Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment process

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When we tested our child before kindergarten, we chose to do only the IQ test for financial reasons. As it turned out, the school pyschologist was quite willing to do the achievement testing (for free -public school) after they saw the IQ results. I guess if you had all kinds of money, it would be nice to get a baseline achievement level. However, at this age some GT kids tend to start absorbing things at a very rapid pace and any results you get now may seem light years behind what your kiddo may be doing when school rolls around.

As for what to tell your kiddo, there's a nice article by Aimee Yermish on Hoagie's: How to Prepare Your Child for Testing

We basically told our then-4-year-old that he would be going to take some tests to see how his brain works, and that will help us and the school know how to teach him better. He thought the tests were very fun.

Since you're going to a university for testing, do you happen to know if they have much experience testing GT kids? Most psychologists testing kids for educational reasons do not have a lot of experience with GT kids, just a warning.

We tested our child before kindergarten and did both. The achievement test gave us an idea of our DS8's ( 4.5 at the time of the test) academic strengths and weaknesses so we could focus resources more efficiently to his needs and wants as well as be able to coordinate with the teacher tailoring his curriculum

My four and a half year old did intelligence and achievement. If you decide to do both, you might consider two separate days. My son had a three hour appointment covering both and I think that was a bit much for a little kid. I think two 1.5 hour appointments might be easier.

Depending on how 'mysterious' your son is, the achievement test might be important for the tester to help sort out what is going on. Is the tester going to do a consultation with you and try and give some insight. If not, no point in doing the achievement until the school has had a chance to.

If a grade skip or subject accelerations are a possibility the achievement test information will help assure you that this will be a good thing long term when filling out the Iowa Acceleration Scale.

I think either way could work well, depending on what is uncovered.
Good Luck,
Grinity

Hi Everyone! I am excited that I found this organization with a forum. I might not feel so alone now. As I've already read some parents post, this is not something you go around telling other parents about because from my experience they do start feeling inadequate. My son goes around spelling and signing all day so I can't exactly hide it. I do not know if my son is gifted for sure because he has not been tested. He certainly stands out and seems rather obsessed with numbers and letters.

He is 2 1/2 years old: says his ABC's, counts to 100, knows all of the phonics sounds and says several words for each letter, knows sign language ABC's and numbers, says his numbers in spanish to 59 and his ABC's in Spanish. He is reading kindergarten level books. I hope this doesn't sound like bragging but he seems so alone and bored. He obsessively goes over his numbers and letters all day. He has now resorted to also saying the ABC's and numbers backwards, goes over the phonics sounds backwords and says a word for reach letter backwards. I don't know if this makes any sense but he doing things in reverse now too probably out of boredom. He does all this while doing sign language, which he taught himself. He'll spend hours at the computer typing and this is all he is interested in. I've just never seen anything like this.

I live in Michigna and there is no funding for gifted programs and I don't even know where to start with him. Is it possible to IQ test a toddler, and if so, where would I even start?

Any info is so much appreciated because he already is having problems socially and seems so bored with his peers at daycare.

Sincerely,

Asha

Our son was screened in Kindergarten, but we didn't have him tested in Mid-School - mainly because I was still running away from the idea that kids with higher IQ's might actually need a different type of education and that gifted did not mean "elite". It meant gifted ... and all that comes with gifted.

If you can afford it, I don't see where getting some benchmark feedback could hurt. It's good to know. And some of the things we discovered about our youngest make me really wish I'd had him tested before Kindergarten.

Our DS was given the WISC by the school psych but not the achievement test. Psych refused because it was clear he would surpass K levels, she thought it would be not useful for really evaluating him. DS is already in a gifted school and there is no chance for a grade skip, it's possible though we will ask for it in the future to try to get a subject accommodation. But we might have been put off becauee fhey didnt want to know the answer. So the question is what do you want and what do you want to know, and what will they do with them info once you have it. Since it's in school, they will do it over days so there shouldnt be a downside for your child.

DeHe

Have any of you had any luck going to your pediatrician on the gifted issue? I'm taking my son in tomorrow to have him evaluated. I really hope this leads to something. I feel so uncomfortable bringing up that he appears to be gifted because I think people think I'm bragging. He actually seems to be struggling with children his own age socially and only wants to hang around older people. I am worried that he will feel socially isolated around his peers in school.

I have not much luck with talking about GT with my son's pediatrician. But I think the trouble was that the doc was GT, had 4 GT kids, and so what my son was doing was not so remarkable. I had better luck with the pediatric allergist, where we had an interesting discussion about why it seems that there are so many GT kids with allergies. But I think it's important to make the differences with GT kids more an issue with pediatricians - it's more than just learning things quickly. I believe SENG has some brochures you can request and ask your doc to give them out. I didn't have time for a full search, but I did come up with this article from SENG: Where does pediatric doc fit in the care of GT kids Good luck