Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Does my child sound potentially gifted?

Thanks for the input. The psychologist who administered the test said essentially the same thing, that she felt the (relatively) low score in that area was likely to reflect his lack of formal education/life experience so far, and that she would expect that he would likely score higher overall should we retest in a couple of years. She showed me a couple of examples of the questions he couldn't answer, and, while I don't think they were conceptually too difficult for him, they involved some concrete knowledge of objects and experiences he simply doesn't have at this stage. I definitely see why he did poorly in that area.

It might be worth looking into visual spatial thinkers. Those sub scores were high and personally I believe there are some challenges for people with advanced visual spatial abilities.
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/visual-spatial.htm

Thanks for the link, very useful and informative. Some of it definitely rings true, it'll be interesting to see how he goes when he starts kindergarten in January.

Today is one of those days I wish my kids had been born a nice 70th to 80th percentile. Bright enough to do well but not enough to cause problems.

Haha yes, although I have to say, even though my son's tested results were lower than the norm around here, he still seems to have a LOT of the tricky personality traits common in more highly gifted kids, so it's probably no guarantee against that aspect at least. I just realised a few days ago that (as far as I can assess at home) he's suddenly now reading and comprehending chapter books around a third grade level with 5 months to go until he starts kindergarten. He has just turned 5 so it's not that unusual in and of itself, it's more the pace of improvement without formal instruction that surprised me. It'll be interesting to see how kindergarten goes. Hopefully the social aspects will keep him busy, and writing is not really his strong point (very perfectionist so it's frustrating for him) so there's something for him to work on there.

YES. I think it is the PACE of learning, when the child DECIDES to learn something, that is so remarkable with these kiddos.