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IQ scores and academic grade levels

Submitted by an LD OnLine user on

What does it basically mean when a student’s IQ scores improve but his academic levels when tested are 1 to 3 years behind? My kid showed a discrepency between his IQ scores when first tested between the verbal and performance IQ’s of 21 points. When he was last tested, the discrepancy apparently disappeared. There was only a difference of 3 points. Yet, the academic part of the test showed him to be 1 to 3 years behind in some areas. What correlation is there between the two?

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 04/10/2001 - 2:57 PM

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Bright people are not necessarily always pristine in their skills. Einstein spelled poorly. He was very bright, to say the least, but he didn’t spell well. And spelling is an academic skill.

Not all bright people read well or spell well or write well or do math well and those are all areas of academic skills.

That your son’s gap between performance and verbal tested as having closed is good news. While he manifested such a gap, however, learning in school may have been hard for him and you may be seeing the “lag” from that gap in his skills. He may catch up in those academic skills now.

The biggest question is always how is he doing in school? Are those areas of weakness in his skills posing a problem for him? If so, you might consider having him tutored either in school or out of it to help him close the gap between his abilities and his skills.

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