My daughter had a full evaluation done by a local psychologist who is not a gifted specialist. The recommendations in the report were very generic. Has anyone used Gifted Development Center, or a similar organization? Bonus points if you used their services remotely.

What's the process like? What kinds of recommendations do they give? Was it worth it?

We used one of the psychologists on the Hoagies Gifted page.

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/psychologists.htm

We did an initial meeting with me and my spouse, then WPPSI-IV testing on a different day, and then a follow up meeting to go over results (including school recommendations). It was very helpful.

Was your local psychologist a neuropsychologist evaluation or testing for gifted only? Were tests included in addition to ability and achievement testing? I think it must have been a more global eval based on your other post with diagnoses.

We considered having our 2e ds evaluated by either GDC or another professional with experience with gifted children after his initial diagnosis by a neuropsych, and we did talk to the GDC staff via email about our ds, but ultimately decided not to pursue an evaluation that far away from home. After thinking through everything, we didn't feel that it would add any signficant knowledge that we didn't already have, and wasn't worth the $... but that was just for our one specific child. I also felt that it was easy to predict some of what the GDC would say based on material available online and in the book that LS wrote.

You mention your local psychologist gave only generic recommendations - have you tried to put the recommendations in place and how did it work out? We also have a relatively "short" report from our neuropsych eval compared to what I've read others have on this forum, and the recommendations are fairly generic for the challenges our ds has... but otoh... they were great recommendations and were quite likely what any other psych would have recommended.

We also found that investing our eval $ locally was helpful in that our psychologists had knowledge of our local schools - while a psychologist elsewhere might be able to give general recommendations about the type of learning environment that might be best for a specific child, they don't have local knowledge such as how individual schools actually function (vs how they are advertised) or attitude of staff to accommodations etc. We also found that our school district personnel were much more willing to accept recommendations by local psychologists than they would have been willing to accept a diagnosis from out-of-state that had the appearance we'd "shopped" for it.

Hope that doesn't sound discouraging - it's not meant to be!

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - we would have considered one of the pyschs on the Hoagies list, but there weren't any listed in our area.

I'm interested in this thread because we are considering having DS5 with DCD tested next year, and are considering traveling for it. There is a Hoagies listed tester in my area but I have trepidation about it because (1) the wording on their website makes me viscerally uncomfortable, as it seems to emphasize grades and test scores over a happy healthy child, and (2) I have been warned about some possible issues from clinicians I trust.
I'm concerned about misdiagnosis if I use a local tester who is not used to 2e kids.
So, to broaden the OPs initial question, what centers or individuals have/would you travel to see? I'm hoping that if the answer doesn't specify whether you DID travel, it won't unmask your location.

Twelve years ago I had a phone consultation with Bobbie Gilman at the GDC. She reviewed my son's IQ and achievement scores from a school evaluation where he was determined to be "average but slow." I was worried that she would think I was nuts to think he was gifted, considering the double digit IQ score. But she didn't. Instead, she pointed out that his pattern of strengths and weaknesses was consistent with 2E issues and suggested additional evaluations that we could pursue.

That conversation was a turning point in how I understood my son and in my approach to his difficulties. A few years later, after many therapies and much remediation, he was evaluated again and found to have a GAI approaching the HG range and dyslexia.

I will be forever grateful to Ms. Gilman for her ability to see a clear picture of my son through a mire of average and low average scores when no one else could and for communicating that clarity to me. I suspect that my son would be on a different path today if she had not.

That said, there has been some controversy surrounding the GDC and its founder over the years that you may want to research before committing to an evaluation with them.

I'm glad it was such a positive experience for your family. Do you have a link regarding the controversy? I'm totally clueless about it.

We were referred to the tester because DD's psychologist thought some of her behaviors might be on the spectrum. She had WISC, CARS, and BASC. The tester wasn't a gifted specialist.

The generic recommendations were things like, "give her higher level reading material" and "let her move around." It wasn't more specific than that, and most of the things were things we were already doing.

Our area just doesn't have professionals dedicated to gifted kids. This evaluator recommended trying the obvious: a private school, homeschool, or a gifted program. She also recommended a gifted school, which DD ended up at, but it abruptly closed its doors after 6 months. Beyond that one school, she didn't recommend specific schools, so her "local expertise" is pretty much nonexistent in our case. And our local school system was unimpressed with the fact that we went outside the school system at all for testing.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's awesome that your school was willing to work with you. I really wish there was a local resource for us, but there just isn't anyone.

This may refer to:
1) Visual-Spatial, as exemplified by several old posts... here, here, and here.
Anecdotal evidence is based on observation and experience; Empirical evidence is based on the results of scientific research.
2) Justin Chapman, as described in this 2002 article, and this old discussion thread.

Dr. Linda Silverman is well-respected and has helped many gifted kids and their families.

Silverman is also a contributing author to this book on asynchronous development.

Also, issues surrounding indigo children, recommending vision therapy, and using the SB L-M.

I, personally, find Dr. Silverman's take on giftedness and gifted children and their needs to be right on, but, it is not evident to me that she is well respected by experts in her own field. Her views on giftedness run counter to the eminence model that is fairly well entrenched these days, and at least from what I've seen (which is quite a bit--I've been working on a master's degree in gifted ed for the past two years), her work is rarely cited in the literature.

I'll join lurumom in asking for links on the controversies you mention.

Although eminence may now be entrenched as a result of teaching this concept for several years, there was quite a bit of controversy when the concept of eminence was added to the definition of giftedness: A small roundup of counterpoints to this include:
- Defining giftedness as based on performance tends to exclude or ignore 2e.
- Is an individual gifted throughout the lifespan, or does one fail to be gifted if talents are directed to endeavors which may be personally fulfilling but do not lead to prominence...? For example, non-competitive... service orientated... reserved individuals... introverts... shunning the spotlight.
- Equating giftedness with eminence may conflate giftedness with opportunity.
- Are talents ever "fully developed"?
- Common core may be at odds with having eminence as the chief goal of gifted education; The high-stakes testing and data-collection ushered in by Common Core have a goal of "equal outcomes"; US government school teachers are evaluated on closing achievement gaps and excellence gaps, which may often entail capping the growth of children at the top.

Literature generally tends to cite Empirical evidence, not Anecdotal evidence?

First, you don't need to convince me that the eminence model is lacking and that Silverman's contributions to the field have been numerous and worthwhile.

As for links--I'll list some below.

Indigo children:

http://www.awarenessmag.com/novdec3/ND3_CHILDREN_OF_NEW.HTML

http://www.byregion.net/articles-healers/Indigo_Children_Facts.html

Also, pages 112-114 of the book Hothouse Kids by Alissa Quart

Vision therapy:

This may have been discussed on the TAGPDQ list. The contention was that the GDC suggested vision therapy to a disproportionate number of clients. The people discussing it were skeptical of VT and thought that the GDC was being fringe-y for recommending it. Disclaimer: They suggested it for my son, and they were right--he needed it.

SB L-M:

The controversy here was over the use of an extremely outdated instrument. Again, I think most of what I know about this came from the TAGPDQ list. It's not clear to me that the GDC even uses the L-M any more.

Again, pages 112-114 of the book Hothouse Kids by Alissa Quart

There is also this New Yorker article, which discusses some of these issues: http://positivedisintegration.com/newyorker.pdf

It's good, I think, for future readers here to understand that we are not bashing Silverman.

Thanks for sharing the links... it's good to have a source for the information which builds our views.

Regarding SB L-M, I think that was used prior to extended norms, and possibly also to help gauge scores on newer IQ test instruments as they were being developed?

We had seen two different neuropsychs (one specializing in 2e and widely regarded, SENG, etc.) for one of our daughters. Both said either mildly gifted (just hitting the 130 mark) and maybe slight adhd. School does nothing but complain to us. One night watching a youtube of Dr. Silverman I came across on the internet in my attempt to figure out what was wrong with my daugther, I swear she was speaking about my daughter in her presentation. I called her and faxed her my daughters medical records and prior neuropsych testing. She called me back, told me to follow up with neuropsych #2, gave me the info to tell him. She says that doc #2 didn't calculate WISC test correctly. Told me what to tell him. She also says the testing demonstrates dyslexia and possible auditory processing issues. Suggests I get a consult..gives me a few names of docs local to my area. Doc #2 comes back with a new report with now an IQ of 20 points higher, still no dx of dyslexia.

We then decide to go have testing with Dr. Silverman. She confirms PG and dyslexia. Local Dr. that she referred us to identifies auditory processing issues. Dr. Silverman recommends we find a local dr. who can help with dyslexia and local resources. We find a local doc who does additional testing and confirms Dr. Silverman's dx of dyslexia. We are now doing OG to help with spelling and seeing improvements. If it had not been for Dr. Silverman, we would have wasted more time trying to find out what was wrong with our daughter. There may be some controversy about her but in science there is always disagreement about validating, testing, treatment. What I know is for our family, Dr. Silverman was the critical resource for us to help our daughter and I will be forever grateful.

Especially for those who are on the leading edge or looking at something from a new direction.

Your story sent a chill down my spine. So good to hear of breakthroughs and encouragement to think outside of the box, go above and beyond, and be persistent.

Future readers of this thread may be interested to view this youtube video, The unique inner lives of gifted children, featuring a keynote speech by Dr. Linda Silverman.

We have done testing at the GDC very recently. Had couple phone consultations prior to that. Prior to testing we were recommended to do VT. It took us about 9 months of hard work, but the results were phenomenal. The testing itself was very thorough. It included WISC IV with extended forms and an achievement test. The report was very long and detailed. It felt like a many pieces of a puzzle put together into a coherent story that describes our 2e child. We got several useful recommendations and I would say that traveling to the GDC was definitely worth it. It is amazing how important it is to get evaluation from a place that has experience with gifted. It is just a simple statistics, if there is less than 2% gifted kids in the population and 0.1% PG, plus if there is a very small population of kids with some particular learning disability, you end up with an extremely small set of of 2e children in the general population. Even if a specialist in your area claims she/he has experience with 2e children, it cannot be a large sample if the unconditional probability of such a child in the general population is less than 0.001%. Therefore, it is natural to see an equilibrium outcome in which many parents with 2e children travel to one specialist who truly has a large sample and experience. It becomes a stable equilibrium because the more families travel to this specialist, the more experience she gets, and that makes other families even more likely to travel as sell. It just turned out that the GDC were there long time ago and they took on themselves this role. For them gifted kids are their average client and they are not surprised by seeing HG, EG or PG kids. If you want to check whether your local specialist has a real experience with PG kids, ask them whether they know about PG Retreat. If they don't, it means you need to book your travel to the GDC.

Good Luck with your testing!