I wonder if anyone else has ever had this experience - I'm starting to feel like I have a sixth sense about identifying gifted kids. It's getting kind of ridiculous. In observing other kids, sometimes only for five minutes, I've asked their parents if their child was gifted, and I haven't been wrong yet. It has now happened 5 times. This evening, I asked the mother of a new friend of DS6 if her son is gifted, and she said that they haven't had him tested yet but they've had strong suspicions since he was two years old. I'm so happy that they're becoming friends, because they're so alike!

Are they so easy to identify? And if so, how is it that teachers miss them so frequently? I have an utter fascination with these kids, so maybe I'm looking for it. Dunno, but I find it all so interesting.

I and both my parents all do so rather frequently, but my parents raised multiple HG+ offspring, and I assess professionally...

I think the issue is that teachers often believe that high IQ means high school performance and/or that all gifted kids have to be social misfits. Kids that aren't whizzing through the assigned worksheets with ease and enthusiasm can't possibly be gifted. Kids that are able to blend in with their peers socially probably aren't gifted because they aren't geeky/weird/whatever enough.

I'm pretty good at picking out kids like DS who scream gifted from their core but I still managed to be a bit blindsided when we got DD's scores. I'm also a lot more timid after being pretty far off on one kid, I still think he's 2e but recent testing says otherwise. The parents are in total denial about the LD's and commenting that I suspect the WISC scores were an underestimate isn't going to improve anything. Guess I just need to accept that I'm not perfect

chay, I think you're absolutely right about teachers looking for a child that fits academically into that mold. I often wonder if my daughter would have been identified earlier if she had a gifted education teacher for a homeroom teacher like she did last year. I'm still chomping at the bit about whether or not my DS is 2e but he flies between acting like a 2 year old and coming out with things astonishingly mature so often I can't tell!

And leaders. They have to have leadership skills. Not so true.

I used to teach children with ASD before kids and then I have a child with ASD. I feel like I can spot ASD a mile away. Gifted not as much.

I seem to be able to do this too. And I can do something similar with homeschooled kids.

After a few consultations with lists of gifted behaviors and characteristics, observant individuals can often spot certain "tells"... which hopefully would lead to testing to confirm giftedness.

While many people may be quite good at unofficially recognizing signs of giftedness, it takes an experienced professional to tease out characteristics that may mask giftedness, or learning disabilities which may make a student twice-exceptional... such as ADD/ADHD and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

When unofficially recognizing gifted children by their traits, one may also wish to be cognizant of "false negatives"... the children who are gifted but not recognized as such by a casual observer.

Here's a roundup of lists of behavioral characteristics:
- Characteristics of intellectually advanced young people
- NAGC's list borrowed from the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children,
((The first item on the NAGC list of Common Characteristics of Gifted Individuals is: Unusual alertness, even in infancy)).
- Characteristics and Behaviors of the Gifted
- Characteristics checklist for gifted children (Austega list, from WayBack Machine, internet archive)
-Tips for Parents: Helping Parents Understand Their Profoundly Gifted Children
- Profiles of the gifted and talented which lists 6 different types, categorized by personality/temperament and achievement.

I recognize that I'm a total dilettante when it comes to this, but I just find GC so fascinating.

And ultimately, the first hint for me is usually a certain special "otherness" to these kids - how a first grader enthusiastically discusses the digestive system, or a kindergartener who wants to devour a non-fiction book for middle grade kids, or a 4 or 5 year old child whose drawings of a ship also include solar panels and satellites and a supply of food, or a 4 year old who corrects your grammar, and so forth.

Of course, these are just wild guesses and they are meant for nothing more than my own personal amusement. The most I would do is ask the parent if they have questioned whether giftedness might be a possibility. So far, the children have all been identified already or will be tested in the near future.

I just think it's unusual. It seems to me that teachers could easily identify potential candidates for testing if they were a bit more attuned to the child as opposed to only considering the child's results in school.

Yes, it is fascinating... have you seen some of the brain research?

Seeing the child in context... it gets complicated... for example...

"how a first grader enthusiastically discusses the digestive system"... unless that gifted child comes from a home with parents who did not complete school (often due to an undiagnosed LD), and may know nothing of nutrition or digestion and therefore be unable to answer their child's many questions... in which case the gifted child may not have acquired the knowledge base to speak on this topic.

"a kindergartener who wants to devour a non-fiction book for middle grade kids"... unless that gifted child comes from a home where books are not often read, and trip to the library is not a familiar event... in which case the gifted child may seek a pastime other than reading.

"a 4 or 5 year old child whose drawings of a ship also include solar panels and satellites and a supply of food"... unless that gifted child does not have paper available to draw on, has not been on trips to the grocery store, seen a well-stocked pantry or a full refrigerator... in which case the child may build "ships" or other imaginary play spaces from objects found around the home such as blankets and pillows.

"or a 4 year old who corrects your grammar"... unless the parents speak only a language other than English (for example: other World Language, broken English, Eubonics, or slang) so the child is not exposed to a large vocabulary, usage, or nuance... in which case the child may believe you are talking high-falutin to be intimidating or prevent him/her from understanding something.

This is another dilemma of screening or identification by observation: children do not necessarily have commonality of experience, therefore may present their gifted/advanced brain differently. The work of Ruby K. Payne includes identification of children in poverty. It is possible that children from families with middle-class financial resources may be similarly "deprived"... if parental attention must be focused on a particular sibling, on a parent's career, or an unstable parental relationship (such as illness, death, divorce, etc).

A gifted child from a deprived background may have a lot of catching up to do, in order to develop a similar knowledge base as compared with that of his/her classmates. As that child's background may include continued deprivation, that child's achievements may look quite different than other gifted children from families having greater finances and/or more parental support/encouragement. When these factors are not fully considered, level of gifted (LOG) may be conflated with socioeconomic status (SES).

ETA: That reminds me of an old post.

I agree that all of that is a huge issue but I think what RRD is getting at is that teachers aren't even identifying the ones that are doing those things. Given that, there is no hope that they are going to figure out the less obvious ones that you bring up.

In our limited experience the teachers were the last ones to figure it out. We had several hockey coaches and other parents make comments but never a teacher. I had kids come up to me and tell me all about how smart DS was. Meanwhile the teachers complained about him constantly and he had barely passing marks. We had MANY discussions with them about his behavior but the g word was never brought up. They pushed for us to test for ADHD and looked STUNNED when we brought back a 14 page psych report with gifted/LD instead. This is a kid that grocery store clerks have commented on. You can't find it if you don't look and in the schools we've dealt with so far this isn't on their radar.

Your experience is not unusual. On one hand, teachers may be "too busy" due to the common practice of placing students with a broad range of abilities in a classroom.

On the other hand, is it possible that there is a vast difference in your child's attending to things which interest him (as seen in his interactions in daily life outside of the classroom... chats in the grocery store... functioning on sports team, etc) and attending to tasks which he is required to do on demand in the classroom?

aeh made such a good point in this recent post.

When attending to high-interest topics his gifts may shine, but when required to shift to and focus on low-interest topics... possibly a difficulty with regulating attention masks his gifts?

That being said, I'm glad you had him tested and have results which may help you understand, raise, and advocate for your child.

There is another reason that most educators and administrators that I have dealt with pretend that my child is not gifted enough (even though I have the numbers to show them) - it is because they do not want other kids (and their competitive parents) to find out that one kid got "special treatment" in class while their kid did not get to do the fun work that the other kid did. This is a true story that happened in our case.

Yes, I've heard schools use that approach. While this may have been an old example which you gave and not a current advocacy opportunity... I'll share this advocacy tip in case it may be of help. No guarantees that it will work... but it often does.

Yes chay, that's exactly the point I was making.

Though to your (excellent) points indigo, I still think it should be easy enough to notice something unusual about those kids too, as long as one looks carefully enough. They may not develop as quickly or as well as children from more affluent and/or educated families, but the spark is still there and may still shine through, as long as you have an idea of what it might look like. I'd argue that it might be just as easy to identify a child who uses her imagination to create an elaborate world of her own, or a child who can outsmart her parents when she's three years old, as long as you pay attention.

That said, I certainly think it is a tragedy for any child to be left behind, gifted or not. Imagine what a world it would be if every single individual on the planet could reach their full potential!

The following is a completely irrelevant and personal segue but I finished before I realized:

I might point out that I was one of the lucky ones. Neither of my parents finished high school, they never once brought a book into our household (until my mother started reading the odd romance novel by the time I was in my teens), and they never once checked to see if we had done our homework (let alone reviewing it with us). And that was far from unusual in our blue collar small town.

Yet somehow, I managed to find my happy little place in the world by reading every book I could get my hands on (though it was mostly Archie comic books at the time!), hiding my marks from my friends (so they wouldn't think I was a "nerd"), and just cruising along with other interests (friends, parties, sports and boys). Once I got to university, I learned to study, got top marks, and went along my merry way. Though I can't imagine how differently it might have turned out if I'd had a LD, or motivation problem, or whatever.

By comparison, our boys are being raised in a very enriched environment. Our house is full of books, we are constantly exploring the world (whether through travel or with a nature kit around the neighborhood), and we want to impart as much knowledge as we possibly can to them. We also expose them to music, theatre, sports, etc. Gifted or not, they'll get all the enrichment we can provide for them.

And quite frankly, I don't care how well they "succeed" in life. I just want them to have a thirst for knowledge and be happy (in whichever way they define happiness for themselves). Though I must admit that I am secretly very pleased that both of them have expressed an interest in science!

Agreed.

Agreed. There are so many factors to tease out: nature... nurture...

Thank you for sharing a bit if your lived experience and success story. There is a saying that the apple does not fall far from the tree... possibly your parents inspired you to follow your dreams or instilled a strong work ethic or an internal motivation to maximize any opportunities which may be available.

Yes, I've had this experience, and my DD10 used to be like a magnet for identifying gifted kids. I don't know how she did it, because she is on the spectrum and generally crummy at noticing much about other people. But in any given environment, she somehow ends up buddying up with the most gifted kids around. (For example her boy best friend who she met on the first day of K--turns out to test HG+ also a couple years later. Which in hindsight sort of explains a lot about my interaction with her teachers that year.)

I think it has to do with intimate familiarity with a gifted child (and likely other gifted children in the family, or close friends). Teachers do not get this sort of ever day on-the-ground experience.

I am starting to think that it's the OEs that I recognize first because I feel them so intensely myself.

In any case, I had the joy of coming across "Elsa" again today. Turns out, she now attends the same daycare as our kids. Happy to report that Elsa was just as magical as she was the first time I met her. Funny that she's adapted her personal introduction by using her name in combination with Elsa, presumably to make it more acceptable to adults.