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    Joined: Dec 2005
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    Interesting discussion Everyone!

    I think if the GAI says gifted and the FSIQ says average, all us Moms say "Gifted."

    OTOH, I think of Gifted as much as a possible special need as something to brag about.

    A great example is the perfectionism. It's not universal, but it sure is common amoung our Gifted Kids, and has it's own flavor, that I call "Dissonance."
    Basically
    a kid is way more aware of what an adult "product" should look like than an average kid. The kid judges themselve against impossible standards.
    This inhibits one from trying.
    This means less practice.
    This leads to lower skill development.
    Add more looking over one's shoulder, at what the other kids are doing, and
    now you have anxiety.

    I wouldn't be suprised if your daughter's achievment tests were inhibited by this perfectionism/anxiety also. This would be a great question to ask the tester. Ironically, slow and careful and detailed work is exactly wonderful in school settings - but doesn't boost anyone's speed score.

    So how do you parent a child "through" perfectionism?
    Thomas S. Greenspon's books, such as "Freeing Our Families from Perfectionism" are a good place to start. You will probably find that you also judge yourself much too harshly - join the club on this one. This is a wonderful opportunity to wiggle the tension loose on yourself and gain insight into your daughter's experience.

    Phrases like, "In our family, we try to fit the mode, slow and careful or fast and approximate, to the activity" can be repeated over and over and over, with lots of examples.


    Love and More Love,
    Trinity






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    Also, lets start a discussion on in-school gifted programs on a seperate topic, ok?
    T


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    Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful insights. And thanks for the book recommendation, Trinity. I will definately be reading that one. I see Kate's perfectionism holding her back and causing her such unnecessary anxiety. I'm afraid she inherited that from me. I remeber once baking a three layer Italian cream cheese cake for my boyfriend's birthday, deciding it just wasn't going to be good, and throwing it away before he ever tasted it!

    And, Trinity, I think you are right about the achievement test. WHy would her scores on spelling and letter recognition be so low? She had known all her letters FOR YEARS. And she is reading pretty well and ought to be able to sound out any word she doesn't already know. That said, I hate to keep calling the tester and asking her more questions!

    Also, I didn't mean to diss Montessori. You know, it occured to me that Montessori may be a big part of the reason she scored in the 99th percentile on the Academic Knowledge subtest. I think this sort of thing is probably more emphasized than spelling/reading drills. And perhaps that is the way it should be. It is so HARD to know what your child is getting short of following them around all day.

    I feel Kate, with her WISC scores, will be fine in this private school with a rigorous cirriculum. For those with gifted children in some public schools, or exceptionally gifted children, you have to work hard to ensure your child is getting everything they need.


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    Pinkmonkey wrote:

    Diana,

    Well from what I've read you can assume the 141 is more correct.
    What did the psychologist say about that difference?
    I've read that kids can have a bad day and score lower, but that the highest score rec'd is always the more accurate.
    Also, some of that drop comes from the different versions of the WISC....right?

    Cheryl

    Hi Cheryl and Everyone,


    Sorry that I didn�t answer your question regarding the psychologist�s explanation for lowered scores earlier. Our weekend was crazy busy.

    She wrote in the report that the verbal comprehension subtests require the processing of auditorially presented information, use of associative thinking and the generation of quality higher order expressive language. These are the areas where she believes my daughter has significant learning disabilities. The conclusion was that lack of appropriate intervention has decreased her ability in these areas.

    I believe that may be a factor, but think there may be a few others. The tester was a grad student and the focus of the assessment was LD, not giftedness. During her previous test (for giftedness), the psychologist sometimes coaxed her to guess rather than accept what she felt were premature �I don�t know.� answers.

    Another factor is that this was a newer version test. It is simply harder to score as high as on the previous ones. Whether that is due to the exaggeration of the old ones or because the scores are depressed on the new ones, I don�t know. I do know that they are not comparable. For example, a 145 on the WISC III is not the same as a 145 on the SB5.

    In the case of your daughter, a re-test should be no threat for a lowered score since she has only been tested on the new version. Some gifted programs, such as the Young Scholars program, base their acceptance criteria on the Full Scale and/or Verbal Comprehension and/or Perceptual Reasoning scores meeting or exceeding a certain threshold rather than just FSIQ.













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    Originally Posted by pinkmonkey
    I see Kate's perfectionism holding her back and causing her such unnecessary anxiety. I'm afraid she inherited that from me. I remeber once baking a three layer Italian cream cheese cake for my boyfriend's birthday, deciding it just wasn't going to be good, and throwing it away before he ever tasted it!
    She shoots - she scores!
    Ok dear, you qualify, which is kind of good, because you get to recover together.

    I also like Flylady.com to fight perfectionism, because for me, one of the side effect of perfectionism was that I couldn't bear to throw almost anything away in fear of the self-given tounge lashing I was sure to give myself if I ever turned out to need it. Obviously I am much happier making occasional mistakes and living in a clean, and cleanable, house.


    Originally Posted by pinkmonkey
    I hate to keep calling the tester and asking her more questions!
    Believe me, It is her job to answer your questions, and when she feels that she is being taken advantage of, she will let you know. Sad to say I have personal experience here.
    Originally Posted by pinkmonkey
    Also, I didn't mean to diss Montessori. You know, it occured to me that Montessori may be a big part of the reason she scored in the 99th percentile on the Academic Knowledge subtest. I think this sort of thing is probably more emphasized than spelling/reading drills. And perhaps that is the way it should be. It is so HARD to know what your child is getting short of following them around all day.
    That's a good point about Montessori's strengths. I also like that she is allowed to draw and develop her creativity. It is hard to know what is happening, but I have noticed that a few hours of quiet observation, in the child's classroom, or if possible in the classroom that the child will be entering next, goes a long way.

    Originally Posted by pinkmonkey
    I feel Kate, with her WISC scores, will be fine in this private school with a rigorous cirriculum.
    then you have a plan, and it seems reasonable to expect that there is a good chance it will work. Hopefully this will buy you some time to work on the perfectionism thing.

    best wishes,
    Trin


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    Pink'y, I agree with Dottie. commend! commend!

    You mentioned Duke Talent Search. I have experience with John Hopkins' Talent Search and I believe that they are all quite similar. My son has enjoyed the "above-level" testing, where they give reasoning ability tests that are normed to kids 2 or 3 years older than the child, that don't depend on prior knowledge. Then you get to see how you child does compared to other kids who participated in the talent search. It's one way to confirm if your child has abilities that place here in the middle of the gifted pack, or way off in the rarer corners. Again I use the high scores are meaningful, low scores may not be that meaningful perspective. There are also camps, weekend adventures, and sometimes Saturday enrichment classes during the year. This is one of those times were being "middle-of-the-pack" gifted is really great because all these programs are likely to be a good fit. The Rare Corner Gifted kids have to attend with older kids, or in weak areas to get much out of them.

    Ask more questions if you have them!
    Trin


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    Boy, you all are so helpful, encouraging and kind. I really appreciate all the advice/opinions.

    I really know NOTHING about the talent search process. Do you have to "qualify" with IQ/ or achievement test scores? do the schools tell you about these programs? My school gives achievement tests in 3rd grade. What do the schools generally do with these scores? Do they use that to identify and refer children for these talent searches?

    The psychologist suggested retesting Kate in 3 years. She did say Kate was quick to say "I don't Know" or give up, but when prompted/encouraged could indeed often provide an answer. Have any of you had this problem with your children? K is just reluctant to do anything she does not want to do, including answering a question! I am afraid that without the psy. encouraging her and making the testing fun, she would not do her best on a talnet search. Do you all think this is just a maturity issue?

    Here is a question I have for everyone: after reading all about the signs of giftedness, K has really strongly displayed many of them. However, my just-turned-5y/o does not. She seems perfectly bright, but none of the sort of "weirdness" K has. This makes me curious about what is going on in B's noggin. Yet I'm reluctant to have her tested next year, you know, you hate to even inadvertantly or unconsciously label your children. The psy said she just wanted to know about her own children and so tested them all; she said it jut helped her know how their brains worked. Have you all tested all your children? Are they all pretty close in their test results?

    Also, on this WISC-IV, do any of these subtests correlate with mathematical ability? Isn't that a big part of intelligence( I think I read it was stringly correlated) So I figure one of the subtests must correlate to that.


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    There is an "arithmetic reasoning" subtest for the WISC IV, but it often isn't used with the usual battery.

    Getting my son tested not only helped me realized the reaches of his giftedness a little better, it also clued us in on his learning differences and difficulties.

    My son seemed normal, except for a couple of flukish things regarding his handwriting and vocabulary. The WISC IV showed us he was very intelligent, but also that he had severe difficulties in working memory, processing speed and perceptual reasoning.



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    I'd also like to suggest the book MindSet by Dweck. It addresses that tendency to "give up" and has suggestions on how to change the mindset. I have found it helpful in working with Mite's strong perfectionistic tendencies. We are now liberally using phrases like "this is a learning moment" or "oh wow!! yet another opportunity to expand our knowledge base". He enjoys that new perspective.



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    Here's a link to Duke TIP website:
    http://www.tip.duke.edu/
    and here's the information page for the earliest testing they offer - for 4th graders. They don't say what the fee is, but typically the talent search fee is under 100$.

    I'm guessing that you don't want to wait until 4th grade, so here is the JHU-CTY page link: http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/grades26.html

    You'll notice that they say:
    Please note: Students must be attending school or homeschool in AK, AZ, CA, CT, DE, HI, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, VA, WA, WV, or DC to receive full Talent Search benefits. For students living overseas, CTY has an International Talent Search.

    That doesn't mean that you can't take the test if you live outside of these states, only that you won't get the "full benifits." LOL - as if the above level test for 85$ wasn't enough.

    I think that you daughter MAY do quite well, as there is no tester at all, just a computer terminal at a testing center. And it's cheap enought that you can do it again next year with no great loss. Although they allow plenty of time for the test, my son was done in 40 minutes when he was in 3rd grade.

    You can do a Parental-nomination, which means that you think she is gifted. Nowadays the NCLB tests are so dull that lots of gifted kids score quite poorly on them. I reccomend that you sign up for this year, even though she is in 2nd grade. Why? well, if she scores in the middle of the pack when she is one year younger, that really confirms the level of perfectionism blocking her on the other tests. If she scores lower - well, she can try again next year and you can see if she has overcome the perfectionism at all. The Scat tests reasoning skill and doesn't depend on any prior knowledge. My kid thought it was fun.

    FWIW,
    Trin


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