[Please post all off-topic comments in the most recent open thread. They will not be posted here]
One of the most extreme cases from the annals of IQ research is Isabelle:
- Isabelle was discovered living in a darkened room with her deaf-mute mother as her only contact.
- When Isabelle was discovered she was almost seven years old and had no sense of language.
- She had been deprived of learning how to speak because of her mother being both deaf and mute.
- As a result, when authorities found her they believed that she was also deaf and mute like her mother, because she could only make noises.
- This was proven wrong when she started to speak after receiving intense training.
- When Isabelle was initially tested, at almost seven years old, her mental age concluded to be at about 19 months old.
- Within two months of being trained, Isabelle was putting together logical sentences.
- Within a year she was already learning how to read.
- While her IQ score was extremely low when she was found; at almost nine years old she was completely caught up with her peers and had a normal IQ.
The case is fascinating because when Isabelle was tested in 1938, being almost seven, she likely had a far bigger brain than the average 19 month old, yet scored the same as the average 19 month old.
Commenter Race Realist argues that IQ tests measure exposure to the culture, and he’s partly right because Isabelle’s lack of culture caused her development to be extremely delayed.
But what’s interesting is that it takes the average baby 19 months of culture to acquire the same level of skill that Isabelle acquired almost instantly. This shows that IQ tests are not merely measuring cultural exposure, but the brain’s physical development, and being almost seven, Isabelle likely had a much bigger and more complex brain than the average baby. Having the physical brain of a seven-year-old, Isabelle was able to learn in a few months what the smalled brained average baby learns in 19 months, and in just 2 years she had acquired 7.5 years of childhood intellectual development.
Once she had caught up to her chronological peers at age 9, her progress became completely average because her neurological development no longer exceeded her intellectual development.
She graduated from high school an average student.
The question is was Isaebelle ever less intelligent than her chronological peers, or was the test simply culturally biased against a girl who had no language or culture for the first 6.5 years of life? One wonders if on a more culture fair test, like the one the crow below is taking, she would have had an average IQ from the moment she was discovered.
Of course it’s worth noting that Isabelle was discovered young. Not all cases of extreme deprivation end so well:
Pumpkin Person 
If genes are discovered for white matter fibers then a genetic test should be able to find your intelligence at near the levels brain scans can predict intelligence which is 99 percent accuracy. But I hear 10 percent of white matter wiring is random and gene variance need to account for this where are the simple fiber track wiring directly determines intelligence even if it was random from birth. The way wires connect determine intelligence. The crow has bulbs in its brain, not a neocortex, that it uses to map reality, manipulate the map, then manipulate reality. Better wiring up affects crow intelligence as it would humans. (white mater fibers)
this story is made up.
look at my post below with the video:
Social Development: Crash Course Sociology #13
Super difficult to change developmental course when a child lives in a shed for 7 years no human contact.
isabelle did communicate with her mother in sign language.
a more detailed story. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a11a/05d5b15301ed0ef13ef8a9416f2e65abcc20.pdf
the article says it was merely assumed she’d been kept with her mother and that she communicated with her mother in sign langauge.
I didn’t know about the sign language, but that makes sense as the dog girl video I posted at the bottom of the article says if you don’t learn any language within the first five years of life it’s too late. But the point is she had virtually no exposure to mainstream culture during early childhood, yet because of the physical brain maturation of being 6.5 years old, was able to leapfrog over smaller brained younger kids, and acquire 7.5 years of mental age in just 2.5 years. This shows that IQ tests are not just measuring individual differences in cultural exposure, but individual differences in the physical development of the brain.
yep. all 15 subtests of the sb i know would have been impossible to administer to her. even nonverbal subtests require explanation.
Development occurs from the outside in, not inside out. This case is clear.
“This shows that IQ tests are not merely measuring cultural exposure, but the brain’s physical development,”
Nope. Test construction. It’s that simple.
I should say “psychological development occurs from the outside, in not inside out.”
The comparison is inappropriate. Infants who receive more emotional and cognitive inputs reach their developmental milestones faster. Had Isabelle been left to her own devices after being discovered, she probably wouldn’t have caught up this fast.
How do we know isabelle identified as a female? Please use the gender neutral pronoun ‘zhe’ please. Deal would be angry.
I bet afro and his trusty idiotic sidekick rr will vanquish crime in brazzaville by next suggesting intelligence is a socially constructed concept.
Crime isn’t high in Brazzaville, a good friend of mine who’s been living there for five years says it’s safer than Paris.
you don’t have any friends afro.
By rrs ‘logic’ people should be trained in how to be middle class and take etiquette lessons and fashion degrees from stuvaescent high so that they can pass the sat and the bar.
Philosopher, you need to actually take the Wechsler before commenting. It’s actually garbage. It’s like a trivia quiz with some maths added.
That was not my experience.
Fenoopy, why are you always flip-flopping your views week in and week out? You’ll say one week that IQ tests are legit, then you’ll have a full on attack on IQ tests. I don’t get it. You show a lot of interest in proving that Berbers have the same genetic IQs as whites, but you don’t believe in HBD, but you think IQ tests are valid, but at the same time IQ tests are bullshit. How can a man live with so many contradictions in his processing of topics.
What’s your Weschler’s score, Fenoopy? How is Weschler’s just random trivia? It tests arithmetic, highly g loaded, performance intelligence through tests like block design and matrices and a plethora of other highly g loaded tests.
Do you know what plethora means, Feloopy? No, you don’t, that’s why your vocabulary sub-score would be shit. Your crystallized intelligence is weak, Feloopy, you aren’t able to learn and grasp information in your head. Your fluid intelligence might be great, but your verbals are weak. In America, we take tests almost entirely based on math skills and vocabulary, i.e. the SAT, GRE, etc. You wouldn’t last a day in the American academic world, my friend Feloopy.
your disguise is shit archie and your iq is sub-human
Not Archie, just LOADED. Ahahaha.
seems like the same exact person to me
Social Development: Crash Course Sociology #13
This was proven wrong when she started to speak after receiving intense training.
okay so an intervention that is many SD’s to the right of what most every person will ever receive in their lifetimes….
…this doesn’t confound ANYTHING.
Jaime says, ‘A DOY!’
This shows that IQ tests are not merely measuring cultural exposure, but the brain’s physical development,
The two are tied and indistinguishable.