Study links childhood IQ to likelihood of future drug use

I'll get you the link once Jane is home from school....

Yes, we see that here too, we live in an affluent beach community and although our high school has an outstanding academic reputation, it is also
a known fact that the rich kids have enough money for drugs, and yes, their
parents bail them out and not only that, they donate a considerable amount of money to the school, so these kids are never ever expelled (despite what the school's policy preaches). It really sends a wrong message to the other kids too!

I 'm not aware of members of Mensa having bad drug histories. (Mensa began in England.)
This has not been a topic of conversation among members at meetings, to my knowledge.

Personally, I disagree with the assertion that:
we "suffer at the hands of their peers for being different".
On the contrary, I was popular, especially around exam time.

I have not become involved with illegal drugs, nor have I considered it.
None of my Mensan friends have.





David

Oh! I'll bet I know the ads they're talking about. I read about them a few days ago on a site that discusses advertising.

They are seriously powerful: http://www.methproject.org/ads/tv/

It was kind of that way at my high school too, David -- the smart kids were the popular kids.

Yes, but aren't the tests more developed than they used to be (I'm ignorant on all this since I don't know what tests for young children used to be, much less now), as in testing different types of intelligence?

In the dark ages (my years), people could change by finally getting glasses or a hearing aid.

They haven't changed that much. The newest one is the Wechsler test and it too was devised to determine disability, not ability.



I know that there are some available that aren't commonly administered, probably due to how expensive they are. The friend who I was discussing the neuro-psych testing with told me to expect to spend about $2,000 just on the testing and that it isn't typically covered by insurance.

Thay gave me laudatory nicknames; there was never any trouble.





David

Yes exactly, that's the link Jane had given me. They are powerful messages and I think they should run these ads daily on TV. Heck they have hourly advertisements for McDonalds, why not do something for the kids.

Actually the I.Q. tests have changed quite a bit, boomer. All of the current tests in use, which are individually administered, and which therefore do not depend on the ability to read or write, measure ability, and they were designed to measure ability. While they may be useful in helping to recognize disability, it is various cognitive abilities they are measuring. And, in the scoring of the test, and the computation of the I.Q., the abilities of the person taking the test are compared to the mean for their age group. The most widely used individually administered tests are the Wechsler scales, and these tests are periodically updated and re-standardized, which is a very elaborate undertaking in terms of scope. Because they measure ability, they can have predictive value, particularly in terms of academic achievement, which is why these tests are widely used in educational settings and schools.

There are several different Wechlser scales of intelligence, for different age groups, so, for a child your son's age, the appropriate test would be the WISC-IV, which is the current version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. It would almost certainly be included in a neuropsychological evaluation. You can get an overview of the test here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children



The expense of neuropsychological testing is due mainly to the time involved--interviews, history taking, the actual time for test administration, scoring and evaluation of the tests, and preparation of a lengthy, detailed, written report which summarizes and discusses all of the test results. You aren't really being charged for the tests per se--you're being charged for the examiner's time to do all of these things.
Depending on the reason for the testing, or the presenting problem/issue, more or less tests might be included in the battery of tests administered, but the WISC-IV would certainly be included for a child---it is a very highly regarded, extremely useful, relatively comprehensive measure of cognitive abilities, and the patterning of those abilities in an individual. And results of the WISC could also be used to determine what other tests were needed, or might be useful, in the neuro-psych evaluation.

You possibly could have a neuro-psych evaluation done on a child at lower cost through a children's hospital, particularly a teaching hospital, or through a university that has a Ph.D. program in neuropsychology if there is one near you. Graduate programs have to provide their students with supervised experience as part of their training, so they will often provide the testing at lower cost, in exchange for which the graduate student gains experience administering and interpreting the tests to as varied a population as possible and writing an extensive report--all of which is very carefully supervised by a member of the graduate faculty who is an experienced and licensed psychologist, and who is also available to discuss the test results with you. In the case of getting the testing done through the outpatient department of a hospital, the examiner is a salaried staff member, so that cuts down on the cost that someone in private practice might charge, and that hospital person may also have the most experience doing that sort of thing. Just be sure that the person, whether a grad student, or hospital staff member, has appropriate training in neuropsychology and not just in clinical psychology. You might want to talk about it with the school psychologist at your son's school to see if that person knows where you can have a neuro-psych eval done, near you, at a reasonable cost, and whether such an evaluation would answer the questions you have concerning your son.

Thanks for your excellent reply!

I'm just not sure they measure "giftedness". Especially in children. IQ isn't static and kids develop at different rates.

Not long ago I was trying to find information about what to think/do when there were big discrepancies in the subsets of the Wechsler test when I came across this: http://cty.jhu.edu/bin/y/h/ld.pdf. (I've read a lot that says the same thing, I just don't have them handy right now.)



Mo was recently tested with Wechsler and several others. I wasn't impressed with the feedback we got from the school and that's why I'm looking for something that goes a bit deeper. We had him tested 3 years ago at the local children's hospital's child development clinic and I was much happier with their evaluation so I know you're advice is good! Even the clinic didn't make many recommendations though and they didn't discuss potential future problems. I'd really like some feedback.

Thanks for your ideas on how we might ameliorate the costs.

IQs definitely change, that's part of why I said that I had a high IQ as a kid, dunno about now!

For sozlet, it's a year-by-year thing.

There are actually two kinds of classes. She has one that she's in now that is purely IQ-based, and unlike other programs that holds for two years (this year and next, based on her score from a test in fourth grade). Her teacher (who is absolutely amazing) said that the tests definitely leave out some other kids who she considers gifted.

That's where the other kinds of classes come in. Those take test scores into consideration but that's not the whole story -- classroom teacher recommendations and the "gifted" (not what they call it) teacher's observations also come into play. Those are year-by-year, kids cycle in and out even though overall a lot of the same kids are there each year.

Meanwhile, re: pure test scores, one kid who hasn't been in any of the gifted programs 'til this year and hasn't done well at school in general is in the small group (IQ-based), because of his fourth-grade test score. He's evidently intelligent but supremely unmotivated and easily bored. He's been having a GREAT time in the small group, and is doing better in school in general now.

At any rate, definitely agree that IQ tests on their own are of limited utility. Hope the costs work out for the more in-depth tests for Mo.

Qua changing I.Q.s:
it is held in some quarters that the brain is like a muscle
in that thru persistent, disciplined exercise, it grows stronger.

Even just reading good books, or calculating, can help to achieve that.
Reading needs to be motivated; i.e., he needs to have access
to reading materials in which he has a real interest n curiosity.
That can also bode well for vocabulary development.





David

Just wanted to add this:

Sozlet came home and was talking about the same kid, saying much of the above (lack of motivation, boredom, loving the small group gifted class, doing better in school), to the point where I brought her here and showed her what I'd happened to write earlier today. (She was talking about him out of the blue, we don't talk about him much.)

She added a lot more though. He's had serious anger management issues, which I've known since preschool. (When he slugged a mutual friend in the face because she scored on him in a soccer game.) He's gotten better as he's gotten older.

So one thing I didn't know until she just told me was that just last year it was still a serious issue -- for example (but not limited to this) he threw a chair in class. (He didn't throw it at a person but out the door into the hallway, where it bounced and went over the landing and could've seriously injured someone on the stairs. Luckily, nobody was there.)

So, it's been an ongoing thing with him... until this year.

His mood has evidently improved notably, and he's much less salty in general. Sozlet and her friend C (who are both in the small group with him) were talking about it and thought that he seems to do better when his mind is engaged in complicated stuff. What sozlet wanted to tell me about is that they had an occasion to test that theory today. They were talking about some sort of mysterious lights that appeared in the west recently (according to his older brother), and she had some theories (galaxies, supernovas, etc.) He didn't know about this stuff and had a zillion questions. It's something she knows a fair amount about and she answered his questions, which gave rise to new questions...

Every time she saw him in the halls he had a new theory for her, and he was in a GREAT mood all day.

That's exiting to even just read, Soz. Interesting too, Sozlet's role in his being engaged in active curiosity - if I or many other people had been the one talking with him, I'd have been of no use since galaxies and supernovas et al are not my element. Excellent re the class working like that.

Depends what you mean by "giftedness" boomer. I.Q. tests, like the WISC-IV, assess various cognitive functions, and a fairly wide spectrum of cognitive functions, but they aren't designed to measure to measure other attributes, like creativity, curiosity,etc. They do measure cognitive/intellectual "giftedness", with the gifted being those who achieve scores in the upper ranges of the test.

The WISC-IV takes the process of development into account in terms of the scoring of the test because the child's scores are being evaluated only in terms of his own age group (which includes the variability within that age group). So, the level of development of cognitive functions of a particular 9 year old is determined by comparing that child's test scores to the overall population of 9 year olds. Any significant deviations from the mean of that overall group, in either subtest scores, or the Full Scale I.Q., will reflect that child's rate of development when compared to same age peers. So, the test scoring is taking into consideration that cognitive development is not a static process. If you re-test that same child again, at age 10, his test scores are determined by comparison with the overall population of 10 year olds, so his rate is again assessed in terms of his same age peers and the variability within that group. For that reason, while cognitive development is not a static process, I.Q. scores on the WISC-IV tend to be fairly stable over time because the scoring methodology is designed to keep those scores stable.

That link isn't working for me boomer, I get "page cannot be found".
But I understand the concerns about the reliance on Full Scale I.Q. scores in identifying the gifted, particularly on the WISC-IV, because of the weight given to those sub-tests which are less relevant in identifying giftedness, and the fact that the gifted might not score as highly on those sub-tests, and this can contribute to a lower Full Scale I.Q. which may fail to identify them as being gifted.
This article, which you might have come across, discusses that sort of issue, as well as additional ways of identifying giftedness.
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/NewWISC.pdf

The average Full Scale I.Q. for gifted children on the WISC-IV standardization sample was 123.5, and that may not accurately reflect the ability of this group because it is a composite score which obscures considerable variability among the indexes.
It certainly suggests that educators should not blindly rely only on the FS I.Q. score in identifying the gifted, and, in actual practice they might not be doing that in all cases. These children can be identified in terms of superior verbal and abstract reasoning skills, which will be apparent in their test performance, and they can also be given some additional tests to better assess their abilities. Since the WISC-IV can yield a FS I.Q. of up to 160, it can discriminate in the upper range in measuring giftedness, and many gifted children might show fairly even scores on all the main indexes, and their FS I.Q. would consequently be higher than the standardization sample suggests. .

In actual practice, all scores, and the patterning of those scores, both the discrepancies between sub-test scores, and indexes, and the intra-test "scatter" within the sub-tests, on the WISC-IV should be looked at and evaluated, along with some evaluation of the child's test-taking behavior, and generally the person who has administered the test will do all that and summarize the findings as part of their test report. The WISC-IV can yield a great deal of information beyond a FS I.Q. score, not just about cognitive functioning, but personality functioning as well, if the examiner takes the time to carefully observe the child during testing and spends time evaluating the entire test protocol. The kind of feedback you get from the examiner, like your school psychologist for instance, might reflect how much effort they want to put into this, beyond what they need for their own purposes, and whether their interests over-lap with your issues and questions. They might, for example, be less concerned with diagnostic questions, which require a different level of analysis, than you are, and this is going to affect how they look at the test results, what tests they administer, and the sort of feedback you will get.

If Mo recently took the WISC-IV, within the past year, and you'd like another opinion on that test result, as well as the other tests he was given, from the child development center at your local children's hospital, see if you can get a copy of the raw test data from the school psychologist. The WISC-IV should not be administered more than once a year because it can affect the score. But, what would be most useful to another psychologist you might consult is not just a copy of the report, or a copy of the front page of the test booklet (where all the summary scores are listed), but a copy of the ENTIRE test booklet/form, where the examiner recorded all of your son's verbal responses, the times for the timed tests, the entire record of his actual test responses, along with the examiner's scoring of all responses. And obtain copies of the raw data for any other tests Mo was given. If the school psychologist doesn't want to give this directly to you, they should be willing to mail it to the child development center, as long as you provide a release form.
With that raw test data info, a psychologist at the child development center might be able to give you better feedback, or simply give Mo some additional tests without having to re-administer everything he took recently, and they might be able to compare the more current raw data to the WISC-IV, or other tests, he was given 3 years ago to note any changes. Getting the actual raw data, and simply giving that to someone else for a second opinion is another way to try to ameliorate the costs.

What sort of recommendations are you looking for? What sort of future problems are you concerned about?

Cool! Sozlet rocks. It sounds like her school does a great job.

just to pick a separate bone in the subject here ....

if that worked? we would not have the percentages of drug users we have today. Everyone knows drugs harm you. Everyone hears anti-drug campaigns whether or not you are in school does not matter. The education and awareness starts in 1st grade for at least the last 2 generations ( I was getting it by 2nd grade) ..... yet, teenage drug use is on the rise.

I agree that we need to keep talking about it. Not talking, not teaching and not presenting the horrible side effects is not the way to go.. but just talking obviously is not working.

What would be the next step..? I have NO clue.

I do know ( even from experience) that people who choose to go the drug route are essentially self medicating due to something being wrong.. But how could a society pin point that wrong in every single person and attempt to fix it is absolutely beyond me and probably near impossible..

When I was in school, I have a very high IQ. I still do .
And I was never EVER interested in ANYTHING that had to do with school. It was boring. It was common, dumbed down things like read, copy answer, and recite.
Reading tests made me frustrated. They would give this 3 or 4 paragraph story, then ask you questions about it. These questions went in order of the paragraph 90% of the time and could be answered by simply matching the first few words of the question to the almost EXACT sentence in the story. This was not 'learning' ... and I knew it.

I figured out that teaching pattern in 3rd grade and my then teacher Mr Faulkner picked me out and started handing me books from higher grades. Those books taught in the exact same fashion and I went through those easily. With no real comprehension of the information needed... ANYONE could pass those tests with just a little scanning of the stories. They still do that today.

He declared me gifted and had me moved. I thought that was the dumbest thing ever.

4th, 5th..etc.. Same thing.

In high school ( mind you I was only there until 10th grade) I was put in the special ed class. I had by passed the gifted rooms and at this point in my education I was not doing ANY home work, or ANY class work. I did however take all tests. With just that alone I was pulling in c's and d's. Just enough to pass... just enough to show I knew the material ...but not enough to make me have to pay attention if that makes sense.

Invincible.. yeah. I agree with Boom. I thought that as well. Especially when I was tested for my IQ several times and all times hit 160 or better. This enforced my very arrogant idea that I did not need to study. Though to a certain extent I was correct.. but in the big scheme of things I was wrongly full of myself. Hence the invincibility ..

Frankly, I think the IQ test is only a way to show how well you can solve problems, not necessarily a major judge memory or retention of specific pieces of knowledge.Though you DO have to understand things like basic sentence structure ,language rules, algebra, trig..etc to get through it . Once you have done well with that part of the test they have to move you on to the shapes and blocks test. Again.. no real retention necessary.

Long rambling short.. I was bored out of my mind as a kid. I thought school and the basic education was stupid. I was shocked that people struggled with such simple concepts and I stayed far away from most kids...gravitating to the stoners. There, we stayed high and skipped school to do things we actually enjoyed.

I left school at 14. And its no secret that I have done a lot of drugs. I never felt alienated or different from other kids. I always thought THEY were the ones who were different and why were they not getting basic stuff. I had nothing in common with them and didnt enjoy their company . I still feel that way in life, but as an adult I can pick and choose the people I associate with now instead of being jammed into a classroom full of people I would never speak with anyway.

but my question to this whole article is this-

Why are only the 'smart' students being called out on taking drugs because they 'are different' ?
What about the students in gangs?
Your chess club type kids? The ones no one would hang out with?
What about the students who have been failed?
The very fat ones?
Super skinny ones?
Poor kids?
Even rich kids? People call them arrogant, stuck up..etc.etc.

My point is that there are always people , groups and personalities that are singled out and teased. MOST KIDS at one point feel they do not belong, and are not fitting in some where. If that were the only thing necessary for taking to drugs then you could not simply point to the IQ and call it a major factor...

Thanks for the explanation. I'm going to ponder it a bit. I wish they'd given Mo the same tests both times -- the clinic was three years ago and the school tests were a month ago.

I found another link to the paper I mentioned: http://www.ldonline.org/article/Gifted_Children_with_Learning_Disabilities%3A_A_Review_of_the_Issues?theme=print. Giftedness really isn't an issue at our house but just about everything I've come across that discusses discrepancies in scores talks about gifted/learning disabled kids. Mo's scores were all in the average range until it got to "processing speed" where he landed on "borderline" (4th percentile).



These are the two things that Mo scored highest on -- slightly above average.

When I asked if the discrepancies might be indicative of a neurological problem they just shrugged and said they didn't know. I'd like to know that. I'd like to know if there are perhaps some interventions that would help.

I didn't know that I could get the raw data, I'm going to ask for it.

The future problem I'm most concerned about is keeping him in school until graduation without him being miserable every single day. We're currently looking at alternative schools and other options beyond traditional classrooms.

There are also some social problems that I don't want to really get into here so I'll just say that they seem to center around his rather intense loyalty to people and often leave him brokenhearted and depressed. He misinterprets simple things as rejection and this can send him into a tailspin that lasts for weeks and weeks.

This article, even though it is about poverty, really sums up some of my fears: http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/magazine/97268/the-two-year-window?page=0,0&passthru=YzBlNDJmMmRkZTliNDgwZDY4MDhhYmIwMjYyYzhlMjg&utm_source=The%20New%20Republic&utm_campaign=aff101360e-TNR_Daily_111411&utm_medium=email.

While we're well outside "the two year window" and we have had significant interventions, I would like to know that we're doing everything possible to help him avoid some of the traps he might fall into.

Agreed.

That's why I was saying I'd like to see a study on boredom and drug use. The argument of they're smart, they're unchallenged, they get bored, they use drugs, doesn't really fly with me.

Poverty is big time boring and many kids raised in poverty are academically unchallenged simply because they are challenged with survival and there's no room for anything else. I don't see any real discussion saying poor kids use drugs because they're bored and unchallenged though.