Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research early identification necessary

I think children in preschool or prep who are gifted need to be identified early. I feel very passionate about this topic since I see too many children in schools going through an educational system which does not adequately cater for them. Is there any support out there for this?

I totally agree with you. In Hong Kong(where I live), there is almost NO such support at all. Most gifted children are treated as naughty and disobedient, not favored by their parents. Well, I was one of them when I was a kid. Anyway, my parents are too old to be "re-educated" now, however, highly intellegient in all other ways. But there are special classes now for children of different "grades/performances", not for the gifted really.

I would love to see preschools and pediatricians take the lead in identifing gifted preschoolers, and helping their parents understand their social and emotional needs! I just heard that some profoundly gifted kids begin underachieving to fit in as early as preschool - WOW!

I also think that many gifted kids would benifit from early work with an occupational therapist to expand their physical comfort in their bodies, and that this should be offered widely. My son was "too smart" to do some of the normal physical development risk taking that was nescessary to learn about how his body worked. 6 months of OT for "sensory integration disorder" was very, very helpful. He is in better shape, healthier, and less troubled by the "oversensitivities."

I have four kids and each time I struggled with the right time to have them diagnostically tested. For the 1st, the school district warned that testing him too early (pre-reading) may give low results and that he couldn't be re-tested for 2 years. His kindergarten teacher finally told me what to do and I proceeded. The next kid had the same story except I figured if #1 scored so high and #2 is doing things earlier and faster, he must be even higher IQ. I didn't fret so much with #3 because he was just plain old scary smart. Now I'm again struggling with #4 who is 4 in preschool. I'm confident he's gifted but in order to be in the self-contained class he has to score at least 145. I wonder if being a fluent reader is necessary to do well on the iq test.
Anyway, the reason I'm going on about my reservations about early testing even though I KNOW early identification is so beneficial, is that most moms I know are even more conservative than I am. The district almost always waits until 2nd grade to screen kids (unless one stands out like a sore thumb or their mom is too persistent). I always advise moms to get their kids tested earlier and not wait until 2nd grade, but when is best? 4? 5? 6?

I have to agree about the early testing. I folded under pressure from the school and agreed not to test my oldest child this year (age 6, 1st grade). The school doesn't want to test until 2nd grade, and despite a lot of "reasons" that were offered, my cynical take is that the real reason for delayed testing is the lack of services until 3rd grade. Parents with concrete information are more likely to push for services that don't exist.

My husband really wanted to test, but when I explained the list of reasons for delay, he reluctantly agreed. I now regret our decision.

Part of what has changed my mind about testing is the time I've spent volunteering in class. The difference between what my son does in class and at home was eye opening. I've always known my kids are smarter than average, but I didn't really have any idea what a typical 6 or year old could do until I started helping at school. My son's teacher is a warm, kind person who really makes an effort to engage him, but he is tuning out, and I now understand why. They practice reading the "ow" sound and make lists of ow words. He comes home and reads Chemicals in Action, which is targeted at 7th or 8th graders. They talk about the fact that animals have different types of homes. My 6 year old comes home and freezes water, milk, rum, and rubbing alcohol with different combinations of salt and sugar to find out which liquids will freeze and whether or not the salt and sugar will change the way they freeze. (Yesterday's experiment.)

I'm not sure testing would make a huge difference because of the lack of services for the early grades, but numbers mean something in a bureaucracy, and my son might have at least gotten a little more differential instruction.

I'm spending this afternoon writing an essay about why my son should be in the one second grade class that has a teacher with gifted training. If I had tested him, this would not be an issue now. Due to school policies about requesting instructors, I can't ask for a specific teacher. Instead, I am left with documenting behaviors that support my request for a gifted/TAG-trained teacher without requesting her by name. Fortunately for my son, his current teacher thinks needs to be there too, so she is providing supporting documentation.

At this point, I plan to test my second child (now 4) in kindergarten.

Jill, even if a school does not have programs available to service younger gifted children, the information you get from testing them really helps you figure out a strategy for them. I think the easiest grade skipping is early-on (I had one kid skip 5th, one skip 4th, and one skip 2nd and by far the easiest was 2nd grade--4th was bad either). Already I dread my 4 yr old going through the alphabet AGAIN in kindergarten next year. One reason I'm anxious to test him is to collect documentation to skip K and go on to 1st grade. More meat there. We have no regrets about grade skipping (except some slight concern about skipping the bridging grade between elementary and middle...here, that's 5th grade, but it's different everywhere). The boys are physically less mature than their classmates, but have no problems with academics. I'm already worrying about when/how to orchestrate a second grade skip, at least for one son. Someday, we'll have to figure out what valuable programs they should do with "time saved" as Miraca Gross calls it. My husband says they should go abroad and do an intensive language study, or explore Europe and other places. So much time is wasted for the really bright kids if they stay where they are, and I find it makes my kids misbehave (when they're bored and unchallenged) and fear that later they would turn to substance abuse or wreckless teenager stunts if I didn't advocate for them now.
Early testing can help justify grade skips, can identify talent search programs (like the Davidson Institute, Johns Hopkins, Duke, Rocky Mt, etc.) that have counselors or distance learning opportunities. My 7 yr old took the Johns Hopkins talent search SCAT test recently and said, "Thank you, Mama, for letting me take that test!" afterwards. He was excited to take an above level test, something that finally approached challenging him and gives him an interesting experience. He can't wait to take other tests in the future. He's so happy to be a Davidson Young Scholar--it has really improved his self-esteem, and I also think it motivates kids to want to take distance learning courses or other opportunities.

I have mixed feelings about early testing, based mostly on the fact that I had such a lopsided PG child for quite a while--extremely early math but no early reading at all (and contrary to what you will read from Linda Silverman, my son had no visual or learning difficulties to account for this. He simply was not an early reader).

It took him until age 7.5 to even out, and in fact his verbal abilities have now outpaced his math abilities every time we check But the difference between his IQ scores at age 5 and at age 7.5 (two different tests) was really quite striking, simply because of the change in his ability to read. If we had gone simply on those early scores, we would have had pretty poor information. In fact, I am very grateful to one gifted school administrator who told me that she saw a real dissonance between his 5-year-old IQ test and his WJ scores at 6 and recommended further testing for that reason. She was absolutely right.

Fortunately or unfortunately, since we had no access to a gifted program of any kind before 3rd grade (and not much after that ) .. class placement was not an issue in the testing, we were simply looking for diagnostic information. I hate to think what would have happened if we'd been dependent on the early testing for educational placement reasons.

You know, I think there is a need for early testing for many children, but that perhaps Cat Smith's experience points to the need for continued monitoring. The point of discussion that I've heard made re early IQ testing is that there is a basic, early development which must occur before testing is accurate -- and it seems clear enough that the timing for that development varies individually. That said, I think there are clear and compelling reasons for early testing for some individual children -- and in our case, waiting until 4 years old has just been too long. No way can I place my daughter in any public or private school -- they suggest (1) that she be placed with kids her age because socialization is so important, and then (2) that she be set apart in the classroom when she does her regular work, which is currently at a level around twice her chronological age -- as if that won't be strange socially for her. She conceals so much already -- and has been since around 11 to 13 months when she first realized that other babies wouldn't respond to her greeting, "Hi! How are you?! I'm __. I'm __ months old! What's your name? How old are you?" It's sad to see her going underground. We -need- to find other kids like her. It isn't that we want to rush her or hurry her -- it's that we don't want her to get so used to hiding her abilities, to grow used to not learning. Those are bad lessons, the wrong things to teach. That's why we need early testing -- earlier than is now available.

Perhaps "early testing" needs to be thought about in terms of milestones, rather than ages?

Here are some ideas - please post yours:
-test the minute you become aware that the child is conceling their intelligence.
-test when other people's eyes start bugging out.
-test when your child becomes a reader, and there is reason to suspect that they are gifted.
-test when there are behavior problem in the classroom, or at home.
-test when you need to start making plans for your child's educational path.
-test when you throw away the baby books in frustration because the "timing is all off."

Perhaps we can come up with a working list of "developmental" triggers for testing that aren't age based.

I�m feeling less cynical today, so I have to admit I sort of understand why our school doesn�t want to test kids before 2nd grade. They use a variety of group tests. Some are achievement-based and some are more like IQ tests. From what I�ve read, the group tests are a lot less accurate for young children. Once the tests are given, the school won�t retest for 2 years to prevent parents who want kids in gifted programs for status reasons from training their kids to improve their scores with each retake. As a result, an inaccurate test can deny services for 2 years. Given that the tests become more accurate after about age 7, they discourage parents from testing younger children.

I think the school needs to administer tests designed specifically for younger students. In practice, I don�t know what that means. Would they need to move to individually administered exams? I suspect that part of the problem is money � more expensive testing for younger kids and requiring more services as more K-1 students are identified.

Does anyone have experience with these types of group tests? How do they compare to a more traditional IQ test, which is done individually? More to the point, what type of test is truly useful when working with a 4 or 5 year old?

The school will test my son next fall. He will be 7 later this summer, so he is at the point where most of the tests are reasonably accurate. My daughter, on the other hand, is 4 and I think that this time around we need to get the information up front instead of waiting as we did with out son. I�ve pulled her out of preschool because she complains constantly that they don�t read and she is tired of �baby math� and wants to subtract. (She�s only going a total of 8 hours a week, but apparently even that is too much. I just wanted a little break!) She�s not old enough for kindergarten this fall, so I am going to keep her home this coming year and let her explore her interests.

My daughter is less compliant than her brother, and a lot less tolerant of busy work. (He tunes out and contemplates his latest interests when bored.) This time around I want to know enough to make a better decision for her than we did for her brother. For him, I�m hoping that having a TAG-trained teacher next year will help him re-engage in school. For her, I�m really hoping that we don�t have to get to that point.

PS Speaking of eyes bugging out... My daughter was an early talker and I nursed her for a long time � 2 years. When she was about 16 months old (still bald and looking like a baby) she would pop out from under my shirt and say �I switch sides now�.