Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Help! What do I tell him about the testing?

I'm taking DS6 to a neuropsych starting tomorrow for a full psychoeducational assessment and it just dawned on me that I have no idea how to present this to him. We've only ever peripherally suggested to him from time to time that there might be something a bit different about him and generally, I think he has a sense that he's different from most kids. But I haven't broached the subject of testing! Now I'm wondering what I tell him. I don't want to tell him that it's to test his intelligence and certainly not because we suspect he might be gifted. So then what? Any ideas? Anything would be appreciated!

DS was first tested at 6. We told him that an adult specialist was interested in finding out his learning styles and his interests so that we could use the information to make school more interesting for him...

Thanks, playandlearn. Thing is, he thinks school is fine and I don't want to create expectations for him about school somehow becoming "more fun". Cause he's the kind of kid who would take that quite literally.

I'm actually getting quite nervous about what to tell him! Every scenario I run through my head seems like a bad idea... Argh. Why didn't I think of this before?!

Rather than saying that we would try to make school more interesting (or fun), we told my DD at around that age that the test was to understand better how she thinks and learns, so we could understand better the best ways to teach her.

We told our son that there was a nice lady in the room who would be playing some fun and interesting games with him and ask him interesting questions and that he should just go there and have fun with the questions. It worked, he told her all about superheroes and which ones are his favorites in the short time that we were in that room before we left!

I try to avoid describing it as games, as I've learned from experience that that also raises expectations. Usually, I tell children that we are going to do some different activities that help us understand how you learn best. Some things may be easy, and some may be hard. That's normal. Just do your best, and give everything a good try. You may ask any questions you like. I'll answer them if I can, but sometimes I'm not allowed to tell you, because I have to follow the rules.

Then I answer their questions, and we do some warm up chitchat and drawings for a few minutes, before starting formal testing.

Thank you, all of you! Turns out he didn't need much explanation. I just told him he was going to meet Dr A and she was going to ask him a bunch of interesting questions to find out how he learns. He asked if it would be questions like "what is 40 plus 40", and we just moved on to doing some math together. No other questions about seeing the doctor. I'm now sitting in the waiting room and I hear him having fun in there. Regardless of what comes out of it, we'll likely understand more about our little monkey! 😀

DS7 was 6 when he took the test. Before the test, I told him that we were going to see a nice gentleman who will give him some puzzles to do. Just have fun. He loves puzzles so after the initial shyness, he got right into the questions and did not stop until all the subtests were done.

Well now that the testing is done, have any idea how you'll present the results? We've procrastinated for weeks now in sharing anything with our daughter after only telling her that it was to "learn how she learns." I'd love to hijack this thread for advice on what to say after

Granted, your children are much younger than the ones to whom I usually present (adolescents), but I am a strong proponent of explaining children's qualitative profiles to them, along with a thoughtful discussion of the natural variation within and between individuals, and cautions regarding the limitations of assessment instruments (including differences between test administrations).

The general caveat to this is--as appropriate to the developmental level and understanding of your child. And if you or they are not prepared to explain/grasp any of those points, then I would lean on the more conservative side, especially with regard to exact numbers.