Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment What made you decide to test child?

Trying to make a decision about testing for my 4-year-old, or whether to wait and see. He seems bored with preschool, and we've tried a few, including a great montessori, and the only one he loves (and doesn't challenge authority at) is at our amazing science museum, which only meets daily in the summer.
So what pushed you to test for IQ. Did they also test for a disability, ADD, ADHD, etc?

We got our older ds tested during K, buthe had turned 6. I knew from being in the classroom that he was no learning anything. He verbalized being bored, progressed to "I feel sick" to "I want to die". The public school was unwilling to help, so we tested. The results were so valuable to us helping our ds.

Think about what you want/ can do with the results. Why you want to test. Also, will your dc cooperate for the testing?

Good luck. Keep us posted!

DD 7.5 was nearing the point of nervous breakdown as 1st grade ended. Her at-home and in-class behavior were very different but both were at adds with her previous behavior, her self concept had deteriorated, her friendships were harmful. We needed to know what was up and IQ testing was a logical start. Turns out her issues were explained by a bad educational mismatch so no further assessment was warranted.

Exhibit A was being told by preschool DD was ready for K, but was still a year away from going.

Exhibit B was Kindergarten being an academic waste of time. Thank goodness we put her in piano that year or she would have learned nothing.

Exhibit C - during K, the solution to her being ahead was to send her to the library for harder reading than the Dr. Seuss she was getting, coupled with her acing (computer tests after each book) the harder reading they were allowing. (BYW - I love Dr. Seuss, DD was just beyond this level by K).

At the end of K, we decided enough was enough and began exploring a grade skip. Testing soon followed.

For DD, there was no thought to testing for any disabilities or behavioral issues as it was pretty clear she has none.

--S.F.

We tested because our DD's K experience was a toxic mess, and testing was the way to open up other options beginning in 1st grade.

Testing is expensive, but we found it invaluable to have objective evidence of our dcs' capabilities. Every parent, I suppose, thinks their child is gifted, and the teachers just tune it out unless you can provide a copy of test scores. The scores don't guarantee any educational outcome, but at least they give you common ground for conversation about enrichment, acceleration, etc.

DD was tested at 4 because we thought the results may help in advocating in school - she was in a mixed age Montessori preschool and her behavior was starting to slide downhill FAST. The results were dismissed by the school, but I am very happy we made the decision to test at that time. DD has not been tested for anything 2E and I don't think she will be. The only bump we came across was finding someone who was willing to test DD at 4, all the psychologists in our area didn't test children under 6 unless it was for a disability.

The school did it by their own choice and gave us a couple of weeks notice that it was happening. It cost us nothing. They waited until after age 7, as is their practice, but I agree with the contention that testing is more reliable at that age than earlier, the downside of not testing earlier being that recognition may be delayed. In our case, acceleration was happening anyway, so the results just provided data to justify our accelerated plans.

We tested our DS5 at 4 years, 7 months old due to behavioral issues at preschool. I can't actually remember how I came to the conclusion that he should be tested, but I think it was something along the lines of searching out ADHD information and then stumbling on gifted being mistaken for ADHD.

We got a list of local testers from the Hoagies website, and entertained getting a battery of testing from a gifted center (including neuropsych), but decided to go to an individual LEP who was willing to do piecemeal testing. The IQ test cost $300, but besides IQ score, the LEP also provided her opinion on whether he had ADHD based upon her interaction with DS during the testing (she thought he did not). Admittedly, it's not the full picture, but we didn't want to commit to cost of the full testing in the $2,500 - $3,000 range with him being such a young age. And the IQ score alone did help us realize how much advocacy DS would need going forward.

DS thought IQ testing was fun, the tester had great rapport with him, and the cost was reasonable to us, so there was no downside to the testing from our perspective. But there are plenty of posts on this site about testing not going well, not being representative, etc. I would say that, if your DS is somewhat "difficult", make sure that you choose a tester that knows how to accommodate for that. Good luck with your decision.

Ds7 I tested because a friend and the preschool thought he was gifted. He was 5.10 and at the end of his first year at school. What the teachers were saying seemed at odds to what I saw. Now I know that this is the case with nearly all kids. I thought he might just be 95%ile so I was surprised by the result. I tested ds4 a month ago because I thought I might need it for school.