Have you ever known anyone with an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) of 146 or higher?  There aren't very many around.  In fact,  people with an IQ of 146 or above number about 1 out of a thousand; in other words, 999 people have an IQ lower than theirs.

And I can tell you that the world is not set up to deal with them. Generally, we think, "What's to deal with?  They are blessed already. They can choose to pursue a career in any field."

However, having been married for 25 years to a man with an IQ of 148 and having a daughter with an IQ not much lower, I can tell you that these "so-called" gifted or exceptionally intellectual individuals face their own set of challenges.

First, they think on a different plane than the rest of us.  That can be good but it can also be bad.  Many times gifted people devise their own ways of doing things and solving problems that the average person simply cannot grasp.  So, they can actually be ridiculed, particularly in school by their peers, who think they are just "showing off".  

When Albert Einstein first put forth his Theory of Relativity, even his fellow scientists, intellectually gifted themselves, ridiculed him.  He had taken his thinking to another level, which they simply could not grasp. 

To cite an example closer to home, my husband did not solve math problems in the traditional way.  I would explain to you how he did it; but to be perfectly honest, I never understood it.  Yet, he could and did teach it to any number of children who were not yet set and committed to the traditional method.  

Bailey understood it at Age Four and could work complicated problems with it.

In addition, gifted and exceptional individuals often are poorly coordinated.  For some reason, they do not have good spatial vision.  Holly walked off so many curbs and fell down so many flights of stairs that I actually bought her own set of crutches for her.  We used them frequently.

Her most embarrassing moment, I think, was the day she fell down the stairs at law school.

You might find this interesting as well.   Left-handed people tend to cluster at either the high end or the low end of the Bell Curve of Intelligence. Either they are smarter than the average person or they are dumber. They don't usually fall in the middle.  Holly is a southpaw, as many of you know.

Furthermore, some people state that highly-intelligent people just "don't get it" most of the time.  I think there's also some truth to that.  Kenneth could devise new mathematical schemes; or new ways to evaluate teachers; but he couldn't drive across town in Clinton (population about 9,000) without getting lost.  He was born there, went to school there for 12 years, and lived there his entire life.  Yet, he still would get lost.

Why?  Because he could never grasp the concept of directions; Holly suffers from the same problem. Neither of them has ever been able to distinguish North from South and East from West.  And you can absolutely FORGET trying to explain Southwest or Northeast to them!!

That's another anomaly of intellectually gifted people.  They may be exceptional in some areas but perform poorly in others. Kenneth, for instance, was a terrible speller; Holly suffers with solving math problems.

Another problem for higly intelligent individuals is that they also often can not enjoy such things as playing cards with friends because they are always thinking of ways to figure out what each person holds in his hand.

Where does intellectual giftedness originate?  Simply put, people are born with it.  Strong evidence exists to link high intelligence to heredity; yet, many gifted individuals are born to parents of average intelligence. However, about 50 per cent of extremely intelligent individuals have at least one parent who was also highly gifted.

In that regard, intelligence is like talent.  It is not acquired such as a skill; rather it is present at birth. How that intelligence or talent plays out in a person's life may indeed be influenced by his environment.  A person with a natural gift to play the violin probably will never develop that talent if he is never exposed to a violin just as an individual with a high intelligence may never utilize it if he is unable to attend a university or get an advanced degree.

What intelligence does do is allow the individual to learn a skill and perfect it to beyond what a person of lesser intellect could.  

When I asked Holly how she has managed in just ten years to go from a junior law associate to group vice-president and lead counsel, she stated, "Because I'm good!"  

Now, Holly is wise enough not to say that to just anyone but she didn't mind saying it to her mother. And, of course, it is true.  Because she is highly intelligent, she has learned her skill and perfected it to a level beyond what the even better-than-average intelligent attorney would or even could do.

That is the gift she possessed the day she was born--to think on a different plane than the average person. By the way, Kenna has it also. Her life just went in a different direction, and she has not had as many opportunities to develop her skills.