Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New here, WPPSI & WJ-III

Hi! My son's preschool teacher directed me to the Davidson's website. After looking over the requirements, it seems my son does not qualify at this time, but I'm happy to have use of this forum!

We had him tested in November, to get an idea of where he falls on the gifted spectrum. I always had a feeling of him being "ahead" but not "gifted" until his teacher used the word. He did learn to read at 2.5, but he has always loved letters, so we kind of just thought, "Oh look how cute, he reads." I also have 7 month old twins, so I have not been able to fully research anything like this until now. (My twins were 3 months old when he was tested.) Anyways, onto the scores,

WPPSI-III
Verbal I.Q. 147 Very Superior
Performance I.Q. 129 Superior
Full Scale I.Q. 139 Very Superior

WJ-III (He only did part of this one, to measure his reading ability)
Subtest Grade Equiv. Stand.Score %-ile

BROAD READING COMPOSITE 2.6 129 97
Letter-Word Identification 3.1 136 99
Reading Fluency 2.3 121 92
Passage Comprehension 2.1 121 92

BROAD MATH COMPOSITE
Calculation 2.1 122 93
Math Fluency --- --- ---
Applied Problems 1.0 97 42

(The psych administering the test said he wasn't able to get a valid score on the math portion of the WJ-III)

So my questions are as follows, generally speaking, I know this is highly individual, but looking for a starting point here, how are kids that fall in this range schooled best? His preschool teacher keeps mentioning homeschooling him, which I never really considered. The psych doing the eval said he would be a "fish out of water" at public school, but looking at the hoagies website, it doesn't seem like his scores place him in the range of the student that requires highly differentiated curriculum. So I'm a tad confused. He is in Montessori now, and according to his teacher doing well, but having some focusing problems. He also has trouble making friends even though he desperately craves the social interaction. He's a quirky kid, so its hard for him to relate to other kids. He also has some fine motor delay, mostly because he refuses to practice.

Also, I imagine I will want to retest him at some point. I see lots of conflicting info on the best time to test, anywhere from 6-9.

I have reading a lot on this topic, I just finished Ruf's levels of gifted book. I feel that my DS is a level 3 or 4, I find the levels a little hard to differentiate between at times.


Thanks for any help you can offer!

I'm sorry, I tried to get the scores to line up but when I post it changes it back. For the WJ-III, the first number is grade equiv., the second number is the standard score, and the third number is percentile.

Hi Amber- our children do seem so similar! Our child has also had a VERY hard time making friends at his regular pre-school, and has also had a hard time initiating and sustaining play. At home, he is such a chatter box and has no problem at all with adults or other older children. He is so interested in them, but has yet to connect with his own age mates at school. I am not sure if this is why, but our psychologist has said it may be because he is ahead of these kids and needs intellectual peers, as well as age peers. It's a constant struggle and it is all so new to us! We also have a fine motor "delay," and our child hates to write, too! I have read that this is a common issue for gifted kids, as well. As for school, we were also told that public school wouldn't be a great option, especially because our school system, although great, has no gifted program at all. We have applied to a few schools in our area that have experience with gifted kids, and one school is specifically for gifted children. We have yet to hear decisions from them, so we will see what happens. I also have a younger child, so homeschooling seems like an unrealistic option for us right now, plus I do think he needs the social piece. I can't wait to read what other people post on the issues you raised! This forum is so helpful when you are new to all of these topics!

Sunshine, good luck with the applications... If you do end up homeschooling, the socialization part is really easy to get. I had that same misconception years ago and have come to realize that there are tons of real socialization opportunities for homeschoolers. Further more, you wouldn't be in such a restrictive environment where kids are only paired with their age mates so it might be easier to connect with "true" peers.

My son is the same way, he relates so well to adult and older children. We looked into a gifted charter, but were not impressed. The student/teacher ratio was high and being a charter, the funds were limited. He could potentially stay at Montessori for another 2 years, I'm not sure how well that's going to work out though.

The part I am confused about is his scores. The psych acted like he had to be either at a private gifted school, or homeschooled. When I read about children who score around the same level, most information says that his range, which is just inside "highly gifted" according to Hoagies, are okay in public school with differentiation or enrichment. I understand each child is individual, and so there are no set in stone rules about this, I guess I am just confused as to why the scores don't mirror what he is saying. I will have to follow up with the psych and get more info.

I'd be quite confused about that also. I really think it's not helpful to give advice about a given score requiring a certain kind of education. Kids really are individuals and personality and local school options matter greatly. Some public schools do a great job with gifted kids and some are lousy. Some private schools do a great job and some are lousy. Some parents want to or can manage to homeschool and it works well with a given child and sometimes it's a disaster. What would work for your child? What school options would be flexible and have similar peers? What options for enrichment exist? What extracurriculars are available in the various options? Can you homeschool or would that be difficult and not something wanted for the family? I think those things matter much more than the score, especially the score for a very young child.

I agree, maybe I just need to back away from the score and figure him out as best I can. He was two weeks shy of his 4th birthday when we tested, so the score may not be as accurate as a score for a 6,7,8 year old.


Thanks for the replies everyone!

A verbal IQ of 147 is more than a full standard deviation above the usual gifted cut off of two standard deviations above the mean. It falls into the "exceptionally gifted" range when you look at the breakdown on the Hoagies' Gifted site. This is higher than the "optimally gifted" range. I would look at the highest score to judge his level of need, because that area is what is going to be the driving force. There is a pretty big gap here between verbal and performance, which pulls down the FSIQ. This is not unusual, and not something I'd be too concerned with at this age, but it is something to watch as he gets older to make sure that it doesn't reflect actual visual or motor issues or an LD.

I am a bit further along this road, so I'll chime in . My eldest dd is 12 y/o and highly gifted. She was homeschooled for a bit in elementary and the std school set-up really did not work well for her socially or academically. She is now doing well in public school, though, due to a few factors: she was on the young end when she started (bd just before the cut-off), she skipped 5th grade, middle school in general has been a better fit for her b/c the tracking/acceleration options have been greater & her middle school had about 300 kids/grade so she's been able to find some peers with the older MG-HG kids in her grade, and she's done a lot of extracurricular stuff in her area of interest.

My younger dd is 10 and maybe HG (very erratic but some of her scores are MG and others are EG+). She is also twice exceptional with ADD and an anxiety disorder dx. We haven't been able to homeschool for her due to my needing to maintain a job outside of my work from home stuff. School has not worked at all well for her although I might not have done better at home b/c she and I butt heads so much.

I guess that what I'm getting at is that, like someone else said, what a child needs isn't dictated solely by his IQ numbers. I wouldn't assume that you have to homeschool quite yet unless you want to homeschool. If you are able to do so it certainly does keep options open, though, if the worst case scenario plays out somewhere along his school experience.

Amber - I hate to ask, but could you send a link to exactly what you are looking at from Hoagies that you are reading? It's a big site.

Also - Go back to 5 Levels of Giftedness, and look at the end of the book, and see what Ruf says about this issue. My son is Level 3, but his scores fell a bit differently, and he crossed the DYS cut off line, so even Level 3 is 'gifted enough' that a certain personality of child would get pretty fed up with regular school.

The thing to remember is that 'Gifted' has no standard meaning. Some school districts use 'top 3%' while others use 'top 5%' and a few use 'top 10%.' Your son's verbal abilities are in the top - help me Dottie! - 0.2%, so it isn't a like your kid is '1 in a hundred' is is that he's rarer than that!

Also - getting a school to do 'differentiation and enrichment - to the extent needed' isn't easy, although many of us have achieved it. I think that if done right, a lot of kids with much scores could really enjoy school with differentiation and enrichment - especially subject acceleration.

Remember that your child is really young, and some key 'personality factors' aren't clear yet. The most important data in all of this - to me- is that his current preschool isn't working for him socially even though you have a preschool teacher who knows what Davidson is.

This is key, because MOST preschool teachers have no idea what Davidson is, haven't ever heard of it. This suggests 2 possibilities:
1) You live in a neighborhood where unusually gifted kids aren't so unusual. This is very good news.
2) She has some personal reason to know what Davidson is, and she is 'hinting' that she has vital secret information to share with you if you would like to receive it. Sort of an underground railroad of 'family to family' support.

So go back and ask her about how she has heard of Davidson and ask her to share whatever stories are rattling around in her head about 'gifted.'


Your son's scores are very very close to DYS cutoffs, and remember that 2/3rd of kids in the program are bunched up around the cutoff line - it's because of the shape of the tail. Nowadays the tail is broken off just a bit to the right of your son's scores because the test-makers have acknowledged that they can't really measure differences well up where the air is so thin, and just created a 'hard stop' at 160. But the bottom line is that if you son was invited to a birthday party of a child to happened to have invited all DYS kids, he would have a wonderful time, and you'd be in tears to see him acting so 'normal' among other 'just like him' kids.

And the best news is regardless of the vagaries of 3 points on the Verbal scale, there is a Hoagie's list of conferences that are open to whoever wants to go!

Love and More Love,
Grinity