Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Link Dr. Ruf

Here's a link that shows what kinds of schools would be exected to fit a (non2E) gifted child, according to the child's extimated gifted level.

I find it really reasuring to have it all here in "black and white" from data that can be collected before school even starts.
http://www.pagiftededucation.info/documents/LevelsofGiftednessPresentation.pdf

And another Dr. Ruf link to help you estimate your child's level of giftedness. The checklists start about halfway down the page.
http://www.educationaloptions.com/levels_giftedness.htm

I sure refer to these links quite often. Silly thing is that my son learned to read at a perfectly ordinary age 6. But he was like a human lie decector for Santa, and the Tooth fairy, etc. I wish I could remember more details. Instead of puzzels, he had a computer program that did puzzles by moving the mouse around. I sure don't remember how many pieces they had. He always hated mazes - there's the possible visiual problems for you. That's why I say that any measure of gifteness that your child does well on establishes a floor, not a ceiling.

Love and More Love,
Trininty

Trinity,

My DD8 totally opposite. She loves mazes, did them at an early age without any difficulties, same with puzzles. She would actually flip them over so you could only see the shape of the piece, not the picture. This created enough challenge for her. But she is very imaginative and still believes in Santa and toothfairy. Although she wondered at 5, why people would go to Disney to see "bunch of people dress up as cartoons". I find this very interesting how children develop at different rates in different areas.

Jeni

I have an adult friend who is profoundly gifted and strongly visual-spacial. She always flips puzzles over to solve them. She says its because she finds the pictures too distracting. If she is just dealing with the shape of the piece it's just the right amount of information, but she finds all the colors overwhelming and unnecessary.

Jeni,
He was also like a human lie detector with his Grandparents who told him that he couldn't have a 2nd ice cream sandwich because there weren't anymore. Too bad for them that their freezer was on the bottom of their frig, and although he was just barely walking and most of his talking was pointing and grunting and "No! No!", he opened up the door and showed them the box. ((tears of laughter)) Great fun watching my own parents outsmarted by my toddler! I had warned them many times that fibbing wasn't a good stratagy with this one, I was just a first time mom - what did I know?

I still heavily monitor TV news, as it seems almost nothing goes "over his head."

Smiles,
Trinity

Hi E!
Here are the Ruf Links. I enjoyed the book, but the links will get you started.
smiles,
Trinity

Thank you, Trinity. Our son is level 5.

The part about "high school level grade equivalencies" - does Ruf mean that part of the achievement test (like the WIAT-III) which lists that information? Or something different? We just got our results for the WISC-IV and WIAT-III yesterday so I have all of that information top of mind.

E

Thanks for the links.

According to the checklist I'd say dd is a level 4. Of the 30 behaviors listed on level 5 dd has 21 of them. So maybe she's a 4.5? hehe.

Funny story about block design; dd had the WISC IV test recently. She has never like puzzles, even as a small child. It wasn't surprising that the one area she scored low on was block design. So she came home that day and told me how she only got about 1/2 of them. She proceeded to go get 4 wooden blocks from her brothers block set. She drew the patterns on them that were on the test and proceeded to practice. She made me think of patterns and time her (like was on the test) By the next day she had block design mastered! There wasn't a single design I could come up with that would stump her. Its interesting to me how she learns and how quickly she processes information.

Now she still believes in Santa and the Tooth Fairy! Either that or she's totally going along with the ruse! She did ask about them both when she was really small, maybe 2 or 3? Asking how it was possible etc. I love the "magic" of Santa and so I did not tell her it was pretend. I simply told her that Santa is real to those who believe. So she may be one of the few who is still holding on to that belief!

Tammy, I thought our son would tank on the block design. It turns out that he solved ALL of the problems in that section. However, he finished the hardest problem about 30 seconds after she had to stop the clock, so she couldn't count that one toward his score. I was really surprised that he did well...he must have inherited his father's analytical skills.

E

E -
I really don't remember about the High School equiv. I tend to view those Woodck-Johnson type scores with a grain of salt. So maybe she really means high school level work?

I think you'll enjoy the book is you can get it through Library Loan. I think you are going to enjoy the YSP, particularly the homeschool list, but it's good to know that not all the kids there will be Level 5s like what you are used to, many will be level 3 and 4. Brace yourself, ok? I'm hoping you'll find a place where you feel totally at home, and YSP is good because the Parents there really "get" level of giftedness, even if their kids aren't level 5. KWIM?

Smiles,
Trinity

Hi Trinity:

I have a totally unrelated question I just private e-mailed you about.

bk

I just got back from an Amiee Yermish talk. Let's see if I can get the Grade Equavilent score explainaton correct. Let's say you scored a 9 of 15 on a subtest, such as picture naming. Yor age or grade equavalent would be this - what age were the average children from the norming sample who also scored 9 of 15?

Dottie, did I get it?

Aimee is a great speaker. I spoke to her a bit about PIQ/VIQ spread. I have heard so many conflicting stories about the significance of a discrepancy here. Linda Silverman has gone on the record as saying that a difference of just ten points indicates a learning disability or 2e situation, and others have said that even a large gap is not indicative of a problem. Aimee takes a very holistic view of the child and says that it is impossible to generalize. She doesn't have any hard and fast rules about how the numbers line up; instead she pays attention to particular subtests and behavior, and looks for trends. This individualized approach really resonates with me.

If anyone is in the northeast and looking for cognitive assessment, Aimee runs Davinci Learning in Massachusetts.

I wanted to add this link to the Dr. Ruf topic, since I know I'll be wanting to re-read it againg -
http://www.educationaloptions.com/unevenly_gifted.htm

smiles,
Trin

Bump -
BK1, was this your lost link?
Grinity

Bump!
Smiles,
Grinity

Bump - again.

Now that my son has the motor dyspraxia diagnosis, it makes sense why all of the other Level 4 characteristics fit except the two that required fine motor skills that he didn't have because of the disability-- "many liked puzzles by 15 to 36 months" and "most printed letters, numbers, words, and their names between 2 3/4 and 3 1/2 years."

His OT recently told him that he needed to work on the 3D puzzles instead of the online puzzles that he likes. My son wants to know why being able to do the 3D kind quickly is so important. He says he doesn't believe it will help him in any way and he thinks it is kind of like the "coloring in the lines" that he hated and the kindergarten teacher thought was important. He is still skeptical about doing these things to help him grow "new neural pathways" in his brain. He still wants proof. Even his OT says the OT is not a cure for the dyspraxia and hypotonia and she can't tell us how much the sensory integration therapy will help, but she says she has seen the therapy work very well for kids she has worked with.

As an OT, these are interventions that I have seen work wonders for children with dyspraxia:

*Therapeutic Listening
*Interactive Metronome
*SI based treatment with LOTS of gross motor movement through space
*Perceptual activities that involve gross and fine motor coordination, laterality and directionality, language, vision and auditory processing
* Play that involves sequencing, timing, planning and executing movement

For hypotonia:
* play activities that activate the core muscles and work the child to fatigue
* SI based treatment that activates both the vestibular and proprioceptive systems
* Nutritional support, including pre-digested protein drinks (like the body builders drink) or supplements such as Carnitine, Coenzyme Q-10, B and E vitamins and alpha lipoic acid.

I'm much bigger on the "bottom up" approach to OT with these issues, but it seems like your son needs a "top down" approach in conjunction with it! Have you seen the Dyspraxia Foundation website?
http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/

Lots of great info here! Maybe he'd like to read some of it.

Best of luck. I'm glad you know what you are dealing with and that now you can continue to progress forward!

Thanks! I also just found www.dyspraxiawn.org.uk that explains what is going on in the brain.

We asked our OT about protein supplements because my daughter's boyfriend, who is into bodybuilding and used to work at a health food store, recommended something called Muscle Milk. The OT said she didn't think protein supplements were really necessary if he gets plenty of protein in his diet, but she did recommend omega-3. None of this stuff is cheap.

She didn't say anything about trying therapeutic listening and my son doesn't have language or auditory processing difficulties so I don't know if that would help him.

In therapy sessions, she has him do a lot of swinging activities and since I don't have the equipment she has this is difficult to do at home. All we have is a backyard swing and a therapy ball and a bicycle that he still can't ride without training wheels (partly because of lack of muscle strength and because I had trouble getting him to practice). She said he needed to learn to ride a bicycle even if it is just for a short distance, so he has to ride it around our circle driveway which I am sure is kind of boring. He complains a lot about having to do this. He only sees the OT once every two weeks and I don't see how this will help when dance and piano lessons for the last four years haven't fixed his problems. I don't know how swinging could possibly help him learn dance routines any faster and this is his main area of difficulty, but I am hopeful that he might improve in some things. Since we homeschool we can already work around most of his other problems by letting him type instead of having to do a lot of writing. I would like to ask the professionals on the UK website some questions but I don't know if they would answer me since I don't live in the UK.

I already let my son take breaks to do physical activities throughout the day and this was one of the things she recommended.

Someone recently asked what Ruf Estimated levels were - so I'll bump this up:

The best way to read up on them is to get her book - losing our minds, gifted children left behind by Dr. Deb Ruf

If you are impatient - a really not detailed enought link
to help you estimate your child's level of giftedness. The checklists start about halfway down the page.
http://www.educationaloptions.com/levels_giftedness.htm

gives you a general idea.

Be warned that it's no good in proving your kid isn't gifted if you don't meet the usually milestones - really small sample size, although if your kid does meet the milestones it a 'quick and dirty' way to get an estimate of IQ scores.

I like them for quite early readers who won't test well, or for doing a 'first approximation' so one knows one isn't crazy, and that one has to 'travel' for a meaningful IQ test.

Sadly, if a child has 2E issues, there isn't any checklist like this that is useful, that I know of - of course if the child is performing 3 grade levels above their agemates, that's the final word on 'are they gifted.' They just plain are! We tend to grow up in gifted families and think that any child getting one-to-one attention would perform above grade level, but we are quite wrong.

Grin

Grinity

You can supplement for Omega 3 by eating more fish, eggs that are enhanced and Costco has fish oil tablets that are not that expensive. As I reach middle age and deal with the big M word, fish oil is de rigeur.

Ren