I am just wondering if she is gifted, but not the kind of gifted I have been reading about all day. Or maybe she is and the environment has not been such to better enrich and encourage more development. Any thoughts?
Here's my take on it:
The labels (PG, EG, HG/HG+, MG) are confusing and inconsistent, both in the way they're defined by various experts and in the way they're used. Ruf's Levels are even more nebulous. My recommendation is to discard the labels when making any decision on what to do for your daughter. Every child is unique, and very gifted children may be even more so in terms of educational and emotional needs.
There is no set group of expected milestones on anything for very gifted people; we're all over the map. There are certainly indicators
sufficient to draw conclusions of giftedness, but no single
necessary one. Thus playing Chopin sonatas with feeling at 3 could certainly lead to some conclusions as to ability, but most brilliant people, even perhaps most musical geniuses, won't have done that by natural inclination. Your daughter can be profoundly gifted and go on to great discoveries and contributions without having been a prodigy in anything; being a prodigy/wunderkind certainly requires a high level of giftedness but not the other way around. (This is why I have grown to dislike the term "prodigiously gifted", as it tends to lead to confusion.)
A lot of giftedness also depends, in my opinion, on drive and natural inclination to dive into topics of interest. This can be stunted by poor education, unfortunately. And of course a child can't dive deeply into unavailable information. The solution for that is easy today: books, computers, museum trips, etc. I personally wouldn't hold off on anything except for adult topics (sex, dating, etc.) as long as your daughter doesn't show any discomfort with the material. There are of course topics that would require more easing-in, such as WWII and the Holocaust; but in general I think it's a good idea to just let a child roam and soak things in early on.
There is something called
impostor syndrome which can result from comparison to other gifted people or reports about them. I'd avoid it, as it's completely unhelpful. If there are indications your daughter needs something, just provide it as well as you can and move on to the next challenge. Don't worry about how she stacks up; worry whether she is fed and challenged.
I'd avoid if possible telling your daughter she's "gifted" specifically, and just how gifted. I'd do this for many reasons, including that you don't want to encourage perfectionism and/or laziness; and you don't want her comparing herself that way to others, because there can be bad results including a feeling of superiority that can get in the way socially. She will inevitably notice she's different, but you can discuss those differences in practical terms. And if you avoid specific discussions with her of levels of giftedness, you don't need to pin it down in the first place.
When discussing her giftedness with school admins and similar people, they will be even less well-versed on what levels and terms mean than you. Thus you will probably find yourself referring to hard facts (such as numbers and explanations from a tester's report, achievement scores with grade equivalents, etc.) more than using terms like "profoundly gifted". If those terms are helpful, in my personal opinion it's better to have someone else use them to avoid perceptions of intellectual snobbery. School functionaries and teachers tend to operate from an egalitarian viewpoint and coming off with an air of superiority can damage the relaionship; this is why it's so tough to interact with them, besides their sheer lack of knowledge about the very gifted.
Our star is according to my son too small to create a black hole, so you can tell your daughter to rest easy about that. It will only fry us to a cinder.
