Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school How did you identify your pre-schooler as gifted?

How and at what point were your children identified as gifted? Did you take them to a psychologist to be tested or do you think it just doesn't matter until school starts? My DD is 3.5 years old. I think she is gifted, but maybe my view is skewed because I am her mother. I will say that my siblings and I as well as my husband were all identified as gifted when we were in school.
Anyway, she is my only child, I don't know if these things are normal for her age or not. The "milestones" charts seem to have a pretty low bar! She can identify all her letters and write most of them, she is starting to try to figure out how things are spelled by sounding them out. She can count to over 100 and do simple math (ie: we have 6 cookies, if we want to have an equal amount how many would we have each?). She likes art and draws fairly detailed pictures. Also, she has a very good memory - she heard a book in daycare for the first time yesterday and came home and told me the whole story and recited a big part of it verbatim. She has a good imagination, and has imaginary friends and gets very involved in pretend play.
My question, sorry for rambling on, is:
a: does this seem like a gifted child
b: if so, is there any reason to test her at this age
c: if so, how does one go about doing that?
Thanks everyone for your help!

Welcome Chelsea!


Quick answers first.

a - sure sounds gifted to me. I would recommend reading Dr. Ruf's "Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind." Also, you can look at some of her checklists re: levels of giftedness as seen in preschool behaviors on her site: levels of giftedness

b - We also started worrying when our DS was about 3.5 and seemed to know the kindergarten curriculum. Since he is a January bday, we wondered if we should get a waiver to send him to kindergarten when he was 4.5. In our district, IQ >130 is required as part of the early entrance criteria, so that is why we decided to get IQ testing done when DS turned 4.

c - We had a friend with a highly gifted (HG) DS who recommended a psychologist who specializes in gifted kids. I highly recommend finding someone who specializes in gifties. Check out hoagies' list: psychologists familiar with gifted

It seems that age 6 is an age thrown out as a more stable age for accurate testing. There are sometimes problems in testing the youngest. For us, testing earlier helped us go to the school before kindergarten to work as a team as to the best fit for our DS.

HTH

I think typical milestone charts are designed to give a baseline so parents know when to worry. That doesn't have much relevance for parents of advanced children trying to figure out what is "normal" or average. I like the pbs.com child development tracker because it says both what most kids can do at any given age and what some/a few kids can do at a given age. I am confident that DD is gifted (and probably highly gifted) because, at 3, she is doing things that only a few 5 year olds can do (according to PBS). Well, and I've got the gut feeling, and the family history, and then there's the fact that she reads first, second, and sometimes even third grade readers independently.

Since we are leaning towards homeschooling, testing just doesn't make sense for us right now. We will likely test when she is 5 or 6. I think if she tests HG+ it will help DH be more comfortable with homeschooling. And, of course, if she has high enough scores for DYS, we would want to have access to that resource.

You may want to check with your district to see if they offer testing for free. It might be a good place to start. Your daughter certainly has some advanced skills.

If you think your child is gifted, then she probably is.
I agree with the others I would wait until 5 or 6 to test and start checking around with your school district now. ou will want to be prepared.
And in the mean time you can encourage your child's natural talents. You are already making the right descision by gathering information. Good Luck

Welcome Chelsea!
Actually, your view is probably skewed because you grew up with all gifted people, which is not unusual, as there is large Genetic Component to Giftedness.

OTOH, if you child wasn't gifted, you'd probably think that she is developmentally delayed. If you are 'impressed' by what she is doing, then she is likely of a higher LOG (level of Giftedness, see Ruff's book) than your family is used to.

Does it matter now? If she is going to a preschool program, it might or might not be having an impact...
If you are considering early Kindergarden...
If you are trying to save money now so you can homeschool if needed later...
IF you can't talk to the neighbor-ladies about what your child is doing because they would think you are crazy or lying or bragging...

No harm in contacting the local public school and asking them to do some testing now or soon if they'll pay.

If you are all having fun, then the only thing to do different is to make sure that every time a well meaning strange comments on how smart she is, you turn it into a praise of a character trait, like curiousity or persistience instead of a fixed trait like 'smart' or 'pretty.' See Sylvia Rim for more on this.

Smiles,
Grinity