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Hi, I am new to this forum, although I have been researching giftedness on the web for about a year or so. Just wanted to introduce myself and get the lay of the land..one question: I see people abbreviating references to kids as DS or DS10, I figure the numbers are ages, the S is son (or daughter), but the first D? Dear?
We have one DS7 and one DD2, if I am getting this right.

Last fall I finally decided to jump in the water on this whole gifted assessment thing for my son. I had always pegged him for likely gifted, mainly in math and art as he LOVES to draw. We can not stop him, still at the age of nearly 8 he makes several drawings in notebooks etc., a day. Has always loved puzzles, legos, building things from found objects from an early age. Not very verbal but obsessive about having stories read to him, every night, several stories a night.
In K he seemed pretty comfortable, reading along with others, math looking very good. In first, again, reading, math doing just fine, but he was starting to become distressed that he wasn't making friends like he thought he ought to...
Finally this year in second, I put two and two together and said if he is having difficulty socializing with kids his age, already complaining about hating school, but fitting 'the list' of gifted characteristics pretty well, and in my mind has always seemed extremely bright, maybe the gifted enrichment program is something we should apply for sooner rather than later.
We are fortunate (so far) that VA does have an ok program, although full class testing is not done until 3rd grade for placement in the 4th grade. Long story short, after a LENGTHY assessment, he has finally been identified as being eligible for enrichment, in of all things, language.
He really has turned out some amazing writing in just the last few months. I found this later on the web: apparently all this detailed drawing is fairly common for kids who love to tell stories. Until all the major skills for writing are in place, drawing can be that outlet!
He only got in a couple of these gt classes before the end of this school year, but he already seems more excited about school, so that is offering us some good hope. Of course, next year he'll be in the program but have to be evaluated again for placement in the 4th grade... It was so fun last time, can't wait for round 2!
My DD2, is just a dynamo physically and verbally. She's using full sentences already, really since about 15 months, said her first word at 9m.
I am very excited to have found this forum, as I feel I have probably just begun to climb this mountain in front of me!

Welcome Chris! This is a wonderful place to pick up tips and BTDT advice on everything related to high levels of giftedness. You guessed correctly on the acronyms. I'd recommend that you check out hoagie's gifted pages for more "beginner" stuff on giftedness.
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

Welcome Chris! I too was shocked when my math loving kid scored very high in verbal areas, I guess b/c he's not a very verbal kid but he too could be read to for HOURS. My second son is much like your DD2 - very verbal early on...his strength will probably be math lol. My best friend's DD who was precociously verbal as a 1yr old, score very, very high in Perceptual reasoning lol and we had her so pegged as hitting the ceilings in verbal areas!

I just finished reading "Encourage your child's writing talent" and in which it spoke about drawing in young, gifted writers.

It seems odd that the school will require him to be evaluated again next year. I can see perhaps if he was Ker when evaluated, but a 2nd grader? Many schools eval in 2nd grade for placement in 4th.

Welcome Chris,

This is a great place to come for information and support. I've found so many links to resources here, it's been so helpful for our family.
Hope the same for you!

Neato

Hi! Welcome!

I just thought I'd also mention that there's a sticky at the top of the "Parenting and Advocacy" forum here with a list of acronyms we use here that you might not find everywhere. We made up some of our own, and it can be confusing for people who aren't used to us!

I'm impressed that you figured out "DS" and "DD" on your own. I had to ask.

Yes Dottie. i'm still kicking myself b/c by the time I ordered, they were out of the one for Science talented kids lol. Not sure why I bought the writing talented one except that it was only $.99 lol.

Well the psych told DS "You might not say much, but you sure do have a lot of words in your head."

Welcome Chris!

I often think that it easier to see the math side than the verbal. When a 3 year old is doing simpe algebraic equations etc. you can see that something is going on. The same for drawing Verbal can be harder since I think I at least often just accept that DS is verbalizing his stories in a way I would expect not anything that screams advanced to me. It took a few different tests to get me to accept that DS is gifted but we will probably never know to what degree since he is 2E. His highest scores are Verbal with Math close behind. Short term memory and processing speed really pulled down a couple of the math subsets.

If your school is like ours, they test all children in 3rd grade with a group test then break it out to those needing individual tests. Even though my son is already in the gifted program, he took the test with his class since they didn't want to single out the gifted program children. They just didn't redo the individual test part and the scores did not impact his participation in the gifted program. In fact I still don't have those results lol.

elh - when you say working memory and processing speed really pulled down his math scores, to which test are you referring?

WISC IV and WCJ-3. The tester said that he ran out of time on sections but not out of correct answers on the fluid math section. This was his lowest score on the test.

ELH - thanks! I was wondering how much processing speed and working memory would impact perceptual reasoning on the WISCIV. I did see that on the WJIII that the Broad Math also had a timed component in it which might bring DS's overall score down.