Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New to Forum and Need Advice!

Ok, so a little background info...
I have an 8 year old son who is in the 2nd grade. I, and most that know him, have thought of him to be advanced from a very early age. (My mother had both me and my sister tested when we were younger and we both scored as "gifted". At the end of 5th grade I was asked to skip 6th grade and move on to 7th grade.)
By the time he was 2 years old he could count to 15 in English and 5 in Spanish, name shapes, colors, body parts from head to toe and was starting to write letters and numbers.
Before he entered Kindergarten at age 5 he was already counting to 100 in English, 20 in Spanish and 10 in German. He could identify colors in English and Spanish. He knew the days of the week and the months of the year. He could recognize more complex shapes (if he saw a stop sign he would say that it was a octagon). He could recognize cones, cylinders, spheres, etc. He was doing addition and subtraction and understood the concept of multiplication and some simple algebra.
For as long as I can remember he has had a vocabulary beyond his years and around Kindergarten age he was saying things like: "It was mediocre." rather than saying it wasn't very good or "We had a conversation." rather than just saying he talked to someone. I remember the kids had to do oral reports about the States and days or even weeks later he would spout off facts about the States that the other kids did their reports on. "Hey mom, did you know that Delaware has no sales tax?" What kind of 5 year old cares enough to retain that kind of information?
When he was in Kindergarten the kids had to learn a list of 65 reading words before they were passed to 1st grade. He not only learned those words but in a couple of weeks he also mastered the Dolch Word List-220 words and 95 nouns.. and then moved on to Fry Instant 600 Word List.
In 1st grade he buzzed through the entire year with straight A's. I found myself worried that he wasn't getting challenged enough after he came home with his shirt cut up in several places. From what I gather, he had finished his work and had extra time to get his scissors out and shred his shirt in several different places. I asked his teacher to look into getting him tested and she gave me the run around for the next 3 months until the school year ended.
He has done well this year but has had some struggles. His excitement about school has rapidly declined this year, which is heartbreaking for me. I have a hard time telling if it's due to him getting older, being lazy, maybe due to the material he is learning or the teacher. I don't really know. He finds math to be "boring". He has had to do timed math tests and has really struggled with them and in all honesty I think it is because his mind moves so quickly that he can't stop and focus on each problem. You can see it all over his face when we do the practice tests at home. He knows the material, but he can't do well on timed tests. Other than that, his grades are still high.
After fighting for a year+ to get him tested, I finally got the school to start the process. The assistant principle called me on the 4th of this month and told me that he did not score high enough on the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement to be considered to go any further for gifted testing. His overall score was an 80 and he needed a 95 or higher.
I don't really understand the results and what everything means. I feel like the results may not be accurate.
I wanted him to be tested so that I would know for sure where he stands and make sure that he is in the right placement in school. Now, I feel like I am back where I started...not knowing if he really is gifted or it's just me being a biased parent. It is frustrating.
Before my son entered school I thought he had ADHD, due to his behavior. I started doing some research and found that most of his ADHD-like behaviors were identical to those of gifted children. Learning about the behaviors of gifted children and reading about the overexcitabilities in gifted children was like reading a story about MY son. He has almost every single characteristic. It was eye opening but now I find myself second guessing what I thought I knew already.

I need some advice. Where should I go from here? Am I right to think that he is gifted or was I just being overzealous? Is it possible for a gifted child to score low on the WC III?

Hi and welcome!

A few quick thoughts:

1) Giftedness definitely runs in families (although there's no guarantee, obviously).

2) Testing at a young age can be inaccurate if there are behavioural issues that interfere with results.

3) The shirt cutting could be a) impulsiveness or b) boredom or both (my friend's daughter did that in grade one, and they have both giftedness and ADHD in their family... she also got the run around for testing from the teacher).

ADHD Vs. giftedness can be tricky - sometimes they seem similar. A couple of great books to read on the subject are:

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Minds-Children-Asperger-Syndrome/dp/1853029645

and

http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-...+diagnosis+of+gifted+children+and+adults


I'd focus on keeping him challenged and stimulated, and look at getting more testing done. It's tough. My son's testing should have waited for his prefrontal cortex to catch up a bit, and my daughter should have been done before she started school and her anxiety kicked in. There's no perfect answer.

Good luck

Do you have a copy of the WJ-III test scores, including subtest scores? If you don't, the first thing I'd recommend is that you request the full report from the school. once you have the list of subtest scores you can look to see if e scores at consistent or if there is scatter, which can happen for all sorts of reasons. Most of the WJ-III Achievement subtests aren't timed but there are a few that are - they are labelled "fluency" - and if your ds seems to have challenges with timed tests in class that might be what brought his scores down. If you see names of tests that have the word "Broad"in them, they are the average of subtest scores in a category, for example "Broad Reading" averages together the three reading-related subtests.... so you might see something happen where untimed test scores are high but a low tx test score can bring down the average that goes into the Broad score.

I'd recommend more testing -part of the reason I recommend it is that I have two 2e kids, both of whom looked clearly gifted to the world before they started school, did ok through K-1, and then their worlds fell apart in 2nd grade when they could no longer compensate. We had no idea they had any kind of challenge until they we tested. For my ds, one clear sign we saw in hindsight was low performance on timed math facts tests. Chances are your ds doesn't have any type of challenge, but if he does, you'll be so glad you found out now instead of further down the road... plus you'll have data to use when advocating for gifted services, and hopefully a better understanding of the school's test results.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks! I will check those books out.
My sister has ADHD, so it does run in the family.

When he was in Kindergarten (before I did the research about giftedness) he was taking some ADHD medication for a short period of time. He was a holy terror while on it. He got violent and had a hateful attitude...this was far off base from normal behavior. The medication was stopped and will not be given to him again. That is another factor in my thinking that maybe it wasn't ADHD after all. Hopefully your book reccomendations will shed some light on the situation for me.

Yes, I have a copy of the scores.
What you say definitly makes sense because the Math Fluency was his lowest score (36 PR/ 95 SS-average). Reading was his highest score (96 PR/126 SS-superior) and the other scores vary somewhere in between.
He makes good grades in Math for the most part. He has a timed test every week and he fails them every week. I emailed his teacher with concerns about these tests and she basically told me that he just needed me have the facts memorized. I practice the math facts daily with him and in any normal situation he can recite them with no problem but he just can not do a timed test. I have went over the flash cards with him with ease and then when I give him a practice test he will sit and stare at the problems for a good 10-15 seconds before answering them. In order for him to pass the test he has to take no more than 2 seconds on each problem. I really don't know what else I can do to help him.
Do I ask the school to retest him? I don't know how far that will go considering I had such a hard time the first go around. If I choose an outside source, whats the best way to go about it?

Could be. They say that if it's ADHD, meds will help and not make it worse. Mind you, I've also been told that different meds work for different types of ADHD, and it can take up to six months of trying different doses & different meds before you find the right one.

I haven't tried medicating our son yet - primarily because he is so good tempered. He's very sensitive and anxiety runs in our family, so I'm afraid to introduce something that will upset his sunny, friendly demeanor. Even our pediatrician (who would make $$ from writing a script) says she's not sure meds are the answer for him.

See a psychologist, but make sure you choose one who is well versed in 2e (and not just straight gifted). Ask around... get referrals. The 2e piece is really important, since 2e can suppress scores. You need a doc who is familiar with this.

As my brother-in-law psychiatrist (child and adult) says...adderall will make boring tasks more fun!

(I agree with Jon's BIL. I'm not a psychiatric professional-- I'm a neuroscientist by training with a specialty in drugs of abuse, including members of this particular class of stimulant meds. There's a reason why they all possess high addiction liability, and why they are abused/used recreationally. Everything in these drug classes also has the potential to trigger psychosis in some individuals, too. Just noting that. I know, I know... you're all just very glad that I'm not teaching anyone English composition, aren't you? )

I get more annoyed by Xanax than anything else.

He hates it too and generally pulls it off of his patients who whine about it.