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Hi - I'm new here and I'm hoping for some advice and encouragement from others. My son Logan started Kindergarten this year and it has been a roller coaster every since. He's always been a very articulate and talkative child and is anxious to learn. My perception is that he has a hightened grasp of science and was actually very disappointed that they don't teach it in Kindergarten. His father is gifted and we are considering having Logan tested on our own. After only a couple weeks of school the teacher started a "smiley face" sheet where it broke down Logan's day and depending on how he behaved he'd get a happy, sad, or straight face. The main issue is that he talks or sings non stop. He does well with the reminder of his "smiley" sheet for a few days at a time and then seems to develop a resentment for it and says "I wish I'd never started this" I'm almost certain that he doesn't have ADHD because he can sit for hours staring at books (he doesn't actually know how to read them) and if it's something that engages him he has no problem pay attention. He seems to act with contempt towards the fact that they expect him to do things like color at school which he feels are boring.

We try to be very consistant with him and always have been. He's got very good manners outside of his endless talking and he's EXTREMELY empathetic towards others.

We've tried talking to him about how his behavior effect the other students. We've tried reward programs, we've tried consequence programs, etc.

I guess I'm looking for suggestions. Has anyone had experience with this? If I do have him tested and we find that he's gifted will school systems actually do anything for you at such a young age? We live in a rural area so our school options are limited. If anyone is from Kansas could you suggest someone in the Wichita area who does testing?

Thanks
Rachelle

This is my Isaac! He just got put on a behavior plan at school where they give him a certain face almost every 15 minutes. His biggest problems are blurting out of turn. I have no answers for you because I am dealing with this too and have no solutions.

My friend is a school psychologist in Kansas I think around Kansas City. If you'd like to send me a message and let me know your school district I can ask her what the laws are there regarding gifted kids.

I actually had a somewhat promising experience with Logan's teacher during parent teachers conferences yesterday. She mentioned that she felt that when he's older that she would not be surprised if he tested as gifted because he has a vast vocabulary and shows signs of hyperintelligence. I used that as an opportunity to tell her that we were considering having him tested and she offered to refer him to the schools gifted teacher and ask her to spend some time with him. She said that it might take several months, but that if the gifted teacher agreed with her assumption that she felt the school should move forward on his testing.

Because I know it's uncommmon for children in this state anyway to be tested before 3rd grade I was thrilled that she was willing to consider such a thing. We'll see what happens.

Before you have your son tested (and spend the money on it, as it can be very expensive) you should ask the school what if anything they would do with the test results of that particular test. When we talked to our DS's school today, they told us we could implement a learning planning without having any test scores (that saved us $500).

My DS is a talker and a singer and generally very "fidgety", but he does not have ADD or ADHD or the like. We have found with him that having something to channel his energy into, aside from talking is helpful. Chewing gum or fingering a coin we have found to be very helpful in times of "excessive" talking when it is not called for.

Hi. We had the same problem. Our ds was in a small private Catholic school, and the talking became a major problem. My ds6 has been tested, and even with the test results, this particular school was unable to provide a differentiated curriculum or advance him to first grade. That said, it's not a public school, and you would probably have more luck there.

We determined that our ds was bored, and he, too, was quite put off by the fact that he had to color and do "baby work" all day. He said he spent his whole day waiting on everyone else to finish their work. His words, not mine. The school was concerned about adhd, and honestly, I'm still not convinced that he doesn't have a mild case of this. BUT, I do know that when he is sufficiently challenged and interested, the impulsivity and inattention are nonexistent. I find it hard to keep him challenged and engaged myself. He's still fidgety, but both his father and I are that way. No way he could escape it! : ) Your school seems to be much more supportive; maybe the teacher could provide a differentiated curriculum to keep him challenged and interested.

If you google "adhd vs. gifted" you'll get lots of good information on the similarities in behavior between kids with adhd and gifted children who are bored and unchallenged. We ended up pulling ds out of school and homeschooling because I wanted time to find the right placement/school for my son. Unfortunately, our public schools are not very good, and the negative influence there is pervasive. So, we'll see what the future holds.

Anyway, I think what you are describing is discussed quite often on this board. I think you are in the right place and thinking along the right lines. As for the testing, I wanted to know for sure; I'm a numbers kind of person so having the results helped me not to question the giftedness. Good luck, and I hope this was some help.

My Logan is very similar - except somehow he manages to control it during school. I'm still surprised and just waiting for him to decide he's bored or just not challenged and start fidgeting/talking/etc during school.

We don't have much gifted options but I am working with them (hopefully) on getting things in place so he has a good 1st grade class with differentiation and/or subject acceleration. We have parent/teacher conferences in a few weeks and I'm hoping that a plan can be made to give him more challenges now. I'd be more than willing to do more in the class or take him for reading quizzes after school (K is only 1/2 day here) if that would help, but I have my 4 yr old and she can't be in the class when I am.

I'll have to keep tabs on this as we could be in the same 'boat' any day now. If that happens I'll speak with the principal and K teacher again about doing something sooner than next year for him. Right now he thinks school is fun and he learns at home - I see a problem with that, lol.

I'm curious CourtneyB if your Logan has been formally tested for giftedness and if so how you went about having it done. I'm really hopeful that the Kindergarten teacher is going to work with us, but I'm a little untrusting of the system and I'm afraid someone's going to come back and tell us he's too young or some other random excuse for not testing him. Just curious what others have done.

Thanks

Check the state laws where you live and see what the laws for gifted are. I had my DS tested through the school board. From what I understand here if a parents asks they have to test them. It did take me a year to convince anybody to do the testing through!

Rachelle - The answer to that is yes and no. He was tested at age 3 1/2 through our old school district due to a lot of behavior issues that we thought might be ADHD. Come to find out they considered him an adorable delightful little boy who participated in everything they did more than willingly though he did make noises the ENTIRE time, lol.

As a part of the testing they did the DAS-II (Differential Abiities Scale 2nd edition Upper Level Early Years) and here were his scores(Standard Score and percentile):
GCA (General Conceptual Ability) 137 99%
Verbal 143 99.8%
Nonverbal Reasoning 128 97%
Spatial 120 90%

My problem is what does this mean? Not sure how it relates to a FSIQ test and obviously there wasn't an achievement test either.
Our school district basically says that if they are performing above grade average they don't test them. Is this accurate? Not sure if I spoke with the correct person but I do plan on having another meeting with the principal just to give him the old report.

I spoke with a psychologist on Monday of this week and his general opinion is this: If the school won't help him then we should definitely get him tested privately and get an education plan written up for him that we can approach the school with. If they will work with him now then I should just request an achievement test from them so we can get him working at the appropriate level. The person I spoke with at the school district mentioned getting a Student Study Team (SST) in place and the psych. said he was very impressed that they were willing to do that without him being a problem in class. He says it's a good sign, so we'll see how that goes. I'm supposed to call her back this week but not sure when I'll have a chance, I did mention it to his K teacher though and she was going to call and see about getting that in place.

So long story short (haha...) if the school will help you without testing being done that's fine. If not and they won't test (not sure if they have to or not if they are 'ahead') then it's definitely worth getting it done on your own. Hopefully you can find someplace cheaper then where I called - $1000 would get testing done (iq and achievement) and a detailed report but that's about it.

Courtney,

Our school district uses the DASII for gifted testing. The GCA is the deciding factor on whether or not they get in. 130 is the cut-off score they are looking for, so your son would be labeled as gifted in our district and qualified for the programs. Have you given your new district copies of his testing from previous district? What did they say? Even if they recognize him as gifted though, there may not be a requirement for an education plan based on giftedness alone.