Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Just starting to look at DYS program

I have spent the evening reading everyone's posts. It has been very helpful.

I am trying to decide whether or not I should apply for my DS. He turns 5 next week. We have only had IQ testing done with the SB-5 a few months ago. FSIQ 141 with a VIQ of 145 (which seems to meet the minimum requirement). He got four 19's, an 18 and two 17's. The only thing that brought down his score was the average scores in the knowledge sections (both verbal and nonverbal) which I have heard is usually lower for boys at his age.

I can have Achievement testing done privately within the next few months but I am not sure if I should just try the portfolio route. My son shines in math. He loves numbers. His whole day revolves around number and math problem. He loves sport score, probability, comparing relationships, patterns. He is a self taught math whiz. I work full-time and have two other younger children so definitely no hot-housing here.

With his borderline scores on the SB-5 (which I believe he had a ceiling effect--some of the those 19's he actually score beyond the points even required for the 19) I am almost thinking the Math achievement tests might be beneficial (if he's having a good day, of course).

Does anyone have a similar child with similar score that was accepted? Did you use achievement testing or portfolio?

We are hoping that DYS can help advocate for DS since we live in a non-gifted friendly state. I don't even have many private school options. Currently he is doing okay at a Montessori school that can accommodate him until the end of K (another 1.5 years since he missed the K cut-off this year).

Thanks!

Cris

I know other ladies will have much more seasoned advice but I would say that it never hurts trying the application with the portfolio option but based on recent events of my own, I think having those achievement tests to back up the IQ test seems to be a "must have". GL! He does sound like the type of kid they're looking for!

DD had a WISC IV verbal 150 and FSIQ of 140 and was not accepted, however I had no achievement testing to include and the DSYP has asked for that information and I think my portfolio was weak since most of dd's abilities were hard to show on paper.

Hi Cris,
Welcome! It seems like if you just go ahead and get the needed achievement test, you could save yourself some time and emotional wear and tear. My son was tested IQ and WJIII, for 'other reasons' ((anty pantsy in school)) so we had the test to send in.

I'm glad you found us. Isn't it amazing talking to people with similar situations?
Trinity

Hi Cris,

We are in a similar situation to Tammy's.
We are having our DD7 take the WIAT because that is the achievement test our tester uses.
It will be good to see what DD7 actually does know and what she is able to do in terms of achievement.
If nothing else, I hope this information can help me advocate for her in her public school.

Welcome,
Incog

My son may be similar to yours. He is 5 and we just got back his scores. He took WPPSI III, his PIQ is 150, his FSIQ is 144. He is quite good in math and he got 160 on Math on WJ-III which is much more than they ask for. Needless to say we plan to apply to DYS in January.

I say if your son is good in math then the assessment test may be worth to do it at this age. I consider my son being very good in math but not THAT good. KWIM? His score took me by surprise. My guess is that extensive math knowledge at this age is very rare and your son my do really well on the test and get qualifying score with a few points to spare. Good luck

Hi LMom,
Welcome, glad you found us!
Is your son in school? How's it going?
Smiles,
Trinity

Hi and welcome!

We just applied this month!

My ds5 took the WPPSI and came back with a PIQ of 144 and a FSIQ of 148. Like you, though, we hit ceilings with a 19, two 18s and a 17. And he got a straight 10 in coding (particularly variable in gifted kids), which has a considerable effect on the overall score. So we're hopeful that they examine the full score report, which I've heard they do. We also had WIAT-II achievement testing done. which allowed us to apply using the scores method: Ds qualified in both math and language composite (with a 160 on word reading). Fingers crossed!

I'd go ahead and get the achievement testing done. It really has been helpful when advocating with the school, and it gives me a better idea of what to be doing with him!

One note of caution/advice: My ds is a number whiz too -- but he does almost all of it verbally. Because we never spent time teaching him many of the written conventions, he doesn't do as well on standardized tests. He perfectly understands and uses percentages, fractions, etc., but he can't always apply this knowledge to the test. You may want to spend some time with him before getting achievement testing done, to make sure he understands all the written symbols. We just figured out that ds didn't know what a division sign looked like! Of course, your ds may know this stuff, but we were/are like you -- no time for hothousing here! Which meant that ds could do a *lot* of math, but not express it on paper.

Thanks for the words of advice regarding written math. My son prefers to do math in his head but when I need a few minutes alone I usually write a bunch of problem on a sheet of paper for him to solve. Not only has this helped him learn what the symbols mean it also helps him with his writing (which still included a backwards number 5).

I am not very familiar with achievement testing. Are there also ceilings on those or do they continue until they find that the child can't figure out more problems.

I had mentioned on an earlier post that research gave me some insight into how high the standards for admittance into the Davidson Young Scholars program actually are. Here's the reference I pulled from the article "Pursuing Profound Possibilities" on this site at: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10041.aspx:

"We use the term "profoundly gifted" to mean individuals with an extremely high level of intellectual precocity. These individuals are identified by demonstrating mastery of a significant amount of content in a particular domain, far beyond the norm for the child's age group, or by a score in the top .001% of their age-peers in a particular domain, as measured by an intelligence or achievement test."

Other references mentioned the "demonstration of ability to function at the level of a talented adult in a specific academic domain."

No surprise that the test scores on specific tests listed on the application are minimum criteria.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about this program other than what I've read online or read here - just reprinting something that may be of interest to some of you.

Yeah, Dottie, I'm afraid they would never let you on their admission team--you'd let us all in!

Dottie, If I remember correctly, on an earlier post it was mentioned that it's easier to get a higher composite score than a higher subtest score on WISC/WIAT (don't remember which was being discussed). If so, how can that be? Isn't the composite some sort of weighted average of all the subtests? Or did I remember the post wrong to begin with? Just wondering how the composites are calculated. (the post I'm referring to was in a discussion of YSP's having changed its minimum score requirement from subtest to composite. I thought I read this made it easier to reach the minimum - but it doesn't make sense to me). Thanks.

Dottie said, "Does that help? I'm not sure why DITD went to composite scores, though surely ANY score in the 145+ range indicates a child with very unique abilities!" Yet another example of why you'll never be on their admissions committee! LOL!


There are sure a lot of ways to look at these numbers; I, personally, have made myself crazy teasing them apart and recombining them to get different answers. It's ironic to me that if DYS accepted the composite of the GAI on the WISC-IV and single scores over 150 on the WJ, DS would qualify in two areas instead of *none*. But enough whining....

Thanks Dottie, no eyes glazing over here. I admit, though, I am not the statistics or numbers pro.
DD7 is taking her WIAT the week after Christmas. I plan to print off the DYS chart showing what they are looking for.
She told me DD7 will be testing for about three hours and will have the entire WIAT administered.
I guess there is no chance something will be missed then, we'll just see if her scores are where DYS is looking for them to be.
I'm actually looking forward to knowing where DD7 is in terms of her knowelege.
DD7 knows nothing about DYS. We told her the test is just to see what she knows so she won't have to keep doing things at school that she already knows.
She said, "Great, I can't wait to take the test."

Thanks! I'm glad the tester uses the WIAT because I'm easily confused!

Thanks for the welcome. My son is in K in Montessori, his 1st year there. I believe that it was a better choice than our public school but it's far from great. They use elementary material and he does at the very least 2nd grade math there but it's more practicing of what he can do than learning anything new. His LA could be much better than it is (they do 1st-2nd grade). They pretty much admit that they are not equipped to handle him and believe there must be something better for him. I sure could use DYS help.

We had him tested to be give his current school better idea where he is and also to look at different schools and see what they have to offer. It was a pleasant surprise that he got scores high enough to apply to DYS.



It sounds like our home My son actually begs for math problems saying that he is too bored and has nothing to do. Your son sounds like he could do really well on the test. I think lots of gifted kids know the concepts but cannot do the calculations or whatever boring task is asked. My son's test didn't go as high as I think it would. I don't know exactly what they tested but I asked him if there were questions about such and such and he said no. I guess he ended up on some gaps in the for him easier levels.

To be honest I think it would be nice to get achievement test done once a year just to get an idea how he is doing but then I would probably obsess about the number even more than I do right now. It's amazing how quickly you move from "Wow, that's a great score." to "It makes me wonder why that score is lower than I expected."

So LMom,
It's great that his school is so open. Where do you get Math problems for him to do at home?

Do you want to switch him now?

Does his school have an older classroom?

Have you thought about a gradeskip for him?

Are there any other school that are possible?

Is homeschooling a possibility?

What is his personality? Does he just love his classmates? Love going to school? Act out? Work independently?

Is he reading? What kinds of books does he like to read/listen too?

Smiles,
Trinity - Who is in the process of changing her screen name to "Grinity"

We mostly come out with our own problems, usually during dinner Lately he has been doing a few problems in Singapore Math which I use as a reference. My husband and I are very good in math, we can support his math for long time college levels included.

I don't think we want to switch him in the middle of the year. His school goes higher and next year he would be in the 1st-3rd grade class. The grade span gives me hope that they could support him for another year even though his math will be out of that range. We could try to grade accelerate him right now but he would have to go full day and he is really against that. I need to sit down with the school principal and talk about it. It should be easier now when we have the numbers.

There are other schools we want to check but they are far from where we live. We will go and have a look though. There could be something else we are not aware of.

Homeschooling is a possibility. He loved his play based preschool last year but he doesn't care for his current school. He is ok in school but he acts out at home if his brain is not challenged. He works well independently and is self driven when it comes to things he is interested in. I guess on the paper he looks like a good candidate for homeschooling, I am just not sure we can be together all the time. We need breaks from each other.

He reads. He has been reading chapter books since the age of 3. Language is his relative weakness, mostly vocabulary. He is bilingual which according to the psychologist, is a reason for his relatively low numbers in this area. She expects his general language achievement and VIQ (his VIQ is still in gifted range) to go up and be more accurate around the age of 7.


LOL

There is a lot to be said for half day kindergarten! A 1-3 classroom can be a reasonable match, depending on the kid, with Afterschooling in his strongest area at home. Too bad they won't let him atten the 1-3 room now, the same hours as before, not like he'll be missing much, right? Maybe when the principle sees the numbers you can agree together that a half day for socailzation and mombreak is just perfect for the next few years! Afterall, the schools are always saying how important social development is, right? Kids really seem to like being able to come home at the end of the day with enough energy to be able to do their own thing.

((high five)) on the bilingual!

Smiles,
Grinity