Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment My son is bored...but is he gifted?

My son (who is very social) hates school. Since preschool, he has complained constantly about being bored. We recently had him tested...here are his scores:

WISC IV
Verbal comprehension 130
Perceptual reasoning 123
Working memory 116
Processing speed 94 (he was angry at being timed, so he went slow on purpose)
Projected IQ 130

Woodcock-Johnson
Letter-word ID 147
Calculation 130
Spelling 144
Passage comprehension 140
Applied problems 110
Writing samples 123

Is he gifted? Any suggestions on how to remove the "bored" factor from school? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know the answer to your question whatsoever. However, I am wondering whether there are internal attitude factors that could have influenced his test results.

How bitter is he, exactly? How old is he and what grade is he in? What type of school is it?

Hi Movingup6, Welcome!

Yes, how old is he and what grade is he in and what type of school is it and has he ever been in a situation that required more of him academically than his current school situation?

Outside of school, does he have any intellectual passions or projects that he sets for himself? Does he do any afterschool activities that engage his brain such as lego robotics or chess? Has he particpated in any talent search tests?

I'm wondering what circumstances prompted the IQ test, and what the tester thinks about his complaints of bordom? Do you have any insight into his 'learning style?'

Tell us more!

Smiles,
Grinty

Thank you so much for your reply. It is great to have a place to talk about this with people who understand and know so much more than me. Here is our background...

We are a blended family of six:
Husband was divorced with two sons (21 and 13)
My 1st husband died, we had one daughter (11)
We had 1 son together (the child in question...he is 6 and in 1st grade now)
We adopted two crystal meth children who have learning impairments (5 and 8)

From infancy, our son seemed different from the other children we had raised. He did everything very early. He knew over 250 words and spoke in complete sentences at 12 months. He also knew all his advanced shapes, such as pentagon, octogon, etc. After a thorough explanation of the process, he potty trained in one day...on and on. Everyone around us was amazed by his sense of humor and communication skills.

Other than reading to him, we did little to advance his learning, because we had just adopted the two crystal meth children and they had a lot of emotional issues (reactive attachment disorder, would hurt the animals, etc.).

When he started preschool, he started getting in trouble for not wanting to color, sort, and practice numbers. The teacher struggled with his strong will, but quit sending him to the administrators office, because he would charm the office staff and come back with stickers. So, he basically did his own thing, while the other children sat in a circle and sang songs.

In kindergarten he was introduced to letter sounds and learned how to read within a few days. He has since advanced to a third grade level in school (however, he prefers advanced biology books at home). After learning to read, he became "bored" and spent much of the rest of the year in the principals office for refusing do things like: use the red crayon to color the barn red, because he wanted to use magenta, which as he put it "was a form of red." As i look back, i think he was trying to make it more complicated so he could engage himself. The teacher saw him as a trouble maker.

First grade has been better, but he continues to opt-out of exercises he feels are useless, like gluing cottonballs to paper to make a cloud. He says he'd rather learn about subcumulous clouds, than making a cloud on paper. His teachers have been great about trying to keep him engaged, but he is clearly unhappy with the cirriculum. I started tutoring him at home with some 4th and 5th grade workbooks and he loves it.

We decided to have him tested because his father has an IQ of 145+ and went to John Hopkins when he was a child. We thought maybe there is some truth to the boredom issue and knowing what we were dealing with would help us solve the puzzle.

All that being said...what do you think? Am i dealing with a gifted kid? The tester felt like he was cooperative for the most part (except the processing tests). However, he has told me before he doesn't feel like he should have to prove what he knows...he considers that as wasteful an exercise as making a puffy cloud.

His scores indicate that yes, he's GT. Certainly his behavior sounds like a bored GT kid!

Will the school accept these scores? If not, can you request that they test him for GT ID? Do they have any sort of GT program? How do they feel about subject acceleration, especialy in language arts, as this seems to be his strong suit?

Thank you for your response. We do feel he is gifted, but some of the scores on these boards are so much higher, that i was beginning to question if he fell in the gifted range.

The public school he attends will accept the scores, if i formally submit them. (They have seen them informally.) However, i am hesitant to submit them because they will become part of his permanent record. And, since i think he could score higher with some maturity (and loss of the test resistant phase he is going through), i didn't want to taint his record.

The county begins gifted screening at the end of second grade and the gifted program begins in third grade. The principal has told me that based on his current scores, he will ace the qualifying exams.

I'm not sure what to do in the meantime. The tester said he is going to be just as bored in second grade (if not more), because much of the cirriculum is a repeat of first grade. She said he may even "turn off" to learning if his intellect isn't fed.

The school said they will try to help keep his interest with varied projects, but i will play a major role (there is one teacher for 28 kids). Where do i start? Should i buy third grade homeschooling cirriculum?

I did not get a subtest breakdown, but i could ask for one, if it would be helpful to solving this puzzle.

The tester said he was a strong audio learner, but could learn equally as well visually. Does the PRI indicate differently? I personally think he learns best by listening. He can hear something once (even on the radio news) and know it forever.

Also, would banter during the test affect the score as well? The tester said she enjoyed his testing more than any other child in all her years of testing. While as a mom i think that is sweet, I am thinking he must have been pretty engaged in conversation for her to take that away from their meeting.

Sorry to take up so much time, but lastly, in terms of exposure, what should i do to prepare him for later retests?

I would definitely get a detailed breakdown... my tester even provided me with the raw scores when I asked him.

My son (also in first grade) is similarly strong-willed and school has been a disaster for us too. From what I can tell, at this point, the teacher has given up on him and lets him do his own thing (read in the corner)... she has too many kids to manage (30)-- your son's teacher sounds similarly overwhelmed.

Don't have any advice, really, but I can commiserate.

Have you read Dr Ruf's book, "Losing our Minds" or Miraca Gross' book? Or looked at the summaries of Ruf's framework online? I think if you read both books or looked at the Ruf classification framework, you would see that your son is definitely GT. Those books will also give you insight into what options exist and what your next steps could be. (This site needs a FAQ!)

Your tester seems to be well informed. Based on my own experiences from 3rd grade and on with most public schools, he could become very bitter about school in general. 3rd-6th grade was a regular battle of wills for me and by the 5th grade I knew as much as any of my teachers. From 3rd grade until 10th grade, with the exception of two districts, public school was a huge waste of my time. I pretty much entertained myself.

How was your husband educated? What are his introspections on what was good and bad and what, from his own experience, should be done?

Dottie, what comprises the FSIQ and also, what is "projected IQ"?