'To all the mothers of XXY sons who are concerned about their sons' intelligence-'

Hi, I'm Steve. I'm 47,XXY. I first wrote this as a private email to the mother of an XXY who had questions about how XXY affects intelligence. I have since placed it on discussion lists, and have gotten requests for reposts.

This document is Copyright (c) 1999 by Steve Gerken. All rights reserved. You may redistribute this document provided that 1) no fee of any kind is charged for redistribution and 2) the document and copyright notice are not modified in any way.

Dear XXY Mom-

While there may well be things that statisticians can say about XXY intelligence in general, there is absolutely nothing statistical that applies to any particular individual. As an individual, you are who you are, be that smart, agile, strong, quick, limber, tall, brown-eyed, or what have you. No individual is ever statistically average on such complex traits as intelligence, personality, charisma, leadership, etc.

In the case of your son, I wouldn't worry about IQ test scores. It doesn't take a test to tell you what he is good at, and what he is not so good at. You're his mom. You're with him more than anybody else is. If you pay attention to him, and I presume you do because you care enough to have found this list and be using it, you already know many of his strengths and weaknesses. You can play to his strengths, to build his confidence and his abilities. You can support his weaknesses, give him tools, explain things in ways he can understand. As he gets older you can teach him problem-solving skills, thinking skills, that can help him with things that don't come naturally. Most importantly, you can put him in social situations where he can get exposure to the social rules of life. For me at least, speaking as a 47,XXY male, this is the arena that is most mysterious to me.

As regards the intellect aspects, I was tested in the second grade by a professional IQ testing service that tested all the kids. I scored off the top end of their scale: 165+. This was a standard Stanford-Binet scale, with average being 100, genius (top 2%) being 150 and higher. In late Apr 99 I took the www.iqtest.com exam and scored 157.

Having just written that, I would like you to forget it. In the former case, the grade-school case, the number is based on what I did in the span of perhaps an hour, many years ago. In the latter, the score is a measure of my intellectual performance over the course of some ten minutes. Neither is indicative of my actual intellectual achievements. More importantly, any test that your son takes measures only what he achieved in the short span of time that the test was administered. No test has yet been formulated that measures any individual's achievements across any lengthy span of time, through periods of depression and bursts of achievement, across the vast expanse of our everyday life, bar one. That one test which does measure all these things is the test of our social interactions, the opinions that we form of one another as we interact, exchange ideas, do stuff, teach each other stuff, irritate each other, and all the other things that people do.

As regards your son, I would advise you to keep your expectations high. Don't tell the school that he is XXY. Don't expect less of him because of it. If he shows you that he is having trouble socially, or that he is having trouble with math homework, or his reading, or in some other arena, then deal with that issue with the full awareness that many factors, possibly including being XXY, will affect his condition. Unless and until that happens, expect as much of him as you would of any other child. In many ways he will surprise you.

-Steve

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Man who says,
"It cannot be done,"
Should not interrupt
Man who is doing it.
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