Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment DYS submission question regarding sleeper DD

Okay, so I just applied my DS (who behaves like a gifted child to me), but I had my daughter tested at the same time and she has similar scores (which is why I call her my sleeper). She seems like a NT child, hit all her developmental milestones at the normal times, etc. but her scores put her in the HG+ world.

So I'm looking at the questions they ask, and I can't think of examples that show that she is gifted.

Should I even bother submitting her? I figured I should, since she has the scores. But she doesn't seem like what I think of as gifted, and I don't know how to answer those questions… both my kids are probably 2e though. I just don't want to shortchange her.

Yes, I think you should still submit for her.

Yes. You definitely should.

My DS had similar scores to your DD, and I've had similar reservations about submitting a DYS application. To us, he presents as gifted but not HG(+), so it's really hard for us to know what exactly about him is "2 or more grade levels above."

I think we're going to go through with it. I just need to get up the nerve to ask his teacher (at a gifted school) to fill out the nominator form.

If nothing else, think about the message you would send by not submitting for her.

When I applied to go to college, I desperately wanted to attend MIT, and I got in, but I ended up enrolling at UC Berkeley because we couldn't afford the tuition. The next year, my parents very strongly encouraged my brother to apply to Stanford. I felt like they thought that it was more important for their boy to go to a private college, and UCB was good enough for me, since I was only a girl. I understand that that wasn't their real motivation, but it was still a very difficult message for me. (And I did end up transferring to MIT the same year he went to Stanford.)

Please don't make your daughter think that she doesn't need to be a DYS, because she's just a girl.

Also, as a practical matter, I can tell you that it's a pain in the butt to have one child be a DYS and the other not. DS isn't asking too many questions yet about why DD gets to do stuff that he's not invited to, but I can see it coming.

ElizabethN-

My dad went to MIT I had her tested for that very reason, because I knew that they were likely close in IQ anyway. And it really has nothing to do with her being a girl, if it were my DS that was the sleeper then it would be the same. I just can't think of examples to give them. Maybe if I sleep on it (get it ha ha) I will be able to remember some things. Her real talent is making dresses out of anything - she's super creative with that and she's only 8. So that tells me she has some understanding of materials and structure….

Hey, that's a real talent. Does she sew, or just drape them?

She just drapes, but seriously, she takes a piece of cloth, cuts a few holes in it wraps it in a particular way and it could be something you would see in a high end store or on a runway… that's where she is unmistakably talented.

When she was three she made a dress out of the stuffing from a pillow. She figured out how to wear it, I laughed at the time but now I look back and go hmmmm

I can see it now, DYS she doesn't act gifted, but if you give her a piece of material that girl can drape…

One of my guilty little secrets is that while I tease my DW for watching it, I enjoy watching Project Runway.

Sometimes the catty drama is way OTT but the sheer inventiveness of these people is staggering. I definitely think that high creativity is a proxy for high intelligence.

One of my DD's friends is an incredibly creative girl - supremely talented at Art - can make great masks with the barest of materials, sculpt and draw. She is also talented at Maths.

Her parents are our friends too but it sad to see that they do not appear to see how intelligent their daughter actually is. She has no academic encouragement from them really because as children they had such terrible fun-starved childhoods that they do not enthuse her to study at all.

I actually think that this girl could give my DD a run for her money were she given the chance...

So you've met my in-laws, I see.