I've noticed that there are a lot of kids here that get tested very young - basically right when WISC-IV/V becomes a valid choice.
My son is 7 and would definitely qualify in terms of age. He is also potentially 2e, but different from my daughter. He was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age 2 due to speech delay, sensory issues and hyperlexia. He taught himself to read at the age of 2 (or younger - he was speech delay until 2.5, so we didn't know), learned multiplication table with no effort at 3 and does simple algebra now at 7. Since then, he outgrew and lost his dx (based on ADOS) and no longer has most of the issues that were obvious when he was younger. He does amazingly well in the 1st grade. He scores 99% in reading comprehension and even higher in math assessments at the school district level, that has SAS111 mean composite scores on Cogat measures, which means it could be even higher nationwide.
At the same time he is not super mature emotionally and has difficulty with social cues etc. He is very average in things like handwriting and creating writing. He still has Asperger-like features, like food pickiness and intolerance to change (primarily foods again), but has excellent attention span and study ethics.
The gifted testing in our district is in 4 months - start of the 2nd grade. I hesitate....
On one hand, he is hyperlexic, so it will definitely up his scores at this age and may give us skewed high expectations in a way. Pressuring him in a wrong way academically (a program that requires emotional maturity) may be too much at this point. Studies on hyperlexic kids do not show any evidence of high IQ in that population as a group at older ages.
Also I have negative experience with my older daughter. She easily qualified for the gifted program in the elementary school (2nd grade) but didn't qualify in the 6th grade, on the re-test, due to attention issues and lower critical reading scores, despite 99% IQ based on the test around the same age. It affected her significantly in terms of self confidence and I definitely don't want to see a repeat of something like that.
On the other hand, there are studies that show reduction in IQ scores when the child isn't stimulated enough in certain areas, like vocabulary etc, so I understand that waiting when I shouldn't be is wrong as well.
Homeschooling isn't an option, but we provide a lot of enrichment at home - Saturday math classes, piano lessons, martial arts, swimming, soccer....
What would you do? Have you seen scores go up/down for 2e kids with/without gifted education? Any experiences that you could share would be useful for me.
