During my first assessment course in graduate school, I learned about the interesting history of intelligence testing and the biases and problems with initial assessment tools. After allowing us to be horrified, the professor added a caution that intelligence testing was still evolving and that different theories drove test composition and the questions of validity and usefulness of the subtests were yet to be determined.
Twenty years later, I can say that being part of the evolution of intelligence testing has been an intriguing experience. The IQ tests that I used in my internship have been updated at least three times and are already treated with disdain. Subtests have been replaced by other “better” subtests. The current IQ assessments will soon be replaced as theories and tests continue evolve.
Marilyn Vos Savant said it best. “So many factors are involved (in intelligence) that attempts to measure it are useless. Not that IQ tests are useless. Far from it. Good tests work: They measure a variety of mental abilities, and the best tests do it well. But they don’t measure intelligence itself.”
So how should we interpret the results from these still evolving IQ tests?
Is the information even helpful?
An IQ test tells us how a child compares to a normative sample.
It highlights strengths and weaknesses on a narrow set of subtests.
However, it is not the full picture of any child and shouldn’t be taken as such.
As one teacher wrote to her general education students regarding state exams, “”The scores you will get from these tests will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. These tests do not define you. There are many ways of being smart. YOU are smart! You are enough!”
This wisdom also applies to our “more than special” students and their IQ results. The scores tell something but not everything. They are not a complete representation of everything that the child can do or be. There is no way to test everything that is wonderful about each child.
A child is more than an IQ score.