Taking several IQ tests.

From some of the comments I see all over the internet, it is clear that some parents of gifted children - or non-gifted children - get their children to take several IQ tests. I even hear of children being tested every six months or so. Is this a useful practice and what are the dangers?

Well, IQ is supposed to be quite stable throughout life, that is, it shouldn't change much. So, it does seem unnecessary to keep on taking tests. In some cases the parents appear to have children who are less than official cut-offs for gifted programmes - perhaps they are hoping that a "good" test, will take them over the threshold. In others, there seems to be a perception that the child's progress needs to be tracked in this way.

Whatever the motivation for this repeated testing, there is a common danger, which posts also reveal. There is a tendency among some school systems and a large number of professionals to judge the child on the LOWEST test result. I find this absurd, for it has no sound reasoning behind it. They seem to think that the child's "true" ability is measured by their least performance. This doesn't make sense. There are many reasons why a child could under-perform on a particular day: tired, bored, unmotivated, resistant to the test, ill - etc. There are any number of reasons why under-performance could occur - but what reasons could there be for OVER-performance? What is going to make a child perform above the level of their intelligence? Nothing at all - unless they have done a particular test before, quite recently, in which case there will be an increase from familiarity with the test. (Which is why frequent testing on a particular instrument is frowned upon - and often discounted.) Apart from this possible influence, there is nothing that can make a child do better than they should have done - but there are many things that could make a child under-perform.

Given this background, it is clear that those practitioners and school systems that insist on judging a child on the lowest test result are guilty of an injustice. Their reasoning does not make sense. A child's true ability will be closer to the HIGHEST test result obtained - unless that test result was obtained from multiple testing of the same instrument in quick succession (which could raise it a little, but not much).

So, if you have more than one IQ test result and a school system is judging your child - point out the logic above. A child can easily under-perform - but there is just no way they can over-perform.

Then again, if they don't listen to you and you continue to test multiply it is clear that you will decrease the lowest test result obtained - because you will have more chance of catching your child on an off day. Thus the more frequently you test, the more results you will get - and the more chance you will have that one of them will be unusually low, for whatever reason. Ironically, therefore, those who test their child multiply are exposing their child to the risk of being underestimated.

On having a sense of humour

Do all gifted people have a sense of humour? Do they understand when another is being light of heart?

I don't think so. The evidence of a recent post shows an utter lack of a sense of humour in one "member of the gifted community". It seems that they were unable to identify when I was being light of heart, in my many posts about my children's actions.

I find this worrying. This person thought that I had compared my son, Ainan, to the "Second Coming", since I had talked of his experiments with walking on water and had pointed out that he knew nothing of religious history, so he had not been inspired by anyone. He - or she - had clearly overlooked my intention to tell a light-hearted anecdote of life with Ainan. I find that amazing.

Indeed, by pointing out the fact that Ainan knew nothing of religious history - I was DISCONNECTING him from the actions of Jesus - for they could have had no effect on his thinking. He was just a child at play. What was interesting to me, in his experiments, is the way he approached it - his structured analysis of the situation - and his modest degree of success in accomplishing his aim, with materials he found lying around. That is characteristic of Ainan: he works with whatever is to hand.

This incident leads me to wonder how much else of what I have written is misunderstood. Much of it is written to entertain and inform. If it succeeds in either intention, I am happy for it. That someone should miss the point of my writing and then promulgate an opinion of me based on that misunderstanding is rather saddening.

To bolster their argument, they "appealed to authority", saying that Gifted Psychologists disagreed with some of the things I said. Well, let them disagree. I disagree with almost everything psychologists do. I met a lot of them at University - and they were often lacking in insight into Humanity, in a way which was quite perturbing. I never met a creative mind among them: perhaps that is why psychology has yet to become a real science - there are too few really good thinkers working in it (though there may be some, but not enough).

So, reader from Iowa, Fairfield...thanks for your comment. It was nice of you try to make the message gentler, towards the end. However, I shan't publish it, but I have addressed it, partially, here.

Perhaps a blog would be easier to understand if you could hear when I was laughing, as I wrote.