I'm not really surprised at his scores, just surprised that they're high enough for DYS. Maybe I'm saying I'm surprised DYS has such low standards? No, that's not right either.
I can see that he's smart, but there's so much that's asynchronous. I guess I just thought the weaknesses canceled out some of the intelligence.
Hi Keet!
Unfortunatly the lows don't cancel out the highs - and the fact that his fly isn't zipped doesn't meant he's not PG - honest. In fact that's been a huge benifit of getting together with other kids in the YSP program. Our kids are kids, afterall.
There are a few folks who would actually look at the YSP kids, and think, 'what's the big deal' - as there are levels of gifted beyond YSP, such as the SET program. Since there are no official rules to 'what is gifted' and 'what are the levels of gifted' it's really hard to say, and 99.9 is just a test result, so a lot easier to say than an verbal interpretation of the score.
Some families do join YSP and still feel like they can't be open about what their kids are doing because it is so far beyond what the other kids are doing. Some people will come across this forum and remain silent for the same reason. (Hint, Hint, you lurker there!)
Another part of this question is that what many schools want and what HG/PG kids are is sort of at odds, at times. I've heard the 'we have plenty of kids just like yours' many times from our public school. Since I've confirmed that this isn't true in my location, it's sort of like the tree that fell in the forest withone a person to hear it.
As parents, I'm pretty sure that if we got to choose between having the 'happiest' kid, the most 'socially successful' kid, the most 'polite and flexible' kid and the kid who scores highest on IQ tests and wears us out with questions and has to spend large amounts of time in school waiting for something interesting to happen, we'd have chosen a slightly different kid than what we've gotten.
Not that we want to change the ones we have, just that for some of us there is a lack of resource to help us grow our kids into the kindest, calmest, hard-workingest kid that they can be. It's our job as parents to develop character, and in many places the raw materials to help us do that job just don't exist. I know that adversity is supposed to help develop character, but the adversity of sitting in a classroom way below one's readiness level just doesn't seem likely.
Anyway - I've heard Bob Davidson say that they are targeting kids who's IQ scores are 'too high to measure' on Modern IQ tests. I guess I buy the argument that as long as the Modern IQ tests have such low standards, then the YSP program scores make sense. I'm much more worried about 2E kids who can work years above grade level as homeschoolers but can't come up with test scores because of their challenges, than I am about kids who test 'as high' as Modern IQ tests can measure, but perhaps have scores that aren't being artificially held down.
Just some thoughts -
Grinity
), but I really do think it pays to accept that 145 on more than one test is pretty doggone high. Is it repeatable? Maybe not, and that means it's not quite as reliable a score, and maybe the child isn't quite as far into the tail of the Bell Curve. It is one score on one day. <shrug> But I really do think that kids who score that high are pretty doggone unusual.