My son was tested in May, so we are fairly new to the concept of giftedness. I am trying to understand the ins and outs and help to meet my child's needs. He is 6years, 2mos now. One thing that keeps coming up in my frenzy of research and reading is the concept of levels of giftedness (mild, moderate, highly gifted, profoundly gifted, very advanced, etc.) What do all of these terms mean? I find scales showing ranges of IQ scores and where they fall on the continuum of mild to profound, but many of the scales are different. What is right?
The main reason I ask is that it seems different learning environments and methods of teaching might be better for each child depending on just how gifted he/she is. I'm not sure how to interpret my son's scores. The psychologist did the SB5. Based on this test, my son's full scale IQ is 132, nonverbal is 119, and verbal IQ is 143. In our public schools here in FL, 130+ on any of those three measures qualifies you for the gifted program.
I was within ear shot of the tester and my son when the eval was being conducted. At one point, my son was taking his time thinking about his answer and struggling a little, so the psychologist told him he could say "pass" if it was too difficult. Well, that's all my ds needed to hear! At that point, if he didn't know the answer immediately, he'd just say "Pass!" He thought it was great that he could just not do it if he didn't feel like it. My son has not been challenged so far in school (at all), at least not academically, and he gets very frustrated very quickly if things don't come easy for him immediately.
He actually repeated PK4 for "social immaturity." I now know that he was exhibiting typical behavior for an unchallenged gifted child. He is also hypersensitive and highly emotional. He's learned to control that better, so in that regard maybe it was best to hold him back a year. However, I think he would have done that anyway in KG and actually learned something at the same time. So, now we find ourselves in KG learning nothing for the third year in a row. We have a meeting Monday to discuss accelerating him to 1st grade, where he's supposed to be anyway. What I'm wondering is...is ds only mildly gifted or highly gifted? If he's MG, am I making a bigger issue out of his boredom than is really there? Am I attributing behavior issues (inattention and talking) to giftedness when that's not really what it is? I'm so confused. Sorry for ranting and rambling on an on. I guess I want to know what "gifted level" he is and if you think I'm doing the right thing moving him up to 1st gr. Should I do a grade level placement test myself before the meeting, or should I let them do their own assessment? It's a private school. Thanks for any advice you can share with this newbie mom. I really appreciate it.
