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Welcome, Lizz! (Even though I'm a dark roast person myself!)

If you've been lurking for a bit, you've probably seen some of my old posts, in which case you may know that we have homeschooled. While not formally identified, some of ours are almost certainly 2e (I'm a professional evaluator). One stayed in schools through a series of tiny private schools who were flexible and willing to collaborate with us, ultimately homeschooling during the secondary years. Others were homeschooled from the start, but have gone on to the public high school where I am employed.

Different families find that different schooling arrangements work better for them. If I were to give you any advice, I would say to observe your children closely, and stay flexible. Each child may need different things. The same child may need different things at different times. Prioritize your child's growth and development as a whole person. With every child, but especially with 2e learners, there will be moments when something besides academic development is a more urgent need. Actually, becoming a healthy human is always a more urgent need! Academics and intellectual development are just one component of health. If you need to put academics on the back burner because something else is currently more critical, it's okay--you can get back to it at some point. There's more than one way to do nearly everything. Finally, a child who knows they are loved, knows how to love, is growing, is healthy, is happy--is enough. Look at what helps your children to be this version of themselves, and what are impediments, and that will tell you what you need to address.

Welcome Vagee!

The most important piece of perspective is that this test is a screening measure. It's not intended to diagnose giftedness or delay--just to sort out who might benefit from further evaluation with a more comprehensive assessment. Note that the cutoff for GT at this age is >92, but the max score is only 100. So the space in which to spread everyone from 120 to 220 is only 8 points. This is by design, since the primary purpose of the instrument is to identify young children at risk, so they can have access to early intervention and remediation. The at-risk cut-off is 71--so almost 3/4 of the range is reserved for possible delays.

So in answer to your three questions:

1. Neither. The screening score and the behaviors simply suggest watching and possibly future evaluation.
2. Extremely common. Young children experience a wide range of growth trajectories across different domains of development, and further, are notoriously difficult to assess with any consistency. The usual rule of thumb is to consider cognitive measures more stable only beginning around age 9 or so.
3. Depends. My bias is always to start from observation in a very young child. Until you have a more nuanced read on when her skills are most accessible to her, evaluation will have a less promising return on investment, since there is a high likelihood that an unfamiliar examiner will not get optimal performance from her. TBH, none of the areas of inconsistency you've described seem out of the range for a child of her age. The level of support I would think appropriate is just that of attentive parenting.

Is there a time to evaluate? Of course there can be. (I'm a professional evaluator, so naturally I would think so!) I typically say that evaluations are warranted when
a) there is a question to be answered/problem to be solved (e.g., is there an obstacle to learning or development that appears to be present? are we questioning a disability of some kind?); or,
b) when it will aid in access to a necessary resource (e.g., higher-level classes, GT programming, specialized summer camps).

A few more thoughts on the "inconsistencies":
-One of my sibs habitually said, "I don't know" as a young child despite knowing answers that most would consider quite sophisticated, apparently because knowledge that is not comprehensive of all possibilities (in the universe! throughout all time!) is inadequate knowing. That sib was reading at 2.
-It may be that your DC is more socially-aware than some age-peers, and consequently more vulnerable to peer pressure at an age when many others are still just emerging from parallel play.
-The nature of variable engagement you describe is not uncommon in high cognitive and inquisitive learners, who typically have high intellectual stimulation needs. But it's also pretty typical of all small children. Keep in mind that kindergarten standards in most states expect students to manage 5-10 minutes of sustained listening.
-She is describing relatively slow retrieval fluency. At this age, I hesitate to ascribe it to any actual concerns, but it's probably worth keeping an eye on it.

You’re not wrong to be concerned—but you don’t need to panic or overhaul everything.

Right now, home enrichment is enough, especially since he’s happy and engaged. That’s a strong foundation. But the school is likely underestimating him because they’re equating ability with written output, which doesn’t work for kids with profiles like his (especially if Developmental Coordination Disorder is confirmed).

The key isn’t pushing for a “gifted label”—it’s pushing for small, practical adjustments:

Let him show knowledge verbally or digitally.
Reduce time pressure on writing.
Give access to more challenging thinking, even if output is limited. Space Waves

If he stays happy and stimulated, you’re in a good place. If he starts getting bored or frustrated, that’s when to push harder.

I was amazed by my child's concentration! Instead of the initial goal of 10 questions, they managed to answer a whopping 278. What I liked most was that they are building confidence from the most basic knowledge before tackling more difficult challenges.

Hello everyone,

I came across this thread while researching Brigance results and was hoping to get some guidance from those with more experience.

I’m trying to better understand my daughter’s development rather than label her. She is currently 5 years old. On her most recent Brigance III screening (at 4 years 9 months), she scored 98, with a gifted cutoff of 92. Her breakdown was:

* Cognitive: 130
* Language: 121
* Physical: 111

At 3 years 9 months, she previously scored around 83%.

What I’m trying to understand is how to interpret this alongside her current behavior, which feels somewhat asynchronous.

**Strengths:**

* Advanced vocabulary and grammar for her age
* Can hold complex conversations and ask thoughtful, sometimes abstract “what if” questions
* Strong interest-driven learning (e.g., animals—she can go very deep and retain a lot of information)
* Shows good reasoning and curiosity when engaged

**Areas of inconsistency:**

* In structured settings, she may say “I don’t know,” even when she later demonstrates that she does know the answer
* Can be influenced by peers and sometimes follows behavior she knows is not appropriate
* Engagement depends heavily on interest—she may disengage if something feels repetitive or not challenging
* At times seems to struggle with retrieving information on demand (she once described it as her “brain being full and not knowing what to take out”)

Because of this, her performance can appear inconsistent depending on the situation.

I’m trying to understand:

* Does this pattern align more with high ability or emerging giftedness?
* How common is this type of inconsistency at this age?
* What should I be focusing on as a parent right now (evaluation, support, or observation)?

I’m happy to share more details if helpful, and any guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Yeah. The funding environment is very different from past generations. Back in the day, you applied to a program, and if accepted, funding was taken care of by the department for your first year, while you had the time to sample and get to know PIs in the department (some programs have historically done rotations the first year). It wasn't critical to have studied up on the potential PIs (which DC actually did--read through each one's most recent half-dozen publications, and then specifically referenced their research interests in the admissions essays).

I agree that there are pros and cons either way with the name school vs just-respectable school path. In our case, I think DC benefited from being a big fish in a small pond, because every recommender had a lot of specific and in-depth knowledge as a result of the opportunities that were not just available, but for which DC was actively recruited. (One mentor kept tossing scholarship opportunities this way, to the point that DC felt embarrassed about having to somehow bring up that between living at home and a full scholarship, there really wasn't anything to use the scholarships on--and there were other kids who needed them a lot more.) This amount of personal attention and faculty investment would have been pretty hard to come by at a larger and more competitive school.

But for some students, the name school is the first time they have an environment that fits them intellectually, not so much because of the level of instruction, but because of the peer group. That alone can be invaluable. Different situation and level, but I can remember students at my work who came from significantly disadvantaged backgrounds (on multiple levels) for whom a big plus about coming to our school with its mixture of very diverse communities was meeting peers for whom college and financial responsibility (let alone many other aspects of life) were viewed not aspirationally, but as a given. Never having encountered any adults who had successfully traveled those paths, it was not only hard for them to imagine living that life themselves, it was hard to even voice these as goals when many of the peers from their home communities actually ridiculed or discouraged them from pursuing them.

Persevering in your goals and dreams is hard enough for young adults without having to do it alone, or even with opposition. I think the college environment is sometimes as critical in that respect as it is in the educational content and experiences conveyed.

Good to hear of your child's success in this environment. My daughter did her undergrad in 3 and then another year for your Masters. And she is writing a thesis paper. I think that is becoming more common. If you leave then your masters takes 2. If you stay, then 1 more year. Getting the opportunities is key. Big trade off, top school, very competitive to get those opportunities, sometimes being the bigger fish in a smaller pond is better.

But funding now for doctoral programs is really tight. One of her professors that wrote her a reference letter said that when she applied for a PhD, she did not bother to connect with potential PIs, she just applied and it was taken care of.

There have definitely been changes over the decades in institutional attitudes regarding early entry and grade skipping. Back in the 60s and early 70s, most districts had an established system for determining who could early enter K/1 or whole-grade skip, with no particular obstacles to using it. But then, most districts also routinely retained students who were learning disabled. So obviously social skills and developmental level were not highly prioritized in either direction at the time.

(And I also effectively skipped fourth on a school change, into a school that placed students by low-mid-high across two grade level clusters--so effectively four-plus possible placement levels for any student in the cluster.) One of the unintended consequences of mandated state-wide testing has been flattening these different options, as schools focus more on making sure as many students as possible meet expectations on the state test. Allowing double-promotion takes high scoring students out of that grade's pool, and potentially lowers their scores in the receiving grade from advanced to grade-level, which is disadvantageous to the building's accountability numbers.

So social skills are not the only factor even now.

Frameist, the data indicate you are not alone. Research on grade acceleration overwhelmingly finds that most who were accelerated would do it again, despite any negative sequelae, and that most matched peers who were not accelerated regret that they were not. (Of course, there are always exceptions, whose experiences are just as valid for them, but these are the group data.)

Wren, nice to hear an update, and especially that she is where she should be.

We have one in a very well-funded STEM PhD program as well, and even there the funding cuts impacted many students in the program. Fortunately, the PI in DC's case had wisely diversified funding, so they were able to maintain all of their students and post-docs by spreading the belt-tightening around a little.

I would agree that admissions is tough. DC had already presented twice at the top national conference in this field as an undergraduate, including an actual oral presentation (not just poster), in addition to presenting at smaller conferences, and had been mentored by a pretty well-connected professor in the undergraduate institution (which otherwise is basically an average regional state uni). TA'd as an undergrad and actually developed some curricula for those classes. Earned dual bachelor's. But out of the top 3 programs applied to, #2 and #3 said no, and #1 was an acceptance, which probably reflects both the competitiveness of applications and maybe some vibe that may have come across in DC's application essays (one of the programs had some question marks regarding cultural fit, based on conversations with current and past graduate students there, and the other was not as well-matched on research interests).

I do think the undergraduate research projects were key, as were the recommendations from faculty with reputations and relationships in their niche fields. Sadly, not everyone has access to these kinds of undergraduate research opportunities, for various reasons, but I think that your DC's pathway has some generailizability, in terms of gaining that research cred through a master's program first. A fair number of unis have plus-one 5th-year master's programs, which I think is likely going to become a more frequent pathway to doctoral programs. It's also a good way to test the waters before committing to a lengthy and intense graduate research experience.

As it happens, I agree that trading off GPA for appropriate instructional challenge is quite reasonable and even preferable. Learning that natural giftings plus effort equals growth is a pretty critical lesson that many GT learners do not experience until much later in life, if at all.

And my point regarding child responsibility is simply that one need not take ownership of decisions that were taken out of one's hands. In my opinion, decisions that involve minors are ultimately the responsibility of the adults, both by statute and morally.

My own experience with acceleration was much as you propose, although not so much for the purpose of getting out earlier, but simply to be in the zone of proximal development with regard to academic placement and rate of learning. I did not actually reach the point where instructional challenge required learning EF skills until graduate school, and did not actually learn to exercise those EF skills until my third round of graduate studies, with assistance from motivation and frontal lobe development (which continues well into one's 20s).