Intelligence is relative, rather than absolute. That is, it’s easier to discern intellectual differences in a class of primary students than to estimate the intelligence or IQ of a particular child. Elementary school teachers scanning 25 or 30 students in their classroom, observe that some children absorb ideas and master skills quickly, while others have a short interest span, require frequent remediation, and show little joy in learning. The gifted students usually stand out as focussed, eager to learn and enthusiastic in completing their work. The less capable students tend to find the cognitively demanding subjects like arithmetic to be threatening or tedious.
These differences in intelligence are partly a consequence of inherited DNA (i.e. SNP’s) and partly related to the intellectual stimulation in the home environment. In my research on the biographies of more than 360 of the highest achievers in recent human history, I found that most, but not all, highly intelligent people, such as Nobel laureates, came from highly intelligent parents and intellectually stimulating home environments. (Since intelligence is not highly heritable–see: Why can people have different IQ levels even if they have the same genetics and upbringing? – Intelligence and IQ– there are some extremely bright people whose parents are of average intelligence.)
Many of the high achievers displayed a precociousness at an early age and were given special tutoring (the high achievers prior to the 20th century) or moved into classes for the gifted (modern high achievers.) In a recent post, I used the example of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, who attended a Montessori pre-school where he became so engrossed in each project that he had to be picked up–chair and all–and moved to the next activity. Similar stories apply to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.
Parents and grandparents usually overestimate the intelligence of their offspring because they observe in amazement the rapid rate at which their child absorbs information, while forgetting that we humans learn at a prodigious rate during our early formative years. It’s only when their child’s performance is compared to others, that they can estimate their child’s relative intelligence.
So, extreme giftedness (IQ ≥ 140) is relatively easy to identify from observation, while giftedness (IQ ≥ 130) and learning-challenged (IQ ≤ 90) are mainly identifiable from schoolwork. However, for a more precise comparison of intelligence relative to the average, an IQ test is the best instrument we have. In spite of this, the IQ test, especially for young children, is often misleading because many young children are not interested in completing the test or in making an effort to choose the best answer to each test item. Perhaps the best advice to parents is to chat with you child’s teachers to ascertain the level of your child’s performance and ensure that your child is put in a program commensurate with his or her ability. (In some school districts, programs for the gifted have been eliminated by a doctrine that denies differences in individual capabilities, but this trend may be now diminishing.)
