Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Gifted or not? possibly 2E?

ok, so this is the first time I have reached out for advice. I live in Florida where the gifted programs do not start, so I've been told, until 3rd grade, I finally was able to get the school to test my 8.5yr old daughter, who has always shown a majority of the gifted characteristics, and I would say at least a level 3 if not 4 on the Ruf level of giftedness, she spoke full sentences before one, knew ABC's by 18months, has NEVER stopped talking, no answer is ever enough to any question. Even her teachers' checklist was at 72% which I felt was pretty good for a teacher who did not enjoy my child this year. The school finally tested her using the RIAS (Reynolds) iq test and her scores were not even close to what I had thought they would be. Since giftedness runs in my family, I felt I knew what to look for, not so sure now. I have read that a large descrepency between verbal, hers was (96) and non-verbal, hers (108)this may indicate a LD. I myself am 2E, 132 IQ with mild dyslexia. Could this have supressed her scores? I tried to ask at the meeting but was abruptly cut off by the District LEA representative and told they did not see anything that would indicate a LD, then when it was advised that my daughter was already in a tier two RTI (yes, I have the underachieving, bored, behavioral issues gifted child..or not so gifted? ) the School Psychologist seemed surprised and said "oh I didn't know that", like she would have did things differently or it somehow changed things, and again the discussion was ended by the LEA representative. I just don't know if I should accept it as it is or get private testing done using a different test, perferrably one with more subtests. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

oh.... and they ruled out ADHD which was what I was told initially was her problem. She was top of her classes until this year where it was like she bottomed out. Gets 100%'s on parts of her tests and 30%'s on others, like she just gave up.

I think a private evaluation would help a lot -
1) Give you some peace of mind
2) Give you some guidance
3) Give the school some guidance.

Remember that it doesn't matter what they call the intervention they do for your child - they could call it gifted programing or Apple Pie programing - you child needs to be in a classroom where the learning fits her ready-to-learn level. You want her to develop good learning work ethic, so she has to have lots of chances to engage with learning material that represents 'enough' of a challenge.

Let us know how it goes!
Grinity

Hi there. We're in Florida as well. The gifted program technically starts in K, although you'll be hard pressed to find many K age kids that have been ID'd and are in the gifted program. Full time gifted starts in 3rd (depending on what's offered at your school and what the gifted team decides your child needs), but pull-out does start in K. FWIW My 6yr old DD was never recommended for gifted screening by any of her teachers, yet she is PG and a DYS. We ended up going the route of private testing instead. If we hadn't I can guarantee DD would still be languishing in a regular class environment. The gifted ID system in Florida is flawed at best. My advice would be to go for private testing, preferably using WISC since that seems to be what schools are most familiar with. As far as the RIAS scores not being what you expected, I wouldn't automatically assume you're wrong about your DD being gifted. Any number of things could have thrown off the test scores. Maybe she was tired or hungry, maybe she didn't like the tester, maybe she just didn't feel like doing a test, etc. I don't think the scores she has (96, 108) necessarily indicate a LD either. That really isn't a large discrepancy and it's natural to see some variance.

Thank you so much for your support, it makes me feel better to know I may not have just been wrong, I know she has friends in the program and says how much she would like to be apart of it. Both responses weight heavily on my decision to privately test now as oppose to waiting it out. I thought maybe the teacher student relationship just wasn't working this year, although I liked her teacher, my daughter just had a really rough time in her class. Thanks again:-)