I was woundering does a high IQ help or not. According to tests I have a really high IQ but when you think about it all IQ is problem solving and bit of logic. I read it in a book somewhere that a high IQ will help cover it up so it takes people like that longer to get diagnosed. IS this true? There are so many different types of intelligents it is impossible to measure how smart you really are I think. IQ is just one of the many skills.

When you think about some people might not need a high IQ do what they do. Any back to the main Question. Does a high IQ really cover up symptoms?:confused:

I think I.Q is a contributing factor but not the only one. I mean yes some one who is good at problems solving that ability may indeed help one cover up ADD traits.

I think other factors would include

Severity of ADD traits
Type of ADD traits-it is harder for us hyper to "blend in"
Parental influence
External environment
Temprament / Personality
Perspective/Attitude
Faith/ Personal Spirituality.

I am by no means a genius and although my ADD came with a capitol "H" I am not stupid. Until I was about 35 I used to think because I thought about it so had every one else. I saw my self as simple minded. Once I learned that this wasn't the case I have appeared more intelligent because I feel more comfortable sharing my ideas. This has further proven that just because I have an idea doesn't mean that idea is so obvious that every one else had long sense beat me to it.

I think a lot of what allowed me to function before medications was parental influence. Mom learned how to live around my hyperness and taught me to do the same. This lead to self acceptance instead of self condamination /judgement.Yes I have weakness and ADD can make some worse but all have weaknesses. This has enabled me to see what environments I truly am able to function and flourish in and which kind to avoid (any that require me to sit down and shut up-----they don't make enough Adderall to shut me up:) )


I am basically a happily busy person. I can play head games extremely well (which surprises people who know me) but choose not to unless my hand is so "forced". I can generally get along with a variety of people but gravitate toward others who speak their mind and are fairly positive.


It doesn't seem to matter if I moan, pitch a fit, become resentful, laugh, deny, or drink myself to a stupor. I have AD/HD or it has me (haven't figured that part out yet) I choose to acknowledge my weakness (like staying on the computer typing post instead of sleeping) however I choose to look for the positives of my AD/HD. I choose to do the best I can for as long as I can.

I believe there is more to life than the physical .here and now

All these things make up me, who I am determines the expression of my ADD.

Hope this resembles a sensible answer!!!!!!

I would think not. I dont think a high IQ can help you focus more, be less impulsive etc etc.

I would think not. I dont think a high IQ can help you focus more, be less impulsive etc etc.
On the other hand, people who are smart do seem better at hiding it longer. So if they only pay attention to 50% of what the teacher says and don't do any reading, if they are smart enough they could still manage to do well on the tests. For a while at least...

Then you will look through the records and see lots of comments like "If Johnny would just apply himself," "Not living up to potential," etc. etc.

Johnny's parents might live in denial, saying "School is just too boring for Johnny. He does better when he's more challenged."

The teachers might tend to back it up, noting "flahes of brilliance" amidst mediocre overall performance. Then you get the gifted lobby who say "don't mistake giftedness for ADHD." So the denial is institutionalized.

Severity and type of traits are definitely going to make a difference, but I think that all things being equal, the smarter kid is going to hide it longer. Maybe even forever, especially if they can make it through school intact, and get into a situation where their strengths are maximized and weaknesses compensated for. You know, like a CEO with a herd of assistants, or a doctor with a full-time staff, etc.

Johnny's parents might live in denial, saying "School is just too boring for Johnny. He does better when he's more challenged."

.You might be on to something there. When I was a kid everyone thought that I wasnt dong the schoolwork because it wasnt challening enough. They wound up giving me an IQ test which I scored very high on.

They put me in advanced everything classes and of course I did the same thing in those classes which was basically do nothing.

It can't hurt...lol:)

I was (am) inattentive - not hyperactive. Reading "Understanding Girls With ADHD" really opened my eyes. - About my daughter, too, but she *does* have the hyperactive component.

I was the pleaser, high achieving at school, miserable but no obvious academic issues...1500 on SAT, could always ace a test - of course that didn't translate to college or later life. You are right, Ichpuchtli, there are different types of intelligence. I've never believed that a higher IQ translates to a truly smarter person overall - there's are aspects of intelligence that standardized tests never touch. But call it IQ, quick study, whatever - that, and/or lack of hyperactivity - both are a great way to *not* get diagnosed young. If the school system doesn't see disruptive behavior or academic failure, they aren't too likely to go looking for a problem.

Uminchu said:
Then you will look through the records and see lots of comments like "If Johnny would just apply himself," "Not living up to potential," etc. etc.
I got a lot of that on my report cards, I believe that is what kept me from the 'special' kids classes. Even though I seemed retarded, the teachers knew I wasn't.

As far as intelligence tests, I've never taken one, I've taken other 'IQ type' tests and scored high in certain area's.
But I don't wish to take an IQ test, not because I need to prove that I am intelligent, but because I fear that an IQ test may be biased against ADD.

If it's a timed test I'm toast!

There are three issues in your post (OP):

1) Can a high IQ keep you from diagnosis?
2) What is IQ?
3) How many different types of IQ are there?

Here's my input:

1) YES, but it depends on your specific problems, the severity, etc. (like previous posters said). I got through school with As & Bs and barely did any reading until it came time to study for my last big test -- the PhD qualifying exams. I've been very successful academically, but I have to say some of my symptoms have been pretty severe. Because of my success, though, I didn't recognize them as ADD and neither did anyone else.

I also job-hopped and moved a lot. I even got fired from a job that I excelled at because I made too many "careless" errors. My productivity just didn't make up for the cost of those mistakes. But it kept me from diagnosis.

2) Intelligence is an ill-defined construct. Those that "invented" IQ tests didn't even define it clearly. Modern IQ tests focus on problem solving and logic skills. So, an IQ test measures those skills.

3) "Multiple Intelligences" is, in my opinion, rediculous. It's not a solution to the IQ definition problem. If you've ever taken one of those tests, they measure preferences, not abilities.

ADHD children tend to do worse on IQ tests. One theory is that higher IQ ADHD children are better at coping, and take longer to get diagnosed, therefore skewing the IQ results downward.

In my personal case. My IQ is in the gifted range. I didn't get diagnosed until this year (I'm 34). I've found ways to scrape through school, scrape through college, get a decent job and keep it. Still that doesn't mean that things can't be better, and I've benefitted from treatment.

I tested as high IQ as a child. I also did poorly in school but nobody understood why. I had symptoms that suggested my neurological oddness. The trouble was, nobody back then knew much about these things, so I was never diagnosed. Amazingly, I grew up and had a family and children. I got by somehow (but barely) and managed to get several college degrees. I did badly in public shools, but I thrived in college. My personal relationshihps were all furtive and chaotic. My financial life is a disaster. I appeared to be "normal" until I started running into trouble with ADD last fall.

I am 52 and was tenatively diagnosed with ADD-like symptoms last year. I am still working on a diagnosis.

If an ADDer has a high IQ, he/she is more likely to use intelligence to compensate for defecits. The same is true for aspies. A lot of very smart people have neurological disorders that can go undetected for a long time simply because the imapirment caused by the disorder is mild in their case and they are smart enough to have superb coping skills.


Me :D

It has been mentioned on the boards several times before -- but I really think that it is worth repeating, that the following pattern appears to hold.

The pattern of lower than average IQ in the ADDer kid, raising to well above average in the adult ADDer.

Note that this takes into account the age correction that must be applied to make scores comparable -- across different age ranges.

The reason why I'm repeating this basic point -- is that I think that herein -- there's an important element of ADD -- which needs to be brought out.

The switch between apparent impairment during childhood and success as adults.

Although I have read it elsewhere -- and it is a popular theory -- I don't think that the whole story is IQ compensating for lack of effort ... in my school career -- failure to hand in work, attend class and just plain rote-learn, was all that was required -- and a high IQ -- I think would not have been sufficient to surrogate for failure in performance in the above.

Neither do I think that ADDer kid IQs are simply lower due to a lack of 'self-control' ... inability to sit still etc...

By the way, mechanistic explanations exist on ADDforums for this apparent switch between low and high.

I can't help but feel that those that look more at ADD in kids will see ADD as an impairment, less so (if not the opposite) in those that look at ADD in adults.

So -- I guess -- and explained by some of the mechanisms alluded to earlier, the big question should be --- what's this switch?

SB.

Okay,

Now for a more serious answer.

Most intelligence tests measure what's called "crystallized " and "fluid" thinking.

The first term refers to verbal,school-related skills such as word knowledge,range of general information, verbal concept formation (belonging together), and reasoning ability.

The 2nd term is non-verbal and refers to the ability to solve new problems by assessing an individual's ability to perceive relationships and complete visual analogies.

That's a very brief overview of the concepts behind the 3 of the most widely used IQ tests:

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV);

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults (WAIS) I don't give this anymore, as I don't work with adults.

I think the latest version is the WAIS-III,however, I'm not positive.

I've certainly given it over the years but I can't recall the last time .

Stanford -Binet Fifth Edition (SB-V). The oldest of the IQ tests. It is the preferred
psychometric instrument for assessing Gifted, as it has a much higher ceiling.

Along with my severe adult ADHD-Combined type, I've also been dx'd with a Developmental Coordination Disorder.

Because of that, I no longer give the Binet, as I can't execute the fine motor coordination tasks required to give it in a reasonable amount of time.

One of my favorite IQ tests is the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test-Second Edition (KBIT-2).

It's actually a cognitive screening instrument. You'd use that when you're looking for a baseline or some other reason that didn't require a full battery.

I use the K-BIT-2 as one of the instruments in an evidenced based ADHD evaluation.

However, the scores from the IQ test , as well as the academic achievement screening test, aren't used in making the dx.

You're screening for low IQ and Learning Disabilities; both of which might require further assessment.

One last thing, I've spoken about this before, has to do with what's called "ecological validity."

That's defined as "The extent to which controlled experimental results can be generated beyond the confines of the particular experimental context of a variety of contexts in the real world."

Does it measure that variable in the real world ?

IQ tests have poor ecological validity, as do neuropsych tests.

The (simple when you think about it ) reason for that is due to taking a test in a quiet room with an examiner, does not approximate or equate with a classroom setting.

There are certainly more IQ tests out there. I just picked 3 of the best known and most widely used.

Hope that helps.

Im in a hurry, but I'll be glad to post references later on if you like.

tc:)

I think Sari Solden puts it well in her book Women with Attention Deficit Disorder, "As we said previously, the double-edged sword of protective factors, such as parental structure or high IQ, can prevent these individuals from getting identified or feeling the full force of their symptoms at an earlier stage in their life. This makes it much more difficult for thesm to understand the load they're carrying and to make sense of the tremendous difficulties they face. The more tey've achieve, the more confusing it is for them and others close to them, to see the complete process they go through in order to maintain this success or achievement." (p. 52)

Thomas Brown in Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults states, "Sometimes persons with a higher overall IQ who suffer from ADHD are at greater risk of having their impairments overlooked.....Virtually all of the very bright adults in this Yale study reported that they had suffered chronic and often severe impairments of ADD syndrome that were essentially ignored or denied by their parents, teachers, and themselves for many years." (pp. 176-177)

So it appears as in much of life that ADHD with a high IQ is a mixed blessing. Individuals with higher IQ's can find more ways to work around certain aspects of their ADHD but are less likely to get the support, accomodations and most of all understanding they need. However, when I see the statistics on how many folks with ADHD are in prision, un- or underemployed, and dealing with all sorts of other difficulties, I'm grateful for every IQ point I have that help me find at least a few additional coping mechanisms.

Scattered

My school (university) has some sort of protocol that requires taking a WAIS-III and usually some other test for LD if ADD is suspected. I took the WAIS because all i wanted was some study tips anyway. My psych explained that it was an IQ test but he administers it in order to look at performance in certain subgroups in relation to others. He indicated that people with ADD tend to do significantly worse [15 pts or more] in some areas than others. I have a very high verbal ability but very low processing speed. -which sort of pinpointed my problem. i never had trouble in school until law school. my friends and family kind of laughed it off "duh, it's supposed to be hard." but no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't read everything. i kept spacing off and losing my place both in class and in the reading. this wasn't new to me, it's just that i always got by because the previous teachers always went slowly and repeated themselves a lot. i would get it by spending 10 minutes out of an hour paying attention & just skimming the books. [i also think grade inflation played a role in my good college grades because i was REALLY messed up in college and still did well.]

Anyway, after the psychologist suggested ADD, i was stunned. my family, friends, and psychiatrist all said that was ridiculous because it is a childhood disease and i had good grades and good [though notable withdrawn] behavior.

i felt overwhelmed by all the opinions being thrown at me. & confused.
i always figured that i would be able to pay attention and be thorough when i did something interesting. previously in school, i only remember watching the clock & praying for it to be over. but i like law school. it is interesting because it is often conceptually difficult - but that wasn't what i problems with. i was baffled because no matter how hard i tried or how interested i was, i couldn't focus. so i couldn't [& still can't] get even a fraction of the work done.

it was nice to have a test confirm my suspicions regarding my strengths and weaknesses. i had consistently doubted my own perception because friends, family, & my doctor kept telling me i was fine & just exaggerating or putting myself down.

In my master's program, the professor choose me for the guinea pig to demonstrate how one gives an IQ test (WAIS - I think). Anyway, my verbal IQ was 22 points higher than my performance IQ!:eek: The professor said I was probably just distracted by the other students -- little did he know -- I was distracted by my life! I have since been diagnosed with ADHD.

WOW I didn't expect so much response. I had a sneaky feeling that it might help the ADD with a high IQ. Thanks guys that really. Helps.

I also got a lot of "If Johnny applied himself" If he would stop talking" And my Personal favorite. "If he would stop talking with the girls 24/7" :D

My school (university) has some sort of protocol that requires taking a WAIS-III and usually some other test for LD if ADD is suspected.
The state of California actually prohibits the use of IQ tests in identifying disabilities. I think the reasoning behind this is that, since IQs are independent of these disabilities, they don't want the score to bias the evaluator. So, they have to use a number of different cognitive abilities tests to converge on an answer.


I have a very high verbal ability but very low processing speed. -which sort of pinpointed my problem. i never had trouble in school until law school. my friends and family kind of laughed it off "duh, it's supposed to be hard."
I get, "If it was easy, everyone would have a PhD!"

i was baffled because no matter how hard i tried or how interested i was, i couldn't focus.
Add "stay awake" to that, and you're talking about me.

When I hit the wall in performance and tried to explain it to friends, former teachers, mentors, parents, they ALL said, "Oh, I'm sure it wasn't as bad as you think." I had to tell them I HAVE the results, and it WAS.

I was just an avg student in school. Never got into trouble. I took a IQ test and scored very high and was said to be gifted. I think b/c I didnt cause any problems is why I was overlooked. Kids getting by and behaving are often overlooked. They usually go looking when they have a child that is messing with the teachers "system" of ways she runs her class. In fact I was told by my husbands family I couldnt have ADD b/c my IQ was too high. People are still n the dark about ADD.

Yeah, I was the same way. My intelligence caused my ADD to go undiagnosed until my senior year of undergrad. It also caused a number of my teachers, professors, and advisors to assume that the inattention, disorganization, and late or missing assignments were willful and purposeful. This led to many otherwise well-meaning people trying to "help" me by telling me how it was all my fault and if I couldn't focus and turn in assignments on time, I was going to fail at anything I tried. Well, I couldn't focus and turn assignments in on time no matter how hard I tried, so guess what message I took out of all these "help" sessions?

Anyways, the whole intelligence thing is pretty hard to hide in a classroom, especially when you wind up making the other kids in the "talented and gifted" class feel stupid, and they decide to take it out on you. Unfortunately, they don't tell kids their IQ scores, the closest I ever came was having a middle-school psychologist show me a bell curve, describing what each area meant, describing the flat end as "these are just freaks of nature." Then he stopped himself, apologized, and said "I shouldn't have said that, since it's where your score lies." Apparently they were concerned that I wouldn't be able to understand what it meant, a notion which is really pants-wettingly funny if you stop and think about how many standard deviations my score was above the scores of the people who were telling me that I wouldn't understand it.

Anyways, it wasn't until my ADD testing, which included a WAIS-III exam just to rule out learning disabilities, that I was finally given my full IQ test report because I was an adult. Unfortunately, as was already stated, WAIS isn't overly useful for higher IQs because its ceilings are lower. Basically, once you get above the 99.9th percentile, comparing scores are meaningless mental masturbation. I'd be curious to take the test again now that I'm on medication, to see if it changes any of the PIQ scores, and I'd also be curious to take a test with higher ceilings. On the other hand, there really isn't any point to doing so. There's be no diagnostic benefit, other tests are far better for assessing how well the medication is working, and I doubt that any other test is going to have high enough ceilings anyways, and I doubt that it is possible or even necessary to devise a test which can measure the differences of less than a tenth of a percentile.

One theory is that higher IQ ADHD children are better at coping, and take longer to get diagnosed, therefore skewing the IQ results downward.

I am soooo glad I am not the only one who wondered this every time I saw the statement "ADDers tended to score lower on I.Q. Test"!!!!!!


Thomas Brown in Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults states, "Sometimes persons with a higher overall IQ who suffer from ADHD are at greater risk of having their impairments overlooked.....Virtually all of the very bright adults in this Yale study reported that they had suffered chronic and often severe impairments of ADD syndrome that were essentially ignored or denied by their parents, teachers, and themselves for many years." (pp. 176-177)

Yes I believe that some of the reasons that ADDers are recorded for doing poorly on I.Q. test is because those that were smart were being classified as “general population” due to a lacking of diagnosis. So the gifted ADDers were actually skewing “non-ADDers” scores upward!!!!!! :(

Besides I also believe that the ADD group in these studies probably consisted of the more “dysfunctional” individuals with ADD or who may have more sever problems than ADD alone!!!!!! :rolleyes:

I am so pleased to have found this thread!!

I only got diagnosed three weeks ago, at 31 years of age. When my doc suggested that I may have ADD, I thought it was ridiculous. All I knew about ADD were the kids who were 'hyper' and underachieved academically. I thought that it couldn't possibly be me-- I've tested very high on the myriad IQ tests I took throughout school, I've always been extremely successful academically, and I managed to take 10 years of postsecondary education and obtain 4 degrees with minimal effort.

But I learned that this isn't contraindicated. The reality is that most of my elementary and secondary school teachers didn't like me, as I was a disturbance in the classroom. I rarely paid attention, and often made inappropriate comments or distracted the other kids by chatting constantly. They wrote this off as my being bored. Which perhaps played into it, but couldn't account for everything. My attendance record in late high school and all through university was practically non-existent-- I couldn't pay attention in class, so I simply didn't go because I saw it as a waste of time and learned the material my own way. I still managed to graduate in the top 10 of my class, so no one bothered to investigate it. Essay-writing was my biggest fear-- I procrastinated like heck and felt tortured every time I had to sit down and focus on putting my knowledge into sensible words. My homework was completed last-minute and on the fly. I never read a single book for English class in high school-- I read the first two and last two chapters and based everything I had to say on that. I developed ingenious ways to skirt working. I thought it was because I was lazy. But my teachers never busted me, because they had little to go on. I still did better in school than 95% of the students.

But all my teachers and school counsellors and all the shrinks and GPs for 31 years never considered ADD because I hid it well with academic success. The fact that I was extremely socially maladjusted (particularly with respect to relating to the opposite sex) was written off too...either to the fact that I was 'too smart for my own good' or the fact that I was raised in a very unstable family was given as the reason.

Now I understand that I am extremely lucky that I had that intelligence to back me up, or things would really have gone straight to he**. I am terribly grateful for that. On the other hand, I wonder what I could have accomplished if someone had paid attention to something other than the IQ scores when I was a child. At the very least, I would have preserved some self-esteem... I blamed myself for my social retardation (and continue to do so), and now I feel like it's 'too late' to learn how to interact with other people like a 'normal' person would. The damage to my self-esteem has been brutal, and no amount of intelligence can compensate for that.

I ran into a lady at Ohio University who was working on a theory which basically states that high IQ people with ADD have ADD as a defecit because the environment they live in is designed for "normal" people. The stress of coping with an unsuitable environment leaves them a tad debilitated when they would otherwisae be far more functional in a proper environment for their neuropsychology....

ME :D

I ran into a lady at Ohio University who was working on a theory which basically states that high IQ people with ADD have ADD as a defecit because the environment they live in is designed for "normal" people. The stress of coping with an unsuitable environment leaves them a tad debilitated when they would otherwisae be far more functional in a proper environment for their neuropsychology....

ME :D
There are a lot of people who think this is the case and I wish I could agree. Unfortunately, though, I altered my environment in every way I could think of in order to function before I identified the problem and went for help. It took more than 30 years for the stress to get to this point, but it still happened.

I think that intelligent people sometimes function better because they find ways to compensate or to create their own accomodations. For example, I converted a lot of my reading to audio. It helped, even though it wasn't a lasting solution.

I think we can function better in a different environment, but not to the point of meeting our potential.

Here's one of my fave pet theories:

Every 4 way stop is an instant IQ test

You, Moe,Larry and Curly, and they're all on cell phones:)

Here's one of my fave pet theories:

Every 4 way stop is an instant IQ test

You, Moe,Larry and Curly, and they're all on cell phones:)
:eek: SO TRUE!

Yeah, I was the same way. My intelligence caused my ADD to go undiagnosed until my senior year of undergrad. It also caused a number of my teachers, professors, and advisors to assume that the inattention, disorganization, and late or missing assignments were willful and purposeful.
Because of my successes as an undergrad and in my MA program, my current advisors thought my performance in this program was due to my busy lifestyle.

Unfortunately, they don't tell kids their IQ scores, the closest I ever came was having a middle-school psychologist show me a bell curve, describing what each area meant, describing the flat end as "these are just freaks of nature."
Just FYI, for anyone reading this who might be in this situation: they don't tell the kids, but parents who aren't given the scores outright can simply request the info. Parents have the right to see any info schools have on their kids.

Apparently they were concerned that I wouldn't be able to understand what it meant, a notion which is really pants-wettingly funny if you stop and think about how many standard deviations my score was above the scores of the people who were telling me that I wouldn't understand it.
ROTFL -- my 8yo has just learned a new joke and half the people (adults) he tells it to don't get it!!!:D

....The pattern of lower than average IQ in the ADDer kid, raising to well above average in the adult ADDer.

The switch between apparent impairment during childhood and success as adults.


Well yes and no.

Barkley's SF2K lecture on the subject; "Their IQ will start to fall by about seven to ten points by the time they reach high school, and that is because they’re not keeping pace with their peers in the acquisition of knowledge".

I have also observed this in comparing IQ scores on the same kid done over time. I don't think I can think of one example of the IQ score going up over time. They stay the same or in fact, usually go down.

I agree with Barkley, they are not learning at the same rate in the classroom or in life. But I believe there are other reasons. It's my personal pet theory that ADHDers lag the "norms" in test taking behaviours. To do well on an IQ test you need a whole cluster of test taking behaviours.

----------------------

More Barkley on IQ from the same source; "...the mental mechanism that takes what you know and allows you to apply it where you should at a point of performance isn’t working. This is why you can have a kid with 150 IQ with AD/HD who will never finish high school. Because IQ is simply a measure of what you know. It is not a measure of what you do. Which is why IQ is a lousy predictor of occupational success. The best predictor of occupational success is executive functioning. Taking what you know and wringing every ounce of useful behavior out of it, self-regulation to the future is what this life is all about. And that is what is being stolen from them".

He makes an excellent point. IQ doesn't measure what you can do with your smarts. Job success generally means how you perform and function within the structure of your place of employment. I don't think the majority of ADHDers think they are overachieving. They can often have difficulties with either job performance or functioning within the social group at work. Either situation can lead to termination or lower approval ratings.

But on the other hand, ADHD is a developmental disorder so that as we age, we get closer to lower acceptable norm for certain societal behaivours. Our Executive functions are performing better but still at a delayed rate compared to same aged peers. The folks with milder cases of ADHD are going to go from "impaired" as children to functional within society. Add to this, that they go from an environment of having to use their weaknesses to chosen environments which often display their strengths and you begin to see how a good percentage of ADHDers are successful in adult life.

I ran into a lady at Ohio University who was working on a theory which basically states that high IQ people with ADD have ADD as a defecit because the environment they live in is designed for "normal" people. The stress of coping with an unsuitable environment leaves them a tad debilitated when they would otherwisae be far more functional in a proper environment for their neuropsychology....
ME :D
I totally agree Speedo.
And I expect this to be a popular line in ADD research in the not so distant future.

I wonder whether the researcher will be treating ADD and high IQ as separate mental processes which conspire to result in problems, or whether she'll be integrating the mental processes at a lower level, and extrapolating that lower level integration of ADD/intelligence surrogate, to the higher level problems that we ADDers have within a currently predominantly nonADDer society.

SB.

I don't think I can think of one example of the IQ score going up over time. They stay the same or in fact, usually go down.

I'd be interested in age 5 ... 10 ... 20 ... 30 ... 40 year timepoints.
Difficult, but any less, I do not believe, would be useful.

Many of the formal research studies concentrate on ADDer kiddies ... and in the absence of better methods ... my experience of higher than average IQs in the >30-40 year old ADDer ... comes from cross-referencing age with IQ polls on my favourite few ADDer fora (in various countries).

SB.

I'd be interested in age 5 ... 10 ... 20 ... 30 ... 40 year timepoints.
Difficult, but any less, I do not believe, would be useful.

SB. My Question is when does an IQ test change for age because I know there are some that change the older you get. Maybe to really tell an ADDers IQ you need a different test one that doesn't require the skills ADD are disordly in. (If you follow me):o (I still haven't read through all the posts.)

The only reason I was diagnosed was because of my Dad and he noticed I had a lot of the symptoms and stuff like that so he got me tested and hence I became one of you guys.;)

They do that by comparing test IQ and performance IQ.

ME :D

I'd be interested in age 5 ... 10 ... 20 ... 30 ... 40 year timepoints.
Difficult, but any less, I do not believe, would be useful.

Many of the formal research studies concentrate on ADDer kiddies ... and in the absence of better methods ... my experience of higher than average IQs in the >30-40 year old ADDer ... comes from cross-referencing age with IQ polls on my favourite few ADDer fora (in various countries).

SB.

Yes good point SB. Where I work with students the first IQ scores, usually from grades 1 to 5 drop as they are tested later in life. But that doesn't mean that the drop in IQ scores continues past High School. This whole issue needs to be studied closely, if it hasn't already been done. IQ testing for ADHD kids also needs to be looked into. What are we really measuring, potential intelligence or test taking behaivours and processing speed?

IQ is supposed to stay the same but in my own case I'm sure it didn't. I'm sure mine has popped 20-60 points. As young SCT type kid I looked slow and acted slow. I failed grade 5 and I remember the group IQ test we had. Test taking was a very foreign procedure to me. I believe that at some point I internalized test taking behaviours...these behaivours need EF so at some point I think I mentally developed. I would guess that this would have been my middle teens to early 20's.

I don't buy that the foreign enviornment of the "norm" world causes gifted kids to get ADHD. That goes against all the research. It's not the enviornment.

I was tested over 10 years ago. Even back then there were several types of IQ that were averaged or something. So I don't think that IQ is a measure of intelligence per se but is based on several (6-10) different measures of intelligence that are averaged together.

I would rather ahve a higher IQ than a lower one. I don't know if it makes ADD worse or harder to diagnose. IT's different for everyone.