CAMom,
Is there a single test done in the U.S. to identify all exceptionalities? Seems surprising, or maybe I didn't understand. In Israel, all kids pass a screening test for giftedness, but only thise suspected with ADHD (or ADD) are diagnosed for it; and anyway, there is very little awareness of the fact that the "symptoms" may be very similar. Try telling a teacher here that your child bounces because he's bored... :-( You'd have to count on your luck, hope that the specific teacher understands it.
There's no one individual test done for all exceptionalities. However, my son's Pre-K teacher said that he had a hard time sitting still, was distractable and hard to focus in class. She said requested that we have him evaluated for ADHD because of all of this. I am a teacher (middle school) and didn't see any signs of typical ADHD at home at all. So we took him to an ed.psych to specifically screen out ADHD. He tested HG+ and the ed.psych said she'd never seen a 5 year old with his attention span and there was no need to continue to rule out ADHD.
I believe this is quite common in the US, as the school system begins to take away more and more recess and PE time and focus in more on drill and kill type lessons. I have no statistical data but it's out there if you're looking!
