Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Can you be only partially gifted?

So in my ongoing quest to "guess" about my daughter's abilities and wonder and wait what her educational future might look like I am starting to think we might find she is quite gifted verbally -- reading, writing, spelling, vocabulary, etc. and maybe quite "typical" on the non-verbal side. First, is that possible, and second, given that would mean she will NOT qualify for her school's gifted program, what would you recommend to enrich a brilliant little reader, writer, author and extremely thirsty learner? She's 6. Thanks!

I know another child that is accelerated several years in reading yet is has to work at grade level math. Wasn't Einstein the opposite? Being so advanced in physic and math yet ordinary in verbal?

Ren

My son is highly gifted verbally but has disabilities (problems with visual processing, visual-motor coordination, AS/NVLD) that impact his non-verbal domains. If you see a really big difference between the two areas, it might be worth it to have her assessed by someone who is used to working with 2-E kids just to be sure that there is not a hidden perceptual/visual/motor disability that is affecting her non-verbal skills.

Wren -- that sounds right -- I think Einstein was a late reader?

Aculady -- What were some of the things you noticed? I've never noticed anything like that -- in fact, her MAP scores in math were in the 98th percentile, but her teacher mentioned something about problem solving worksheets that she wants to look at when we have her conference (which is Thur.)

I am not sure (in fact I am pretty sure they will not) let my daughter accelerate in just one area. Is there anything I can do as an aside? I just am not sure what to make of this. We should know in the next month or so if they plan to test her this yer or not. They are extremely particular about who they'll test and she's young so I'll be surprised if they want to. Hmmmm....

I think this happens alot- kids who are gifted in one area but not in another.
In our local GATE program, which is a full-time program, there are a number of kids who are bellow grade level in math and need extra tutoring, although they are gifted in reading/verbal. There are kids obviously who are more globally gifted.

My ds6 is the opposite, his verbal skills are not as great as his non verbal skills. He scored much higher on PRI than on the VCI. This profile seems to have a better chance at making it into the gifted program here. My dd7 is very advanced verbally, and can read several grade levels above, BUT is not very advanced when it comes to math. DS6 is in the gifted program this year, but DD7 has not made it in yet.

We noted relative difficulty with puzzles; trouble with figure/ground or hidden picture/Where's Waldo kinds of tasks, including finding objects in a visually cluttered space; difficulty throwing and catching balls; clumsiness; difficulty drawing and doing fine motor tasks; odd head posture when reading, watching television, or trying to perform visually complex tasks; problems recognizing people from their appearance; and problems reading social cues/body language, among other things.

He had a lot of different things going on, so it is not terribly likely that another child who had fewer issues (but might still have NVLD, or visual processing problems, or another disability that would depress non-verbal performance) would present the same way.

Artsmartmom, you haven't said how old your daughter is, and we don't have enough of a background on her exposure to make any reasonable conjectures here. Some here have postulated reasons why your daughter may have a deficiency in the area of math, but maybe she has no deficiency at all. How much exposure has she had so far to math versus verbal skills? And how much has math captured her attention when she has been exposed?

My advice would be, don't "guess" about her abilities. Have her formally tested.

And it should be possible for acceleration at specific subjects... at least it has been in my experience. I showed up at school an early reader but with no exposure to math at all, so there were some early accommodations made in first grade where I could go to the second grade class to do reading and spelling lessons. When my daughter showed up at K, and she couldn't qualify for the gifted program right away (deliberately draconian qualification requirements for 5yo, but very reasonable for 6yo), so they sent her off to a first grade class for reading and spelling as an accommodation.

Of course, in her case, it should have been first grade all day, because she had already been heavily exposed to math as well, and kindergarten had nothing to teach her, but I'll refrain from indulging that rant yet again.

This is definitely possible. I have two examples in my own home. I'm only gifted in math. While my math scores are 99%+, my verbal scores are only a 90-93%. (Which made me often declare that I was "no good" at writing/reading when I was growing up, so watch out for that.)

My wife is a gifted artist, but while she is smart, she isn't gifted in other areas.

I think that this is a very interesting question and goes beyond the OP's child to the very heart of how one defines the term "gifted." Gifted is defined in many circles in a much broader means than it was in years past and, within school systems certainly, definitely includes people who have strong abilities in one domain and average abilities in others.

Ultimately, it probably comes down to whether one considers gifted to include people whose composite IQ (FSIQ, GAI, etc.) is not in the gifted range but who have some subtests that are gifted. And then it is further muddied by how high those highs have to be and whether an average overall score with just one high spike is gifted or whether the overall score needs to be above average or whether it needs to be an entire subtest (PRI, say as opposed to just one piece of PRI) that is in the top 2% or so...

I imagine that varying opinions exist even amongst experts.