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> The way human IQ testing developed is that researchers noticed people who excel in one cognitive task tend to do well in others My son took an IQ test and it

> The way human IQ testing developed is that researchers noticed people who excel in one cognitive task tend to do well in others My son took an IQ test and it wouldn't score him because he breaks this assumption. He was getting 98% in some tasks and 2% in others. The psychologist giving him the test said it was unlikely enough pattern that they couldn't get an IQ result for him. He's been diagnosed with non-verbal learning disability, and this is apparently common for nvld folks.

whatshisface 1y ago
A rule whose exceptions are one in a hundred fails for three million Americans.
- alistairSH 1y ago
  And works for 290 million plus…
erikerikson 1y ago
A term of use for your son is twice exceptional. The GP is correct about the theoretical basis of the tests. Note the use of "tend" in the quote. Even those who fit that better tend to have differential strengths so that has shown to be too simple. Over time the models of intelligence have complected adding EQ (emotional quotient), SQ (social q...), and so on but IQ was first, continues to be considered useful in some ways even as it's also been considered an oppression by some.
- PaulHoule 1y ago
  I've maxxed out any test or subscale of verbal intelligence that I've taken since I was 12 or so but my schizotaxic brain glitches enough that my problem solving ability in test environments is a bit degraded, still at least an SD above average, but enough that I get an IQ test score that is just high and not off the charts.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  EQ, SQ and whatever other-q, are not really a true thing. They're more feel good tests for Facebook dwellers who get confused on IQ tests. There are social assessments, but they are for identifying disorders.
  - grugagag 1y ago
    Same could be said about IQ..
    - pxc 1y ago
      IQ test questions have clear right and wrong answers that can be determined in advance of writing the test. But EQ tests just measure a (not necessarily unanimous) consensus of subjective intuitions by a handful of psychologists. It's true that EQ tests have all the same problems as IQ tests. But they also have additional problems. (I learned this when I chatted with a psychologist about an EQ test he administered to me, but I just reviewed it now. See the "Psychometric properties" section of the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_quotient https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_quotient )
      - mensetmanusman 1y ago
        People tend to tell me I have a high EQ, and I agree it’s hard to measure. For fun I recently completed a test where they just show eyes and you have to match their emotional state from a list (someone asked me to try this). I got nearly 100% when the average was 60^ or so. Thought it was an interesting approach to one aspect of EQ.
        pxc 1y ago
        The EQ test I took had a component that was questions like this. I'm not sure how meaningful it is for me given that I've been visually impaired my whole life. Nowadays, I can rarely see the eyes of strangers. But I did kinda hate questions like this, found them unpleasant to think through. I scored normal on the overall EQ test, but didn't do as well on the portion related to reading eyes or faces. It's interesting to imagine being able to intuitively breeze through a test like that, as well as how much information or precision is missing from my perceptual world! I wonder how the eye test might or might not correlate with a similar test centered on voices. I feel like I can interpret voices much more easily. Maybe I'd do a little better there?
Retric 1y ago
IMO g is purely an abstraction. As long as the rate you learn most things is within a reasonable bound spending more or less time learning/perfecting X impacts the time you spend on Y, resulting in people being generally more or less proficient in a huge range of common cognitive skills. Thus, testing those general skills is normally a proxy for a wide range of things. LD breaks IQ because it results in noticeably uneven skill acquisition in even foundational skills. Meanwhile increasing levels of specialization reward being abnormally good at a very narrow sets of skills making IQ less significant. The #1 rock climber in the world gets sponsors, the 100th gets a hobby.
- WanderPanda 1y ago
  For me it all made sense when I heard that IQ/g-factor basically vanishes in the absence of time pressure (heard if from Richard Haier on Lex). For a very narrow range of professions, like ATCs, time is absolutely critical but for most it does not really matter that much. Especially in many STEM fields. I think people in a broad IQ range can build abstractions and acquire intuitions about pretty complex matter. From this view-point ability to concentrate for long times, curiosity etc. seem more important than "raw-compute". "if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time" - Ilya Timeless statement imo, even in the absence of AI
  - Jensson 1y ago
    > For me it all made sense when I heard that IQ/g-factor basically vanishes in the absence of time pressure (heard if from Richard Haier on Lex). That cannot be true as there are valid IQ tests that doesn't have a time component, and people don't all score the same on those. He must have meant something different than you think. For example Raven's matrices was originally an untimed test, how can that be if there is no G-factor in untimed tests?
moritonal 1y ago
Just to add an anecdote, as of 15 years ago I had similar scores and was diagnosed with dyslexia.
- technothrasher 1y ago
  My son struggled quite a bit learning to read. He was very slow to do so, and it frustrated him quite a lot. But interestingly, once he did get it, he became a voracious reader, and he's never since scored below 95th percentile on reading tests. So his developmental dyslexia did not carry over into general dyslexia. One of the interesting things about nvld, at least in his case, is that you would never know he had a learning disability by talking to him. He comes across as a smart, mature, knowledgeable young man. Mostly because this is what he actually is. But when he does struggle with something, it is often interpreted as him not trying or being lazy.
  - moritonal 1y ago
    To add a bit more, I didn't really read until later, around 8, but then read at a fairly quick and passionate amount for my age. People thought I'd dodged my family curse but later around 10 it was shown I was quite behind at school. My dyslexia was described as "a defect in one aspect of intelligence", which for most kids is reading comprehension, but for me it showed in a lack of decent short term memory. As you say, learning disabilities are interesting issues to deal with, but I'm sure your son will do great with support like you around him.
    - technothrasher 1y ago
      Thank you for the kind word. He is doing great, and in fact we're dropping him off to begin his college career this Thursday. It's always interesting to hear from people with different cognitive and neurological profiles. It;s fascinating how the brain works similarly and differently with individual people. I can sympathize with your memory issues. I've always had a terrible working memory. It makes arithmetic and spelling difficult, as I cannot keep the letters and numbers in my head long enough.
marstall 1y ago
my son had similar results! we thought NVLD - now we are pretty certain Kabuki Syndrome.

whatshisface 1y ago

A rule whose exceptions are one in a hundred fails for three million Americans.

alistairSH 1y ago
And works for 290 million plus…

erikerikson 1y ago

A term of use for your son is twice exceptional. The GP is correct about the theoretical basis of the tests. Note the use of "tend" in the quote. Even those who fit that better tend to have differential strengths so that has shown to be too simple. Over time the models of intelligence have complected adding EQ (emotional quotient), SQ (social q...), and so on but IQ was first, continues to be considered useful in some ways even as it's also been considered an oppression by some.

PaulHoule 1y ago
I've maxxed out any test or subscale of verbal intelligence that I've taken since I was 12 or so but my schizotaxic brain glitches enough that my problem solving ability in test environments is a bit degraded, still at least an SD above average, but enough that I get an IQ test score that is just high and not off the charts.
Workaccount2 1y ago
EQ, SQ and whatever other-q, are not really a true thing. They're more feel good tests for Facebook dwellers who get confused on IQ tests. There are social assessments, but they are for identifying disorders.
- grugagag 1y ago
  Same could be said about IQ..
  - pxc 1y ago
    IQ test questions have clear right and wrong answers that can be determined in advance of writing the test. But EQ tests just measure a (not necessarily unanimous) consensus of subjective intuitions by a handful of psychologists. It's true that EQ tests have all the same problems as IQ tests. But they also have additional problems. (I learned this when I chatted with a psychologist about an EQ test he administered to me, but I just reviewed it now. See the "Psychometric properties" section of the Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_quotient https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy_quotient )
    - mensetmanusman 1y ago
      People tend to tell me I have a high EQ, and I agree it’s hard to measure. For fun I recently completed a test where they just show eyes and you have to match their emotional state from a list (someone asked me to try this). I got nearly 100% when the average was 60^ or so. Thought it was an interesting approach to one aspect of EQ.
      - pxc 1y ago
        The EQ test I took had a component that was questions like this. I'm not sure how meaningful it is for me given that I've been visually impaired my whole life. Nowadays, I can rarely see the eyes of strangers. But I did kinda hate questions like this, found them unpleasant to think through. I scored normal on the overall EQ test, but didn't do as well on the portion related to reading eyes or faces. It's interesting to imagine being able to intuitively breeze through a test like that, as well as how much information or precision is missing from my perceptual world! I wonder how the eye test might or might not correlate with a similar test centered on voices. I feel like I can interpret voices much more easily. Maybe I'd do a little better there?

Retric 1y ago

IMO g is purely an abstraction. As long as the rate you learn most things is within a reasonable bound spending more or less time learning/perfecting X impacts the time you spend on Y, resulting in people being generally more or less proficient in a huge range of common cognitive skills. Thus, testing those general skills is normally a proxy for a wide range of things. LD breaks IQ because it results in noticeably uneven skill acquisition in even foundational skills. Meanwhile increasing levels of specialization reward being abnormally good at a very narrow sets of skills making IQ less significant. The #1 rock climber in the world gets sponsors, the 100th gets a hobby.

WanderPanda 1y ago
For me it all made sense when I heard that IQ/g-factor basically vanishes in the absence of time pressure (heard if from Richard Haier on Lex). For a very narrow range of professions, like ATCs, time is absolutely critical but for most it does not really matter that much. Especially in many STEM fields. I think people in a broad IQ range can build abstractions and acquire intuitions about pretty complex matter. From this view-point ability to concentrate for long times, curiosity etc. seem more important than "raw-compute". "if you value intelligence above all other human qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time" - Ilya Timeless statement imo, even in the absence of AI
- Jensson 1y ago
  > For me it all made sense when I heard that IQ/g-factor basically vanishes in the absence of time pressure (heard if from Richard Haier on Lex). That cannot be true as there are valid IQ tests that doesn't have a time component, and people don't all score the same on those. He must have meant something different than you think. For example Raven's matrices was originally an untimed test, how can that be if there is no G-factor in untimed tests?

moritonal 1y ago

Just to add an anecdote, as of 15 years ago I had similar scores and was diagnosed with dyslexia.

technothrasher 1y ago
My son struggled quite a bit learning to read. He was very slow to do so, and it frustrated him quite a lot. But interestingly, once he did get it, he became a voracious reader, and he's never since scored below 95th percentile on reading tests. So his developmental dyslexia did not carry over into general dyslexia. One of the interesting things about nvld, at least in his case, is that you would never know he had a learning disability by talking to him. He comes across as a smart, mature, knowledgeable young man. Mostly because this is what he actually is. But when he does struggle with something, it is often interpreted as him not trying or being lazy.
- moritonal 1y ago
  To add a bit more, I didn't really read until later, around 8, but then read at a fairly quick and passionate amount for my age. People thought I'd dodged my family curse but later around 10 it was shown I was quite behind at school. My dyslexia was described as "a defect in one aspect of intelligence", which for most kids is reading comprehension, but for me it showed in a lack of decent short term memory. As you say, learning disabilities are interesting issues to deal with, but I'm sure your son will do great with support like you around him.
  - technothrasher 1y ago
    Thank you for the kind word. He is doing great, and in fact we're dropping him off to begin his college career this Thursday. It's always interesting to hear from people with different cognitive and neurological profiles. It;s fascinating how the brain works similarly and differently with individual people. I can sympathize with your memory issues. I've always had a terrible working memory. It makes arithmetic and spelling difficult, as I cannot keep the letters and numbers in my head long enough.

marstall 1y ago

my son had similar results! we thought NVLD - now we are pretty certain Kabuki Syndrome.