How can I know if my children are gifted?

[chocoholic]

We've always homeschooled - this is our 8th year. I have a gut feeling that my kids are gifted. They have always done well on standardized tests. They are very sharp, creative and intense. They are continually blowing us away at the things they do and say.

 

Can someone give me some advice on where I would go/how I would go about having them tested? I've spent some time on the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (lots of good resources there). I just want them to take a test or something to either prove or disprove what I feel is true. 

 

Part of what is fueling my question is that I am butting heads with my 11 yo boy everyday. He is so bright!  He hates doing schoolwork! He wants to go play Lego and make paper guns (which are very elaborate and impressive, by the way).

 

Now, I know that he is probably typical and has a lot in common with many, many 11 yo boys.  I think he is bored with our homeschool! I would like to challenge him more, in ways that are stretching and exciting for him.

 

But I'm just too tired by the end of the day to figure it all out.

 

Any advice?????

[lorisuewho]

Will your having a test showing that he is gifted change how you teach or instruct him? 

 

You can have a psychologist administer IQ tests on your children, but I guess I'm wondering how a paper giving you a number will change anything?  In schools, being labeled "gifted" enables children to have IEPs and special instruction.  I don't know how this would help any with homeschooling though.

[chocoholic]

Good point.  I'm not sure how it would "help" me except to maybe just confirm my suspicions and change curriculum, for sure.

 

Part of me thinks he has issues with focusing & sitting still (and I often wonder how he would do in a classroom all day if he had to) and the other part of me just wants to give him more room to allow him to do whatever it takes to just "be his wiggly self." That second part of me wants to just overlook the silliness, let him be a kid & not get stressed out about it. He will do schoolwork, but it takes a lot of verbal wrangling (ahem, threatening, whatever).  It is obvious that he would rather be doing anything else than sitting down, and focusing on what I'd like for him to do. But he CAN focus on whatever he wants to focus on.  It's not like he can't focus - if he's "into" it, he can sit there and quietly work on it for long periods of time.

 

And part of me thinks it's a discipline/obedience issue, that he is playing me during the school day and wasting all kinds of time to see if he can get away with it. In that case, I believe the problem would be ME, b/c I have allowed this to go on in the past.

 

Oh heck, I don't know.  This parenting thing is hard sometimes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mommy22alyns]

Well, for the wiggling part, Rebecca frequently does stretches or splits or even conditioning while we're going grammar oral review.  It might not hurt to tinker with things, but I would investigate thoroughly before making any changes.  And TBH, Sylvia especially would rather be doing anything but school.   She's also very  creative and crafty.  But she understands that school comes first and if she doesn't finish it, she won't have the time  to be creative and crafty.

[AimeeM]

Will your having a test showing that he is gifted change how you teach or instruct him? 

 

You can have a psychologist administer IQ tests on your children, but I guess I'm wondering how a paper giving you a number will change anything?  In schools, being labeled "gifted" enables children to have IEPs and special instruction.  I don't know how this would help any with homeschooling though.

Well, a full assessment, given by an educational psychologist, will give much more than a number; it could outline strengths, weaknesses, etc... and I do think that could be helpful to her, if she's looking for ways to improve the kiddos' education.

[Dana]

Hoagie's Gifted has some great resources.

Sometimes just knowing a bit more can help you think of your kids in a different way and can be helpful.

There are also talent searches you can participate in - some starting as young as 2nd grade. Not including links, but a google search should bring them up.

 

Duke's TIP, Northwestern NUMATS, Johns Hopkins CTY - these are the ones my son has done. You aren't limited to geographic area.

 

Good luck finding helpful information!

[kubiac]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoN2iBDKZxE
Common Characteristics of Gifted Youth, by Dr. Dan Peters
 
Possibly useful?

[wapiti]

Gifted issues and testing are very often discussed on the Accelerated Learning board.

 

Here's another link that might be helpful.

[thebacabunch]

I was just reading an article about gifted children and how to know if they are gifted. Based from what I read, one option to know that your child or children are gifted is to wait and see whether teachers at your children's school would recommend a testing for gifted education program. Perhaps, this entails taking IQ tests, review of past grades and test scores, and observation from teachers. However, teachers' points and observations should not be the entire basis. As much as possible, parents should be the first ones to see the children's potential. Our insights and perceptions on our children are also important since they can help us in choosing the best school for the children.

 

A bit challenging for homeschoolers, lol/

[kiwik]

I can't remember the exact numbers but parents are usually more accurate than teachers (80 to 40% or something like that). Teachers tend to identify high achieving, compliant and industrious children who are usually high average or perhaps moderately gifted but often overlook the more highly gifted but less teacher pleasing children.

 

The only way to know is to test. You just have to decide whether your desire to know justifies the cost.

[jennynd]

Hoagie's Gifted has some great resources.

Sometimes just knowing a bit more can help you think of your kids in a different way and can be helpful.

There are also talent searches you can participate in - some starting as young as 2nd grade. Not including links, but a google search should bring them up.

 

Duke's TIP, Northwestern NUMATS, Johns Hopkins CTY - these are the ones my son has done. You aren't limited to geographic area.

 

Good luck finding helpful information!

 

If you are in those area and consider those program. You certainly want the kid get tested. If not, I see very little reason to test We considered the test when DS was young. But we dropped the idea since 1. it is expensive. 2. there is nothing we will do differently with him if he is tested gifted.

We are after schooler and the school tested him when he was 3rd grade for the district gifted program and sure enough, he is gifted by sschool standard

I do think Mama instinct usually are pretty accurate.

[kroe1]

If being "gifted" would make you change your curriculum, why wouldn't you change it without the label?  If something is not working well, then a lack of a label shouldn't hold one back.  Curriculum should be challenging whether or not a kiddo is "gifted".  It usually means one can stay with the same publisher, but needs to move up a grade or two in some subjects.  Certainly changing publishers is an option, too.  We found that much of the curriculum for gifted children, isn't really that advanced.  Curriculum choice should be more about finding what fits your family and learning styles as well as being sufficiently challenging, in my opinion.

 

 

[EKS]

You can have a psychologist do an assessment.  This will generally cost several hundred dollars.

 

You could also administer the ITBS and the CogAT two grades up and then have the scores reported for your child's grade by age.  This is what our district does for gifted testing.  This method can work reasonably well for a kid who is a fast processor and a convergent thinker.

[MissKNG]

Do you have a college or university nearby? Often times, Psychology students administer IQ testing as part of their class (with a trained professor by their side). It's generally a lot cheaper that way except it won't be "official".

[Corraleno]

Part of me thinks he has issues with focusing & sitting still (and I often wonder how he would do in a classroom all day if he had to) and the other part of me just wants to give him more room to allow him to do whatever it takes to just "be his wiggly self." That second part of me wants to just overlook the silliness, let him be a kid & not get stressed out about it. He will do schoolwork, but it takes a lot of verbal wrangling (ahem, threatening, whatever).  It is obvious that he would rather be doing anything else than sitting down, and focusing on what I'd like for him to do. But he CAN focus on whatever he wants to focus on.  It's not like he can't focus - if he's "into" it, he can sit there and quietly work on it for long periods of time.

 

See if this rings any bells:

Gifted Development Center / VSL

 

And part of me thinks it's a discipline/obedience issue, that he is playing me during the school day and wasting all kinds of time to see if he can get away with it. In that case, I believe the problem would be ME, b/c I have allowed this to go on in the past.

 

It's far more likely that this is a wiring issue, not a discipline issue. It breaks my heart when I read about kids whose behavior waves all kinds of "learning difference" flags (including gifted), whose parents end up disciplining them for the way they are wired. 

 

Have you tried a more project-based, interest-led type approach to homeschooling? That has been incredibly effective with my DS (who sounds a lot like yours).

 

ETA: I will say that one thing I found extremely useful about testing wasn't the IQ score, which I had pretty much guessed, it was the specific information about areas like poor working memory and slow processing speed (for verbal information). Those issues are extremely common in gifted/VSL kids, and understanding how differently VSLs think and learn made a huge difference in how I approached DS's education. Once we made that shift, he totally took off.

 

Jackie

[quark]

[...] If something is not working well, then a lack of a label shouldn't hold one back.  Curriculum should be challenging whether or not a kiddo is "gifted".  It usually means one can stay with the same publisher, but needs to move up a grade or two in some subjects.  Certainly changing publishers is an option, too.  We found that much of the curriculum for gifted children, isn't really that advanced.  Curriculum choice should be more about finding what fits your family and learning styles as well as being sufficiently challenging, in my opinion.

I agree that curriculum should be challenging whether or not the child is gifted. But sometimes, a kid might need way more acceleration than a grade level or two...I think many parents are aware of the ability to skip grade levels with the same publisher or other publisher, but how many grade levels can be the headache. Their intuition might say at least 3 grade levels in math for e.g., but they might have been conditioned by their more traditional experience to think that that will be too much of a leap. Or their intuition might say 3 grade levels across all subjects but they might not have the courage or support to even consider it, worrying about the implications of early college etc. So when they know the results of the test (not just the number) they might have more confidence to ask questions at gifted support forums. A mom with the question might find a kindred spirit mom more easily etc. Also the VSL issue Jackie mentions below. Just skipping grades does not help when you have a very divergent and/ or VSL learner using a more convergent-flavored curriculum. I had this problem although my kid is only minimally VSL. There are kids way more VSL than he is.

 

Like you, I too haven't found materials written for gifted learners advanced enough. Still too convergent imho. Or there's too much of an emphasis on crafts/ drawing for my kid who LOVES art but will only be happy if it is done completely on his own terms i.e. no cutting, pasting, drawing in a notebook, coloring in areas on a map etc.

 

Have you tried a more project-based, interest-led type approach to homeschooling? That has been incredibly effective with my DS (who sounds a lot like yours).

 

ETA: I will say that one thing I found extremely useful about testing wasn't the IQ score, which I had pretty much guessed, it was the specific information about areas like poor working memory and slow processing speed (for verbal information). Those issues are extremely common in gifted/VSL kids, and understanding how differently VSLs think and learn made a huge difference in how I approached DS's education. Once we made that shift, he totally took off.

 

Jackie

I agree wholeheartedly with the bolded. The subtests helped me understand the power of personality as well. Kiddo's working memory and processing speed are both in the very superior range but he resists anything timed, anything that blatantly focuses on speed. If it's on his own terms, he will be happy to speed along though. If I hadn't tested, I would have thought he has deficits in processing speed although that is SO not the case. I might have thought to slow him down across the board and that would have killed his love of learning.

[Corraleno]

Just skipping grades does not help when you have a very divergent and/ or VSL learner using a more convergent-flavored curriculum. I had this problem although my kid is only minimally VSL. There are kids way more VSL than he is.

 

:iagree: 

This can be a big problem, especially if it's known that the child has a high IQ, but is not doing well with regular curriculum. These kids often get labeled "lazy" or "defiant" — e.g. "He's extremely bright so he's obviously capable of doing the work, he just chooses not to." And yet, once the kid has appropriate materials, they absolutely take off and will work harder than anyone — not because someone is standing over them with threats, but because they finally have the tools they need to feed their own hunger for information.

 

It reminds me of the Nobel Prize winner in medicine who had framed a teacher's note complaining about the poor quality of his schoolwork; it said that he would never amount to much and that a career in science was totally out of the question, LOL.

 

Jackie

[lewelma]

My ds's subtests identified relatively low auditory processing, which explained his speech issues and his spelling. This subtest inspired us to put him in violin to train that part of his brain (rather than piano). By practicing violin for 30 minutes a day for 8 years, he has had to build his listening skills while trying to find the right notes. This work has dramatically improved his auditory processing, and has had a profound synergistic effect in his overall intellectual ability. All because of an IQ test.

 

Ruth in NZ

[chocoholic]

ETA: I will say that one thing I found extremely useful about testing wasn't the IQ score, which I had pretty much guessed, it was the specific information about areas like poor working memory and slow processing speed (for verbal information). Those issues are extremely common in gifted/VSL kids, and understanding how differently VSLs think and learn made a huge difference in how I approached DS's education. Once we made that shift, he totally took off.

 

Jackie,

 

Did you have your child tested?  If so, what kind of test?  I have no idea where to start.

[chocoholic]

My ds's subtests identified relatively low auditory processing, which explained his speech issues and his spelling. This subtest inspired us to put him in violin to train that part of his brain (rather than piano). By practicing violin for 30 minutes a day for 8 years, he has had to build his listening skills while trying to find the right notes. This work has dramatically improved his auditory processing, and has had a profound synergistic effect in his overall intellectual ability. All because of an IQ test.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

Ruth,

 

You had your child's IQ tested, correct?  How did you go about doing this? Who should I contact?

 

Thank you.

[chocoholic]

The subtests helped me understand the power of personality as well. Kiddo's working memory and processing speed are both in the very superior range but he resists anything timed, anything that blatantly focuses on speed. If it's on his own terms, he will be happy to speed along though. If I hadn't tested, I would have thought he has deficits in processing speed although that is SO not the case. I might have thought to slow him down across the board and that would have killed his love of learning.

 

Quark, what kind of test did your child take?

 

My child HATES arts & crafts - always has, even in the preschool class at church.  When I would pick him up after class, he would be the only 4 or 5 year old that said he wasn't interested in doing the craft.  And he HATES to be timed on anything.  It stressed him out. He is so bright and emotionally deep!  Also, we're trying to get through Writing With Ease and he is doing pretty badly in that. He swears he can't remember the dictation.

 

God has made him into a wonderful person, but I feel like I'm not doing him justice when it comes to schoolwork.

[quark]

He took the WISC4 (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 4th Edition) at a local university's psych department (waaay cheaper than a private psych but the disadvantage was less interpretative data. I had to read up on his results myself). I believe the test is being revised/ renormed but am not sure when the WISC5 will be available. I strongly suggest going to the Hoagies site that Dana mentioned to read up on the different tests and their subtests.

 

Example:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/testing.htm

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/about_sb5_wisc-iv.htm

 

It might be a lot to take in at first glance but (depending on how urgent it is for you to know about your child's possible strengths/ weaknesses) give yourself time to soak it in. Good luck!

 

[Corraleno]

Jackie,

 

Did you have your child tested?  If so, what kind of test?  I have no idea where to start.

 

We used an "educational testing service," which was cheaper than a neuropsych; it cost about $400, I think? It was a few years ago. They did the WISC and the Woodcock-Johnson. I probably would have gotten more detailed information from someone who specialized in 2E (gifted/LD) kids, but I had done enough research by that point that I had a pretty good idea of what his issues were, although the extreme deficits in processing speed and working memory (I think they were ~15th-18th percentile?) were a surprise to me. Once I had those scores, though, a whole lot of things suddenly made sense (like being good at math concepts but terrible at computation, having a hard time keeping several sequential instructions in mind at once, being terrible at timed tests, etc.).

 

Jackie

[lewelma]

Ruth,

 

You had your child's IQ tested, correct?  How did you go about doing this? Who should I contact?

 

Thank you.

 

He took a Woodcock Johnson III Test of Cognative Abilities through an Educational Psychologist. I don't know if this is the 'best' test, it was simply the one required for my son to attend the One-Day School for gifted students.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Arcadia]

If being "gifted" would make you change your curriculum, why wouldn't you change it without the label?  If something is not working well, then a lack of a label shouldn't hold one back.  Curriculum should be challenging whether or not a kiddo is "gifted".  It usually means one can stay with the same publisher, but needs to move up a grade or two in some subjects. 

Like Quark says, if it is just one or two grade levels that would be nice.  It is not as fun for mummy (me) when my kid would rather read Jacob's geometry (and be able to understand) than sleep but the same kid cannot remember days of the week without reciting them. I'm looking at affordable testing for 2E just because I am tired of 2nd guessing.

I went through testing twice, once in 3rd grade and once for postgrad admission to a course that required aptitude testing. I wish I know my test scores, however all I know is that my highest score is in the logic section both times. In my case, my teachers knew before my parents did.

[lewelma]

  It is not as fun for mummy (me) when my kid would rather read Jacob's geometry (and be able to understand) than sleep but the same kid cannot remember days of the week without reciting them.

 

Yesterday, my son was writing up a 2-page number theory proof for the NZ math olympiad and asked me how to spell 'these'.  Sometimes the subscores really do help you to understand these asynchronies.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Arcadia]

My ds's subtests identified relatively low auditory processing, which explained his speech issues and his spelling. This subtest inspired us to put him in violin to train that part of his brain (rather than piano). By practicing violin for 30 minutes a day for 8 years, he has had to build his listening skills while trying to find the right notes. This work has dramatically improved his auditory processing, and has had a profound synergistic effect in his overall intellectual ability. All because of an IQ test.

 

Ruth in NZ

You give me more to think about regarding my 7 year old. He does like tuning his violin. Was the scores enough information to differentiate between auditory processing disorder and sensory processing disorder? (ETA: he is actually hyper sensitive to noise but with sensory hypo areas, older is clear cut sensory hyper)

[lewelma]

You give me more to think about regarding my 7 year old. He does like tuning his violin. Was the scores enough information to differentiate between auditory processing disorder and sensory processing disorder?

 

I'm not sure.  The psychologist never mentioned sensory processing.  To be clear, ds did not have an actual auditory processing disorder, but as the psychologist explained it, it would have appeared to him at the time that he did because his auditory processing was 2SD below the other subtests.

 

Now he has close to perfect pitch and apparently has learned Mandarin without an accent.  Clearly, the brain is *very* plastic when you are young!

[Arcadia]

I'm not sure. The psychologist never mentioned sensory processing. To be clear, ds did not have an actual auditory processing disorder, but as the psychologist explained it, it would have appeared to him at the time that he did because his auditory processing was 2SD below the other subtests.

 

Now he has close to perfect pitch and apparently has learned Mandarin without an accent. Clearly, the brain is *very* plastic when you are young!

Thanks for clarifying. My younger's Chinese and Deutsch accent is actually better than my older. My older has perfect pitch, have never check if my younger's pitch is perfect. He is more of an enigma compared to his brother. Hubby is concern with privacy issues with testing. Since there is benefits to testing, I'll check into the privacy clauses for testing by university students since I have many universities nearby.

He finds Euclid elements entertaining :lol:

 

ETA:

Totally off topic but something down your path, my older current interest is Mendelian Genetics. My family tree is big enough to "entertain" him on genetics.

[Crimson Wife]

Teachers tend to identify high achieving, compliant and industrious children who are usually high average or perhaps moderately gifted but often overlook the more highly gifted but less teacher pleasing children.

Being a "teacher's pet" overachiever does not necessarily mean that a child is only MG. Some HG+ kids are the non-conformist, tick the teacher off by refusing to do busywork type (my brother was like this) and others are good little do-bees (like I was). I do think that teachers often overlook the giftedness of pain-in-the-rear kids, but that's not to say that they are inherently more gifted than compliant kids.

[thebacabunch]

One of the biggest reasons to test a kids for giftedness is to have the knowledge you need to help gifted kids with the downside of giftedness.  Often gifted kids are very sensitive and have behaviors that almost mimic asd.  We are in the process of having our oldest dd tested (iq) by a child psychologist who specializes in childhood education. Though she is still combing through hours of test results, she has already told us that my daughter is gifted.

 

 My dd is having real struggles with the sensitivity that often accompanies giftedness.  Sometimes being unable to relate to her non gifted peers and constantly reading into the nuances and subtext of everything while her brain is still developing leaves her vulnerable to depression.  When she has to work hard to figure something out she turns inward and gets angry with herself because she is so used to everything coming to her easily. She often feels isolated and is constantly complaining that everyone outside of her family treats her like a little kid (they don't, I have seen some of the situations she talks about.  Mostly she is smarter than most of the adults she is around but is enough of a kid at 13 to think they are talking down to her when in actuality they are treating her like they treat other adults).