking an opposing viewpoint?
I’m just really curious and eat this topic up.
Manda, I don’t have an IQ testing app but James has been using the qwizful (yup with a w) app. It is challenging for him. But it may be too easy for your older girls.
Yes, thank you so much, Kerileanne99 for all of the links. I’ve had several tabs open in my computer over the last couple days, and it has been an amazing reading session. I’ve printed off a few things and posted it where I can read it often. I LOVE this forum, and I’m so grateful that there are such wonderful parents to share this journey with.