Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Presenting in a different way ???

Hi

I am mum to a 10 yo HG assessed child and a 6 yo probably HG or EG son not assessed yet. Both boys exhibited similar tendencies. Early readers (self taught), need little sleep, fascination with puzzles. 10 yo had a number of behavioural problems.

My question is this. I also have an 8yo daughter. Who was slow to read. Is very shy. Will not speak up in the classroom. Struggled to learn to read (when I say struggle it is probably more like was average) . But now seems to be coming out of her shell at 8.

We are about to get our 6yo assessed. My question is. Should we also get our 8yo daughter assessed? She has not exhibited the same signs the boys did- but they were extreme. And I wonder if we are glossing over her abilities because she is not the same as her brothers. I would hate to go on with the boys and have her being left behind bc I did not recognise her talents! ???

Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Lou (from New Zealand)

I would defnitely have your daughter assessed. I have 3 kids as well, same ages and sex as your children. Oldest was tested at 7 and is MG, but many folks assume he is PG because of his personality -- huge reader, big thinker. My daughter was tested this year (2 years later in school than my oldest) and is HG. No one ever thinks that -- she didn't read early, isn't a huge reader now, would rather play sports, etc. Youngest is in process of being tested now -- according to preliminary screens, he is very gifted in math but may not be overall gifted. But again, people assume he is because he's so math-y and talks about math ALL THE TIME. Incessantly.

I think it can't hurt to have your daughter assessed. I think sometimes we make assumptions based outward personality traits and don't give enough credit to quieter, shy-er kids.

We have two dds. Our oldest is HG and clearly so like your boys. Our youngest is also HG, apparently, but save for very early talking (putting two words together at 5.5 months), there was nothing major that made me think 'gifted' with her either. She did read a bit early and reads fairly well, but she doesn't like to read. She is much more interested in social and non-academic stuff than things that would make her appear to be gifted.

She's also 2e. 2e kids may not appear nearly as gifted as they are. Girls also may not appear as gifted as they are. Girls with very high performing older sibling may be in a shadow in that regard. With all of the possibilities and two HG siblings, I'd also test your dd if you can afford to do so.

I really think that my dd11 is doing better being recognized for being HG to some extent even though it has been a long road and she's doubted herself a lot too. When I think about the alternative -- having her tracked into non-accelerated classes across the board, assumed to be high-average, etc., I really don't think that she'd be as happy as she seems this year. She isn't high average even if there are challenges that make her appear that way at times.

Definitely assess.

Apart from the fact that girls often hide their abilities anyway, you also have the second child factor involved... later children often try to find a niche for themselves that isn't already occupied, so if the oldest already had "the smart kid" locked up, she may have decided not to bother.

Plus, these things run in families, so you might as well check anyway, because there's already a high probability she'd gifted just based on genes.

I'm a middle, was very quiet (family used to say, 'are you still with us?', ha ha ha) so of course I'd say yes, don't overlook the middle one!! (boo hoo)

We were tested in school later on...my mother won't give exact #s on the IQ thing but still talks sometimes about how surprised she was to find out how high mine was, higher than my older sibling who was very quick to catch on to reading and raced ahead, early talker, the kind of kid who everyone notices as to how bright they are. Younger sibling also the verbally-reader gifted type. I believe I am in a close tie there, but again, no numbers!

I have a friend w/ 4 kids and all but one were "selected" for the gifted program at school. the odd one out, tested later, is actually the brightest, she is just very very quiet and didn't raise her hand, etc. therefore didn't make the cut on the personality/motivation part of the selection process, the others did.

My daughter, now 11, was not interested in reading until she was ~8. Then it was like a switch was flipped and she is constantly reading, re-reading, and looking for new stuff to read.

And be warned that quiet/shy does not equate to not gifted. People are often surprised that my daughter has skipped two grades, because she is such a "nice" and "normal" kid; who is polite to adults, doesn't act out, and does not act like a stereo-typical nerd.

One anecdote from a psychologist testing my daughter, was that the psychologist made the mistake of showing her surprise at how well my daughter did on a set of questions; the psychologist said she immediately saw my daughter rein in her effort to conform with what my daughter thought to be "normal".

Sometimes a bright kid can learn how to not stick out, and can hide their ability in an effort to fit in.

--S.F.

After my oldest tested into the district's gt program, I had a friend recommend that I test my others as well when the time came (it's free testing). She told me that I wouldn't want to send a message that I did not see them as being as capable or as smart as the oldest. It was great advice. All three of my kids are gifted but present in radically different ways. My second kid is 2e, highly gifted and dyslexic. She obviously was not a great reader early. She has benefitted most from the testing and insight into her learning strengths and challenges.

Yes, yes, yes. In my case, an older brother. Glad you're thinking about your DD too.

I would definitely have her assessed - even if she doesn't test as gifted you'll learn about how she learns, and that's worth testing if you are able to afford it.

Re gifted and recognizing it - gifted can look so different in different children, as others have pointed out above. In my own kids, my EG kiddo was so obviously highly intelligent - to anyone he would actually have a conversation with - but he was extremely quiet at school and with adults when he was younger, and he also is 2e with written expression challenges, so he actually had a teacher in 2nd grade who thought he was on the low end of the IQ spectrum. Our youngest dd is HG+, and she struggled to learn to read. Our middle dd is on the very low end of gifted if that (she's had uneven IQ tests), yet she is an avid reader. There's simply no way to describe all gifted kids in one bundle - they are all individuals.

The one thing that happened with testing for us though that was really helpful - we had never thought of our middle dd as gifted (and still have questions about it). She had an IQ test as part of an evaluation for anxiety when she was young - at the time we honestly thought she was perhaps challenged intellectually in some way due to some of her behaviors at home, and she always had her older brother and younger sister stepping in and answering questions for her so we thought she was stumbling and/or slow or not able to answer the questions. She tested MG at that time and no one was more surprised than her parents lol! But we noticed something happened after we had the test - we began to treat her as though she was gifted and she responded in a big way, so for that, whether or not she really is gifted or not, I am very thankful that we had the test. Her scores since then haven't been high enough to qualify for gifted programming at school, and she sometimes asks why her brother has had opportunities through school that she hasn't, but overall, it's been good (I think) for us to think of her as gifted. The psych who tested her also pointed out that we (at the time) might have thought she wasn't gifted simply because the two kids who were answering all her questions for her were HG/EG whereas dd was MG.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I've been pondering the same question ("Presenting in Different Way??") and am so glad to read this thread. I'm not the only one with this experience!

We have 3 kids. Oldest DS11 is DYS. He's very into science and technology. He's good in math, but not super mathy.

When now DD7 turned 6 last year, DH and I had a hard time deciding whether to test her or not. She was very well adjusted, we were really happy with her teacher and we had no suspicion whatsoever that she would be gifted. We knew she was quite bright. Based on the advice of many in this forum, we finally decided to have her tested. Sure enough, her PRI qualifies her for DYS. We didn't start the application process because we didn't have achievement test.

Yesterday, we had a psychologist came to our school and gave a talk about giftedness. She had the teachers trying to figure out characteristics of gifted vs. bright kids. She also talked about differentiation strategies that teachers could use in inclusive classroom.

Today, I spoke with her teacher, and asked her if she's willing to write recommendation for DD7 to apply for DYS. She was reluctant because she believed DD7 was really bright but not gifted. Then, she felt bad about saying this to me and apologized, but I told her not to worry because I myself was still trying to wrap my head around her test results! Yes, she can whip up a story really easily, and learn new songs in violin really quickly, but we're still waiting to see her "genius moment At one point, I wondered if the tester had made a mistake. Our principal convinced me that test results were seldom wrong.

Our youngest, DD6, on the other hand, has shown really strong characteristics since she was really young. Then again, maybe because we've had experience with our oldest we now know what to look for. She's very verbal, very opinionated, very strong headed. She figured out negative number (1-2 = -1, 5-10=-5) without anyone ever taught her. She is very curious, and she is definitely intense!

I wonder if the reason why we don't see DD7's giftedness is because of our own perceptions of what giftedness should look like?

In any case, do have your DD tested! Like (I believe) Dottie said, you test one, you test all! And more data is always a good thing.