Hello everyone! We recently had our 4 1/2 year old tested with the WPPSI, and she scored a 139 FSIQ (99.5th percentile), with a 141 VIQ and 135 PIQ (Processing speed was low - 110 - due to perfectionist tendencies, which I expected). While it's my understanding that her scores do not indicate that she's HG, we are still a little nervous about what to do for kindergarten next year.
Hi Jen74, Welcome!
So glad that you are here!
Standard score 150+ (99.9th percentile):
Verbal, Performance or Full Scale
I agree with Dottie that it's a little early to say 'how gifted' your DD is, but she is certianly gifted by anyone's definition, and I quoted the numbers above to mention what Davidson considers 'too high to measure accurately.' Notice that they aren't looking for 'across the board high scores' so don't worry about the PIQ unless you see it while she is doing her homework. To me, her numbers suggest that she may well be highly gifted.
I think that personality plays a role. You can help out by afterschooling her, to be sure that she accepts 'as a matter of course' that Mom or Dad will be supplying challenging homework, no matter what goes on at school. My DS12 says that looking back he was 'bored out of his mind' in kindy, but he didn't have the awareness to report that at the time. He is definitly a 'make the best of things' kind of kid. Even with your FSIQ of 99.5, your district may not have more than 1 in 100 kids like your DD. Even if they have 1 in 50, them may be too 'full of themselves' to recognise her unique needs.
I would request that they test her, to see where her 'readiness to learn' level is. They may be able to 'patchwork' together a school day that teaches her to learn how to learn, and that smart doesn't equal 'effortless results.'
Generally, we hope to see the 'perfectionist behavior' decrease as the classroom fit get closer to her readiness level. Since she isn't going to raise a fuss, use her level of 'perfectionist behavior' to judge how good a fit she is getting in her school work, and the effect it is having on her.
Many girls have good enough social skill to fly under the radar. Not all though. You have a much harder job than the parents of a kid who is acting out convinsing yourself that you have to keep an eye on things. Spend some time observing possible kindy classes for next year. Remember that 139 is two third of a standard deviation higher than the gifted cutoff, and given the tail-shape of the bell curve, you would expect many, many more kids right around the cut off than you would two thirds of a SD out.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
