Our 4.5 yo recently got this test administered as part of private school application, and I am trying to interpret the results. We are newly learning about giftedness, though we have seen signs, which we chose to 'ignore' just because we didn't want to assume anything.

I am not quite sure what our action items are right now. Also, we were advised to try with WISC-IV when he is six, so that he can get credits for the area where he hit the ceiling on wppsi-iv, and potentially apply for DYS. Is WISC-IV the right test to take then?

Thank you!

What score did he need to get into the school?

136 is one of the highr scores I've seen on the wppsi4, it is very new and seems to be producing both lower and more varied responses than previous versions.

It's probably worth checking his eyes as recommended, but also keep in mind that he's FOUR... At that age asynchrony is very normal and can be significant...

Processing speed is often a lower score for gifted kids and can depress the overall score. That's why the GAI can also be used for the WISC-IV (it eliminates that effect and is accepted for DYS). It isn't uncommon at all to have a lower score in that area.

http://pearsonassessmentsupport.com/support/index.php?View=file&EntryID=353

My apologies to the original poster. I have been having computer glitches and some funky things have been happening. I edited out my previous post because it was in response to a different thread.

The variations aren't really so huge except for the one low subtest in processing speed. At age 4.5, I would expect development to be uneven across the board due to interest and developmental differences independent of ultimate intelligence. My oldest was the only one of my children who really got into 3D jigsaw puzzles and legos at age 3 and 4. For that reason, he really looked advanced in that particular domain because most 3 and 4 years olds have not expanded beyond 2d puzzles. That is not to say that your DS won't remain super advance in the visual-spatial domain or that his IQ won't improve across the board. It is simply rather unreliable at this age - at least that is what I have heard from professionals. It will be much clearer in 4 or 5 years.

Thanks for all the kind responses, it is very educational. I am trying to comprehend it, but it is so much to learn.

I am trying to figure out what to do, because we think we'll need Davidson support. It seems that it might be ok to re-test right away with SB5 test, because the age requirement starts at 2 yo, is that correct? We will have to wait another year and a half for the WISC-IV test. The school director told us he needs to be taught to read differently because he is highly visual spatial.

The site hung when I tried to submit the response below, so this is my second attempt. Also the school we apply to accept both wppsi-iii and wppsi-iv, it is concerning now that I know the scores are not comparable.

Another question, if I may.. This keeps lingering in my mind. Is it real that he is gifted? He is only 4.5, and I heard that children's test results fluctuate. I can't brush off what other parents say about NurtureShock book. We've been told by his preK teachers that he is extremely bright, but he is our first child, so we have no point of comparison.

This is my third attempt to post the response below. Removed because it is repeated.

Thank you. I am open to such idea. I am also pondering whether it is a loop, i.e. he is interested in legos (he is self teaching himself) because his VSI is high, and his VSI is high because he keeps practicing, akin to how some children teach themselves to read.. He was actually tested at 20 months old as part of early start program (he was 2e back then, had since outgrew it with some intervention), and we were told that he was logically very advanced then.

I am still pondering about the re-testing questions, and how to read our results, any insights/advice into this? I don't like exposing him to tests, the kindergarten application process is not fun to go through on its own, but if it gets us some support we can look into it..

To be honest it sounds to me as though you're being wound up by this school director who is saying a few things that don't make sense to me.

Most glaringly, it's nonsense that your DS (necessarily) needs to be taught to read differently because he's highly visual spatial. There was a vogue for analysing children's "learning styles" and claiming that these had straightforward consequences for how they should be taught a few years back, but it's since been debunked, and it was never as simple as the school director suggests anyway. A good teacher will have various tools; he's likely to be more interested in some than others and to get there with some combination of what works for him, but you can't predict what that combination will be from an IQ test (science can't, I mean, and the school director shouldn't make such pronouncements - you and the teacher should feel free to guess what will work best and try that first, but don't be too surprised if the way he learns is different from your guess!).

Secondly, you don't need an explanation for the difference between two subtests in the same index. If they were always close, the test wouldn't need both! If you have other reasons to suspect vision issues - even if you're only spotting them now you think about it - by all means do go to a developmental optometrist and get him checked out. But to suggest someone do so solely on the basis of a discrepancy in an IQ test seems bizarre to me. Maybe he just didn't like that subtest!

Do you like this director's judgement otherwise? Are you sure the school is a good one? The things above are red flags for me, but if everything else was good about the school I'd smile and nod. (Your DS did get into the school, right? You didn't actually say.)

Going on: don't confuse "is he gifted?" and "does he qualify for DYS?". The results you have look pretty squarely gifted, but most gifted children don't qualify for DYS, and their support is not a magic bullet. Some here have found it helpful to have a DYS person talk to a school, more have found DYS a useful way to find peers for social events, but not getting your son into DYS isn't a disaster. And not doing so is reasonably well correlated with not needing the particular support they offer anyway. You don't yet know, at least as far as what you've said goes, whether your DS is going to have trouble at school. He may indeed be in the range 130-140 which (if I remember rightly) is what's sometimes called "optimally gifted" because these children tend to fit in and do well with mainstream education, have little difficulty interacting with most of their age peers, etc., and yet do well. If so, be happy! DYS is trying to help the children for whom those things are not true.

As to the score themselves I'm no expert and as someone else said this is a new test - but I don't think the scores you posted really qualify as "all over the place"; there's some scatter, but you always get that, and he clearly has lower processing speed than the other indices, but that's normal. Did the psychologist express concerns about scatter, or just talk/write through it?

If you choose to retest when he's 6, the WISC-V would be the obvious test to take (the WISC-IV has been replaced). But I'd suggest not deciding that now. Wait and see whether you think then that testing might give you useful information.

Thanks! Actually you raised an interesting point. What do you think about Linda Silverman's research about visual spatially gifted children? Any resources that talk about the debunking? Silverman thinks that the children need to be taught differently to read, and so far her written work seems to make sense. This is actually affecting our school selection and we don't know if it should. Basically the premise is that schools that does a lot of rote memory learning is not going to work. We do have an excellent traditional schools in our area, which we ruled out because of this. There is one school for gifted kids that we ruled out because that is too far from us. That leaves us with two schools for gifted children, that are startups, this is one of the startups, but they both have been started by the people who had worked at that faraway school.

As to the score, we are curious. We have read various sources, including from a psychologist who did cross-test her clients for free, that newly normed tests depress the scores, and the difference in scores against older tests is much more pronounced amongst gifted children who are at the right end of the bell curve (i.e. the diff could be as much as 20 points in the wppsi-iv case mentioned). Also wppsi-iii results seemed higher than wppsi-iv, and I am assuming the same with wisc-iv vs. wisc-v.

Are you sure DYS kids must have social issues? My son prefers older companions on certain things, but he has been ok with his same age peers on other things. I also have worked with extremely gifted adults, but they don't have social issues. I recall reading that social issues do not show unless the IQ is greater than 150, but then again that could be another stereotyping, as it seems that the test scores are sensitive to various things, including ceiling and the age of the test.

I think much of Linda Silverman's work is not really research at all as understood in the scientific community. She typically studies the children who come to her at the GDC. She has such a high profile that those children are unlikely to be representative of any population, even if there were no other problems with her work. Clearly she has a great deal of expertise with gifted children and her opinions are worth listening to, but also, she's heavily invested in the learning styles stuff so it's unsurprising she's slow to drop it in the face of evidence that it's not useful. I'd suggest considering her writings as possible sources of good ideas, but not letting them override your own knowledge of your DS.

Here's a lay summary and link to one debunking article.

I didn't say DYS kids must have social issues! Of course not all do. But DYS exists to help solve problems that profoundly gifted children have, and one common problem is difficulty in relating to age peers because their interests and ways of interacting are very different.

Honestly I think you should relax, pick the school you can most easily see your DS being happy in, and otherwise keep doing what you're doing!

Thanks ColinsMum for the education The school issue is unfortunately not as easy.. They all do marketing And there is no easy way to find out if they walk the talk until we get in, and it is not easy to move, because there are fewer spots if you don't join at K. We are also feeling hard pressed to keep our son challenged, I don't know yet what next to do after this lego spree, so some resources will help.

Coming back to my first post, any other insights into our results? Apart from the scatter (or lack thereof, apart from speed and where he ceilinged), I don't know what each section measures. Our psychologist mentioned he can be retested right away with SB5, that has higher ceiling, so we are pondering about that as well.

I think you're thinking of Hollingworth when you mention that social issues occur over IQ 150 (I think she actually wrote 155). That was based on older ratio IQ tests, which tended to give higher scores than the newer IQ tests. However, the basic point is the same. Kids at the farthest tail of the distribution are more likely to have social challenges than those closer to the middle. On modern IQ tests, it is rare to score over 150 without extended norms.

Some kids who score in the DYS range have social issues, some don't. Different kids are different. Some do fine, others have a lot of trouble fitting in. The chance of the latter gets higher the farther you go from the mean.

It definitely sounds as though your child is gifted, but (as has been said before) he is very young, You would be most likely to get the best, most reliable results if you wait until he is 6 or 7 before testing. You know what he is like and will see quickly how he fits in in school to know if he needs more. It's likely scores will be lower with the WISC-V and it isn't clear yet how that will affect you. If you rush to have him tested with the SB-V, realize that it's quite different and that he may not necessarily get a similar score. The scores are highly correlated, but the tests are designed differently and some children do a little better on one or the other based on their particular strengths (even though the scores are usually similar unless there is a problem like a child who is distracted). The WISC is sometimes not recommended for gifted kids because of the emphasis on processing speed, but that isn't an issue if you can use the GAI instead.

I can't comment on Linda Silverman's work on learning styles because I haven't read it and am completely unfamiliar. I have heard many good things about her advice, so I don't want to discourage you at all. Is this school specifically using her approach, though? I do know that there are many claims made about learning styles that are not supported by empirical evidence. This doesn't necessarily mean they aren't true, but just that there isn't current data to support them. Let me be very clear, though, that I'm not talking about Linda Silverman's work because I'm not familiar with it. My point is that you need to make sure you know exactly what the school is offering to know whether it is likely to be good; just saying that they support different learning styles doesn't mean much. I think most gifted kids wouldn't do well with a lot of rote learning that could become repetitive, not just those with visual-spatial strengths. You need to know how exactly they work with kids with different learning styles and whether it is based on a specific approach (like you mention for Linda Silverman) that you can research in advance and ask others about (and, again, I've heard nothing but good things about her work - but the school may be using a completely different approach to learning styles).

We have had a lot of experience with schools trying to find the right educational environment and my experience is that it is never what you expect based on what they tell you in advance. They want you to choose their school. If you can let you child visit for a few hours or at least observe a little then that may help. If you can't, think over your biggest concerns and diplomatically ask how they handle those issues. Leaving it open ended rather than asking for a specific thing will give you a better idea of how they work. One principal took me to a classroom and just asked a teacher my question so I could hear her unprepared answer; that was fantastic not only because the answer was good but because it showed their confidence that everyone would work with us (and it turned out to be a wonderful school as well). Talk with teachers, not just administrators or admissions officers. Ask if they will let you talk with parents. The single most important thing is flexibility because you don't really know how your child will do in their school until he starts there. You need people who will work with you to come up with good solutions.

You mentioned seeing information from a psychologist who tested kids with two different tests, so I think you mean Deborah Ruf's work. It is very likely that kids will get lower scores on the new tests because that is what generally happens (just look at what happened when the last round of new tests came out). She is using two different tests, though, not older and newer versions of the same test. She is comparing the WPPSI-IV to the SB-V. So it's harder to draw conclusions because the tests are not only different in age, but also different in design.

Anyway, it sounds like your son had very promising scores and like being prepared to work with his school is important. I think you would get much more value out of waiting a little to get a new IQ test, though.

For some reason, the last two posts didn't show up until I submitted mine.

Yes, schools do a lot of marketing. However, the time when you're making the decision is when they are most likely to negotiate. You may want to arrange a meeting, go over concerns to see how they say they would address those concerns, and then write a letter summarizing what was said so you have a record. Like I said before, the biggest thing is to find a school that is flexible. So ask what they do if a child is working ahead in an area, for example. Do they show a willingness to accelerate or differentiate, or do they say, "we have many bright children" or "it's most important for them to learn social skills.?

There is a book by Susan Winebrenner called "Teaching Gifted Studenfs in the Regular Classroom" that may be helpful to get ideas of some of the things that schools may offer.

As far as the actual results, kids do sometimes have profiles like that. I saw an interview once with Nancy Robinson in which she specifically talked about how gifted kids often have very uneven results and how that is very noticeable when testing them. Especially with such a young child, though, it's hard to know if maybe he was less enthusiastic or concentrating less on some sections. The psychologist should be able to help you know if that played a role.

What kind of 2e was he, and what type of intervention did he have? I'm wondering if what you are seeing in the subtest scatter is potentially related.

FWIW, we have a highly visual-spatial child who also was into Legos etc as a young child. He's older now and quite likely headed into engineering (and has more than a few engineers in his family tree). He did learn how to read very differently than schools typically teach reading, but not having a special program aimed at visual-spatial personalities didn't hold him back from learning how to read, it just happened. He didn't start to read until he was around 5, but once he was reading he was quickly well above grade level.

Re the subtest scatter, my ds is 2e and has significant scatter, and he's also had IQ testing repeated several times at this point. Some of the scatter we've seen under VCI and PRI (in the WISC-IV) has seemed very random - it flipped from his first testing at 8 to another round of testing at 11). He has a larger and consistently depressed coding subtest scores, which is related to his 2e challenge. The only advice I can really give you at this point is that any one test is a set of data from one specific point in time. It's possible the scatter means something, and it's possible it's either random or your ds was simply tired or bored or distracted and didn't perform his best during some of the subtests. What you'll need to do as a parent is observe, and when/if you see any challenges in school (or life) see if there is any correlation to what was measured in the subtest scatter. If so, you'll want to follow up with other types of testing to better understand what's going on.

I doubt that lack of "practice" depressed any scores however. Our neuropsych has shown us bits and pieces of the types of questions asked on this type of testing, and it hasn't struck me as the type of thing that exposure or practice would significantly improve scores on. What *might* improve scores is simply being older, more mature, understanding that it was important to do your best, perhaps a good rapport with the tester etc. I personally wouldn't test again until your ds is a little older simply because it's easy to question results when a child is so young.

Hang in there - choosing a school can be challenging, and our experience was it was truly difficult to know how any school would be for any of our kids until they were actually attending the school.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thank you, Polarbear and Apm221, for the education.

Our child had oral sensory issues that were pretty severe. It went away when he was 3, but it was a very gradual process. Today he has some mild sensitivities, such as to smell, clothing tag, shoes, also I have to be careful when trimming his hair. But the extent of today's problem is akin to allergy, we can avoid it by choosing something that he approves, and he complains about them but doesn't have any strong reactions.

Another thing we look for in the schools after we got the result, is what kind of ceiling they have, "in case" our son is highly gifted. We don't want to have to move him if a school can't accommodate acceleration to that extent. One other school for gifted children supports acceleration up to two grade levels up, I think, and I am not sure that is high enough ceiling. I am guessing, I am just not quite sure how to handle the level of precocity that he shows in 3D, and I don't know how that will translate into academic once he starts real schooling. Our current school focuses on SEL and is not very academic.

Thanks also for the comments about testing. I think you are right about the researchers that you mentioned. I also read a forum where some parents had their children recruited for the norming studies, and the results were very different than a previous version (one PG kid did not even score as gifted). I will need to do more reading about this and educate myself more. We are actually not into labeling, but we want to be sure our son will get the kind of support he will need.

When you say they support grade acceleration up to two levels up, what exactly so you mean? Do you mean that they do grade skipping, that they do subject acceleration, or that they provide differentiated work in the classroom? It's very important to find out exactly what they mean. For example, we were told my daughter could have book at her reading level for independent reading. It turned out they didn't allow kids to get books more than one grade above their level because they would "run out of books." It sounds to me as though you're suggesting that they do single subject acceleration. Are you already thinking that he would need to attend classes more than two grade levels ahead or are you thinking of differentiated instruction in his grade? I think you are unlikely to find schools that support more acceleration than that except maybe as differentiation in the classroom. They may sometimes allow more acceleration in special cases, but it's unlikely to be a common policy (except in schools that let kids work at heir own pace).

apm, those are excellent questions, I had not really thought of those differences in acceleration opportunities! One of the schools I look at provide abilities grouping, mixed age instruction. So you might be chronologically grade 1, but sits with grade 6 kids in algebra, and they do it in the same classroom. But I suppose at some point you might hit a ceiling anyway if you are at grade 8 (the top grade at the school) and need to accelerate several years ahead. The other school move the kids around to the classrooms of older kids, but potentially only up to two grade levels.

I don't know yet whether he'll need acceleration, or how much, since we haven't done academics with him yet.

I think it is best if you can get some accommodation in the classroom; I'm sure he will need it. It's worth considering different approaches, though. Mixed age instruction can work well. My daughter is in a mixed age classroom now and it helps. It often takes creativity to work out good solutions, though, unless you are incredibly fortunate in finding an appropriate school. That's why I think it so important to find a school willing to work with you and with a positive attitude towards academic achievement (most schools say they value academic achievement, but it's less common to find schools that really value kids who don't fit easily into a regular classroom and need additional help). We have often felt like fitting in and doing well on the standardized exams was valued more than exceptional achievement.

Right. But unfortunately it seems to me (from talking to many parents) that most private schools seem to want 'easy' children who don't take too much resources from the herd. We hope he will be such a kid, but if he hit some limit, then we might have to step in by volunteering, which we are willing to do if we have the expertise. This is all a bit confusing for me, so many criteria for selection, and in our area private school entrance (esp school for GT) is extremely competitive due to the potentially higher concentration of GT children. Literally, if you leave your spot, five other families will jump in and they are likely to have GT children as well.

I think the schools will want to be chosen by parents of children whom they think fit in their classrooms, on the other hand they have the luxury to choose as well, and their decision is not necessarily by the level of giftedness. OTOH we don't care too much about standardized exams, and it is not hard to find private schools that don't put a lot of emphasis into exam scores.

I am often feeling conflicted with this whole giftedness notions.. We learned from our current school to "respect the child" and on the importance of whole child education, so we had not focused on acceleration opportunities. My husband and I were both in special programs growing up, but mine was not GT program, which was not available where I grew up. I am just starting to grasp the idea that part of respecting the child is to provide acceleration as an option if he wish to pursue it.
I wish we don't have to plan this far ahead for possibilities, unfortunately it does seem necessary.

peanutsmom, something we have had to come to accept is that even a great school is not great for every child. Even a school that is great for a child one year might not be the next. And no you CAN'T know if a school that talks the talk will actually fit your child until you are there (and then remember that thing about some years being great and others being terrible). Basically I've stopped believing I can plan very far in advance. Certainly, I have plans that I hope might work out, but I am very aware that any year could be my kids' last at a particular school. When you are dealing with an unusual child you need to start thinking about "least worst" and "right now", because things change too fast to be sure what will work. I get caught up in every decision feeling so huge and momentous and long reaching in it's consequences, but sometimes you need to step back and realise any school choice can be changed, and it any choice you make might HAVE to be changed, no matter how sound it was at the time you made it... Make the best choice you can for right now and hope it keeps working...

Isn't that the truth.

If life has taught me one thing it is that you need to write your plans out in pencil and have a good eraser.

YES times a million!

My DS is now 7 and has changed so much even over the past year. Last year school was a disaster, this year is is fantastic and the only change is him, the teacher and a few classmates (he's still in the same school). I have no idea what next year will bring but we'll deal with it as it comes. DS is very introverted and resistant to change but as he's maturing even that is becoming less of an obstacle.

He has 4 SD spread between the WISC-IV categories, scatter and asynchrony is our normal Try to find the best fit for the present and your best guess at the future but don't be shocked if that path changes.

Thanks to you all for sharing the wisdom of parenthood your GT children. We are still new to this and this is our first child, so we have a lot to learn..

One of the asynchrony that doesn't show in our score is where he hit the ceiling by a good margin.. He is really advanced in building.. He just asked to go to a lego bootcamp, and I shopped around. All the bootcamps I found in our area are organized by age ranges, and his skills are beyond the age ranges where he will be slotted How do you all manage with after school extra curriculars?

My son is 11, and was a lego guy, too. He could do any set by age 5. Since he's my oldest, I thought every kid could, too.

My advice to you, is to just find a school you like for him, with parents you like, with a flexible administration. And then just sit tight and let them do their jobs. If it doesn't work in a year or two, and after you've worked with the school, you can make a change. He's only 4!

In the meantime, I would keep buying him sets until he's old enough for a Mind Storm. (My son got one at 7.) Look around for a Jr. Lego League. It shows them how to build things from scratch-- plus how to add movement. They start in K. First Lego League (starts in 4th grade, I think) was started by Dean Kamen, a great american inventor who created the Segue, among other inventions. There's something called i-camp your son will be able to do in a couple of years (it's combined ages 2nd- 7th, I think). When my son was going into 3rd grade, he was asked to come to icamp as a "Lego Master" and teach the other kids how to build the cool things he was building. He got to go every day for free-- if he'd teach kids whatever they wanted to build. He loved it that summer. (But he was over it all by the next summer.) Also, look at other building and creative sets. My son liked those complicated Knex marble runs, electric Knex, and many Maker projects. We did lots of building with real tools, too.

As for learning to read in a different way-- mmmm. I'm not so sure about that. I think that unless you think he has a learning issue, he'll learn to read and just take off without any special methods in the next year. Get him some lego building books and help him figure out how to read those. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

At his age, I don't see why you'd need to do additional testing. If I were you, I'd wait a few years and see how's he's doing. If there are strange quirks in his learning, additional testing will help figure it out. The most important thing I've found is a flexible school administration and teachers who don't feel like they have all the answers, but are willing to learn.

Have fun!

For extracurriculars so far we've done sports (right now it is hockey) and Beavers. He is very average at most sports so it has been a huge learning experience for our DS to actually have to learn and practice something and we often use it to help him empathize with his classmates that struggle with things that he finds very easy. Where we live 95% of the boys (and a few of the girls) at that age play hockey so it gives them something in common especially since none of the other kids we know are going to discuss astrophysics or Fibonacci numbers with him. DH and I are both engineers so building, playing and reading about science/math are as fun for us as they are for the kids and we do a lot of it at home. Most of the cool camps/clubs tend to have much higher ages so we haven't had much choice anyway.

Lego Mindstorms has been a huge hit with both DS7 and DD5. We've spent many hours building and programming various things.

Thanks syoblrig and chay for the kind responses! It is immensely helpful to hear from other parents whose children are gifted in the same area. I stumbled upon online info that VS giftedness is related to talents in engineering and math, and that totally explains it to me. He is also our first, so we had assumed that all kids could build the way he does. Also we didn't give him large sets until we got wppsi-iv result, so we were surprised as well with the extent of his abilities and perseverance.

I don't know what kind of information re-testing might give us, but I am mostly interested in parenting help, extra curricular resources, and DYS support.At our companies we have a lot of geeks, so they are always talking about the coolest geeky toys etc, and I can tag along there. But I think what is missing right now is a close friend with building abilities close to his, and also programs that let him participate at his abilities level (instead of age). Oh, and also while we are qualified to work with him on his interests, I am often ready to drop when I get back from work.

Processing speed sounds like it would be processing speed, such as how fast one can mentally assess or manipulate concepts or information. That is difficult to measure. The subtests on the wppsi and wisc that feed into the processing speed index can not measure the mental component alone, they necessarily also measure how fast the child is visually able to input information including how well they can keep their place on a page, their attention span, how well they listened to the instructions that were given them, how fast they can manipulate a pencil, how much they like to check their own work, how much of a perfectionist they are, etc. Those are timed subtests and some friendly kids may be too chatty to use their time effectively. Others may feel distractedly anxious knowing they are being timed. Those subtests also to me appear to favor a quick and dirty get the job done approach, versus detail oriented careful work. For example in one of the processing speed subtests on the test my son took they are to draw some simple shapes, a child who likes all their circles to look very round might end up much slower than another who is content with anything that remotely resembles an oval.

It's apparently very normal for a child who is otherwise very gifted to be more average in processing speed. They do say that when there are standard deviations between one or more other indexes and the "processing" speed, that the child may not appear to teachers or strangers to be as gifted as they seem at home. And it can be a bottleneck that frustrates the child internally too. This is absolutely true for my son who's processing speed index is 50 or more points lower than his other indexes. So that's something to watch out for.

Yes and then some. On the WISC-IV we had subtest scores range from 2% to 99.6%. His overall processesing speed was 9%. In our case it explained a lot of the issues he was having at school which led to us to testing (in our case these became more obvious in grade one with the increased writing expectations which for our DS are a challenge).

I'm far from an expert but to me it makes sense that low processing speed could result in a slow talker. My DS was speech delayed (at 2.25 he had about 5 words and that was 9 months into speech therapy). By 3 he had caught up to his peers and he graduated from the speech therapy program. In our case he isn't a slow talker but he does take time before he starts speaking. If you rapid fire questions at him it is a disaster because he is working on his first response by the time you've asked the third. He asks a million questions and then hours later returns with follow up questions after he's processed everything and developed his new theory that he then has to grill us on.

For parenting help I've used this board, another more local board, books, the Hoagies website and other parents (I work with a lot of very smart people who it turns out have very smart kids).

Extra-curricular - as mentioned above we've mostly focused on sports but others use music or drama in a similar way. At home we do a lot based more on his strengths (google and youtube are amazing resources).

DYS - I'm in Canada so we can't apply. Hopefully others will be able to help with that.

We can't find kids with similar building abilities (or interests) so we look for other commonalities instead. At that age it is exhausting but for us it has become easier as he's getting older and is able to get information on his own rather than relying on us for everything.

This has been extremely true for us as well. Many teachers were focused on how slow he was doing tasks and while some realized that by talking to him you could see the gifted side many were just frustrated by the fact that he wouldn't complete any of the work they were trying to get him to do. DS was also incredibly frustrated at school. He knew he was very smart (not from us telling him but he just figured it out) and couldn't understand why all of the other kids were having an easier time writing when it was so hard for him. In some ways I think it challenged his view of himself. When we got the results back we told him that he was very smart at some things but that things like writing were going to be challenging. He actually looked relieved.

Wow that's interesting scatter and insight! We also had low processing index in one subtest (like under 20%) and the tester said she thought he was distracted, but the admission director thought it was eye scanning issue - hence the recos to see developmental ophthalmologist.


Our DS was not speech delayed, but he was quiet for a while, and then he had two looooong stuttering periods. Our teachers believed that he was thinking faster than he could express, hence the stuttering. Our current teachers are VERY positive people who thoroughly respect the children, so I dread graduating from our pre-K into the unknown world.. He still talks slowly now, last week he was bullied by a friend (a clothing article removed from his body and hidden), he tried to provide long explanations to friend why the friend should stop, but friend didn't listen. Teacher said he needed to learn to say the short "No" to get immediate action, since friend didn't have the patience to listen. He's been picked on by this same kid for 1.5 years, and every time this happens, he melts down when he gets home, making me feel sad that school can be so stressful


Thank you! I need to check Hoagies more thoroughly, so far I've been just browsing lightly. Also I haven't read any books on giftedness, resources, etc. DS also does soccer and gymnastic, for which he is average, but he thinks these are fun. I also work with a lot of very smart people, and I think they have very smart kids. We have online discussion forums for parents at work. I have been passively reading the discussions, because it is not anon, and I am not comfortable to come out and discuss the age and milestones of my son, which they do when asking for activity/material suggestions.. Most or all of our classroom parents are also in the forum..


Oh that is good to know. Today, when our DS gets home from school, and we from work, we are ready to wind down, while he is just starting to get excited with his projects! It will be great to get to a point when he'll be more independent about getting information. I guess being able to read might help..

We talked to our psychologist, and she said that Davidson's requirement for PIQ in wppsi-iv can't be satisfied because PIQ has been discontinued in wppsi-iv. She thinks that if/when we know the scores from the extended norms, he will not need to re-test, as it will bump his whole VSI above Davidson's requirement. I am willing to re-test if needed for DYS, but would very much like to avoid further exposing him to more testing if possible.

Hi peanutsmum. We have been where you are in many ways. Our DD was tested on the SB V but similar to you, high VS, off the charts fluid reasoning and quantitative reasoning. SB V doesn't have processing speed as such, no real reliance on timed items so its good for reflective thinkers and may yield high scores for your child if high scores are what you need. It may also give some different information if you are thinking about retesting. DD said it was fun, with the right tester.
Regarding VS and Linda Silverman. I read her book after getting the test scores and thought, yep that is very much like our DD. I haven't been fussed over learning styles as it wasn't really an issue until now. DD read early by whole word recognition and then watched a Sesame St video on blending sounds over and over. Then she could read anything! Now, she is struggling with the amount of reading she has to do. She is a slow reader and she says it is because she uses every word to create a movie in her head. We have returned to LS's work, I have her book beside me, looking for ways to help. By the way, DD hated math, was bored rigid by rote learning especially multiplication tables, until she hit algebra. She is now accelerated by three grades in maths. She still is no where near as good with math calculation, thank goodness for calculators, as she is at math reasoning. We used musical multiplication tables as an adjustment to her 'learning style' in that sense.
I am very much research trained but I also know that in both medicine and psychology there are unique situations where all the information you have apart, from your own patient, is case reports and other people's experience. I use whatever information I can but evaluate it for the situation I have at hand. Case reports and anecdotal evidence are what we come to this site to talk about, our unique kids. Where we can we draw on research and evidence we do, but the more unique the situation, the less likely there is much research available.
Learning styles are controversial but finding different ways to support your child's learning is what you will do. Finding a school who understands your child and you and is willing to work with you trumps any kind of gifted program in my opinion. Go with that if you can find it but it is really hard. You may need to change schools as your child grows and changes and that is okay too. Our DD changed schools 5 times in primary school, military family! She is reserved but she coped. Some schools were better than others. The best was a public school which understood accelerated learning.
We tried lateral extension into music, ballet and languages when school was not enough to meet her educational needs but it doesn't replace an appropriate level of education. As much as she enjoyed the other activities the classroom was still painful.
On the social side, DD gets on best with anyone, adult or child, who likes and accepts her and with whom she can find common ground. Lots of the kids are HG but one was delayed academically. She was just a really nice person!
I hear your doubts about whether your child is gifted. I still wonder that despite the evidence to the contrary, especially as I fight my way through her cluttered bedroom or she fails to complete a two stage instruction. Then I start worrying about whether she is 2e! But VS kids are messy and don't always hear you too!

I think the gifted director is trying to read way too much into it. I'm also biased against testing kids who are so young because at that age IQ testing is very unreliable and not stable. It is not stable until mid to late elementary school. So if you test him again in 3 or 4 years his IQ could be 20 points lower or 20 points higher. That is what happened with my DS. He was tested at 3.5 because of developmental delays and his GAI was 106. He was tested again right after a traumatic brain injury at age 6 and his GAI was 133. Everything shifted up about 25 points. On both tests there was a large gap between verbal and non-verbal but neither psych seemed too concerned about it. There were also large variations between sub-tests. On the latest test he scored 18-19 on matrix reasoning and picture concepts and 13 on block design, because it is timed and his fine motor skills are very poor due to developmental coordination disorder.
If your DS was much higher with the block design section than other sections it is probably because he plays with legos a lot and has "practice" compared to other kids who do not. He probably also does have talent in that area and that is why he is interested, but his score may be inflated. My DS did really well on the object assembly section at age 3 because he did a lot of puzzles at that age. Kids who practice puzzles at home will find it easier to do as part of IQ testing. IQ scores can vary depending on how much exposure a person gets. Kids who score high in vocabulary, for instance, are more likely to have well-educated parents who talk and read to them a lot. This probably starts to even out later on since all kids will be exposed to similar vocabulary at school.
If you really want to know his true IQ, I would wait at least 2-3 more years, and then re-test. Even then it may not be fully accurate.
I would not worry too much about visual tracking unless you have some other reason to believe it is a problem.

I see your comment about re-testing early, I think you have a point. Only time will tell. But isn't it the case with many DYS kids? I am suspecting he is following the path of my husband though. But as parents we feel cautious and don't want to over estimate our son's potentials, hence the doubts. But then if he is, then we want to know how to deal with it.

What about those kids who read complicated books early, does it even out at the end? I am truly curious.

Anyway I think we are going round and round And the consensus is to re-test later, which sounds like a wise thing to do. We also might try to work on DYS application earlier, since I think only good things can come out of it if we are accepted. The Christmas experience made us feel like it is the right thing to do.

My two have not evened out (yet) but that could be because they do really have gifted IQs (as much as you can tell in a 6 and 8 year old). DD started kindergarten with reading fluency well above the 99th percentile and she is still above the 99th percentile 2.5 years later. She reads a few grade levels ahead (she's 8 reading around a 6th-7th grade level). DS hasn't shown any sign of slowing down either. He has always been extremely good at decoding using phonics (started around his 4th birthday--I didn't try before that). I think he started to read shortly after his 106 GAI was calculated at age 3. I thought that was a little weird that he was reading well at age 4 with a solidly average IQ, although I also knew that he also wasn't particularly cooperative with the testing and it probably wasn't an accurate score.

Some kids enter kindergarten reading but are not gifted--they are probably somewhat bright but also have parents who work with them a lot. Those are the kids who probably "even out" within a couple years.

Anyway, I wouldn't over-analyze the scores too much at this point. His score is probably high enough that it's not going to fall out of the gifted range, but whether he's going to be a DYS scholar, it's too early to tell (IMO).

Blackcat, at your kids age, I think you can safely say they are DYS scholars, if they are already I think the IQs are somewhat stable at that point?

My DS has been always like this since he was 2, so it has been three years. His advanced logical abilities was also diagnosed at 20 months old via another test. But we will keep watching his development with interest! Only time will tell..

I don't think IQ is that stable in a 6 year old but probably an 8 year old (assuming they do their best on the test). The IQ scores of young children depend so much on what they are exposed to, it's pretty pointless to even test them unless some sort of problem is suspected.
Honestly, I don't really care about DYS. My older one has the IQ scores for DYS (her GAI and perceptual reasoning are both above the cut-off), but we don't have achievement testing and it seems like too much of a hassle/expense to bother with it. My youngest has the achievement test scores (Woodcock Johnson). He was given the WJ by his school as part of his IEP eval. Broad Math is at 155 but his IQ is a couple points off because of the 13 on block design. He shouldn't have been given that subtest because of his fine motor issues. But we weren't testing him to see if he was gifted, we were testing him because of developmental delays and a skull fracture/brain injury. So it made sense to do that subtest in that particular situation. His fine motor was especially bad after he was in the accident. If at some point we are in need of whatever services they provide I will look into it more. The school district probably couldn't care less what DYS has to say so I'm not convinced there would be much benefit.

I have read her book and the psych who assessed DD called her a "VSL". DD learned to read very easily, probably a combination of phonics and learning whole words. She was reading very well by the time she started kindergarten. She listened a lot to audiobooks while following along with the print. DS is also a "VSL" and is extremely good at decoding. He can read words that he's never seen or heard before. If i gave him a college level textbook, he'd be able to read it fairly well. Probably not understand what it says, but read it. I don't think "VSL's" learn to read differently unless there is some sort of disorder involved, like dyslexia (which may or may not be more common in VSL's). I think Silverman has some interesting insights but they are not backed up by research. I definitely would not choose a school based on whether you think he is a VSL or not.

Blackcat,

How did you teach your children to read? Or if they self learned, how did they teach themselves? I am not keen in spending the time teaching my son to read early, but I am just curious. We have nothing at our home that he can use to teach to read, no audio books, never watching teach-yourself-to-read programs, no phonics, nothing. I am actually not worried about it, because I think if he is that bright, once he is introduced to reading materials, he should take off easily. My DH is a big reader (we have literally thousands of books in our home library, with comprehensive online cataloguing!), and he knows what books he still doesn't have.. He didn't go to K already reading, but was reading Lord of the Ring by 3rd grade.

They learned basic phonics like letter sounds from preschool and Leapfrog type toys. So by the time they turned 3 they knew all the letters/letter sounds. We worked on rhyming words a little bit and so did preschool. What words rhyme with cat? man? They both understood that at age 3. I have heard it said that the kids who can rhyme early are the ones who read early. Rhyme at 3, read by 4. From there, they were ready to learn to blend sounds. Around their fourth birthday I wrote words on a piece of paper, like "man" to see if they could sound it out or even understood that concept. They both understood. Our public library has some of the BOB books on audio. DD was fascinated and listened to the first set by herself in her room. She has a CD player in there. I bought her another set or two, and she worked on those (she read them to me), then she was ready to tackle more advanced readers, like Henry and Mudge or Dr. Seuss books. She loved the challenge of it and I wasn't going to hold her back. I checked out some other audio books from the library, like easy chapter books, and she listened to them while following along in the book.

DS on the other hand had a bit of an attitude problem, but he is clearly the superior one with decoding. He could also blend and sound out around his fourth birthday but clearly couldn't care less. I printed out a list of Dolch sight words and was shocked that he could read almost all of them through the third grade level because I had never tried to teach him any sight words. I got out the couple sets of BOB books that DD had used 16 months earlier (they are 16 months apart in age) and he could easily read those to me. After a set or two of BOB books I moved onto some of the PD Eastman or Dr. Seuss books. He read to me maybe a couple times per month. I did not want to push him more than that because it wasn't worth battling him. He just kind of magically absorbed the reading process and moved up a level every single time he read something. His K teacher had him reading chapter books like "The Mouse and the Motorcycle". Not sure how she got him to do that. He is starting to get more interested in reading now that he is in first grade and does it for about a half hour a day without my nagging.

I should also add that DS was the poster child for eye abnormalities when he was last given the WISC. When he had the TBI, the sixth cranial nerve was paralyzed and his right eye was stuck and wouldn't move for several months. So he had severe double vision whenever he didn't have an eye patch. Shortly before he did the WISC we had stopped the patching but his eyes still weren't completely aligned and he couldn't track his eye all the way to the right. Even now a year later he still can't track his eyes on command. If you put a pencil in front of his face and move it slowly back and forth and tell him to watch it, one eye will go one way and the other will go the other way.
He did fine on the WISC though other than block design. 18 on Matrix Reasoning and 19 on Picture Concepts. So I have a hard time believing it when docs claim that subtest scatter may be due to vision issues. He also did fine on a visual perception test over the summer and scored overall like a 10 year old

I see. Thank you so much for sharing, Blackcat! This is going to be a long road of learning for me. We are not really doing academic stuff at home. His preschool is play based and works on SEL a lot, but not very academic either. If he is indeed extremely bright like DH, then this will explain why he doesn't read yet. They did work on rhyming at school at around age 3-4, and DS did great, and then they worked on writing the name, etc. But not much nor extensive work for teaching reading. But he has really great SEL progress, and he is also great at gross and fine motor skills and sensory - the school works on all these which I think is a great foundation, I agree with their priorities, esp as DS used to have sensory over excitabilities.

I just found a coworker who has a similar child, similar milestones. I work at an unusual place with this kind of talent concentration.

I bought him a 100 pcs puzzles this weekend.. The most complex one he's done so far is 24 pcs (I haven't bought new puzzles for a while since he wasn't interested for so long). He completed it independently in reasonable time, as long as we sit with him and make sure he doesn't run away to his legos Yet another step function.. So it seems to be a matter of interest instead of eyes issues, and someone was right when telling me that maybe he just didn't like it. Nevertheless, I don't feel like forcing it to him to practice more with puzzles, if he doesn't like it, then he can catch up with fluid reasoning at some other time.

We also don't want to change our education and parenting philosophy. We believe in real world experiences and love getting him to use his hands a lot; and that's the kind of schools we are looking at for K and elementary as well. We know with this path he is likely to be a later bloomer in academic, but we are ok with that, there are many years ahead of him.

I am just thinking out aloud here, but thanks everyone for the support, sharing and everything really! I have learned a lot from you all and hope to continue to do so

So, I talked to Davidson's consultant, and we decided to not apply at this time, and wait until we are ready to get him into academics. The application has requirements in academics, as in more formal academics than we would like him to do at this point. Our school does not emphasize academics at this point, and we do not want to emphasize academics at home either, and the K-8 schools in our top list are all play based as well. We will have to look at support elsewhere in the meantime, probably from the parenting lists at our workplace. It might take a few years before we will look into Davidson again, if he is truly highly gifted, as we don't want to change our parenting and schooling philosophy in order to accelerate, but that might be time well spent as well to get to know him better. We hope to find support in this forum too from other parents who also do a lot of hands on projects with the children.