I hate the term 'gifted'

[Dicentra]

Do people really think this way? I have never come across the term "gifted adult" in real life. And no one that has struck me as gifted. I've met a few interesting, amusing, charming people though. This is perhaps more of a reflection on me, one of those "well, if you have to ask...type things ;)

 

Well...  If gifted is seen as a "different kind of wiring" then, yes - those folks would still be gifted as adults. :)  Other folks may disagree, of course, and that's OK. :)

 

To clarify - I don't go around trying to classify people into two boxes - gifted and non-gifted. :D  It was just an interesting bit from the book and I wondered if others had experienced it or if their children had experienced it.  One of the laments expressed was that it was difficult to find families with kids with similar "wiring" without coming out and using the dreaded "g" word ;) so I wondered if the "there's something about the eyes" comment struck a chord with anyone or with anyone's children.  That's all. :)

 

Funny side story...  When I started homeschooling, I met a whole bunch of other homeschoolers that I hadn't know previously.  One of them struck me as... different. :)  She and I began hanging out together more and more and eventually it came out that both of us were thinking the same thing about the other - "I wonder if she's gifted?"  The problem was that, knowing the current general view of the word, neither one of us wanted to say it out loud for fear of offending the other. :D  Turns out that she and I had both been tested as kids, had eerily similar test scores, and she had specialized in gifted ed during her Ed degree.  Once we got past the initial awkward verbal dance, it was wonderful to be able to talk to someone else about all things gifted. :)

[Dmmetler]

What I've noticed is that people who strike me as being really smart, quirky, interesting adults are the ones that relate to DD the best. Sometimes, a comment they make at some point indicates that they were identified GT, sometimes not, but they seem to "get" DD's type of wiring (and, if they have kids, often those kids are identified as being pretty high on the GT spectrum). That's not the case across the board for people who claim to be GT, though (I swear, some of the dullest, most boring people I've met in my life were when I was trying to make MENSA work-proving that for me, IQ isn't the whole story!).

[Erin]

I won't say boring, necessarily, but I have known more than one person who had spent their entire lives being told how brilliant they were who, as adults, were arrogant, insufferable boars.  

[shawthorne44]

I won't say boring, necessarily, but I have known more than one person who had spent their entire lives being told how brilliant they were who, as adults, were arrogant, insufferable boars.  

 

I've known one of those.  Although he wasn't really boring, but I did occasionally feel like hitting him.

 

But, generally, quirky is the best description.  I think the reason is to seek each other out is that you can discuss the obscure interesting you read/ are doing lately.  They will not only be genuinely interested, but might have something to contribute.  Like the time I was reading a History of the Popes, and the books said one pope thought it was awful that people were tearing down the old Roman statues to burn them to make plaster.  So, he had them brought to the Vatican.  I'd thought was really cool and was telling some of my quirky friends.  When one says, "Well, marble does make the best plaster"   Or the time I was relating the story about the Vikings first encounter with Native Americans.  Everything was happy and friendly the first day, and then the Native Americans tried to kill them the second.  Another friend said, "Of course, they were lactose intolerant and thought they'd been poisoned."  Lots of people probably know about the groups that are lactose intolerant, but he made a huge mental leap to the right place.  

[nitascool]

So I spent all this time... about 1.5 hours reading this thread... some interesting stuff. I had so much to think about and some things I wanted to comment on. I was just going to pop on and comment on the title of the original post. haha.

Basically, I was going to say that I don't often use "gifted" IRL but do on gifted/accelerated forums. I used it a bit more when my oldest was 3-5 years because I was trying to find my place as a parent of a strange little alien child. He’s now a strange alien teenager who is wildly different and yet much like that precocious little 3-5 year old. Around 6 my ds found that being socially accepted was more important to him then informing others of his interests. We formally tested him at age 7 and he was identified as HG/ADD but he fits PG/underachiever descriptions much better. He tends to interact socially with PG individuals best. But he is my most socially aware child and can appear to fit with just about anyone.

I don't really have a problem with the word, but have been told I am bragging and that using gifted to describe my son is not right or rude or whatever... by the same people who are talking non-stop about their child's great gymnastic, music, karate or honor roll achievements. I have noticed that public schooled parents are more likely to use the word describing their own child and occasionally my child. And have had a couple parents ask me how my child could be gifted if he isn't in PS (as if being in the gt program was what made a child gifted). 

My most bizarre conversation about being gifted was not about my own child. Last year when a woman at our local hs art class was talking about her PS ds who was “profoundly gifted†and a "genius" her words and his well laid out plan for his life. An hour and a half later she told my poor husband and I how his IQ was 130. I almost fell out of my seat and I literally had to bite my tongue not to correct her. There were quite a few other women listening in and it was obvious that several found the one sided conversation a bit distasteful. I asked later why they seemed not to enjoy her brag (as they had bragged about their children’s x, y, z on occasion), and they all basically said two things, one was too much information and the other was they felt pressured to compare their homeschooled child to her public schooled child. Nearly every mom didn’t doubt her statement that a child with and IQ of 130 was a “geniusâ€.

This made me curious so I decided to look into the GT rates in my area. The average IQ in my area is 90 and out of over four thousand primary students only 50-60 students are in the GT program. Kids in the program have to have performed at least 2 standard deviations above the mean or scored 95% on a standardized test. When further looking into this I found that 100% of the PS kids in the GT program were no more than 2 standard deviations from the mean. This means a potential for scores in the 115 range to 144. There were in 2012 some MG kids but no PG kids in our local PS. I guess it made a little more since to me after this… as she was comparing her son to our average PS child 90-100 IQ kids…and even when she was comparing her kid to the other GT kids her son was on the middle to high end of the kids in our local PS. Our Middle School has a few more identified as gifted, the range is about the same. There are no gifted classes for high school (just honors and AP classes which are achievement classes). 

[nitascool]

Then I read all those posts about what Accelerated means and got to thinking about that. And decided to comment on those posts.

I started coming to this board when ds was 3 looking for answer. So I started coming here with accelerated in mind as in my child was doing things above grade level. Some of it was me actually teaching things that were out of level per his request and some of it was me holding on tight as he pulled me along. At 7 we noticed a big gap in his Language skills and his Math skills. So we went in for his math issues to see what was going on. He was not retaining anything to do with math. One day he could do it the next day it was gone. We went to a psychologist because our doctor believed it was a behavior issue which it was not. So testing was done.

Now that he’s in high school this year I direct more of my questions to that board…he is accelerated only in the areas he desires though he has the ability to be much farther than he is across the board, he lacks motivation to do so. We use “gifted†or AP materials at grade level mostly, except math (the bane of his existence) which is just north of average.

[nitascool]

Then I read the post about processing speed being a sign of giftedness. Ugg. I liked the many post that followed on that line. My oldest was labeled HG and his PS and working memory were very low. His PS was 5^th % I think and WM was in the 10^th %. His tester told us this meant there was likely an LD that his giftedness was masking, he believed it to be ADD. He can hyper focus on things that interest him but things that are less important to him he struggles to focus. As he has gotten older I am thinking it was more of a matter of perfectionism that he had to overcome then ADD.  

I also have an Aspie who had 2 IQ tests done. His first test score was 70 or 80 (can’t recall now) at age 6 (Nov. baby), yet he was at least 4 grade levels above K in Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language Arts. He could not write above K level penmanship at that time but could answer anything orally well above grade level.  The tester who was an Autism psychologist told us that he was just a brat in need of a spanking. And that this would solve all his problems. My son got consistent discipline at that age that also included spankings. So we got a referral for someone else… He was dx with SPD from an OT and ADHD for a psychiatrist. He had major focus issues but no anger issues.

At age 9 he was tested again and got a FSIQ that showed that he was slightly above average in 3^rd grade. His PS was in the 1^st % and WM in the 2^nd %, yet some of his other scores were in the 99^th % and he answered many college level questions correctly (mostly in Science, Language and Math).  He first got a PDD-NOS diagnosis then later that year they decided it was closer to Asperger. Unlike many Aspie my son is very affectionate and has a desire to socialize, but lacks social skills… thus the twice misdiagnosis.

So when quark posted… Quoting from the report we received from the tester (what is working memory, processing speed):

 Quote

... working memory (WMI), ........., is a measure of short- and long-term memory, attention and concentration, mental alertness and mental manipulation.  ... processing speed (PRI), ........., indicates strong visual-motor coordination, and attention and concentration.

I started jumping up and down in my mind, yelling ooh me, ooh me… this describes what my Aspie dealt with at age 6 and 9. He had attention, concentration, and mental alertness issues. All 7 senses were out of whack for him. He had both hyper-sensitivities and hypo-sensitivities. His tactile, vestibular and proprioceptive awareness was non-existent (he had to move just to stay awake). After 6 years of OT we were finally able to get some traction academically, we spent way more time on life skill in K-3^rd grade then we did academics. So he made little progress in acceleration in say math but we did focus on writing, holding a fork, not walking into walls, going to the grocery store without crying, learning to do chores, ect.

He also had visual-motor coordination issues. At age 11 I finally found a Vision Therapist who would go to bat with our Insurance and basically told them that she would go to court on our behalf when we sued them for forced ADHD meds when he doesn’t have ADHD (she didn’t mention we’re homeschooling). He had Convergence Insufficiency (a visual tracking issue) that we had been trying to get at the very least diagnosed for years. After just 12 sessions of Vision Therapy his attention went from that of a Nat to that of an average 11 year old. His writing (penmanship) went from beginning 1^st grade skills to end of 5^th grade skills without having to do any writing remediation.

We plan to have my oldest tested again in the next few months so that he can qualify for an online gifted program he is interested in next year. Apparently the scores need to be less than 3 years old to count. We plan to test my second again before High School to see if he will need and IEP for High School. I suspect that his PS and WM will be significantly higher after having had VT.

I have two other children who are working globally above grade level. We haven’t had any issues that have required their testing. But with what I know now they are likely gifted as well. My 3^rd son has developed some eye strain issues and will be going to see our VT soon, I suspect it will clear up his minor processing issues we were seeing last year.

[Incognito]

FWIW, with that sort of discrepancy, you should not have been given a FSIQ because they are considered unhelpful.  They give an IQ based on GAI.

 

At age 9 he was tested again and got a FSIQ that showed that he was slightly above average in 3^rd grade. His PS was in the 1^st % and WM in the 2^nd %, yet some of his other scores were in the 99^th % and he answered many college level questions correctly (mostly in Science, Language and Math).  He first got a PDD-NOS diagnosis then later that year they decided it was closer to Asperger. Unlike many Aspie my son is very affectionate and has a desire to socialize, but lacks social skills… thus the twice misdiagnosis.