Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion DS4 Finds Misinformation Amusing

Hi All,

DS4 was an early talker and an early jokester. His jokes haven't always made a lot of sense, but he enjoys making them nonetheless. A few of his jokes are quite funny. For the past year he has found a lot of humor in wrong answers or misinformation. We never know when he's going to give us a serious answer or a funny but false answer. For example, he knows addition and subtraction within 10 very well. If you were to ask him what 2 + 2 =, he would likely say 100 and then laugh and say, "Oops, I made a miscalculation." He may or may not give you the correct answer afterward.

Is this... normal? Will he grow out of it? Has anyone dealt with this? We are concerned that any testing done will be moot because he so enjoys giving wrong answers.

My DS, who is now 8, was the same way at 4. We didn't test him until he was 7, and then we were testing him primarily for autism, not for IQ. His IQ scores weren't anything to write home about, but I think this kind of behavior may have played into it. Also, he seems to have been trying to force the IQ test questions into the mold of what he was currently learning in school, which led to him getting a number of them wrong.

I can't tell you whether it's normal for a neurotypical child (since he does have autism), but no professional has really commented on this aspect of his personality, unless you count teachers saying that he is fun to have in class.

Sounds pretty normal to me. But my kid has tested HG+, so maybe I'm a poor judge.

George, that was normal for your HG+ child? Did you wait until your kid was older to test?

My DD6 hated being quizzed and often gave completely wrong but rather witty answers whenever she felt offended or slighted by being asked obvious questions like 2 + 2. She had to be tested when she was 4.8 for K admission and she did fine. on IQ tests. For a school readiness assessment that involved naming letters and numbers, apparently, she was very disrespectful and downright sassy.

She is 6 now and I think she would be a lot more compliant. I'd wait unless you have compelling reasons to test now.

How many dumb questions would you answer before you started making stuff up?

Sadly, our DS6 still enjoys those. 1 + 1 still equals 11, and so forth. He'll offer up these jokes quite often, which is "so much fun". But to our knowledge, he does that kind of stuff with us and has never done it with a teacher. I really don't think he did it when he was assessed, either.

Just in case though, I agree with Mana that I'd wait to test until you have a specific reason to do so.