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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!

Welcome Chris! This is a wonderful place to pick up tips and BTDT advice on everything related to high levels of giftedness. You guessed correctly on the acronyms. I'd recommend that you check out hoagie's gifted pages for more "beginner" stuff on giftedness.
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

Welcome Chris! I too was shocked when my math loving kid scored very high in verbal areas, I guess b/c he's not a very verbal kid but he too could be read to for HOURS. My second son is much like your DD2 - very verbal early on...his strength will probably be math lol. My best friend's DD who was precociously verbal as a 1yr old, score very, very high in Perceptual reasoning lol and we had her so pegged as hitting the ceilings in verbal areas!

I just finished reading "Encourage your child's writing talent" and in which it spoke about drawing in young, gifted writers.

It seems odd that the school will require him to be evaluated again next year. I can see perhaps if he was Ker when evaluated, but a 2nd grader? Many schools eval in 2nd grade for placement in 4th.

Welcome Chris,

This is a great place to come for information and support. I've found so many links to resources here, it's been so helpful for our family.
Hope the same for you!

Neato

Hi! Welcome!

I just thought I'd also mention that there's a sticky at the top of the "Parenting and Advocacy" forum here with a list of acronyms we use here that you might not find everywhere. We made up some of our own, and it can be confusing for people who aren't used to us!

I'm impressed that you figured out "DS" and "DD" on your own. I had to ask.

Yes Dottie. i'm still kicking myself b/c by the time I ordered, they were out of the one for Science talented kids lol. Not sure why I bought the writing talented one except that it was only $.99 lol.

Well the psych told DS "You might not say much, but you sure do have a lot of words in your head."

Welcome Chris!

I often think that it easier to see the math side than the verbal. When a 3 year old is doing simpe algebraic equations etc. you can see that something is going on. The same for drawing 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.

If your school is like ours, they test all children in 3rd grade with a group test then break it out to those needing individual tests. Even though my son is already in the gifted program, he took the test with his class since they didn't want to single out the gifted program children. They just didn't redo the individual test part and the scores did not impact his participation in the gifted program. In fact I still don't have those results lol.

elh - when you say working memory and processing speed really pulled down his math scores, to which test are you referring?

WISC IV and WCJ-3. The tester said that he ran out of time on sections but not out of correct answers on the fluid math section. This was his lowest score on the test.

ELH - thanks! I was wondering how much processing speed and working memory would impact perceptual reasoning on the WISCIV. I did see that on the WJIII that the Broad Math also had a timed component in it which might bring DS's overall score down.

I know we've had this discussion here I think anyhow but I'm still foggy. So when is WM a problem? For instance, DS's WMI is 94th%, so not bad at all, but would that have a negative impact on a kid w/ 99.9th% VCI compared to a kid w/ say 50th% VCI? Or would you only see an impact w/ WMI below average? I guess my question is, is it a relative difference or an absolute difference? I read on the WISCIV tech report IV that two kids w/ identical GAIs but different WMI/PSI will look very different in the classroom. Of course classroom is a smart part of life and perhaps those two kids won't look very different in the workplace (OK yes I know they are totally discounting personality here) unless they are in a time-intensive profession. But are they talking for ex: WMI in 90th% range compared to a 40th% range? Am I making any sense? I guess what I'm asking is, are you OK as long as you're at least above average? Or would you have problems the greater the difference between WMI/PSI and VCI/PRi?

Dazey,
From what I can see in DS's case, he is able outside a test environment to show a much greater ability level than the tests show when he is able to work at his pace and according to his interests. I guess that makes sense - we all do better doing what we want and love. Although his WJ-3 ACH scores put him around 5th grade equivalents (+2 to chrono age), his ability in online classes in actually about +4 to chono age. His gifted teacher realizes that his test scores do not give the entire picture and works with him accordingly with challenge work as well as advancement.

There seems to be alot of controversy about ability versus IQ when processing and memory scores are lower. I'm still working my way through alot of this information and am not sure what my opinion is yet.

I do keep toying with the idea of the SB-5 since DS loves to test and maybe it would help with the timed issues... I probably won't do it though since we are getting what we need right now from the school and although it would be nice to have the numbers for DYS, this board meets most of my needs

(Part of the problem is also distractability in the testing. Even some of the untimed sections got a bit out of control since DS would go off on tangents that interested him . The Psych thought that his scores would have been alot higher if DS hadn't said what if so much and changed the questions in his head to make them more interesting. No question that Fluid Reasoning was his highest score:) Since DS talked out loud, the Psych could see where he was going and what he was doing but had to score the test as designed.)

OK thanks you guys for the discussion! I'll let that simmer in my brain for a bit.

Sorry for being OT!

Thanks for the welcome everyone, glad I am not the only person up way to early in the day!
I will check out the acronyms list and the hoagies site, thanks!
Yes, the school provided the assessment including a pretty interesting question and answer sheet that I filled out to describe some of the things my DS has been up to that I felt were signs of giftedness.
They administered a K-bit, and some reading assessments as well as pulled in his scores on other standardized testing.
I think next year they administer something called a Cogat which I need to read up on. I imagine the retesting is partly budget related, and there's probably a need for them to have on record exactly the same test for all the kids...where possible. I guess I'm a bit of cynic about the whole thing.

I am still curious to see how things evolve on the math end of things for him. He has a computation speed issue, mainly involving how fast he comes up with answers; he's rarely actually wrong, but he takes 80 seconds instead of 60 seconds to complete a set of very basic math problems. On the other hand, he does really really well with word problems and every other area they've covered. I think he actually can't perform well under the 'gun' so to speak - I can't tell you how much pain these timed math fact sheets were this year, until we all decided to ignore them, including the teacher (thank goodness!). They were just too discouraging. May be similar to what elh describes.

Thanks again for all the tips and the welcome!

Welcome Chris. This is a wonderful support board.

As for being able to solve math problems fast, being able to solve word problems is much more important than doing calculation fast. I would think that it will be less and less important how fast he can calculate with the coming years. Chances are that he doesn't remember some of his math facts and calculates them over and over again (such as using addition instead or remembering his multiplication tables).

Hello Everyone!

I posted before actually (finding this) introducing myself. I LOVE the open and honest conversations on this board, as well as the variety of topics people are writing/talking about. Havent found anything like it yet, so Thanks to all of you.

I am mom to DS 10.5, HG. We had the WISC4 done by school, and despite ceiling on 3 subtests, very superior on 2 and superior on 1, average of scores "labeled" him at MG or 130 IQ. Go figure?????? I dont understand and the school personnel had difficulty explaining - needless to say I dont really base a lot on numbers or scores since that experience - I know DS10 is different and amazing, beautiful, quirky, funny, etc. you get me. Also mom to DS7, who is polar opposite from DS10, yet, has his own unique, amazing, gifted characteristics as well. I requested DS7 get tested in K and 1st grade, and although his score increased each yr it is not the magic "130" the state of FL uses for "qualifying".

Ive learned more in the past 4/5 yrs doing intensive research and reading books and even recognized that hey, maybe that coulda been me, a lifetime ago, if anybody was there to care or notice - but cest' la vie. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, to vent, discuss, share, and connect with other moms & dads. I look forward to all I can learn from each of you and hope that I can share something that may help you as well.

~~

Welcome tygrlily!!!! About your son's WISCIV scores, did the WMI and/or PSI bring his FSIQ down? If so, did they calculate GAI?

I'd be interested to see the Perceptual Reasoning Index and the Verbal Comprehension Index for both your kids. I'm betting those are above the 130 score, and they should be noted for program inclusion. You could certainly make a case for it!

The 'magic scores' are so frustrating sometimes...you know your ds is truly gifted, but it just doesn't 'show' on a certain test...Our county has the same cut off but luckily also figures in reading level, outside work, etc. (I think this is partly because the test they administer is not quite so detailed as a WISC).
It added up to mostly looking at achievement rather than potential, which was another thing that irked me since I figured the whole point is to take a child with a lot of potential and help them achieve good or even great things.

I think our program is a bit secretive as well. All the kids are tested in 2nd grade. It used to be the CogAT but they changed the test this year. The parents are not told the kids are being tested, nor are the parents given the results (and they can't ask if they don't know it occurred). So if the child just missed the cutoff, the parent doesn't know they can go the portfolio route. I only found out b/c of a good relationship with the teacher (and I already knew about the program so I asked her early on if she felt DS would be a candidate, so she knew that I knew about it already) so I phoned about the results of the test. The GT coord certainly seemed shock I wanted the scores but she sent them. Before I asked for the scores, all she said was that son was not *creative* enough for the program. It was only after receiving the scores I found out that he was gifted in math. Now, I wonder how many kids came out this way and a) the parents didn't know about the test, b) the parents knew about it but didn't know enough to ask for the scores, c) knew about it, spoke w/ GT and all she said is "not creative enough," and the parent asked no further questions? I know of another parent where she found out from another parent whose DC got in so she inquired why her son wasn't in it. She went the portfolio route and got him in. It all just seems shady to me, secretive, and behind closed doors. I wonder if this is to keep all the parents, of course everyone think their child is gifted according to schools, from going the portfolio route?

Thanks so much for the welcome~~

In response to Dazey, Kriston & Dottie, the WISC4 was taken approx 4 yrs ago, just when it came out. I heard about the PSI & WMI bringing the FSIQ down, via research. Can tell you the school/district did not incorporate this in factoring the score. I searched high & low for DS paperwork this weekend, to find out his #'s on PRI and VCI - no luck yet. Baby boy has only had the pre-screener - not the full IQ by the psych. That's how they do it here; pre-screen has to hit the 130 before going for the WISC4, unless you qualify under Plan B. The rules are absolute, even if you have other criteria, the IQ has to be 2 standard deviations above or 130.

In response to Chris - Ahhhhh, I so agree.

On a positive note, our district screens every 2nd grader. Parental request can be made in K and 1st. Many parents though dont seem aware they can request testing. There is a misperception that teachers have to initiate it. Regardless, law says parents have to be notified and grant permission for testing to be done.

Oh boy.

While in theory that sounds like a financially responsible way to identify candidates for gifted programming while preserving resources..........



I don't like it.

Is there any way you could have him privately tested?

I think that makes more sense. Obviously it's a screener, not the test so some wiggle room on the minimum score for the screener would make sense.

(shrug shoulders)