Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Any benefit in testing? (just under 2 years old)

Is there any benefit in testing a child to be gifted at a young age? My daughter is about to turn two next month and people have told me I should but I'm not sure. I know I benefited from being in an advanced track at school but I'm not sure if any earlier should help. I don't have much money (single mom!) so I'm not sure what I could do to help if she was gifted, or indeed if it does help at this point or if I keep doing what I'm doing. I have very little use for a "vanity" result.

Parents
My ex husband is in the genius range (162) where as I'm considered gifted but a bit below genius (147).

Physical
+Crawling at 5 months
+Walking at 8 months
This has always been where she is most ahead. She loves being active more than anything else and always has. She is tall for her age too, so I don't know if the early stuff here relates to that.

Verbal
+Can say the alphabet, recognize all her letters, and recognize a few words. Not really reading like a book, but her big magnet letters. She started recognizing the words on her own without any conscious effort on my part (of course, I do read to her)
+She can count to 10 (actually 14) consistently, and can count to 20 sometimes, but sometimes blurs the teen numbers when doing it. Up to 10 I see her picking up items and counting, so over that may very well just be reciting.
+Related to the former, if I pick up a number of items and ask her how many, she'll tell me, or if I ask her to give me say, four crayons, she'll count out and give me four.
+Has a lot of songs memorized and will make up new words sometimes to the beat related to what we are doing. Sings a lot!
+Picks up new things very, very quickly. Often one time...
+Knows her directions (right from left)
+Knows her shapes. Good at puzzles.
+Has a good sense of humor. She makes jokes a lot (usually inconsistencies, sometime physical) laughs, and says "Funny!"
+Follows complex instructions. As in 5 tasks at once, then follows them in order.


HOWEVER...
+However, while she knows all the names for colors, she gets confused a lot in saying what color things are. Red and green especially. Better at recognizing Purple, pink, etc. I know her cousin who is one month younger and behind in some of these other areas can name all primary colors even some nuance colors
+Also, while she has a good vocabulary for those who can be around her for a bit (consistent on names of things) she is hard to understand for new people. If it matters here, I was in speech therapy, as were all my siblings, until I was 12.
+She has not been potty trained yet. We haven't pushed it either but we have made the potty available to her and she says the words, pee, poop, toilet, and will go pretend and then wash her hands, she still relies on her diaper.


I guess I don't even know if she's gifted, as every kid has their exceptional area. But I am hearing a lot from friends parents that she might be. WHich may just be because she is not shy at all and shows off - rather than being quiet about what they can do like some 2 year olds. She just loves people. So might she? And if so, is there any benefit in pursuing that now, or is it just something to keep in mind in 3 years or so when she starts school if signs still seem to be there?

If it makes any difference, I may have to put her in preschool. (Stay home with her now, we cut to make it meet but I think it helps). There are some preschools around here that offer scholarships and require applications.... Could testing help with that, if I have to do it?

IMHO, there's no benefit to testing (in general, not just IQ) unless the results of that test would change something.

We considered testing DD7 at not-quite-3, because a high-enough result would have gotten her admission to one of the preschools we were considering. Since we decided that the school was not a good fit for her at that point, there was nothing that would change based on test results, so we didn't test.

She's currently halfway through proficiency testing for a grade skip, and we had her tested using the school's test, because the results of that test (and no other) would change whether she was allowed to skip. We considered IQ testing (mostly because the IOWA manual has a mandatory FSIQ component that figures into the decision-making process) - but based on genes and observation, I knew she was at least 1SD up (enough to pass the "dealbreaker" guidelines), and even giving her a 0 or 2 for the IQ component, she had a high enough score for recommending acceleration. An IQ score wouldn't have changed our decision (or had any effect on the school, one way or another), so we didn't test.

Hi! Good for your daughter!

For what it's worth, my 27 month old has been very similar with each of these milestones, and I don't see any reason to have him tested. DS1 was given the WISC-III at 3 1/2, but only because our preschool teacher strongly recommended it and we didn't know whether it was important or not. Once we had the results, it confirmed that he is PG, but other than that it didn't make any difference whatsoever. Plus, for a lot of activities where you'll later need testing (DYS, for example), the test has to be administered within a certain frame of time. Testing too early just means we'll have to test again.

We did submit DS1's scores with his kindergarten application for PS just to show where he was at, but they didn't do anything with it at first. (They did come to us on the 2nd day of school and recommend placement testing/grade skip, so if I had to guess, I bet they opened his file and saw the scores at that point.) Otherwise, besides DYS, it hasn't meant anything at this point and he's now 6.

I would keep having fun and encouraging her to explore new things. The 1-1 correspondence is great. What I've learned between DS1 and DS2 is to put any practicebooks away and just explore the world together, focus on social skills through playdates, and keep pulling out puzzles, blocks, and similar "thinking" activities to play together. My DS2 doesn't get nearly enough of that, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is what's most important!

We had D (now 15) tested at age 3. I'm sure some parents would disagree, but in some ways that testing caused more trouble than it was worth. I am, by the way, a person who likes a lot of data to make decisions, etc. But I did not find that testing very helpful. Here is why:
- Her test score was EXTREMELY high. However, later testing has shown that her actual IQ is about 30 points below those initial results.
- The report that came with the testing had some really pretty terrifying predictions about her academic progress... and it has been a struggle for us as parents when she has not lived up to those predictions. Turns out she is 2E, with a non-verbal learning disability. But in my opinion that early testing and that report "muddied the water" for us in terms of figuring that out.
- You can't really use results from a test at age 2 or 3 effectively for school placement. You are going to have to test again anyway when she reaches school age. Why pay twice, except for your own satifaction? Will it really change how you read to her, work with her on math, expose her to museums, try out a foreign language, etc.? My guess is that it will not.

D has performed very well on the Midwest Academic Talent Search, and is at Davidson's THINK this summer. I think she would have had those same results regardless of whether we had testing done at such an early age. I wish now that we had just skipped the early testing altogether.

Hi Qwerty.

My daughter will be 4 next month and we haven't tested her beyond the school tests they administer to the students. My DD goes to a Spanish Immersion program which is academic and 2 years ahead of the public schools. We didn't have to test her to get her into the program and would have been the only reason we would consider it at such a young age.

Reasons why you shouldn't: The tests don't give the most accurate results at a young age, plus the results would not be valid after a few years and you would have to retest her spending more money. The age range they claim to be the most accurate for testing is around age 8. We plan to test DD when she is around 7 unless we find that the school is not working for us anymore and need to figure out another solution.

Also, just in case you haven't read about potty training and the gifted: a lot of gifted children will be slow to potty train. It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with introducing her to it and not pushing her. My DD was one of those that I was ready to pull my hair out because she out and out refused to potty train. We tried the reward system but she could care less. Even bought her this beautiful dollhouse that she begged for and left it in view for her to see. Yep, didn't excite her enough to really try. She decided when she was ready and when she made that decision she was potty trained (night and day) within 2 weeks. She was potty trained in 2 days for pee pee and a week for poop. Another week of more me not sure if we should take it to the next level and she was potty trained for nighttime. So if she takes her time with it don't get discouraged. She will eventually decide she is ready.

I agree with this. Unless you need the info now for some particular reason, I wouldn't do it yet. It's extremely difficult to get accurate results in young kids. I have a 9 year old and a daughter that just turned 6. We've never done full scale testing on either. The only advantage to us would being about to possibly apply to DYS. And the cost doesn't outweigh the advantages at this point since we're a homeschooling family that has a good GT community already. Now my 9 year old is at an age where achievement scores are speaking volumes.

Edited to add - both my kids were potty trained relatively late. It just wasn't on any of our radars! Unless you NEED her potty trained for some particular reason, I would give it a break for 3-6 months. My kids could give a dissertation on why they wouldn't potty train before they ever were.

I'd agree with the others that I'd wait. I'd also add that test results from age two are unlikely to make a difference once she hits school age. Teachers and administrators may be disinclined to believe scores that are many years old and done when she was so young especially if you don't have more recent data.

And, now I'm going to take this a little off topic to ask AlexsMom a side question about her post.
It's been 2.5 yrs since dd11 went through the skip process using the IAS, so things may have changed. We did need the IQ scores and the manual at that time stated that you should not consider a skip unless the child was at least two SDs above the mean not one (unless it was for early admission to K for a child who had just missed the cut-off in which case they were willing to accept 1-2 SDs.) Has that changed? Are they now recommending skipping kids with IQs in the 115 range?

The version of the IAS we used also said that without the IQ data, you couldn't even fill out the form. You could leave out above level testing and put in a zero there, but you could not for IQ.

I do also understand that the newest version of the IAS will take a CogAT in lieu of IQ. Is that the case on the form you are using? I'm not asking any of this b/c I question your decision. I am just curious about the process now a days and I've also seen the success level vary rather significantly locally from kid to kid & they often do skip kids here w/out the ability data. I don't know if this plays into the success from one kid to the next or not, though.

I've got what I think is the 2003 version of the form, and no version at all of the manual, so I'm probably not the person to ask.


Because our school district is indifferent to the IAS, I didn't feel any particular need to use it the "right" way. Something to consider, sure. But for me personally, saying "I'm going to take as a given that she meets the IQ threshold" was good enough. (I am not a very good rule-follower!)


No, it's shown as supplemental. But I think I have the 2003 form.


Yeah, I don't know, either. When I was talking to the person in our district who's in charge of skips, I asked what the process was for reversing it in case it wasn't successful, and she said they'd never had a case of a kid passing the proficiency testing and not being successful in the higher grade.

If DD had not had to prove that she'd already mastered the 2nd grade curriculum better than a kid who'd actually passed 2nd grade would have been required to, I probably would have "followed the rules" for the IAS more. I really used it more as a "is this likely to be successful socially" guide than a "is this likely to be successful academically" guide.

It's seems likely that she is gifted, but I don't see any benefit in having an IQ score before the time of making decisions about early entrance to Kindergarten.

I don't think that most of the preschools use IQ scores, usually it's their own screening test. I think it's worth a phone call to each of the possible schools to see if they routinely require IQ testing.

It seems that if someone is trying to give you a diagnosis of ADHD or AS, then it's worth testing, but 'just to know' I would suggest you look into www.talentigniter.com/ It's not as good as an individualized IQ test, but it's much cheaper, and might satisfy your curiosity.

Best Wishes,
Grinity