As per the psych's instruction I contacted GATCA (the G&T Assn. of WA) and they advise that the subtest discrepanancy is likely due to learnt behaviour: i.e. as dd has never been sufficiently challenged at school her pervasive fear of failure will have stopped her from attempting any questions when she wasn't 100% sure of the answer, apparently research shows that this can be the case with as many as 1 in 3 kids, particularly if they are exceptionally gifted. This makes sense as the psych said she kept crawling under the table and hiding behind the couch during the PRI questions. K x
K x - I don't know of any research on this, but it sure fits lots of personal stories I've heard. And I've experienced and hear that the reverse is true as well - getting into a challenging environment has helped my son and many others get better at dealing with challenge. I used my observations with my DS's interactions with challenge to gauge how hard to push the school over the years. I loved it when DS made friends at a summer camp with a kid who had learned to solve the Rubix cube in 3 weeks and my son set himself the goal of learning to solve in 10 days or less. Youtube has tutorials now, but it's still a big job to memorize all those steps. Believe me - DS tried to teach me! I was even more delighted when DS returned to school that year and was willing to show off to his friends his cube-ability. An adult friend who works at the school told us she saw DS walking between classes in 8th grade, a friend handing him a jumbled up cube as they passed in the hall and DS solving it as he walked to class, with a larger and larger crowd surrounding him as he walked. He got to class on time and solved the puzzle on the way. That sums up my picture of what I want for DS - 1) willing to try hard things, 2) willing to openly share his interests with his friends.
So the question is - what can be changed in her school environment to bring in the challenge? Can they allow her to attend gifted extension with kids two years older as a trial and see how that goes?
Love and More Love,
Grinity
