Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I'm told this is the place to ask

Hi, I'm brand new here. My DS has recently been tested with the WIPPSI and WIAT, and the psychologist's report says that he is gifted. I don't know a lot about the information I've been given though and when I asked I was told to come over here and ask because you people understand the numbers.

I hope that's right, because we'd really like to know what all this means for him.

There are a lot of numbers here, and I'm not sure which ones I need to give you, the main ones are Verbal 155, Performance 155, Processing Speed 123, Full 155 and General Language Composite 151. Then on the WIAT it has percentiles: Word Reading >99.9, Reading Comprehension >99.9, Pseudoword Decoding >99.9, Numerical Operations 99.9, Maths Reasoning >99.9, Spelling 99 and Listening Comprehension >99.9. The psychologist said he hit the roof on the tests, I'm not sure what that means, I think he could have kept going?

Any interpretation would be greatly appreciated, we're at a bit of a loss as to what to do next, we've taken him out of preschool (before the testing) because he was so bored, but don't know what else to do.

You've certainly been sent to the right place. Hopefully someone more knowledgable than me will come along soon with more advice. But in the mean time start reading about the DYS (davidson young scholar) program. Those are VERY high scores!

Hi! Welcome~ this is a good place to find folks with kids whose 'level of giftedness' or 'log' are super high, which is what is indicated by the numbers you have there.
A simple congrats to your ds would not suffice, as I am sure you already know your child is a challenge to parent!

Sorry to hear preschool did not work out, sometimes if it is just a play oriented situation with a broad range of ages, it can work ok even for a highly-gifted child. But often there is such a different level of play, language and interest that a child like this does not fit and finds it very boring.
My daughter also got pretty bored in preschool at 3.5 so I lobbied to have her in K the next year. We had the wppsi done and that was really helpful to be able to show the scores to the director. Gave them something concrete to point to when other 'pushy' parents come around asking for the same exceptions
-- they needed this piece of paper even though in her own words the director said my dd 'is obviously highly verbally gifted'.

Are there other issues you are trying to sort out for your child at this point? Questions from the report, etc.?

Best of luck finding the info you need!

Gosh, yes, VERY challenging!

Um... we have lots of questions! The psychologist said he needs to be accelerated by two or more years, I'd love to hear from anyone who's got experience with that sort of thing, because I can't even begin to work out how it could work. We're wondering if we should be thinking about home schooling because how can school work for him? About the report, I don't really understand the numbers - I get that they're high but what does it mean? And any advice anyone has who has gone this way before would be great, because we're out of our depth!

Thanks Dottie, I'll try and give you the info. He's nearly 4 and a half. We're not in the US so I don't think we can use DYS. He'd be due to start school at the end of this year but the suggestion was that we look at starting sooner, which I'm not sure about. The WIAT scores have age equivalents but not grades? They are Word Reading 9:0, Reading Comprehension 11:8, Pseudoword Decoding 14:0, Numerical Operations 7:8, Maths Reasoning 8:8, Spelling 7:0 and Listening Comprehension 10:0. Only three of them have a score with 3 digit numbers (the others are blank) all three are 160 (that column is headed STD). That's for the word reading, Maths reasoning and Listening comprehension.

I'd love to hear about some of those options - as far as I see it our options are start school early now, start when he turns 5 (end of the year) - in either of those cases I guess we have to think about what level he starts, or not start him at all and keep him home for at least a while.

Thank you so much for the info, it's just so hard to know what to do. He's totally driven to learn, never without a book and sending him out "to play" is his idea of a punishment. He's utterly exhausting and not always a very happy boy because he gets so frustrated sometimes. He's best when busy, and that's often a real challenge to maintain, because he starts out enjoying something but then he masters where they're at and it doesn't move on, which means he gets bored again. Since taking him out of preschool he's slowly returning to a much happier state of mind, but he's just so different to his wee friends that he doesn't really belong anywhere. We're also getting a fairly constant barrage from one set of grandparents that we have to "let him be a child" and stop "making him do things"... when we're not making him do anything at all.

[Pricks up ears] Are you in Scotland by any chance? (PM me if you are and if it would be helpful to have a same-country contact!)

Welcome Trina! Congratulations and sympathies as well lol.

I have a DS8 who has been accelerated 5 years for math and about 7-8 years in biology and chemistry. He will be taking high school math and science full time for the coming school year. We homeschool, using an eclectic method--partial unschooling (conceptual math and science), partial structure (mostly for online math homework and his high school science labs via our non-brick-and-mortar charter school). I say this just to present to you one option to quench the thirst of your obviously brilliant child when you think he is ready.

When my son was 4 many people told me to let him be a child and I did...but I wasn't prepared for a child who devoured books the way he did and I was constantly searching, searching...for something that would help me balance the hunger of a child who was extremely asynchronous in ability vs development. It was SO difficult, to make anyone understand that this is who he was. That learning was what this child wanted. It got so difficult to explain to people that I started focusing on his inabilities instead just to deflect questions and disapproving looks.

It all finally fell in place when we had him tested recently. I sent his scores to a psych recommended by a friend and she interpreted his scores for me (in addition to the wonderful help Dottie gave calculating his extended norms). She gave me the appropriate percentiles (earlier tester didn't) and suggested I just let him "go" as far as he wants to. It was very helpful to hear her say that. I used to keep holding him back and it wasn't helpful to him. My son isn't extremely driven to learn, I've seen kids who are and mine pales in comparison. But I now see and hear the sigh of relief from him. Besides, our homeschooling lifestyle gives us the flexibility to slow down later if needed.

I say all this because I believe, like Dottie, that given your child's scores, he may be ahead of mine. I wish someone had told me when my son was 4 what to expect. I had to make many mistakes before realizing all that I know today. I would have worried a lot less and stopped focusing on his inabilites and would have been so much more confident facing the naysayers.

I hope it is helpful to you in some way to know that 3, 4, 5 or more years later we're still figuring things out, but it's okay, and that our children are doing well and thriving when the right accommodations are in place. We tried finding other accommodations but nothing worked...learning at home and via custom-built classes and workshops with other homeschooled children has been the only thing that's been obviously successful for my kid. Finding other kids like him wasn't easy either. Took about 3 years of trial-and-error before we stumbled upon a group of great, kindred-spirit families.

I am not advocating homeschooling as the only way...just giving you confidence that you can do it and that some kids really thrive in such an environment. But that if you take this step, to be mindful that it may take a while and be more difficult to find a peer group for him.

Oops, I'm in a bit of a rambling mood today! Sorry! I wish you all the very best...it's not a journey we choose lightly...but it's wonderful, humbling and very, very educational, at least for this often clueless mom.

Trina, congrats on your decision to take your son out of the bad-fit preschool. Preschool was terrible for our son, especially due to an inflexible teacher that essentially pegged him as having behavior problems, which were really due to extreme boredom. Welcome, and please keep us posted on your progress. (BTW I'd gratefully take the chance to hang out with ColinsMum any day, even if you can't qualify for DYS. )

lol, no I'm a bit further away - New Zealand.