hi all,
I am writing here just to pour my heart out and asking for some objective sharing. We are trying to not overestimate or underestimate our DS, but we've been through a couple surprises with IQ tests, first when he was 4, and then just a few days ago.

Our DS is a precocious builder, he'd build with magnetic tiles, about 450 of them, at age 3, and the design looked like ones made by adults. He built castles with legos for 11+ yo (1000+ pieces) completing it in 3 days or so, at age 4. Starting from age 6 he built legos for 16+ yo, such as the monochromatic 5000+ pieces ones. He received no coaching on this, totally reading the blueprint by himself but progressing rapidly from small sets to the giant sets. He also builds his own creations with lego and other building kits and enrolls in summer camps for 8-12 and does well in the programming and robotic classes. He does explain things like adults do, for instance as a 5 yo he'd explain the mechanics of cars and how shock absorber works and how the cars accelerate and why performance cars are different and faster. But that's because he heard it from an adult, except that he seemed to be able to explain it as well as the adult did after hearing it once, and seems to be comprehending what he said.

He is doing well at a private school, not a GT school, but not bored, the school is engaging, we love the engaging math program, high quality instruction, but no accelerations (beyond what we think is great instruction for everyone). He seems normally bright, well adjusted, loving school and friends and teachers. Seems normal in everything, not one of the kids who reads at age two or three or does linear algebra at age 5. Admittedly normal schools in our area are likely to have higher concentration of gifted children, many immigrants and many very smart people live in here.

He recently tested with WISC V, concluded that he is PG on his GAI (GAI=147), and his visual spatial score is in the extended norm in both subtests (got 155, she said it was a low estimate), and the psychologist let him do the WAIS visual spatial materials. This was consistent with how he was tested at age 4 with WPPSI back then.

I am trying to wrap my head around this. I know he is is bright, and we are 100% sure he is gifted. But PG seems like a big word. What do PG kids look like? We were so sure that many kids in Silicon Valley, where we live, build the way he does and so he is only normally gifted. He is even happy playing with his 3 yo brother's toys. But maybe not. We have highly intelligent friends, surely they have likewise kids? I've heard of kids who do college level chemistry or calculus in elementary school, or read Harry Potter at age 2, but that is not my DS.
But DS is in Visual Spatial extended norm, and so I don't know what it means practically or whether to trust the test result is, and what kind of ride we are getting ourselves into, and whether it will remain like this at school until middle school (our school is for K-8). It is all so confusing and I cannot talk to anyone in my social circle because they might think I am bragging, but I seriously just want to be educated and have a sounding board. Many intelligent people in my circle talk about the book Nurture Shock, and seems to be skeptical of IQ tests.

The main thing we are struggling with now is summer. He is enrolled in tech classes for older kids, and something that was good last summer is boring and too easy this summer. It seems that the slope of his progress in these practical STEM is outpacing his peers by quite a good bit, and we run out of reasonable programs that will take him.

One more thing that we see is that in general he does very well in his extra curriculars. He does martial art, and in 12 months he got 10 belt promotions. He remembers all the orchestrated required steps on day 1 and got his skill tapes for next belt often on the same day he got promotion for that belt.

I am sorry if I am just dumping my brain here. But I guess the crux of my question is, what is PG? I read online articles, but unsure what it means in reality with real kids. What do you think about the Nurture Shock book? Is that book's conclusion credible/applicable to the PG population? What do you think about its discrediting test results for younger kids? Our psychologist believe that while test results are unstable for lower standard deviations, it is credible for the higher standard deviations because of the much higher barrier.

Does my kid sound like a PG kid? He is only 7.5 years old, and otherwise seems normal at home. But then he is our first child and we don't know what normal is. What do we do next?

Thanks.

Last edited by peanutsmom; 08/26/16 02:56 PM.