AN ESTIMATED one million residents in Spain are thought to be 'gifted' or 'high achievers', but only 25,000 of these have had it confirmed, says a leading psychologist who works with high-IQ children and adults.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines 'gifted' adults as those with an IQ of over 130, and believes around 2% of the population of the planet falls into this category, although other sources describe the 'highly-intelligent' as persons whose IQ exceeds 140.
To join MENSA, candidates in Spain or the UK need to possess an IQ lying within the top 1% in either country.
Carmen Sanz Chacón (pictured), chairwoman of the World of the Gifted Foundation, is comfortably within this bracket, having an IQ of 168, but in her 16 years of working with others who share her 'affliction', she has found that the tag 'high achiever' is merely descriptive and has little to do with what a person of superior intelligence has actually done with his or her life.
Given how the gifted are often left out in the cold and are rarely given the type of early education they need, says Carmen, the relationship between grades achieved at school and actual intelligence is, in fact, somewhat inverted.
A significant number of high-IQ pupils suffer poor grades, fail exams, and leave school with few or no qualifications; exactly the opposite of what society would expect.
“In Spain, only 25,000 people have been identified as 'highly-intelligent' or 'gifted', but the rest – a total of around a million – do not know that they are,” explains Carmen.
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