Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Having second thoughts

Since dd#2 was 1 year old I suspected she could be gifted. She knew all her letters (upper and lowercase by 18 months), started to sound out words shortly after that, and was spelling CVC words by 2 1/2. She also was doing 100 piece puzzles before she was 3 years old. So she definitely always stood out as a very bright child.

She will be entering 1st grade in the fall and I was planning on having her privately tested (wisc) by a psychologist who has many years experience with gifted children. Months ago I was extremely excited to test her to find out what kind of learner she is, etc.... but now I'm starting to have second thoughts and worried that she won't make the gifted program at her school.

Has anybody ever had doubts at the last minute?

I have last minute doubts all the time about all sorts of things, so gifted testing was no different than anything else

The cool thing about testing isn't necessarily just finding out if your child is technically "gifted" - (imo) - it's the info that you get that shows you - as you've mentioned - what kind of learner she is, etc.

And no matter what the test results are, she is still the same interesting amazing and wonderful child you've known all of her life No test really defines a child - there is so much more to each of us than just a few numbers!

Try not to worry about it!

polarbear

Yes! My dd is 9 and I believe she is gifted, but her teacher does not. I am having her tested in the fall and at first I was really excited about it but now I am worried that I am just another nut job parent who thinks their kid is special. Fortunately for me, I have a lot of support within my family in getting her tested.

You are definitely not alone!

Is she still ahead of her peers at school? If so, get her tested now in case this changes due to behavioural issues.

My daughter was also very ahead cognitively (alphabet at 16 months; add, subtract, multiply, read and write full sentences all at 3 yrs, etc), and she's never been tested. She's 9 now, and I KNOW that she is gifted, but she also has extreme anxiety that interferes with her output (so I suppose she'd be 2e). Our pediatrician advises against testing at this point because the anxiety would render the results inaccurate.

Bottom line, I SO wish I had had her tested when she was younger. I've had to fight to get her enrichment at school because she has no testing to back up my "claims" that she is gifted(arrgh). Math is the only subject in which her marks reflect her ability - likely because it is precise and suits her perfectionism, and it's not personal like writing.

Anyway, I say get your daughter tested if she is still ahead of her peers - you never know what the future will bring in terms of her behavioural development. I wish I had my daughter tested before her anxiety started to interfere: this happened after preschool, when she realized that other kids her age didn't read and write - that was the end of her output matching her ability

Anyway, good luck!

I'm glad to hear others have felt this way at some point. And I think the most important info we can come away with is to see what kind of learner she is and what her strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to learning.

@CCN - In comparison to her peers, all I can say for sure is I know she is advanced in reading. She is reading at a 3rd grade level comfortably for leisure at home. She has read Diary of a Wimpy Kid and enjoys the series but I wouldn't really consider that series a true 5th grade level. Her other strength is spelling, she will actually correct our older dd's spelling who will be 9 next month (she has dyslexia). And just this morning she was correcting dh's writing b/c he capitalized certain words in the sentence that she said shouldn't be capitalized. So reading, writing, and spelling are her definite strengths and I would say she is ahead of her peers.

In math, I don't really know b/c in kindergarten last year they did no math. In fact, her entire year last year was primarily play based and the only academic work they did was reading and journaling. This summer at home she is working on a 1st to 2nd grade math workbook with no troubles whatsoever (only b/c our older dd is doing a workbook for the summer to not lose too much over the summer when it comes to academics, so she wants to be just like her big sister). She understands and can do simple multiplication, division, count money, tell time, double digit adding and subtracting, and story problems.

When same age friends come over to play she wants to teach them math, read to them, or have them write stories with her which they have no interest in doing. She has told me that she'd like to skip 1st grade and go to 2nd. I have never mentioned skipping to her b/c it's not something I'm interested in at all, so I find it intriguing that she has this idea in mind.

I felt this same doubt, especially when I was sitting in the waiting room at the psychologist's office while DS was being tested! I think we parents do have a pretty good understanding of how different our kids are from many/most of their agemates.

Interesting that your DD brought up skipping 1st. For kids with very high scores, skipping first can be a great option. In many districts, it's a "learn to read and do basic math" year, and it can be very dull for kids who already have that stuff down. When is your testing?

It sounds like she doesn't have as much social anxiety as my daughter - that makes things a little easier

It also sounds like she's advanced everywhere, although which areas are "gifted" as opposed to just advanced can be harder to tell. I think, though, for a kid to be considered gifted, they don't have to score in the gifted range globally. For instance, if she's just extremely bright in math but gifted for reading, she's still gifted (as far as I know, anyway).

So the question is, how high will she test (i.e. high enough to get her into the gifted program)? I got my daughter in without a test, but I had to provide a lot of evidence (which it sounds like you have as well).

Have they told you she cannot get into the program if her test scores are below the gifted range? Look at it this way, if she has a bad day (i.e. distracted, being a kid) and her test scores are below gifted, the school doesn't have to see the results.

Bottom line, you know her best and what she's capable of.

Best of luck

I was a nervous wreck getting my kids tested. I am so glad I did it. It helped me understand them so much better. I felt relief that I wasn't that "crazy mom" and my kids really are that far outside the norm. I think it helps me advocate for their needs better and with more confidence. I just had my DD5 tested and was shocked to find her score as high as her brother's score. They are completely different personalities and even the strengths on their test appear to be totally different. (I don't have her full report to nitpick apart) My only regret is that I didn't test my DS12 sooner.

Good Luck

True. And regardless of the results she will take the district's screening tool for the gifted program (the Cogat) in the fall so there is the possibility she could qualify with the Cogat. I don't know what the cutoff is, they aren't specific. It's a combo of test results, teacher recommendations, questionnaires filled out by parents, etc... that they use to decide.

I guess my biggest worry is that if she finds the testing boring that she will not do well. We had her do a study for fun back in February at a local university. She had to look at a series of faces (very small, black and white head shots) and then they would show her another series of head shots and she had to let them know which ones she had seen in the previous series. She did fine for about the first 10 min, selecting the right yes and no answers. But after that she obviously lost interest and started immediately pushing the same 'yes' button over, and over, and over. She didn't even pause to reflect. The tester even stopped to clarify and reread the instructions to her to make sure she understood, to which she said yes, she did understand the directions. But at that point I could tell she was over it and didn't care anymore. I hope the wisc testing will be more interesting for her and she will actually try.

FWIW, my DD thought that the IQ was fun and cooperated the whole time. She did get burned out during subsequent testing re dyslexia-related issues (different day, longer test that was harder stuff for her). You might want to discuss this with the tester ahead of time so that he/she can be on the lookout.