Hi, I am new to this forum, although I have been researching giftedness on the web for about a year or so. Just wanted to introduce myself and get the lay of the land..one question: I see people abbreviating references to kids as DS or DS10, I figure the numbers are ages, the S is son (or daughter), but the first D? Dear?
We have one DS7 and one DD2, if I am getting this right.
Last fall I finally decided to jump in the water on this whole gifted assessment thing for my son. I had always pegged him for likely gifted, mainly in math and art as he LOVES to draw. We can not stop him, still at the age of nearly 8 he makes several drawings in notebooks etc., a day. Has always loved puzzles, legos, building things from found objects from an early age. Not very verbal but obsessive about having stories read to him, every night, several stories a night.
In K he seemed pretty comfortable, reading along with others, math looking very good. In first, again, reading, math doing just fine, but he was starting to become distressed that he wasn't making friends like he thought he ought to...
Finally this year in second, I put two and two together and said if he is having difficulty socializing with kids his age, already complaining about hating school, but fitting 'the list' of gifted characteristics pretty well, and in my mind has always seemed extremely bright, maybe the gifted enrichment program is something we should apply for sooner rather than later.
We are fortunate (so far) that VA does have an ok program, although full class testing is not done until 3rd grade for placement in the 4th grade. Long story short, after a LENGTHY assessment, he has finally been identified as being eligible for enrichment, in of all things, language.
He really has turned out some amazing writing in just the last few months. I found this later on the web: apparently all this detailed drawing is fairly common for kids who love to tell stories. Until all the major skills for writing are in place, drawing can be that outlet!
He only got in a couple of these gt classes before the end of this school year, but he already seems more excited about school, so that is offering us some good hope. Of course, next year he'll be in the program but have to be evaluated again for placement in the 4th grade... It was so fun last time, can't wait for round 2!
My DD2, is just a dynamo physically and verbally. She's using full sentences already, really since about 15 months, said her first word at 9m.
I am very excited to have found this forum, as I feel I have probably just begun to climb this mountain in front of me!
Verbal can be harder since I think I at least often just accept that DS is verbalizing his stories in a way I would expect not anything that screams advanced to me. It took a few different tests to get me to accept that DS is gifted but we will probably never know to what degree since he is 2E. His highest scores are Verbal with Math close behind. Short term memory and processing speed really pulled down a couple of the math subsets.