IQ Testing Questions

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My son when he was 5 was given an IQ test. His overall score was 115. His visual spatial skills were off the charts, but his executive functioning and short term memory scores were impaired significantly. In fat his Visual Spatial skills pulled his overall IQ up significantly. Fast forward to age 14. Overall IQ score dropped to 88. His visual spatial skills declined to normal range, and his executive functioning and short term memory scores increased to a low normal range. All other areas of subtests seemed to stay in the same range. The psych said that basically this just means he learned how to compensate over the years for his poor executive functioning and short term memory issues by sacrificing his visual spatial skills. Ive also been told that its possible he just did not jive with this particular tester and I should completely disregard the testing results.

At age 5, he was thought to never be able to read past a 2nd grade level, never be able to write anything but his first and last name, and never do math other than just simple adding and subtracting of one digit numbers. Today he is at a college prep school in 7th grade keeping up with his peers in reading, is writing at about a 5th grade level, and is getting a passing grade (although struggles with some of it) in math. Im really confused about all this.

Thoughts?

Part of the difference between then and now may certainly be due to the difference in testers, but much of it is probably due to the fact that people do change over time. That's all that is.

If I am not mistaking.....the standard IQ test does not give propper indication of ASD kids....?
Because os some kids problems with auditory processing, they will misinterpret the instructions....I can truely think that this will have a very bad impact on my own sons scores.....also his terrible anxiety and poor attention will give destort results!! !! !

IQ tests only certain things. (specifically subsets of one's academic cognitive abilities and nothing more)

The test was designed to test children who were behind on their studies, in order to help them.

For that reason it takes into account somebody's age and averages that against others to come up with the result. Since somebody's verbal and auditory skills should get more developed as they are older, which although his were probably lacking before, they show up more significantly now. Also, while his visual - spacial skills were off the chart before - that was only compared to his age group. Now that his age group has caught up with him, it has cancelled out that advantage, hence the lower score.

If you are going to give him an IQ test, I would make sure it is ASD specific (they do exist), otherwise the results are going to be skewed.

I could not read in 1st grade. Through bribery on my mom's part I learned to read and read harry potter in second grade, and narnia and the hobbit in 3rd. I pretty much could not write on my own until a brilliant teacher I had in 6th and 7th grade.g

Me and my brother are "gifted". I graduated highschool with a 2.7 gpa, looks like he is going to with a 2.5. Me for having struggles with school work, (I think) him for not caring. Motivation matters more than a test score. Most people think I am smart but it is kind of important to be able to do homework, which I usually didn't do.

I agree that you should ignore these testing results. They are quite obviously flawed in some way. Further data is needed to form a conclusion about his cognitive capabilities.

My son did in the ave range on the IQ test, which was brought way down by his performance score which was a good 20 pts lower then his other 2 scores. he did superior range in his individual academic areas. How could he have ave IQ and superior academic scores?? The test has its flaws!

I had the opposite issue in that my son scored 81 overall in his IQ test, much to our surprise (and the psychologists). She said to take the result with a pinch of salt and have him retested prior to entering school. This is a child who taught himself to read, and is incredibly gifted in some areas (music and art although he is certainly splintered and has areas where he isn't very good) but the fact that his IQ would be on the 'lower end' never occurred to us. Admittedly, he didn't seem to 'take' to the tester and he was very anxious the whole time. I kind of brushed it off but it still bothers me that with a result like that he may never go to university (not because of my expectations but rather whatever he may want for himself).