For me, this is a very interesting question. When I was in grade 2, Ms. Daffin asked me if I spoke English at home (my parents were eastern European in a very WASP (95%) community. The following year, Ms. Daffin had to accept my accerlation through 4th grade after an IQ test. And suddenly I was her second favorite.
DH is an amazing guy who got into Harvard from a small town in PA. A very literal thinking, focused, who probably has a fact file that rivals Britannica. I cannot remember a name unless I visualize it and heard it 3 times. Though I could remember the person's phone number.
Now we have DD, high energy, highly extrovert, other people have commented to me on her brilliance though her first SBV (modified) showed EG, not PG, though she had high math ability since 2, just coming out with stuff and then she had that piano prodigy stuff that comes with mathematical ability. Her next IQ test was up 10 points.
I think there is a range of giftedness and defining a kid is hard. I have had brilliant PhD's in physics commenting on my type of thinking as being serious genius yet I look at them and wonder if they are doing serious drugs. I have done strategy for most of the top investment banks and exchanges in the world and when I was doing it, I thought it was simple work.
Yet, I could never program a super computer or think to create an Iphone.
So my point, is that giftedness is a whole range of things. My kid does the math and the piano like something out of movie, but she also does dance choreography since 18 months. This is what struck me most. Watching her create different dances, and remember them for each song on some CD that helped counting 1-10. There was something determined in her to make this dances specific. Something I noticed that was unusual. At a jazz festival of 100, 000 people she was mentioned and photographed for city of 4MM newspaper because of her dancing for one of the bands.
People have come up to me after a ballet recital and mentioned her, even when in a class of older kids, because she was advanced.
So yes, her IQ is way up there, yes, she is much advanced in math and now 3 years ahead in reading (just from school) and the piano stuff, but then there is the dance stuff and I would say she is gifted in dance. I cannot really define it other than what I said, and she is doing a preprofessional program that many other kids are doing. But you see something.
I was in the store checking out and this really little kid, maybe 3, was asking his mother was comes after 80. She told him 81, then he asked what comes after, 82, then 83, then she asked him what comes next, he thought and said 84. He was gifted. How did I come up with that? Just watching him, seeing him ask, figure it out at 3. I didn't have a check list. I, myself are just brilliant
Ren
