Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy one dc "officially" gifted, one not?

We moved to a new school district this year. Both DS10 (5th grade) and DS9 (3rd grade) were recommended by their teachers for the gifted pullout program. DS9 (outgoing, "showily" bright) has been chosen for the program, but the process is lagging for DS10 (quieter, doesn't want to seem like a "nerd").

If DS10 doesn't get chosen, any words of advice? I am worried he will decide he is "not smart" to go along with his self-assessment of "not popular" and the idea breaks my heart.

If ds9 is just above the cut off then a sibling could be way above or just under. I assume ds10 is one of the youngest in his grade and ds9 one of the older? What testing and assessments do they do?

Usually siblings are within 10 points of each other… I am not clear how you get into the gifted program in your area. If it's a test, then that would be unfortunate. I don't think personality comes much into it, unless he throws the test because he doesn't want to be in it…

If it's teacher recommendation, both kids were recommended, right? As far as what he does with the information if he is not chosen, I would just say different kids need different things. Gifted pullout may be what your one child needs, whereas your DS10 might not even want it because of the "nerd" factor. I tested into the gifted program in the 6th grade and flat out refused to go because I was afraid it would make me an even bigger social pariah… back then there were only a couple of kids in the program, and they were all *ahem* super quirky kids…probably says something about me, but at the time, I was concerned about looking too different, peers were more important to me….and then again, nerds are cool now, so maybe the gifted program at your school is different than mine was...

By the way, I made a bunch of assumptions in my previous post. Sometimes I read things and I think I read them too fast- but I would probably wait and see what happens with the program. If he doesn't get in, then you can see how he feels about it then.

Thanks for the replies. Admission to the program is based on the WASI-2 + samples of class work + work the child does with the gifted teacher. I am not sure what the cut off is for the WASI-2; ds9 had a FSIQ > 150 so that feels like it must be well above the minimum performance.

I would think so - how did your older child score?

My kids have a 15 point difference in IQ but like your youngest my oldest is well above 150 putting the youngest in the 99.8 percentile. From what i have read most school gifted programmes don't require that sort of score so it is unlikely to be his giftedness that is the issue unless there is a 2e you don't know about. But it may just be they did the younger or more obvious kids first.

We don't have the older son's scores yet. But there is a "creativity" part to the assessment where he, being shyer, may not do as well. I guess we will find out within two weeks - thanks for the comments in the meantime.

Is it the Torrance Test for Creative Thinking? If so, I do not think that shyness factors into this one bit. DD is not the least bit shy and quite imaginative, and this is the only part of her school's gifted testing that she did not score very, very high on (luckily, it is only one factor)...then, again, I didn't think very much of the test as a creativity measure, either.

I also have heard what LAF stated about siblings often being within 10 points and in our case it is true. FWIW, my two DC measured 1-3 points apart on IQ testing, depending on how the composite is measured. Their areas of relative strength, however, are COMPLETELY different, so that makes their close scores (which are supposedly rare) rather mind-blowing, IMO.

My DC actually scored the same GAI (and had different evaluators), and also had different gifted strengths, yet similar relative weaknesses, and they have different ways of demonstrating their abilities.