Thanks for the responses. I've got Raising Your Spirited Child on hold at the library. We've run through a lot of parenting books, and an adapted discipline method from Beyond Time-Out worked for a while. Now it seems like we need to try something else and I am at a loss. Reading a lot on this site has been helpful, even if my kid is "just smart".
She's a bit of a mixed-bag, really. Since she's my oldest I feel like I'm not really able to put things into context well. She went from a handful of words to full sentences and identifying the alphabet upper and lowercase from 18-20 months. Reading little to nothing before the start of K last August, she was at Lexical 330 in December and is now fully into chapter books. Her long-term memory is great, especially if it was tied to an experience or something she saw. Sock seams must be perfectly lined up, clothing must not have any exposed elastic or rough fabric or there are tears and a wardrobe change. The child has never worn jeans. She has boundless energy, takes lots of physical risks and yet is incredibly awkward when trying to do something graceful like dancing.
Behavior-wise, she is easily frustrated when others don't understand her "vision" and blows her top if she can't do something right the first time. We went through a period when she would pick her skin to the point of always having scabs on her face when she started pre-k at three. She still has some trouble keeping herself controlled when there is a lot of chaos during classroom transitions.
Her school won't provide any additional testing because she is fine academically and isn't enough of a behavior problem. I can just as easily see her fitting onto the spectrum, or having some kind of sensory issue rather than any kind of giftedness. I think we are at the point of just wanting to know how best to approach her problems. What type of testing should I be looking for? Unfortunately, the IQ testing I've found in our area is $500-600 and the full work up is minimum $900. I'm not sure where that money is going to come from.
