I know parents of young children would like a crystal ball regarding their children's level of giftedness, but based on my sample of three, Ruf's and similar tools would have proven completely inaccurate. My oldest was the one who often got unsolicited comments from specialists (friends as well as treating doctors). He flip over after he was readmitted to the hospital as a newborn, observed as behaving like a toddler when he was 8 months, and physically put together 24-piece jigsaw puzzles quickly and without adult input by his second birthday. However, he only tested moderately gifted at age 8 and his verbal comprehension index came out higher than his perceptual reasoning index. The pyschologist did write that the score was an under-estimate but I don't believe it was that far off based on the other real life and academic sign posts beyond the early childhood years. My younger DS, who meets the DYS criteria by a comfortable margin, had few astounding attributes in the early years. There was one therapist who noted his creative problem solving ability at 8 months but he never received my older DS' frequent unsolicited commments from professionals. My younger DS did demonstrate the ability to apply simple multiplication and division at age 4 without active teaching. However, he did not read until age 5, in the fall of Kindergarten, but was able to read Harry Potter independently by age 6. DD, twin to my younger DS, falls between her two brothers IQ-wise, but I can't think of any wow attributes from the preschool years at all. She did not read until winter of kindergarten and did not progress to Magic Treehouse until the end of kindergarten.
In observing my children's contemporaries, I see a lot of reshuffling during the first few years of school. Part of it has to do with chidlren's different development trajectories and different focuses at different times. Environmental factors also play a role as an enriched early childhoods and deprived early childhoods tend to skew early results.
