Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Please help me understand my son!

Hi all, I'm new here. After reading the posts on here for about two months I've decided to post my own. I apologize in advance, I have a feeling this might be long but I'll try to be as brief as possible. I just want to understand my kid as best I can and after IQ testing I have some answers and even more questions than before. I guess the basic question I'm asking here is after reviewing all the following information should we bother to have our child re-tested when he is 6 yrs so that he can potentially qualify for DYS?

DS is 4 1/2 yrs now. Taught himself to read before he was 2 yrs. After learning to read he wouldn't do much else resulting in low muscle tone in his hands = poor fine motor skills. He has been doing OT and piano and is getting much better.

He took the WIPPSI III at 4 yr 3 mo in April 2013 Scores:

Verbal 143 (99.8%)
Performance 137 (99%)
Processing Speed 125 (95%)
Full Scale IQ 144 (99.8%)

Woodcock Johnson III Test of Achievement
Broad Reading SS 140
Broad Math SS 131
Brief Reading SS 185
Brief Math SS 131
Math Calc Skills SS 115

There are a few more scores but I don't know if you need those. Also he was tested at school and they determined that he is reading and comprehending at a 5th grade level. The Dr. that tested him said that he believed his score would be higher in math if he was taught math and he could tell he hasn't been worked with in math (which is true). He also noted the fine motor delay and that WIPPSI IV might be a better test for him because it doesn't include as much fine motor. He recommended that we re-test him when he is 6 on a different test. He seemed to indicate that he thought DS would score higher on a different test. I know there are other kids out there that read as well or better than DS but this particular Dr told us that he personally has not met anyone so young that reads so well and he is a specialist in gifted testing.

Also the school that he is currently attending wants to skip him from pre-school to kindergarten in the fall. Good idea?

So please help. What do all these scores mean? I don't believe that DS qualifies for DYS right now. Should we bother re-testing later? This is all so new to us and I often feel overwhelmed. Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Qualifying for DYS is important only if you feel you will be needing advocacy assistance with your schools -- if not, it really doesn't gain you anything. We did it just in case, and have never needed anything from the consultants, so it just sits there.

I would hazard a guess that he will likely make qualifying scores after getting a little school under his belt -- he's very close in several places already. That's essentially the difference of a question or two. It could have been a matter of what he ate for breakfast or whether his shoe was bothering him or something.

Whether to skip depends on a lot of stuff you haven't mentioned -- do you feel he does better with older kids, for example? How does he like preschool? How is he socially, emotionally, academically? My DS skipped kindergarten (they wouldn't let him skip *into* kindergarten, but they skipped him *over* it) and it was fine -- he had a lot of social issues due to Asperger's, but he would have had them worse in kindergarten, most likely. He does better with older kids. He's skipping again for this year, now into 7th. You may be looking at more skipping down the road, or other accelerations, and that's where the DYS consultants may come in handy for you, depending on the school.

I am not familiar with the particular tests that you mention but I know that my DD10 scores went up every year pretty dramatically from K4-3rd, but on the OLSAT and SAT test. Then 3rd and 4th were consistent. When she was 4, we tried to get her into a gifted K4 program. They did a 15 minute screening and told us her IQ was probably 115. She is 10, just took the WISC and scored GAI 155.

Those are very high scores! You have a very bright little boy. I would think that he would very possibly qualify for DYS if you were retested in a year or two. Those scores are very close right now. As naughtigal pointed out, DYS may not make a dramatic difference. We homeschool, so we are unlikely to need much advocacy. However, I have already found that being part of the community is helpful in many ways. As for the skip, I don't have much help there since we are homeschoolers. I think a lot depends on your son, on the school, and other factors. For example, is the preschool play bass? Even really gifted kids who are advanced academically might enjoy a play-based preschool. On the other hand, it sounds like he might be a good candidate for a skip in many ways. How nice to have the opportunity to go ahead and get that started.

We did early entrance to K for DS5. He started when he was 4yrs 10 mo. Socially he has been fine even though people tend to hold back kids in our area so most of the kids are at least a year older. Academically he didn't learn anything in K. Our DS is very tall, the second tallest in the class so that helped him not seem so young. At least with our DS, who is very competitive physically, the physical development is really the only way you can tell he is younger.This bothers him at times. But really, with your son's scores I really suggest you accelerate IF he is ready maturity wise. We have no regrets.

My son, now 15, was recognizing some words at 2, and read his first easy reader book that he had never seen before at 2 1/2. He had not been taught to read and he had a vision issue that caused his eyes to tire quickly so I would sometimes spell out the words in the rest of the sentence he had been reading and he would quickly tell me the words, as if he didn't even have to think about it. We demonstrated this for the pediatrician at his 4 year old checkup. The doctor called in another pediatrician. Neither of them had seen anything like it and both said he should do well in school. When my son was 4 1/2 he was reading and memorizing lines from Alice in Wonderland for his musical theater class. He was easily reading and comprehending at a 5th grade level when he turned 5. We could not afford testing at that age but an educational psychologist that tested him with a brief intelligence test and achievement test at age 7 thought he was most likely highly gifted but he needed to be tested over more than one session because of fatigue/low muscle tone issues. His half-brother is highly gifted and taught himself to read as a preschooler but never had fine motor issues.

My son had low muscle tone from birth. Our insurance would not pay for OT and school would not provide it because my son was not failing. We had to make a choice between piano and musical theater lessons and OT. We chose piano and musical theater. His hands got stronger from piano but his fine motor skills, especially handwriting or coloring got worse after about five minutes because his hands hurt and that never really changed but he turned out to have a connective tissue disorder.

My son learned a lot of math at your son's age through computer games since handwriting was a problem for him.