The Intense World of Gifted Women

Growing up — and showing up — as a gifted is usually filled with difficulties and pitfalls.

Growing up — and showing up — as a gifted is usually filled with difficulties and pitfalls.

Podcaster, Suki Wessling, focuses her work on the world of women. It was so long ago that she interviewed me for her podcast that I can’t remember exactly why she interviewed me, but she knew I’d written a few books about giftedness. It was November 2023 I think. She is a good interviewer. We spent about 75 minutes with her asking me questions and me taking deeper dives, in many ways, than I think I’ve done before.

After the feedback I’ve gotten with the first round of people I shared this final result with, I can say it was a success.

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· https://www.linkedin.com/in/suki-wessling-490822/

· https://www.threads.net/@sukiwessling

and, my favorite, You Tube

And for those of you who would prefer a transcript, click on this link:

Here’s how this topic came to be: Suki was inspired by the idea of gifted girls and women as we were talking and decided to add a couple more people in the field and edit it together with our different voices. I agreed that was okay. She found five more women of different ages and experiences in the gifted field. Two were new to me. We all have different experiences and goals. I think most people will find this podcast interesting, maybe fascinating.

I started to receive responses from the early round of people I shared with. One was distressed that the wrong IQ ranges for the different levels of giftedness were given. Here is some of what he said:

“Toward the end of the podcast, I could relate with Nicole Tetreault’s comment that her intellectual giftedness and smarts were not captured very well by her test scores. In the beginning of the podcast, there was a clip of one woman stating the following levels of giftedness (assuming a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15): mildly gifted: 115–129; moderately gifted: 130–144; highly gifted: 145–159; profoundly gifted: 160+. Prior to reading your books, this classification was what I had gone by: I assumed that not maxing out the Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence (it had a ceiling of 145, and I missed one item) and missing the 145 cutoff on the WAIS by 2 points was confirmation that I was not highly gifted or above (on the WAIS-R, I lost a lot of points in the nonverbal areas, which is actually my strength area: I took the TONI before the WAIS because I was more confident in my nonverbal/spatial ability).

However, after reading your books, I realized that determining one’s level of giftedness is not so simple. For example, there were some level 4 and 5 subjects in your study whose deviation IQs would only be labeled as moderately gifted via the above, older classification system which is a galactic understatement of their cognitive abilities. Hence, your material helped me realize that I was not delusional for identifying with the traits of exceptionally and profoundly gifted people (levels four and five).”

Because I was the first person in the group interviewed, I wasn’t asked to state my credentials. My PhD is in Tests & Measurement, part of the Psychological Foundations of Education “Ed Psych” degree. I have written extensively on this topic of differing score scales on different tests. The young man I’ve quoted here shows us what can go wrong when those old scales are used and few today take those old tests.

I’ve opened the archives to be free for everyone, so please, if you are interested, look for the posts related to understanding IQ scores.

Here is the table I made for my most recent book simply because too many people still use the old scales. The primary “Old Scales” comes from the Stanford-Binet Form L-M last normed in 1973 and used an entirely different method for scoring than the tests we all get in school and at the test giver’s office.

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My newest book, Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted People Left Behind will be published in mid-October 2024. Presales will begin by October 1, I hope! You can find the print version on Amazon and B&N, and the ebook version will be in both those places and Kobo, and maybe one or two other platforms. I’ll tell you more soon.

The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709. This is an 18 year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009).

Keys to Successfully Parenting the Gifted Child (2023). Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023)

5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html

Dr. Ruf is available for the following services.

Click for details and to schedule:
One-Hour Test Interpretation
Gifted Child Test Interpretation & Guidance
20-Minute Consultation
45-Minute Consultation
One-Hour Consultation
Podcast Interview