Good Morning!
For all who have seen DS's WPPSI and WJ scores.... do you think I should have him take the SB?? Have opportunity to do it tomorrow with the wonderful Dr. David Palmer... should I bite the costly bullet and hope for a DYS qualifying score? And more information for my perpetually bored 5 and a half year old son???? Have to make decision within next few hours! HELP!!!!!

just checking that this answer comes to my phone

Besides the scores, would testing also buy you some advocacy and guidance from Dr. Palmer? If so, I say yes.

Do you think your son's SB 5 scores will be higher than his WPPSI scores? There are plenty of bored kids who are not in the DYS range, and plenty of advocacy advice here - as good, I think, as inside the walls. But if your heart is telling you that the other scores are an underestimate - spend the money. If you are right, then you'll be so relieved you did.

Good luck either way,
Love and More Love,
Grinity

yes, it would buy some face time with Dr. Palmer who is amazing. I really don't think his scores will be higher... then again, he astounds me daily. what got me, was last weekend he had a play date with a friend from school, and they wanted to do such different things although they get along very well. After the friend left, he said "do you still love me even though I'm different?". Killed me. And i am very nervous about his grade skip... so I hope that Dr. Palmer can reassure me that he is ready for that. still not sure what we are going to do.... will certainly let you all know!!

Well, we did it.
NVIQ 135
VIQ 141
FSIQ 140

FR 147
KN 120
QR 130
VS 137
VM 138

More details to foloow

it was fast!!! and i will put the DYS application to rest for a year or so, and see where it leads... thanks for the input and support!!

Really? Do you mean it? Feel like he doesn't compare here....

I feel good about it. Dr Palmer explained how his scores are really well balanced, and that coupled with his achievement scores, that he is really "using" his brain and that he has excellent concentration and application. What I love is that it makes so much sense when looking at ds. He's a smart cookie and is quirky and so so fun. Dr Palmer thinks that once he enters 1st grade next year that we could easily see scores bumped up especially on the WISC which he suggests administering when ds is 6 years 3 months (and he will discount the price!). For now, we will just ride out this school year, although he is slightly bored academically but having fun socially, and see what the future holds.
Thank you for all your support!!!!! Will keep you all posted!!

Way to go Lukemac!
Great that you are seeing self-application and concentration.
Lots of kids, even with those extra 5 points to cross the DYS line find Kindy kind of fun, especially if it's half day.
Awesome on the retest discount - LOL on testing at 6y3month - now I get it that this shows your son to his 'best advantage.'
Personally - I'd rather test at 6y1.5months to get the 'most accurate read possible' than goose it to get the 'most likely to cross DYS line' scores. But that's because messing with my head is so easy to do - I like to keep my feet on the ground as much as possible. Of course, if you think that everyone else is waiting until 6.3, then keep the plan - you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot over the 'SUV problem.'

The problem is that if you knowingly goose the scores, you may end up spending tons more money than you would need too under more acurate circumstances.

Of course, depending on how good the child is a 'self-differentiation' - and some kids are excellent as 'squeezing every drop' out of an assignment (different than aiming for perfection in a dangerous way) by adding creativity to the mix - if the current scores are accurate then your child - and depending you the demographics of your local schools - you child might be fitting right in at the public school or a total fish out of water - personality matters.

Read up on Sylvia Rimm's parenting books and get ready to 'ask you son for more' academically. One boy we know had a family rule that if the teacher asked for one paragraph, he had to write 2. If the teacher asked for 6 pages, he had to write 12. That kid was much more gifted than my son, but didn't need the gradeskip because he was getting excellent parenting.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Not that I disagree with Dottie much , but I did want to mention that my dd12 is not a DYS level kid but we have still not found her to be ideally gifted. She was tested on the WISC-IV at 7 yrs 4 months and was a very erratic little person who didn't cooperate well but came out at the 99th percentile point if we give her the extra points from the extended norms. She is likely a tad higher than that testing showed due to a number of factors, but still not likely 99.9.

I don't know if it is just our area where the GT programming is filled with kids who got a 95th percentile score on any one part of a group ability test after a lot of hothousing or what, but she's stood out like a sore thumb and has needed a lot of accommodations beyond what the schools typically offer. Right now she fits well and doesn't stand out as being ridiculously misplaced but that is primarily due to her being btwn 1-2.5 yrs younger than her grade mates (bd made her one of the youngest in her grade and she skipped a grade).

Point being -- I wouldn't necessarily assume that you don't need to work a bit out of the box for a 99th percentile kid.

Yeah, and that's definitely not my kiddo. She had a couple 8s, a couple 17s, a 19+, etc. In hindsight, I'd say that the 8 on one of the processing speed tests was probably pretty accurate (she's deep, not fast), but the 8 in block design was likely due to her refusal to complete the test and the tester continually pressing her to work faster which caused further shutting down/lack of cooperation.

Thanks All.
Grin - he is skipping K and heading straight for 1st... at a private school for "bright and gifted"... Hope he can hang!!
He does a lot of "extra"... always adding stuff to his own assignments.. hope this continues!
Looking forward to seeing all the subtest scores - should be around 2 weeks from now.

Hi grinity ,
i joined the forum recently , have been reading your posts with interest. My DD4 will be testing this year ( probably in winter ) for applications to kindergarten for 2012. i am just finding out about testing , gifted issues etc. and was wondering if you could give some insight on what would be the best time to test her for wppsi and SB , if she is 4 now.

also , is their anything we can do to help boost her scores , like games / puzzles etc

also , what should i look for when i look for a tester
thanks

Hi Amon,
Welcome! So glad you found us. As for doing anything at all to boost her scores, I strongly recommend that you stay away from that idea. As I posted above:

Take a look at this post re: WPPSI vs SBV
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....test_for_4_years_10_month.html#Post98096

Of course it's natural to want to prepare our children for the experience of being tested. I love this article:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/test_prep.htm

You might also want to get a copy of this book:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10359.aspx
for the review. The name has recently changed to '5 levels of giftednes' - so either edition is good for a read.

Some say that the best time to test is when you have a question that needs to be answered. I guess the question in your post is: "Is my child a good fit for school x,y, or z." In that case, try and use a tester that the schools regard highly.

I would also encourage you to do a 'tushie test' for each school before you use that to decide to set up a tester appointment. I developed the 'tushie test' and what it means is that you physically sit in the classroom for 20 minutes, very quietly and observe the teacher and the students and the feel of the classroom. Try to observe a few different grades and teachers, and mentally compare what the kids are doing to what you child is doing academically, and socially. Look at the book on the Library Shelf. Is there a nice range of challenging book that your child would enjoy? Are they all 'baby books?' Are any of the children clearly bored? Do any children have their 'own special work' that is a different level than the other kids. Are the teacher more interested in teaching the children to sit still and listen and wait politely or in sparking the love of learning - or can they do both at the same time?

As far as testers - it would be nice if they can also provide needed parenting guidance, in addition to spitting out a rareness score. Remember the IQ test doesn't tell 'how smart' a child is, it only measures how unusual a child's smartness level is.

I hope that's not TMI all at once - Welcome!
Since you are new, I'll remind you that we are 'experts' rather than professional experts - just moms and dads who have been around the block a few time.
Grinity

thanks grinity

I thought 99.9th percentile only meant in the top thousandth. That's not that incredible, is it? Am I missing something? I never realized until this moment how many people must be able to qualify for DYS. (And happy because it gives me a lot of hope.)

Yes, it is 1 in 1,000. I could be wrong, but due to the need to have both ability and achievement scores in that range, I suspect the # who qualify might be somewhat less than 1 in 1,000. I have a kiddo who qualified on IQ but has never had achievement scores quite that high and who is 2e. I'd have to guess that there are others in a similar situation.

Very Good point. I've always focused on the other half. Since a child only needs to have over 145 in either Verbal or Performance or GAI there are a lot of kids (like mine) who have a Full Scale much less than 145 (1 in 1000) but still qualify on the IQ portion. So I don't see my son as 'exactly' 1 in 1000 for the population, and guess that he's closer to 1 in 500. I may have to 'up' my estimate now though- seeing Cricket's good point.

I find it heartbreaking when it comes time to actually draw a line. Do I think Cricket's child is 'less gifted' than mine? Of course not. I think that all programs targeted to gifted kids should have 'steps' to cover the various 'rareness bands.' I've worked hard to create a place (right here) where parents of 'near Davidson' kids can get the best of what DYS offers. I hope it's working for parents of 'near DYS' kids and will continue to work.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I wish I could see the look on your face Iucounu. You are absolutely correct! Anyone mathy want to calculate the number of people in the U.S. that potentially could have qualified for DYS if it had existed in when they were children? It sure isn't the same as number of Nobel prize winners - it's a big giant number!

Still rare enough to confuse excellent school-related people, but really, not that rare at all!

Grins,
Grinity

Just curious--how often do these kids exist? I feel like whenever I see the breakdowns of high-scoring kids, there is something low in there, usually processing speed or coding or some of the memory tasks, right?

I don't have percentiles for the subtests but I know that with my son's scores all around 140 except his PSI at 109, that puts him in that "rare" DYS category of not having any one score over 145 but being a rare enough profile to have a GAI over 145.

I don't think of him as a 1:10,000 kid but you'd think that he is the way we have to debate, discuss and beg with the school. Some days I feel lucky that is processing speed is "slow" in comparison because we can barely keep up with him as it is. If he has a PSI in the 140 range as well, I'd have likely had a nervous breakdown by now!

If you think about an elementary school teacher with 25 kids in a class, any one teacher will likely NEVER have a kid in the 1:1000 range. I think this is when it seems very, very rare. Looking at a broad populations 1:1000 isn't that big of a deal. But if you look at the one kid in one school with one teacher, it's not nearly as common as the data may suggest.

Yup - that poor elementary school teacher would have to work for 40 years to get ONE kid at the 1:1000 level, and another 40 years before he/she saw the second one! Of course that is just at the school with a mythical normal distribution in it's school classroom. In the U.S. we segrate ourselves by economic circumstances, which over broad numbers has an effect on IQ/school district.
((shrugs))
Grinity

Quite possibly true. I've never really thought of either of my kids as quite that high and it is possible that my younger one's one WISC-IV GAI in that range was an overestimate. She's just so wildly erratic that I also feel like the 2e end of things plays into not knowing as well. I'd suspect that there are 2e kids out there who are more capable than they'll ever show on achievement tests who don't cross the DYS threshold not b/c their IQs were overestimated, though, but b/c they have road blocks that prevent them from achieving in line with their ability. That's some of what 2e is, no?

This is all so mind boggling to me!!!!
So interesting...
and just leads to more and more questions!!

OH - and BTW Grin... Not waiting to 6.3 for any advantage, it is just that DS will be starting a new school with a grade skip right when he turns 6, so Dr. Palmer wants him to have an adjustment period!!!!! ALthough, I do hope to see that little jump in scores!!

Lukemac, found this by Davidson on Hoagies:
http://print.ditd.org/young_scholars/Guidebooks/Davidson_Guidebook_Advocating.pdf

It's a reading list and Handy Dandy advocacy e-workbook so you can flesh out the details of your kids ever-evolving education Needs and upbringing. Free for the grunt work;)

Thanks!! I just printed it out!!

Because this thread is so hot... I will post this question to you all? How do you all differntiate between OG, MG, EG, and PG? there are so many different charts lurking out there...

Remember that - for me - gifted isn't an absolute number - it's a problem that arises when a child is unique enough that she or he needs more academic challenge that is likely to be provided in a regular classroom. So please do not connect my personal definitions with any numbers you may have heard. Thanks.

For the purposes of abstraction, I'm leaving out all the 2E kids from this general set of definition. Srry.

So OG = MG, such at the children are at the top end of class, but hardly unique, and really benifit from differentiated material in the classroom and the periodic pull out. If the school has no accomidations, there needs might well be met by afterschooling, saturday programs, summer camps, WITH top-notch parenting so that they learn good work ethic. A single grade skip can be expected to work for many of these kids who wouldn't be learning good work ethic otherwise.

HG is such that even with good pull out programs and differentiation in the classroom, or a single gradeskip, the child will still feel that school is dull, and that the other kids, even in the gifted program, are incomprehensibly stupid. A single gradeskip Plus pull-outs, plus differentiation might work nicely, or suject acceleration might be needed on top of that - depending how 'across the board' the kid is.

PG is more rare. Individual variation is much wider. Like all kids, but with more urgency, they need to be looked at individually to see what it is that they actually need academically. There may be no overt signs of achievement or accomplishment, but once the child gets over their enforced underachievement, they would likely do well with subject accelerations 2-3 grade levels, or much, much,much more above their agemates, provided that accomidations are made for their asynchronous development. It is said that the higher the level of giftedness the more individualized a solution a child will need.

Hope that helps -
Grinity

Nice summation, Grinity . I like it and, by your definition, my dd12 fits nicely into the HG category, where I'd consider her to be:

A combo of being young for grade due to bd, a single grade skip, in class differentiation by motivated teachers, and accelerated/GT classes for math and literacy has been a reasonable solution for her. I don't think she's ever been totally challenged in her stronger areas, but it works well enough and the quantity is enough that I can't imagine skipping her further if it would mean more homework than she already has (which is a lot!).

I think you'd get as many answers to this as there are kids. I have two kids with all scores >98th and at least one index at the test ceiling of 155. Both learn well. Both learn fast. Both are very curious and motivated to learn. They are not the same in creativity, deep thinking, intellectual motivation, or capacity for intellectual work. They've required different educational paths.

I really see a big IQ as having big intellectual capacity but not implying much else. I think some big IQ kids are social butterflies and into many different activities and having oodles of friends and others struggle to make themselves understood well by others. Some crave college work very early and others want to stay with age peers. So many things depend on personality and drive.

I don't. I don't find these very useful distinctions and I think it's much better to deal with a given child and that child's needs than to worry about what artificial (with numbers that will change on next version of IQ test) box he/she fits in.

I don't think Grinity's way works either (sorry, Grin! ) because at any level you choose, a child might require much more or much less. There are "PG" kids doing college work at 9 and those kids aren't satisfied with a grade skip or two or five. There are also PG kids who are quite happy at grade level. Sometimes those kids have better schools. Sometimes, they focus on other interests and spend 30 hours a week doing gymnastics or violin and don't much care about math. There are kids content to daydream in their own heads while boring discussions occur and others who throw desks over in the same situation. There are kids with 98th percentile scores in schools with oodles of high achievers who fit in great and don't need much accommodation at all. There are kids with 99.9 percentile scores in schools designed for such kids who don't fit at all despite identical IQs to the other kids. I don't find much benefit from the categories.

Apologies for not totally following you--so you mean that on paper, they look the same all around, but in practice you notice that they think and function quite differently? How interesting.

Exactly. It makes me much more skeptical of any claims made about what a kid with IQ of x should be like. The major thing my kids have in common is testing very well, but that doesn't tell me what they need in their educations. Similarly, in groups like DYS, there are kids doing a huge variety of educational options that work for them.

I started wondering about this when my son was your son's age Lukemac. I was exceptionally curious about the differences and for the past 3 years (DS is now 8.5) I have been conducting a little experiment based on observing as many HG, EG, PG kids we know. We live close to a college community with a high concentration of gifted kids and we know which parents have had their kids tested because it comes up so often in conversations among us moms. Although I don't know the individual scores and don't need to, parents have dropped enough hints for me to guess where their kids scores fall.

And this is what I see. My son has not been IQ tested but looking at what others have said about acceleration and PG, he is at least 5+ years accelerated in math and 8 or more years accelerated in two of the main sciences. I say this based on the materials he turns to most to get his learning fix and the type of questions he asks and how he analyses problems. But he is right smack at grade level for writing although his spelling and reading comprehension skills are easily at high school level.

He fits every description I read about PG EXCEPT for descriptions like "PG kids will be super bored in a class with MG kids" or something similar. My kid loves and just loves working with anyone because he just loves and craves company. He doesn't like to complain about anything. And he will not say working with someone else is boring because he cares very much about not hurting their feelings. He is very different from many of his very outspoken EG/PG friends in this respect. He would have very easily "covered up" his abilities if he was in a public school.

So I ask myself this question a lot. Why is he so different? Every PG kid I know is very vocal about his/ her feelings and very quick to speak up. Mine will first analyze if someone's feelings will be hurt and if he thinks they will be, he will just go with the flow, adapt, let himself be pushed around.

These kids are each very different and quite likely a combination of different 'G's too if I may suggest. That's my conclusion for now. And am realizing that I myself probably am PG in only ONE area but possibly HG in one or two and MG/OG or just plain vanilla average in most others. It's extremely interesting and humbling!

Amen to that!

Dottie, that IS a relief to know .

While I'd hope DD7 was sufficiently well-mannered not to describe her classmates as incomprehensibly stupid, yeah, this. Last year, I was really struck by how her same-aged friends wouldn't understand the words DD used, and I attributed it to her picking friends who were kind of at the margins of the group, both socially and academically. After a grade skip, she seemed to fit right in with the older kids. And then last week, she had a friend over, and that little girl (18 months older than DD and gifted-identified) was asking DD to spell things for some project they were creating, and was asking DD to define the words she was using.

DD is interested in additional subject acceleration, but we have parental disagreement as to the wisdom of that, and I'm not sure I want to go to the mat for next year or bide my time. (My partner was the kind of kid who preferred to blend in, and was successful in doing so, so she sees skipping as making DD more-obviously freakish. I was the kid who never managed to blend in, and see the skip as making her less-obviously freakish. DD does not consider herself freakish, but chafes at the level and pace even with a skip.)

I have two children, but only one has been tested (the other is only 3yo). I suspect that they are within 10 points of each other (though I think they would have different strengths on subtests), but they certainly are different. It's come to me all of sudden recently that DS would probably a great candidate for a single-year skip and might need little else, whereas we would never consider that for DD, nor would it be enough. It's startling to me that I can already see this, but I do think it's the case. So...I certainly take your point, but I suppose I was attributing the difference to personality...

See, I guess that I am seeing it work if you look at her deliniations as something separate from a number, which was what I was reading into her post. Yes, there are kids with similar IQ scores who have totally different needs based on personality and a whole host of other things. If one is saying that all kids with IQs from ___ to ___ are HG and therefore need the things Grinity listed for a HG kid, then, yes, you're going to run into a lot of kids for whom that doesn't work.

However, if you say HG is as HG looks in action rather than how it looks on a test score, her definitions work -- at least for me . Granted, that does become a slippery slope where you get what our local schools do which is have parents fill out "behavioral characteristics" scales which are then used to call a kid gifted even if ability and achievement scores don't support that.

One other thought on that same line...

How about a compromise where IQ is actually part of the picture but, once you've reached a certain point where the tests no longer distinguish as well, what diferentiates HG from EG from PG is not the #s alone but the characteristics that go with the individual child?

I've actually been told by someone in one of our local school districts that a child with an IQ of 100 could be gifted b/c IQ isn't what determines if someone is gifted. I can't get behind that idea but I could see as how two kids with the same IQ # might not be at the same level of giftedness.

This is good stuff!!!
As parents, it seems the bottom line is that we really need to know our kiddo's and what they need, and what they are capable of. Being "new" to this, it is so helpful to hear other peoples thoughts and experiences - it is a lifeline and a way to start down the path...
I assume (hope?) that as kids get older, it is less difficult to figure out what they need???? Someone say that is true!!!!

My kid only fits LDmom's description when he's with family. Otherwise, he is quiet as a mouse. In fact, he's told us he always behaves when there are teachers around so as not to ruin his perfect streak of no consequences at school.

You get better at advocacy, so it seems to get better. Although I'm only a couple years in. But it certainly gets better after the first school year is over. And the stress subsides after a while.... I know that now that my DS7 is in a good-fit school, I have not felt the need to advocate for anything yet, which makes me very happy.

I think just learning that different levels exist made a huge difference for me. When we started on this path of wonderment, trying to figure out how best to educate our wee child, I didn't know much about gifted. And I was even in gifted programs as a child, but I somehow forgot about that. I had no clues that there were different flavors of gifted, or that the needs of one GT kid might differ from the needs of another. I think a GT child can be any one of the different labels of GT at different times and in different areas. The thing that makes a difference to me is that the different levels/different needs exist. Once I wrapped my mind around that, my goal switched to convincing teachers that these differences exist.

From our experience, you get better at advocacy, you know more what your kid needs but the school? Well they may or may not know what to do with your kid. We're on school number two now and DS is only in 3rd grade. We're looking at school number three, or homeschooling or some sort of hybrid for next year. Because the school just doesn't "get" it.

I have an on paper PG kid (in achievement, IQ and school testing) who is a DYS but who really in a classroom is more like any teacher pleasing MG kid. He's grade skipped, still top of his class and still at least two years ahead in most subjects. But he doesn't speak up EVER, doesn't self-advocate and will do whatever work is put in front of him. We have battled repeatedly with the teacher this year who "forgets" that DS doesn't do 3rd grade math. She forgets about once a week. He's very very under the radar, doesn't want to make waves and doesn't want his teacher mad at him for questioning her.

So we know what he needs, know how to advocate for it- but that doesn't make it any easier!

My son (5.5 yr) is another - quiet, shy, and hardly ever speaks in class. His teacher didn't know he could read till the formal assessment, still doesnt know his math abilities. He's happy as a clam counting M&Ms with the other kids.

I think it does - often - get easier. Even for you CAMom. What if you hadn't gotten that first skip? Perhaps your DS would be chewing the desks today? And you not doubting what you see - that's a big improvement. The fact that you know something is wrong, and are actively planning your next step is a sign of great improvement. It is so easy to just 'let him be - he's happy' when they have that wonderful capacity to act good in school. Where I started was: "I don't care about the academics, as I know he's bright and can learn. I just want him to learn to be a good classroom citizen." You are a lot further along than where I started!!!

BTW - My DH had a reputation as 'the worst child ever created' at home,but was perfectly behaved at school.

No generalizations work for this group, we all simply have special educational needs.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity-
I think what I mean by it doesn't make it easier is that just because you know what your child needs, it's not necessarily easier to get it! We went from clueless to having a plan and the skip was life changing for all of us. But each step in advocacy has new walls to conquer. We foolishly figured that one skip and we'd be done, smiling and happy for another 10 years. We've learned our lesson!

Let your DH know that he may have lost the title of "worst child ever created" at home to our DS. Also, like your DH, our DS is an unrecognizable angelic creature at school.

I am a little late to this thread, but I still like this quote.

If you have seen one PG child, you have seem one PG Child.