Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Ruf levels vs. IQ scores

Ruf�s book came out after our son had taken the SB-4 and WIAT. He had already qualified for Davidson based on his scores, our descriptions of his pursuits, interests and intensities, as well as, two letters of recommendation from his school staff. As example, in the letter his assistant principle submitted (and gave me a courtesy copy), she described a particular exchange between them illustrating his initiative, highly developed reasoning, concern for justice and precise, advanced vocabulary.

In reading �Losing our Minds� and looking at the milestone ages, I could determine that my daughter�s development fit at level 4 (met ~ 75% of list) and my son fit at 4+ (met several level 5 benchmarks, but fewer than level 4). My daughter had previously achieved 99.6% on the WISC-III and my son was already a YSer, so I would say these different measures yielded consistent results. In our case, the IQ tests were first.

Ruby,

My DS6 comes up with all sorts of creative ways to solve math problems. It's really amazing to watch at times.

I got the scores first and then read Ruf, which is why I didn't answer up-front. But I will say that scores and Ruf lined up very neatly for DS7. Ruf really helped me to make sense of what I was seeing in the test scores. In fact, hers was the MOST useful book--by far!--that I read about GTness. But he was also an early-milestone kind of kid.

OTOH, DS4 seems to be an nothing-then-all kid, so I doubt he will line up with Ruf's chart in any useful way. I haven't checked, but I don't expect to find much help there.

I don't know if that helps you in any way, Shelly, but that's our experience.

I'm happy to expand, but since I'm not sure this is relevant, I'll stop here.

We also had scores before reading Ruf. DS6 also seems to line up pretty well with a level 4 (except for reading since he didn't start until closer to 4 years old and I totally missed the early pre-reading skills). I also didn't take such great notes of milestones when he was a baby so I could still be way off.

Thanks for the info everyone. It is good to see others experiences. Like your DS7 Kriston, DS4 was is an early milestone kid as well...and honestly it seems like the book was almost written for him. Things match up quite well and the cattegories makes complete sense. It's quite uncanny actually. But with DD21 months, I haven't even looked at it. I think she is bright but in a much different way. It just doesn't match quite so well...so we will see.

I think Ruf's work, like all that's related to GTness, is a tool. I see flaws in her methodology, but she helped me so much! And I like that we have more tools--even if they don't work for all GT kids--not fewer.

As always, I recommend reading ANYTHING with a critical eye. (Said the former teacher of argumentative writing... ) And, as I said earlier, I think that if what you see about your child and what some book--Ruf or anything else, for that matter--indicates don't make sense together, then you should go with what you know first and foremost, including test scores (provided they fit with everything else).

The bottom line to me is that you know more than anyone who has never met your child, expert and author, or no! Books, tests, experts, labels, etc. are all just tools to make sense of what you're living. So if Ruf doesn't make sense with what you know, keep shopping around. Her book is not the only tool in the shed!

Gratified, I think you are missing my point here. Neither you nor I are on the Davidson Young Scholar review board so it follows that neither of us really know whether or not they consider Ruf's levels as described by parents in the application. I understand that you didn't include that type of information and your child was admitted. I'm sure some people include a lot of that information and are admitted. We just don't know if they look at it for people that include it, does that make sense? I think I already made myself pretty clear that not clocking a 4 or 5 on Ruf's levels is no reason to discredit a kid's exceptional intelligence.


Wow! Was this intended to be as snarky as it seems, or is one of those things that come across wrong in print? Ouch!

I asked my dad about the Ruf levels and he said that I fell in 3/4 for much of my first year or two but I just accelerated once I got into preschool and no one knew what to do with me by 3rd grade. I know that I was 4/5 by that time based upon what I was reading and doing. My IQ is higher than the one Ruf listed for 4/5.

Mr W has most of the 4/5 Ruf milestones - but in some ways he is very unique - such as his musical affinity and observation skills and his good cheer - all of which astonish me, yet no where is this mentioned. I also think he knows A LOT more than he lets on. He is his own man and not a pet monkey.

Looking at the bios of people like Feynman - he was clearly 5 given his behavior, but he has said his IQ tested in the 120s.