Wyldcat: It seems to me that the observed disparity is between ability (the IQ score) and achievement (what he's able to do in school).
Ability is just one component of achievement, with some others being opportunity and interest. So if your child has had a multitude of good opportunities to use his abilities, and his interest has been engaged all along, then it would logically follow that he'd be achieving at a higher level than others within his ability range.
While I do think this is true and I also think that my kiddo whom I referenced above has unusual direction that causes higher achievement in her area of passion, I do also think that there are times when a child is just more or less gifted than the IQ numbers tell. It isn't a perfect tool, just the best we have.
I also don't think that, if wyldcat is dealing with a situation similar to ours, the "more gifted" look is solely due to high achievement. In our instance, part of what makes our dd appear more HG+ than MG is her depth and abstractions. Even as a young elementary student, she was writing poetry that had teachers think she had forged it or had me write it for her, for instance. She went on to write more in class which laid that concern to rest, but she was able to emulate the writing styles of poets she liked so well that I had teachers tell me that they thought she was copying down poems of authors such as Langston Hughes or Sara Teasdale that they had not yet read not just intentionally writing in their style.
That type of stuff isn't just the kiddo reading or doing math at a high level, it is more that leans toward the kid just being something "more" than MG IQ scores would suggest. For a long time, I was convinced that my dd was actually MG and only stood out b/c our GT id process is so screwed up that she was being compared to average kids. I've come to realize that, while a lot of these other kids really don't hit the gifted point per psychometric standards, they are probably more capable than I've given them credit for, which also inches dd further along the spectrum of intelligence than I've given her credit for.
At some point, I guess that you just need to take the person you have and run with it and not worry so much about the numbers unless you need them for admission to a program like DYS or something else.
