You can sign up any time-- you do that through CTY and they coordinate it with a testing center in your area. It was easy to do-- had to reschedule at one point and that was easy too. It's a quick test, only about a half hour I think.

I highly suggest taking the "Kid's Write Basic" course through Brave Writer. It's a 6 week online class and actually you, the parent, is the student, not your kid... It is an excellent guided class in how to teach writing to your kids-- very supportive, gentle, and fun. My daughter really loved it (the parent is the student but there are games and writing activities to do with your kids as the course goes on). It's not a live online class, so it's also easy to fit into a busy schedule. I didn't feel like it took a huge amount of time, especially not for what I got out of it. While it won't cover all the topics you've listed, it will give you excellent tools to know how to help your child come up with topics, generate material, revise, etc. The tools can be applied to all kinds of writing-- creative, academic, etc. I just finished this class and feel in a much better place to help my DD than before. They have many different instructors that teach this, but ours was named April Hensley and she was excellent. http://www.bravewriter.com/online-classes/kidswrite-basic

We're in the Midwest too, and my daughter took the SCAT through CTY last year-- she was younger than 2nd grade but I just called her 2nd grade so she could take the test. CTY has online classes so it's useful wherever you are geographically, really. Even if you didn't think your child would like their online classes, taking the SCAT keeps that possibility open and also get you the scores for whatever else you might want them for. I *think* CTY bought the SCAT test a while back so I'm not sure you can take it any other way.

I second the Crash Course psychology recommendation for a fast-paced lecture series... I've looked for books also-- hard to find (also bought a college text which is great for looking up this or that but not so much for a core text at this age...). My husband is a psychotherapist so he tends to just talk to DD about the topic, but the best two comprehensive books I've found are: The Psychology Book and Psych 101 For more specific topics we turn to different books-- DD has been really interested in childhood development so she's been reading Brazelton's 'Touch Points' series, for example. Hope that helps! Let me know if you find anything neat-- always looking for more resources in this are (DD currently wants to be a "research psychologist" so it's a topic that's not going to fade here anytime soon, I don't think...

Hi there, Reflections, This is a topic very close to us that I think about a lot-- my DD has been asking big existential questions about the meaning of life and death since she was 2 and 3 years old, and has gone through a couple major periods of existential depression since then (she's now 7). She's a highly asynchronous PG kid. The SENG article by Webb is great, have you read his book? https://smile.amazon.com/Searching-Meaning-Idealism-Bright-Disillusionment/dp/1935067222/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1472002911&sr=8-2&keywords=james+webb+depression It's aimed towards older kids but I found it very helpful for thinking about how to help our young daughter. Aside from that book, I have arrived at only one overriding conviction about how to help our daughter with this-- and this is really based on her personality, so may not be applicable to your kids. But here's what I do: In order to create a bulwark against the nihilism that comes from existential depression, we study philosophy (western and eastern), poetry, and literature. Our kids are not alone; thinkers and mystics throughout the ages have addressed the same questions, and to combat the hopelessness and helplessness and isolation those questions engender I expose her to the big world of ideas out there so she can find connection with others and, in effect, search for the meaning she craves. David White and Amy Leask have great resources for philosophy for kids-- my DD got really into Hannah Arendt through those books which helped her explore the whole "evil" question, and she was pretty obsessed with Kant for a while too. We are not a religious family but I am exposing her to religions of all varieties and their philosophies so that she can see one way that others with the same questions and concerns live out those questions. The same is true of classic literature and poetry. I give her more ideas, not less. More questions, less answers. The Tae te Ching, the Upanishads-- she's been into it all this year, amazed that her questions and concerns are the subjects of such ancient texts. I expect and anticipate that when she's a teenager she will run hard onto the nihilistic off ramp, and I want to help her create a firm foundation to draw upon during that time, especially, to get her through it in one piece. At some point music will probably become a bigger part of how she copes. In addition to philosophy and bibliotherapy, I also talk to her openly about the OEs and how they manifest for her (she has all 5, in excess). Self-knowledge and time to search for meaning is a big part of our homeschool curriculum. Hope that might help! And if you find anything that works well for your kids, or any insights to share, I'd love to hear them. It's a lot to handle and I'm always happy to find others to connect to on this topic. I feel like I'm blindly groping my way forward most days :)

My kid LOVES Druidawn beyond any expression. It was her favorite course during homeschool last year by far-- great teachers and a really supportive environment. http://www.creative-writing-solutions.com

I like (and my DD liked) so much about RS but it's just too over-loaded a program. Like you, I just always felt behind. Plus, it started to be a slog to get through. At our rate it felt like it would take 3 years to finish the D level, ugh. And not because my DD didn't understand it. So I've ditched it and gone back to BA this summer-- it just moves faster and is less frustrating for both of us. I finally feel like there's movement again. (This decision was brought on by a similar late-night worry fest on my part, totally get it!)

I second the Code Cracker suggestion. My 7 year old voiced an interested in Greek last winter also and that's what we used to get her feet wet-- she loved it and I thought it was a good way to get her familiar with the alphabet (and low-cost as an initial step to gauge how much interest there really is). My DD wanted to learn several ancient languages (so she could translate myths from the original) and eventually, after I exposed her to a few through introductory texts like Code Cracker, she chose a different ancient language to pursue -- at that point we found an online tutor for her through Carmenta (link below)-- it's been wonderful. I didn't feel confident that I could teach her Greek or any of the other ancient languages she was interested in, so a one-on-one tutoring session was a good solution for us. http://www.carmentalatin.com ETA: Make that THIRD the suggestion! :)

Thought I'd mention that the Beast Academy website has assessments you can give your child to see where to begin/ if they're ready for a certain level-- it's a good way to see what skills are missing if you want to use 5A but want to do some targeted learning in the 4 level before you move on... https://www.beastacademy.com/resources/assessments.php

Don't we all :leaving:

Sure-- here are some of the things I've done with her: We started by reading I Am Not a Short Adult! Getting Good at Being a Kid, by Marilyn Burns (Brown Paper School Book) Then we did the following (starting last fall): For social skills: Social Express App -- sign on/ manage through the computer Superflex Social Thinking Curriculum (this is a huge curriculum aimed towards flexible thinking for kids with ASD, ADD, etc., we focused on what was relevant) Social Thinking and Me (the middle-school version of the above) For general psychological/ emotional education, plus development of growth-mindset and self-expression (verbal expression, analysis, making connections and abstract reasoning are her major strengths, so I wanted to emphasize discussion and debate to capitalize on that. We also studied philosophy this year for the same reason, and there were lots of links between psychology and philosophy that we could talk about.): What Do You Stand For: A Guide to Building Character (there's a card game that goes with this) The UnGame What Makes me Feel this Way? Growing up with Human Emotions Brainology course Cool, Calm and Confident: A workbook to help kids with Assertiveness Skills She got into child development so read all of Brazelton's guides -- led to her reading all the parenting books from our shelves :huh: Crashcourse Psychology lectures For anxiety and the like: What to do when you Worry too Much, What to do when your Brain Gets Stuck and What to do when Mistakes Make you Quake-- these are APA workbooks for anxiety, OCD and perfectionism, we spread them out and did no more than one chapter a day, really implementing the strategies, my DD LOVED these and wanted them all (even the ones that didn't apply) Coping Cat: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Anxious Children Mad Dragon card game From Worrier to Warrior: A Guide to Conquering your Fears Meditation: Mindful Movements, Handful of Quiet, we meditate as a family using Buddhify every night Sure I'm forgetting something, but there you have it!

Not sure if someone else has said this already, but the ADOS is the test a (knowledgeable, trained) psychologist would administer to see if your DS is on the spectrum. You want to be very careful and go to someone who is familiar with profound giftedness (which is as different from gifted as gifted is from "average") or willing to learn. There are many traits that those who are gifted and especially PG have in common with those who are Aspergers, and there are some important ways to differentiate between the two. If you haven't already looked at it, I highly recommend reading the book Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children by James Webb, et al. It will help you evaluate these distinctions. There is also a great spreadsheet on the SENG website for parents to fill out that helps distinguish between gifted, ASD or both. I have a PG daughter (then 6) who I was worried about having ASD because she was just so so different from any other kid in our rural community. We traveled to go see someone who was an expert on PG kids and who sat in on her ADOS to help tease out what was just PG and what might be something else. In the end, she did not qualify for a diagnosis (of ASD or ADD, which her school at the time was pushing for)-- it's just that she's PG and PG kids have all the over-excitabilities in the extreme. This can often LOOK like ASD or ADD, but again, there are important distinctions (that the book talks about). I'm pretty confident that if we had gone to someone who didn't know about profound giftedness, we might have gotten a misdiagnosis. My heart goes out to you, I know how tough it is to be in the limbo around what may or may not be going on. One thing the psych who evaluated DD said was that even though DD isn't on the spectrum, there are materials used with ASD kids that could help her slow down and develop her social skills. In homeschool we can do that-- we call it "psychology class" (which she loves, and we do more than social skills stuff, but it's a big component).