I've loved this thread as I have never really felt sure where dd fits. She has test scores above 99.9%, and if I am honest I am yet to really see her intellectually challenged by anything (her motor skills are good for her age, but not particularly advanced).
DD is a kid who (like most of those on this board I assume) if she's interested, grasps something straight away. But she's rarely interested in any one thing for long and has never had that single minded fascination with a particular topic that I associate with gifted kids. But... as a matter of principle I have tracked down as many HG+ kids as I can in our city so dd knows some 'like minds' and in a way that is not quantifiable dd is still on a completely different level. There are kids who are much more focussed on academics, who need it and love it in a way dd does not (and a couple who would fit the descriptions others here have provided for PG) and who would 'know' more than her about particular topics. However this for her is not a lack capability, but interest (though even that is all relative, I don't know how many ND 5yo kids' first request on waking is that their parents get their microscope off the shelf so they can use it to look at their breakfast).
Yet despite this lack of interest, I truly see how different dd is when I go in to her classroom. She has skipped kindergarten into a 1/2 composite and just knows things that we haven't taught her that the grade two kids still don't understand despite having had years at school (when she's had only just over two months and is 5 1/3yo)
But dd has a deep understanding of herself, other people and existential issues, the extent of which I sense I don't yet fully understand as she's not yet able to process or articulate it herself. The only way I can think to describe it for now is as a 'knowing'. All of which probably sounds completely ridiculous and new age-y, which I am not, but I don't know how else to describe it. I would say that this is where she demonstrates her PGness in a way that I haven't seen in the few much more obviously 'PG' kids I have met.
I do agree with the previous posts that talked about personality being a factor, but I also think there is a parental factor involved as well. I am more philosophical than academic and dh is more creative than academic and so to a certain extent dd reflects what she is exposed to at home. The couple of stereotypically PG kids I have met have very academic parents who know and talk about academic concepts and theories as part of their daily life. Where as we tend to talk about life and people in a way that is possibly unusual. Neither of which I think is more valuable than the other, just different.
I don�t know how I feel about Gardener�s multiple intelligences as a theory but I do think (as has been discussed so often on this board), that there is more to giftedness and intelligence than academic drive and achievement. When using academic drive and achievement as a measure, dd is HG, when using some other measure that I can�t define, she's something more than that.
