Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Is testing my child making a spectacle of him?

My suggestion is to clearly put all the information you have in front of the doc /evaluator. I think misdisgnosis tends to occur when a clinician observes something in-office and assumes this is characteristic of a child's normal pattern of behavior. In reality, kids present all kinds of atypical things in my office (sit as if a statue, avoid eye contact, cling to their parent, get really silly, roll on the floor...). Often these behaviors are NORMAL anxiety responses
to a stressful situation.

I second that. It took us two pediatrician visits to get a referral for anxiety, because I thought the problem was allergies and didn't mention the non-physical issues DD was having. I was also worried about leading down the wrong path, because I saw the emotional stuff as being a textbook indicator of [something I didn't care to have a diagnosis of, in large part because I didn't think it would have been accurate], but DD's doctor never even considered [that other thing].

This year, I'm trying the full disclosure tactic with teachers, too. It couldn't possibly be worse than last year, when we assumed (wrongly) that the teacher would rather figure DD out on her own. It was nervous-making to say, "DD has tendency X, which may make her competence level less obvious at school, [concrete example from the prior year]." But honestly, I'd rather the teacher understand what the issues are than attribute DD's occasional odd behavior to either not trying or "not that smart after all."

I know this is an old post but I couldn't read and not reply.

It sounds like you have a very bright lovely boy on your hands there.

I have a child who is almost exactly as you describe He's 3 - very advanced with language, self taught reader, super engaged and interested in adults and older children, savant type skills since 12 months old.

My little guy doesn't have temper tantrums or issues with change at all BUT

He does have aspergers!

I hate to say that my alarm bells are ringing loudly when reading your posts.

With holding your concerns to your doctor is not a wise thing to do. If he does happen to have ASD it won't go away by not dealing it with it or saying anything about it. It will just be lost time that you'll be kicking yourself for later down the track.

When my son had his IQ test (much after his ASD diagnosis) there were not dips in his IQ profile. He hit ceilings on all but 1 subtest and was confirmed to be EG evenly across the board.

It would have never identified his ASD.

If I were you I'd ditch the IQ testing (because in the scheme of things it doesn't really matter at 2 to have this) and get him tested for ASD.

There is a chance that his IQ test won't show anything and you might find yourself walking around with a big happy 'my child is a genius!' when really you may have something far more important going on.