Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment "Gifted" or just "Talented"?

Hello! I'm turning to the experts on this forum to help confirm if my child counts as "gifted" or simply very talented.

Public/private school admission is not an issue, as we homeschool, but I do need to negotiate with after-school academic program coordinators, and in a couple years, CLEP proctors and college admissions. I don't want to throw the word "gifted" around if my child does not in fact qualify, while I'm trying to lobby for early admission or skipping levels.

My 11 yo DD began reading at age 3, not exactly independently, but she identified the word "box" spontaneously all on her own, and so I took the cue and began her formal instruction. She completed 1st grade at age 4 and is currently chugging through freshman high school algebra and chemistry. Her 2 siblings study at a similar level or one year behind. I had her take the Stanford Binet in Sept and the Stanford + OLSAT in November. To be totally transparent, the SB was not independently proctored - I just bought the online version for her and sat her down at the computer.

Her SB gave her an overall IQ of 143: her 2 highest categories, "visual" and "knowledge", were 145, and her lowest category, "innate", was 125.

Her OLSAT gave her only a 119 SAI, in the 88th percentile. However, the Stanford academic portion was in the 95th percentile for the complete battery: Reading 98th, Math 96th, Language 95th, Spelling 83rd, Science 96th, Social 97th, Listening 96th, and Thinking Skills 99th percentile. She told me that she ran out of time on the OLSAT portion and could not get to all the questions, but the academic portion is of course untimed.

The Stanford+OLSAT rates her AAC (academic achievement score) as "high" because it considers that most kids with her OLSAT score would not have scored so high on the academic portion. Likewise, the Stanford Binet considers "innate" intelligence her lowest category, while her high categories are mental skills that are learned. So I'm questioning if my child is gifted, or if she is simply a very bright child who has been extremely motivated under a custom school program. I want to advocate for my child, but I don't want to claim she's more than she is.

I'd be very grateful for any feedback!

Welcome, Faylie!

As a general comment, I would be very very cautious about making any consequential decisions based on an online IQ test. These really cannot be compared to individualized administration of a gold standard instrument by a qualified professional. I would actually consider the OLSAT administration to be more likely to be a valid measure in some ways, since it was being used more similarly to how it was designed to be used. Granted, she ran out of time, so that would be a mark on the other side of the account. Bottom line, you do not currently have a good measure of her cognition, though I think we can reasonably place her above average.

That being said, as a homeschooling parent, it isn't really that important whether she is "truly" gifted or "just" academically advanced. Teach the child you have in front of you with whatever seems to feed her thirst for learning and growing as a whole human at that moment. As it happens, I am a qualified evaluator, yet we did not have any of our children formally evaluated for cognition (granted, I think I have had a pretty good idea of where they each fall, based on my clinical judgement), mainly because we could meet their needs in homeschooling merely by being alert to their development and following their leads.

With regard to afterschool programs, if you are addressing her core academics in homeschooling, afterschooling is merely supplementary, so I would probably focus on enrichment in areas of nonacademic interest. If she is in algebra I this year, you will probably be looking at college-level courses in about two to three years, depending on how quickly she goes through the next few courses, and also on whether you choose to homeschool precalculus and/or calculus at home or have her enroll in college courses. Most states have early college/dual enrollment programs of some kind at the community college or four-year state university level. Nearly all of them are open to high school juniors/sixteen-year-olds. If you have your DC reported to your local district as a grade eleven student by the time you are looking at dual enrollment, the CC or SU will most likely have to accept her, and will then place her based on their testing. They actually will not care at all about the gifted label.

Our experience: one of our children homeschooled high school, with the last year enrolled full-time in college courses, all of which transferred directly into the four-year university where they matriculated as a first-year college student with sophomore standing. Since the first college course was taken as a middle teen, the process was smooth and uneventful. Even if it had been earlier, the CC has a process for allowing youth learners (10th grade and below) to take courses. The net result after previous early entries and grade-skips was beginning a full college course load about two years young for grade (but nominally as a high school student).

Our homeschooling journey was relatively low-key, with months or years where the pace slowed to a crawl in some of the areas of strength, but with these always in response to developmental interests in other areas, led by our children. With a homeschooling philosophy that is about growing healthy, happy humans in the context of loving relationships, we didn't see a need for advocacy based on labels. By the time we reached college settings, it was more effective to present performance data (SATs, college placement tests, etc.) than measures of cognitive ability, and once there were any college credits on the transcript, it was only having prerequisite courses that mattered.

In other words, relax! Labels are helpful for advocacy in a traditional school setting, but not really important when homeschooling. Enjoy your lovely, bright child, and follow her lead.

I would personally say your child is gifted, especially if she used the SB-5 and got a 143. The other stuff is academic tests and perhaps your child is relatively weak in attention or processing speed or even executive functioning. That is an interesting difference. Personally I would say a 130s or above IQ is gifted.

I would rely on the FSIQ to say that she is gifted, and technically under many definitions it works (130+ or 140+) so I would say she is gifted. But the SB is supposed to be taken in exam conditions in the conditions set, not online.

If I had to make a decision based on your child, I would say she is gifted but needs confirmation with a genuine IQ test in full standardised conditions.

Unlike aeh I do not necessarily believe that simply monitoring development and being aware of needs with "clinical judgement" could suffice for homeschooling in many cases. There are many complex conditions such as personality-related problems if the teen/preteen is very egocentric and has a pattern of it. That is why I prefer standardised testing too as a junior mentor/researcher and former teacher/tutor.

How early admission do you want to lobby for her and how many levels do you want her to skip? What other courses in other subjects did she take? I would probably focus on enrichment in non-academic hobbies as well as other holistic attributes, for instance survival skills. Besides, if your daughter is not perfect (for instance, has a vice or similar) at least she has many other decent qualities and decent friendships who will accept her. I personally am not willing to be extremely harsh on a teen for enjoying some vaping while keeping to between lectures and spend their money responsibly but soem parents are black and white it seems.

If she is doing Algebra I and Chemistry then it seems she would be ready to enter university maybe 3-5 years later or 6. While I personally favor early enrollment I would prefer if the college she goes to is a quite decent college, perhaps top 100 or a decent liberal arts school. In my personal experience in hindsight I would go to a college who is supportive of people including early-entrants as well as decent. And hopefully they would be able to fit in, join parties and all that.

I do see a need for advocacy based on labels as whether she is gifted or simply an extremely hard worker changes things. If the latter, people may be skeptical. If the former, perhaps it would be better. Sometimes gifted girls can hide disabilities better by compensating with their great intelligence (especially if the 143 IQ is genuinely 143 IQ in standard conditions). If daughter has some executive function or personality or personal problems, in my opinion a label could not only help give them autonomy but also accountability for her as well as others. Some people discriminate others because they perceive others as disabled even if they are not. This is where I appreciate aeh's opinion but don't fully agree in this aspect.

Thanks for your clarifications, Frameist. You are correct that there can be many other factors which would warrant formal evaluation. If you read my other posts, you'll see that I often reference the need for a question to be answered or a problem to be solved as the drivers of evaluation. In this case, the OP did not report any particular concerns other than an appropriate match between cognition and instruction. But it is certainly helpful to remind readers that there are many reasons to evaluate (especially since most parents are not professional evaluators).

Obviously, I am generally pro-testing, or I would not be in my current profession! At the same time, it's important to empower parents as critical observers of their children. Evaluation data is only one source of information regarding a child, obtained during a short time frame under specific conditions, and should always be interpreted in the context of the human first, rather than interpreting the human in the light of the numbers. Involved parents--especially homeschooling parents--have a much broader and deeper experience of their children's learning needs and strengths, over more diverse contexts and a much longer time frame. I find that their insights are extremely helpful. As you are likely aware, research on gifted identification has found that parent nomination is much more accurate than teacher nominations, and not too far off of standardized testing.

In any case, the big picture is that the end game of parenting is a happy, healthy, holistically growing human who has satisfying relationships internally and externally. As you note so astutely, intellect is only one component of this.