Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Abilities vs. Achievment Testing

Haha, thanks momtofour (and everyone else) for your responses.
@Cricket DD began talking around 9 months. She actually started signing around the same time and the signing took off faster than the words. We had to make a list for the daycare teacher because she didn't know what DD was trying to say.

Anywoo, I think at this point, we'll just wait it out and see what we think in a few years. If we still feel like this is a gifted child, then we will re-test. If not, we will just enjoy our high achiever but not gifted DD.

Starflower, I just want to be clear in case I am totally putting you off here ;-). I am not at all saying that your dd isn't gifted. She very well may be gifted. I think that I'm looking at it from the perspective of: the info you have isn't enough to know right now. Like I said, I am hugely not a fan of group tests and think that they are terribly misused in GT identification. I really wish that schools just wouldn't use them, but they are much cheaper and more efficient than the alternative and, I'm sure, no worse than using subjective measures like teacher ratings.

Cricket, no worries.

Worse case scenario is that DD is a high achiever but not gifted, and that's really not a terrible place to be. Her school's gifted program is only a once a week pull out program and the programs offered to gifted kids in middle and high school are Honors and AP classes (these classes are not limited to gifted kids though and high achievers could take them as well). She's young and it's not worth the money for a full IQ test right now. We may or may not retest again in second grade...but I do appreciate the responses!

I think you have a great perspective, Starflower.

We have learned to only seek information that we have a use for. Things seen/known cannot be un-known, if that makes sense.

It's also very true that having a very bright-- but not too bright-- child probably is the best place to be, as a parent. I'm sure that I'm not alone in sometimes wishing for just that! I'd hardly call that a worst-case scenario. From my perspective, that seems like a BEST case one!!

It's great that not being formally identified won't have long-term impact in high school in your district. That takes a lot of the pressure off of things in these early years.