27 Jan 2008, 9:43 am
My middle child is brilliant--self taught musician, wrote all his own music--yet, he struggled with math and was deficient in other areas. He could write and was gifted with language and art.
Now he attends an art school for film.
His achievement test in school (whatever test they used for freshman) in NO way reflected my son's abilitites. So, I am VERY wary of tests.
I do think he is one of those 2x exceptional kids that are hard to teach/understand. He never received any services, dropped out of HS, went to college alll on his own and loves it--even math! He is a gifted writer. But, we have published authors/poets in our family so it's no surprise
One must be very cautious with those scores when your child is on the spectrum and creative minded.
As for my younger son, eight-year old, everyone used to comment on how smart he was/is due to his advanced use of language and ability to articulate/express himself. He's had two different scores--one score superior/gifted range with a couple scores hitting the ceiling, and the other above average. Again, I don't put too much weight on these scores. His latest achievement test scores were in the 99% in writing and language.
(I forgot--I'm the one who started the post! I had to go back and read what I asked? I tend to change my viewpoint easily, depending on the weather. 
equinn
31 Jan 2008, 9:28 pm
I ended up thinking "average IQ" was meaningless. My son has a typical autistic profile: way above on somethings, like math skills and calculation, (he is 9 and tested as a 16 year old) and way below on a specific language test (like a 5 year old
)He ended up smack in the middle. But his IQ score is meaningless compared to an NT with the same IQ.
BTW - his teachers were surprised he score "so low". I wasn't. The two tests he did badly at were a language understanding test, where he had to explain very abstract words. (like "embaressment") He clearly understood the words, and was frustrated about not being able to give a clear answer. My explanation is that he thinks 100% visually, so I imagine having to translate an abstract word into a picture, and back into a word, was very difficult for him. The other one was putting a series of pictures in the right order in a story: again hard if you think in pictures, and hard if the content is social. The third test he did miserably at was puzzles: the tester said it simply bored him, and didn't see the point in using time on it:=
Who knows how he would score at a more classic Mensa type IQ test!
average iq is 100, iq below 80 is mental retardation
31 Jan 2008, 10:11 pm
07 Feb 2008, 5:11 pm
Actually the full range of average IQ is 80-114. To be fair 70–79 is Borderline Mental Retardation.
