Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion HG 6 year old with intense fears

My DD is a little like this, too. It took her a long time to believe that the astronomers really CAN guarantee that the sun is not going to burn out in her lifetime. However, I would really try to discourage this line of thinking for various reasons. It is certainly a danger among bright kids who regularly run into adults who get things wrong and whose memories are not as sharp as theirs for some things, but these kids really need to know that adults are in charge and can be trusted and have superior knowledge and information. Think how scary it must be to think at age 6 what no one else knows that whey are talking about! Again, at least based on my experience with DD, I would not spend a lot of time trying to convince these natural skeptics that other people know what they are talking about. I would present it as an absolute.

Follow up ... Our DS started pulling his hair out in little clumps in school this fall because he liked the "zing.". He has always twirled it, but this was new. We freaked out a little, and then he had some sensory integration disorder therapy (limb brushing/joint compression before bed) and voil�, he sleeps most nights in his bed for a few months now. So he is doing great in that aspect. Still afraid to go alone to the bathroom, but that seems to be waning a bit too.

I should probably start a new thread ... At 6 1/2 he is starting to appear unusual to DH and me. Specifically, we are stunned by the math concepts he is able to grasp and his thirst for more. He is in a self-contained hg/pg program, where he has made "school friends" but not really forged any real friendships. I just happened upon the wisc extended norms paper ... His scores are:

Verbal comp 150
Percept reasoning 145
Working memory 146
Process speed 141
Fsiq 155

His math MAP RIT score was 194 when school started (reading 213).

Lots of 19s, 18s, 17s on scaled scores on the wisc 4. The tester told me that with kids this high, the numbers are less important than what the child does with it ( good advice for everyone, I'd say!). But lately we've been wondering, should we investigate his iq further? He likes school but wishes math was harder.

He is a fantastic kid & I just want to make sure we are providing what he needs.

Have you sent in your DYS application yet? If not, this would be a good time. Then, when your child is accepted, you could ask your family consultant for advice.

With scores like that and expressing a desire for harder work even in a program supposedly geared for PG, you might need to do some acceleration/compacting or additional work on problem solving strategies in addition to what the school is doing. A math mentor who really understands higher math, so that they can help with an eye to the sorts of things that your child will need to learn about how to do real math (not just computation and algorithms) later, would probably be in order soon.

Thanks aculady, yes, I should probably do a dys application. Should I bother trying to find out what his scores would have been using extended norms on the WISC? Ha, probably another question for the family consultant ... We do some math with him every night at his request, but he still asks the teacher to work with the older kids every few weeks. He does not always finish his work, so she has been reluctant to let him.

Does he not finish his work because he doesn't understand the concepts, or because he isn't fast yet? Not understanding the concepts would seem to be a legitimate reason to slow down instruction, but not being as fast as older kids at completing problems would not.

No, he understands all the concepts. He just gets engaged with other things besides finishing worksheets he "already knows." That is what is striking us, lately, that you discuss a concept with him once and he applies it to everything. He has always been like that, but this semester has been his first "real" exposure to math.

I'm glad everything is working out with the therapy! Those are great scores. I second the applying to DYS.

My son has similar fall math MAP scores. He is in kinder, We after school him (kinder is 1/2 day here). We are starting a program called Hands on Equations after winter break. We will also continue with Singapore 2b.