Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Thread Like Summary - Help understanding my child!

Hi all, first poster.

My DD 9 is a bit of a mystery. She�s in fourth grade and has always been highly erratic at school. I�m posting to get some advice about how to support and understand her.

Some background.
This lovely kid has been quirky since birth. She was an unusually self-contained newborn - she studied the world with great seriousness and attention at a few hours old. By a few weeks old, she was showing preferences re who held her and when, and how she spent her time.

She hit some milestones early, but not all. She would play involved imaginative games by herself for many hours by age 2, and had a sophisticated early vocab. At the same time, she wouldn�t really engage in activities imposed by others. She wasn�t interested in children�s books or songs, and bounced around the room when read to. She was listening though.

By 2-3, she was interested in adult concepts and adult themes - justice, conflict, belief - and we were trying to match the factual content to her emotional development!

Fast forward to school. She was very quiet at school but content and making friends. She did so-so in early class work, and was quiet enough to fade into the background. I began to notice that she was giving school the same attention as she gave many things that didn�t interest her. So we tried some class work at home. She rapidly (in 20-30 mins) demonstrated an ability to do maths work years ahead - and then she went back to doing her own thing. The whole exercise seemed to annoy her.

Reading-wise, she acquired reading in a matter of week or months at 5 without really ever reading a book. She was years ahead within months of starting, and remains years ahead in reading and comprehension. And still won�t usually read by choice. Although she does love to be read to.

Maths-wise, she underperformed to age 7, then started getting perfect scores on standardised tests (>99pc). Most of the time.

Fast forward to now. She performs >99pc in both literacy and maths in standardised tests more often. But it�s still hit and miss. She does not like multiple
choice, especially in literacy. She�s more reliable in maths than literacy. She�s happy, sociable although introverted, and feels mostly positive about school. She has a range of passions she pursues at home, which has always been her preferred place for really being herself.

At 7, we had WISC V done. From our perspective, DD was clearly under challenged and completely disengaged from the class work

The psychologist who did the WISC was lovely but had no recent experience with WISC administration and no experience with gifted children. She (the psych) found the experience a bit overwhelming (by her own admission) and said DD was pretty hard to keep on topic. The outcome was a fairly even spread, with relative strength on VCI, relative weakness in processing speed, and an IQ in the mid 120s.

We have family peppered with HG, PG and above. However, the erratic performance and selective engagement of DD is unfamiliar territory.

Her school is doing much better at acknowledging her capacity and she has Maths pull-out. They are considering other ways to engage her.

I didn�t want to get a WISC in the first place - although it was necessary for advocacy. And I don�t really want to do another now she�s older. But i don�t really understand her capacity, her learning needs or the best way to support and advocate for her. I also don�t know if there�s a problem to solve, given she�s pretty happy and slightly less erratic over time.

I don�t really know if the wisc was accurate, given how unwilling she has been to engage in externally imposed tasks. I don�t really understand what she needs from school to help her feel excited and engaged. Should i be doing more, or should I let my lovely kid sort out her relationship with school in her own time? Is there a problem to solve?

Thanks for your insights!

Welcome, moonpie.


Your child sounds delightful!

And you've found the right place, as most members on this forum are some combination of
- currently raising gifted littles, and/or
- have raised gifted offspring, and/or
- are gifted adults.
Lots of BTDT experiences to draw on.

Below is a brief roundup of links describing common behavior characteristics and early milestones which may indicate giftedness in infants, toddlers, preschoolers, young children. (This list may be especially useful before IQ test scores tend to stabilize, around 8 years old.)

You may already know... persons may be gifted, and also have one or more learning differences or learning disabilities in addition to being gifted. This combination is called twice exceptional or 2e. Some websites which may be of interest:
- Hoagies, 2e ( https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/what_is_2e.htm )
- Understood.org ( https://www.understood.org/en/articles/adhd-success-stories )
- Davidson Database ( https://www.davidsongifted.org/resource-library/ )

A few lists of milestones... typical development... clues of giftedness... possible clues of 2e:

1- Characteristics of intellectually advanced young people,
...https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/characteristics-of-intellectually-advanced-young-people/

2- Parenting Gifted Preschoolers (Milestones - typical development compared with 30% advanced)
...https://www.davidsongifted.org/gifted-blog/parenting-gifted-preschoolers/

3- Archived list, formerly NAGC's list borrowed from the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children
((The first item on the NAGC list of Common Characteristics of Gifted Individuals is: Unusual alertness, even in infancy)).

4- Characteristics and Behaviors of the Gifted

5- Characteristics checklist for gifted children

6-Tips for Parents: Helping Parents Understand Their Profoundly Gifted Children,
...https://www.davidsongifted.org/gift...rstand-their-profoundly-gifted-children/

7- Profiles of the gifted and talented which lists 6 different types, categorized by personality/temperament and achievement

8- Bertie Kingore, Ph.D.: High Achieving, Gifted Learner, Creative Thinker? (hat tip to sanne)

9- A common trait in gifted children, often listed amongst identifying characteristics, is alternately described as: "advanced moral reasoning", "well developed sense of justice", "moral sensitivity", "advanced ability to think about such abstract ideas as justice and fairness", "empathy", "compassion". Links to lists of gifted characteristics include several articles on the Davidson Database here and here, SENG (Silverman), SENG (Lovecky).

10- Different from birth, behaviours of young gifted children, "Strengths or admired traits vs Possible Problems" (archived, Canada) This list compares/contrasts positive and negative views of different traits and characteristics typical of gifted children. Think: Synonyms - Antonyms.

11- thread about Early Milestones - what do they mean?

12- SENG video: The Misdiagnosis of Gifted Children

13- book: Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults

14- old post with link to article comparing gifted characteristics and ASD characteristics

15- post with checklist comparing gifted and ASD traits (hat tip to BananaGirl)

16- post with link to Gifted Resource Center of New England (GRCNE) article comparing gifted and ASD traits (hat tip to Nolepharm).

Note:
When a website or webpage is NOT FOUND or has been changed and no longer contains the described content, check the WayBack Machine (internet archive) for a backup copy.
- Link: https://archive.org/web/
- Example in this 2018 post, which describes use of the WayBack Machine.

Back to thoughts in reply to your original post...
hopefully aeh and others may lend their expertise!

I too am an avid reader, and understand your eagerness for her to share the world of books. But I'm going to respond by telling you a little story from a different field of joy.

Music has always been a very big part of my life, and a source of much delight, both as a listener and as a creator. So I started teaching our kids piano when they were very young. Our oldest showed early signs of both interest and talent, but adamantly refused to sit for any kind of instruction until a very specific self-determined (although very appropriate beginning lesson) age. Even before that (exact) date, they spent copious amounts of time sitting at the piano, playing, singing and composing. But for years, it was a struggle to teach specific pieces (either sung or played) to them, and they practiced only because of their compliance. All the while, hours were devoted to their own material. Eventually, I gave up on formal instruction, figuring that sufficient basic technique had been conveyed (if not the classical repertoire that I love and would have liked to share with them), and let them play and sing whatever they wanted, which turned out to be mostly things in their own head--which is the point at which their skills really began to take off. After which DC started picking out advanced classical pieces on their own to learn, and even (gasp!) occasionally asked me for technical tips.

In case you're wondering, the point at which I released my ambitions for lessons was when DC had enough proficiency to progress independently (so, able to read music--if slowly, solid finger technique, probably late elementary-level pieces), but wasn't necessarily at an advanced level.