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IQ tests that early are not reliable, and there will be significant test-retest variability. You would, at the bare minimum, want to repeat the process several times. Adult IQ is much more stable.
IQ tests are only reliable when given that early, I don't know what you're on about. Testing adults only gives you a proxy score.
IQ at 6 is more stable than a pre-school test, but that is still not the ideal age for tracking. You're looking at r of 0.77 with a test done at 18, versus r of 0.89 if done at 12 and compared to 18.
https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/APA%201985%20Intelligence%20-%20Knowns%20and%20Unknowns.pdf
My point is that 6 is likely too early to make drastic decisions about tracking, and you probably want to revisit things several years later anyway and before 16. "Not reliable" is stronger wording than I should have used, but if you're going to use "top 10%" scores at the age of six for that kind of high stakes decision making, you've lost me. A far more sensible approach would be to at least administer tests 2-3 times in between, with gaps long enough to reduce practice effects.
?
IQ tests are designed to predict academic potential, and as such have to be given before academics really begin, beyond the basics necessary for testing. You could do the testing at two or three, but prior to formal education at the very latest.
If you're worried about kids who somehow brick it, or who are hyper-conscientious and brute-force an education, let the top 25% take college placement at fifteen, but only take the top 10% regardless. Letting universities expand beyond that wide a field is a mistake. Ten percent is probably triple what we need as a society. Every college student beyond the competitive necessity of top-level IQs married to competent postgraduate education is a drag on society, mostly through their rent-seeking behavior.
This is all academic to me. Do you think I was kidding about not worrying about a college fund for my kids? Elite overproduction or over-expansion of higher education rank low on the list of things I care about.
The longitudinal validity of IQ testing for toddlers is not great. 6 is just about the very earliest where this makes a reasonable amount of sense. 2 or 3 is... why bother?
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