Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy siblings statistic - gifted or no?

Just have to say I'm very curious about this. DH was gifted; his sister was never assessed and I would doubt she was. It's always been a source of contention in his family (not the gifted label -- DH didn't know he was gifted because there were not G&T programs in his school, but his mom showed me his assessments). But regardless of labels, DH was the "smart one" and that's really frustrating for a sibling. His sister certainly wasn't stupid...just average.

My DD4 is suspected gifted and it's very "showy". I feel bad for DS3 because gifted or not, we always underestimate him. I was reflecting the other day on how DD was reading and writing at 3 and thinking that DS didn't even know his alphabet (although I knew he could recognize his name and his sister's name). Cue 2 weeks later I realize he knows all his letters, can write his name, and recognizes his friends' names too. Yesterday he spent all day organizing various objects in our home from tallest to shortest. Nothing mind-blowing, nothing that screams "gifted"..but he's certainly bright, and I'm only just now starting to realize it. Given the answers in his thread, I'll probably have him assessed when he's in kindergarten just like DD will be (assuming DD4 is actually assessed as gifted).

My post is a few posts before. My DS8 and DS7 have pretty big gap in their test results. We did not want to test DS8 until DS7 tested very high. We wondered if he was MG or HG. He's neither according to the score. However, the test result showed his areas of strength. He's the type of kid that he'll just do the bare minimum. With the test result, we know what areas we can push him further and give him more challenges because he has the potential to do better.

DS11 147+
DS9 132 with very uneven profile, 30 points difference between VSI and PRI

I'm sure that early speaking/writing/reading/etc is highly correlated with high IQ's but I'd also caution that the absence of them doesn't mean the child isn't gifted. Gifted kids can be very asynchronous and/or have other exceptionalities which along with the whole personality aspect can mean some kids are more obvious than others or they are obvious in some moments but then average or behind in others. You can find stories here of kids reading at 2-3 while other kids here were barely speaking and in speech therapy at that age. Fast forward a few years and they can both test PG.

I will also say that having one kid that is one flavour of gifted also really skews your judgement of what all gifted kids look like and what is actually average. Volunteering weekly in DS's average grade 1 classroom was a real eyeopening experience a few years ago (DS is 2e so it eyeopening on both ends of the spectrum).

The research I have seen seems to be mixed. However, it seems to depend on whether both parents have similar cognitive abilities. Each child tends to be more like one parent or the other in terms of cognitive abilities, not a mixture or average. So, if you have two gifted parents then most children will probably be gifted. If you have one gifted and one not it is a crap shoot, you could end up with all or none gifted. From the actual research I have seen environment does not necessarily make a huge difference (no more than a standard deviation) unless, there is a particularly negative (most likely abusive) environment involved.

DD12 FSIQ 124 GAI 130 (WISC -IV)
DS10 FSIQ 134 GAI 140 (WISC-V)

They have similar profiles but are very different. He was also tested on WISC-IV at 6yrs (WISC-V was at 9y10m). He is a math type kid and she is artsy. He hit the ceiling on the FRI index for both subtests. Should be interesting to see what happened when the extended norms come out.

My DS17 was obviously gifted as a preschooler, he read at 3 but I didn't have him tested till he was 15. My DH is profoundly gifted so it didn't come as a surprise. My older DD21 and is NOT gifted she tests above average but with notable LD's and has struggled in school. Thankfully they are 4 1/2 years apart so the older one didn't compare herself too much to him.

As to your comment that DS3 doesn't seem gifted because he's not reading like his sister. I've known many very gifted kids who don't read till they were 7 or so and never do anything "showy". You will see of this board many a parent say they didn't have a clue till they started to be very bored in early elementary.

DS when 3 also did that thing where skills came out of nowhere. One day out of curiosity I asked him if he could write his name having never seen him write a letter in his life. I figured we could work on the first 3 letters. He proceeded to write his name & then announced to me "now I'll write the alphabet". And except for a few upside down letters it very very legible.

My kids fall in the very similar IQ range (within just a few points), but very very different kiddos. Like many others here, one (DS11) was the 'showy' gifted type -- insatiably curious, passionate about his interests. My younger (DD9) we knew was *bright* but would never have assumed gifted. She was tested when she became a behavior problem in 2nd grade (boredom, lack of appropriate work). Thankfully our principal suggested the testing, b/c I don't think I even would have. Turns out she's the one with the higher scores... LOL!

eta: btw, DD didn't start reading early. Partly or largely b/c of her perfectionism: she'd have had to admit less than perfect knowledge if she admitted to reading early whereas by the time she "learned" in school, she was well beyond her peers (we knew she was reading - she could tell us what words said w/out having seen them before or w/out having memorized a book, but she would claim that wasn't reading LOL). DS, on the other hand, began reading at 3. Their verbal score is their high one, and they are the same (slightly different scores on subtests, but the overall verbal is the same).

I'm curious about this, too. DD5 is very different from DD10. (That being said, Marnie, P-J is totally at the very least HG, or at least that's my personal observation.)