Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Is he really gifted?

Hi everyone

I am a little confused at the moment and seeking your expert parent advice!

My son’s results from testing are below (SB5). Below this are my questions

Fluid reasoning 123 (confidence level 113-129)
Knowledge 128 (confidence level 118-134)
Quantitative Reasoning 105 (confidence level 97-113)
Visual-Spatial Processing 126 (confidence level 116-132)
Working Memory 94 (confidence level 87-103)

Nonverbal IQ 117 (confidence level 110-122)
Verbal IQ 117 (confidence level 110-122)

Gifted Composite Score 121


Questions –

1.I was told that he is gifted, but does this seem right to you? The score is a bit low from my perspective, isnt it. I was told that he was actually more likely to be highly gifted, but he got bored and had concentration difficulties during testing (he was 3 years 8 months at the time). His score may be 121, but he has probably all of the over excitabilities (especially emotional intensity issues!). He also has demonstrated pretty much all of the other signs of giftedness (e.g. needing little sleep, profound memory, and various sensory anomolies).

2.Do any of you have children with a similar profile? What strategies have you used for your son or daughter in regards to attention and concentration difficulties? I am looking at further assessments regarding possible ADHD or Central Auditory Processing Disorder. Does anyone have a child who is gifted with either of these diagnosis, and what interventions have you looked at (remember he is only 4).

Keen to hear back from everyone/anyone

I think that almost any 3 or 4 year old is going to have problems staying focused for the length of an IQ test, and so I would hesitate to worry about issues with attention and focus at this point (or for a good long while, actually). Even if your child is super smart, that doesn't mean that he has the attention span of an older child. In fact, sometimes the world is even more exciting for a highly intelligent child, so it can make focusing on just one thing that much more difficult. I'm not sure you can actually make a diagnosis of ADHD or something similar at such a young age.

Can I ask why you had your son tested? Have you been seeing signs of a problem or were you trying to get him into a program of some sort?

Also, definitions of giftedness vary from person to person and program to program. Some schools, for instance, consider an IQ above 120 to be gifted (corresponds to 90th percentile, I think) while others consider 130 the cutoff.

A FSIQ of 121 is generally considered mildly gifted, I would say. His scores in fluid reasoning and visual-spatial processing are really good.

The primary issue is that testing on children that young is very, very volatile - they may score all over the place. Most people on this board will, for that reason, recommend waiting until school aged 5/6 to test.


As for ADHD, I'd be caution of labeling him at his age. Recommendations from my DS' psychiatrist and therapist (my DS8 has ADHD) are - very limited screen time, plenty of outdoor time each day, give 1-step instructions as opposed to multi-step, visual queues (a printed picture schedule) are very helpful.

If your child really does have ADHD, you can't really "fix" it, or even "improve" it on your own. You can, however, make life easier for him, by understanding that his executive function skills are behind the curve and give him extra assistance in terms of planning and organizing his time. One thing that you'll see recommended on ADHD boards and websites is fish oil. I'm not sure there are any studies that really prove it helps, but it sure doesn't hurt to give a fish oil supplement, and I personally thing it helps my son a little.

Thanks for you responses so far Amy and Mnmom23. Your responses are very reassuring. The decision to have my son tested was a difficult one. He was being excluded from early childhood settings due to behaviour. His behaviours increased in settings where it was obvious he was bored. I felt that I had to get him assessed and formally labelled as gifted in order to stop people telling me he was on the autism spectrum. I know the two can coexist, but I have a lot of experience with autism, and know that he definitely was not autistic. Thus getting one label to prevent pseudo-professionals giving him another.

I'm not sure labeling him gifted will help. I have a 2.5 year old who is showing a lot of signs of being gifted and all his therapists and other professionals agree with it but that doesn't stop them from saying they think he's on the autism spectrum

LOL ah, me too. A full psycho-ed assessment for my DS with a psychologist who said "he's definitely NOT on the spectrum" hasn't stopped the school from thinking that he is.

I'm learning there are different tests involved though. Astroboy has your son had the ADOS done? (Mine hasn't... yet).

In all honesty, I'm considering Asperger's at this point. There are worse things. One of the desirable aspie traits is that they're not as subject to peer pressure as typical kids, and my DS fits this to a tee. I'll take that quality even if it comes with the occasional temper tantrum.

Also, if it's any consolation, my DS is now 8 and is MUCH MUCH better than he was at 4 & 5. For example, in Kindergarten he had to be hidden behind the rest of his class on stage to avoid disrupting a Remembrance Day ceremony. Now in grade 3 he is a mentor to a grade 1 student and fits in well with his peers.

It gets better

Mk13 and everyone else. I just dont understand why they just dont get it! Why are they so keen to diagnose autism? Seriously, if my son had autism, and I was confident in the doctors assessment, I would accept the diagnosis and look at interventions. But he absolutely does not have autism. Spend five minutes having a conversation with him and it is obvious. It just frustrates me!!!!

CCN - funny you should mention about your child having his opportunity to be the shinning star. When my son was two I was asked to keep him home on the day that an early childhood centre was being accredited by auditors. I was devastated. I had the opposite experience recently when two weeks ago, my son was the role model child. The short story is this. A parent had written a letter of complaint saying that my son was 'impulsive and violent'. So untrue. He is a boof-head 4 year old boy, but not violent by any stretch of the imagination. Anyway, at the same time I was sitting in the principals office hearing about my 'violent impulsive child who puts others at risk', there was a visitor to the early childhood centre. It was a young person with a disability who was in a wheelchair. This young persons parent wrote a letter to the centre, and personally named my child (no other child was mentioned in the letter), stating that she was pretty amazed at my son's ability to wait, despite it being obvious that he was bursting to ask a question. And, do you know what the question was? Every other kid asked questions like 'how do you get out of bed', etc. My son asked if he could give this young person with a disability a cuddle. Doesn't sound like violent and impulsive child does it? He certainly was the role model child that day!

yeah, there are times when I feel like me 2.5 year old just wants to tell everyone "your level of intelligence is clearly lower then mine so why would I bother talking to you or doing what you're asking of me?" ...thankfully he's still speech delayed and can't them to back off yet ... he's giving them "redflags" like "can't sort objects by color into groups" or "can't stack blocks by size" but the fact that he took the objects one by one telling them what color each one was ... or the fact that he'd take the blocks and not stack them from largest to smallest but instead went from smallest to the largest while turning each by 90degrees (kinda hard to explain! lol) ... so, there are clearly these kids that don't fit in the average category and suddenly it's all about raising the Autism redflag!

Weird how it works though ... DS4, the "professionals" have been telling us he does NOT have autism, it's just Sensory Processing Disorder and I've been fighting them for the last 2 years and just recently got Asperger's as the most likely diagnosis. with DS2.5, they've been telling us he probably is on the spectrum ... and I'm fighting them once again telling them just the opposite! He's not "withdrawn" ... he's NOT INTERESTED! there's a huge difference!

Aw, what a sweet kid!!! I love stories like that. I'd definitely call that role model behaviour