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Gifted Testing - Purpose in homeschooling?


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I’m pretty sure my 4yo is gifted. Someone recently suggested that as he has a fall birthday, I should consider asking for early admission to Kindergarten for him. (This fall rather than next fall.) I intend to homeschool, though. Is there a useful purpose for this kind of testing in homeschool, where you try to let each child work at his own level in each area anyway? I’m assuming that the answer is yes, but I would like a solid justification.

 

If so, is there a particular type of test you would recommend at his age? He is especially proficient at problem solving, spatial skills, memory, and deep abstract thinking. He is not reading.

 

If not, would you test a gifted child at some point in a homeschool education? Or never, until another school choice is considered? Is there an Ideal Age for testing?

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I would not test a 4yo.  Wait until he is at least 6 or 7 and then use the WISC (individually administered by a psychologist).  A long time ago, I read somewhere that the ideal age to test was between 6 and 9.  

 

Both of my kids have been tested.  We had the older one tested because he had some problems learning that turned out to be due to dyslexia (he is also gifted).  We had the younger one tested because I found the information we gleaned about the older one through testing to be useful, and I also suspected that he was more than just run-of-the-mill gifted.  The younger one's results confirmed my suspicions and ended up giving me the courage to do some fairly radical things with his education.  I'm glad we had the testing done.

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Where it helped here (for a kid who is on the high end of the GT Spectrum)

 

1) knowing that I’m not totally crazy and that it is reasonable to have a 5 yr old who is passionate about Latin, a 7 yr old who is dying to learn Algebra, a 9 yr old who’s idea of fun is to go to Herpetology conferences, a 11 yr old who walks into the local college and asks for help in applying, etc.

 

2) knowing that even though she’s really advanced in some things, she’s not in others, and that this is part of her total package.

 

3) having reassurance that this is “normal†for her, and that all the other DX’s well meaning people have suggested were not borne out by testing.

 

4) getting access to specialized programs, which, while not super-helpful academically (Gifted labeled classes often are extremely pricey), has been extremely helpful socially.

 

Could we have done it without it? Probably. But I think it’s worth it. (FWIW, DD was tested at 4,and entered K early. The school testing really wasn’t that helpful, but if you can have it done for free, it may be worth doing. It is next to impossible to access School testing for a gifted child who is homeschooled down the road in my experience, and private testing is expensive).

Edited by Dmmetler2
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It might be helpful to have the testing done if you ever decided to go into the school system. In our area, they only test at one specific age group (sometimes only on one specific day). If your child misses the test, they can't go back and test within the school. Though I've heard of people moving schools and having to re-test for giftedness. I'm not sure in those cases whether the school would cover the cost of the test. 

 

I do know that for my dc entering our school board in grades 6 and 7, the school would not test. I didn't explore to see whether I could do the testing privately. 

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On early entry, as someone who did it, I would advise against it. DD was bored out of her mind in K except for the days she got to go to 3rd grade for reading or to play math games with the 6th graders, was bullied, and we STILL have repercussions from that year at age 13. Emotionally and socially, she just wasn’t ready to compete with kids who were 2 years older, and that’s what happened. Being younger and more advanced made her a target. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't even officially start homeschooling early, and I have refused all on-paper grade skips after that first mistake. DD is an 8th grader who is dually enrolled in college, not a 13 yr old high school graduate. It’s a small distinction, but one that keeps her “child†status a bit longer.

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Did they suggest testing or only sending him to K5? 

 

You should pursue testing when you need answers to help you work with him better, and you'll know when that time comes. 

 

So yes, you teach him where he is and you eval when you need help to work with him better. It's pretty expensive to do privately, and I doubt your insurance is going to cover it. So if you have $1k+ lying around to do psych testing, sure, fine. You can call up a psych on the Hoagies Gifted list and get some advice. Sometimes you find out things you didn't anticipate, like that his IQ isn't as high as you thought or that he has some disabilities tagged on. 

Edited by PeterPan
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My oldest has been tested every which way, starting just before age 5, but not with the purpose being to measure giftedness. I found his scores (from just about every single test SWB lists, plus some) to be helpful because of their discrepancies, not their raw numbers.

 

I have one other child who has taken an IQ test for other evals. No new information was revealed to me in that, and we've gone about our business.

 

I don't know of any worthy reason unless there are actual problems happening.

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IQ testing was part of a full psychological evaluation for us. DD has been homeschooled from the start, and likely will be u til college. The testing was helpful to me.

 

1. As part of a full eval, we then had official diagnoses, which have been invaluable in accessing appropriate help in areas we needed.

 

2. It pointed out to me just how much those diagnoses were impacting every area of life, not just the areas I had noticed. They are even believed to have impacted the IQ scores themselves, since her ADHD meant she wasn’t very focused on some portions of testing, and scoring lower in some subcategories is correlated with ADHD. I have no idea how long it would have taken me to put the pieces together well enough to help her otherwise.

 

3. It made me feel less crazy, less like I was treating my kid like a special snowflake. The wildly different subscores helped me understand why sometimes she seemed super gifted and sometimes she seemed to lack even basic sense, why some things came so easily and other (even related) things were a struggle.

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For my dd with straight ADHD, very bright, I had inquired about testing/evals at age 6 and got the blow-off. I definitely regret not getting the evals then, because, like Jackie, that information turned out to be needed. We didn't get evals until she was 12. With my ds, that's more complex, but we did evals much earlier. 

 

So definitely don't take anything I said as not evals, because I'm hugely in favor of evals. There's just the issue of timing and knowing whether you're having the questions, whether your dc is old enough to run the tools that would be helpful, etc. For instance, my dd, if eval'd at age 4, wouldn't have gotten an ADHD diagnosis. They just don't typically do it that young, even if it's obvious. On *most* kids they're going to wait till more like 6. Same thing with SLDs. But there are situations where earlier, much earlier, is much, much better!

 

So you can really go with your gut for timing, and you can talk the situation through with the prospective psych and see their take. Usually they're hearing flags that help them know ok I'm gonna want to run this tool and the kid has to be x age to run it so we'll wait till this age. Or they'll hear flags that tell them hey let's get him in sooner because it could make a real difference.

 

The other reason not to wait an excessively long time is that IQ scores can *drop* for some populations over time. So that younger window (6-8ish, don't quote me), is going to be more reliable than later. Later the peers with no disabilities are pulling away. And you can say it doesn't matter, but IQ testing really does influence our sense of expectations. 

 

Huge, huge reason to test earlier, rather than later, is social. If there's ANY consideration about social development, I would be all over that with evals. Earlier is better on that.

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Another parent told me that early admission to Kindergarten would require gifted testing in our state, so that’s what made me think about it. But as I don’t want to put him into public school for K anyway, then maybe there is no purpose at this stage. I have not yet inquired as to whether the school offers gifted testing for preschoolers for the purpose of early kinder entry.

 

He’s been going to preschool since he was 2, because I was pregnant with my third child at that point and he’s very demanding. The social aspect, time away from home, and the structure have been very good for him. He’s not challenged there intellectually. The school doesn’t do letter work until the pre-K year, which is next year for him, and I don’t think they show him the more interested, complex classroom activities available. I think finds the classroom a bit over-stimulating and defaults to the same safe activities over and over. I was thinking if he were officially “gifted,†the teacher might take my suggestion more seriously about offering him more challenging activities, at least some of the time.

 

He really loves doing workbooks and learning games with me and will request flash cards, but I don’t offer those activities much because he already spends the morning at preschool and I think he needs free play time more than he needs to learn to read at age 4, which I’m guessing he would be doing already if he didn’t go to preschool. When it’s time for Kindergarten I plan to take him out of preschool and put the next child in, so that I have a little time to focus on teaching the oldest. I could do that in August, rather than 1.5 years from now, but I’m not sure whether replacing most of his social time with academic intellectual challenge will improve or worsen his behavioral problems. (Mostly aggression toward his 2yo brother.)

 

If a bright young child enjoys letter and number activities, and is likely to quickly learn to read if given the opportunity, should you provide that opportunity and let him decide the pace, or should you wait until he’s a little older to offer, to try to delay his being academically advanced for his age? Aren’t most people saying that early academics are unhealthy nowadays?

 

 

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And I’m so confused by the world of psychological testing. How do you request a “full eval,†and what things do they test for? Both giftedness and disabilities would be considered? He was seen by a child psychologist a year ago, really because I just wanted advice for parenting a child for whom the usual advice doesn’t seem to work, but she didn’t seem very thorough or systematic and all I got out of that was that he isn’t autistic and needs a lot of structure and predictability. She said that he was likely to have some kind of behavioral diagnosis once he started school, but didn’t meet criteria for diagnosis at age 3. Then she moved across the country. So it’s entirely possible that he will also have ADHD or a conduct disorder or something, besides giftedness, but I don’t even know what evaluation to ask for, or if it would be helpful yet.

 

Hoagies Gifted does not have recommended psychologists in my state. Using Google, I found ONE office 1.5 hours away that lists giftedness testing as a service. I don’t know anything about how good they are.

 

 

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When it’s time for Kindergarten I plan to take him out of preschool and put the next child in, so that I have a little time to focus on teaching the oldest. I could do that in August, rather than 1.5 years from now, but I’m not sure whether replacing most of his social time with academic intellectual challenge will improve or worsen his behavioral problems. (Mostly aggression toward his 2yo brother.)

 

Probably the teacher would give him more material if he were out and out bored. I haven't done preschool, but I'm just saying people see things and adapt.

 

That's pretty concerning if he's only 2 years apart from his sibling and can't act appropriately. Are there younger children in the preschool? How is he interacting with them?

 

Yes, to bring home a challenging, active boy who may or may not have diagnosable issues going on who is being aggressive and pushing limits, that's going to be HARD WORK no matter when you do it. Personally, I would do it earlier, rather than later. Once your 2nd is stable enough that you can toggle back and forth, it will probably be time. The majority of K5 is behavior, not academics. So either you or someone has to do it. And if there's more going on that needs some help, then you might as know now as later.

 

Has he had an OT eval? Does he have any sensory issues?

 

The worst part about being in an environment like that is that if he has more needs than what they can meet and *isn't* getting those needs identified and met, then he's solidifying undesirable behavior and social patterns. If it was a ps preschool, they could do an OT eval, bring in some behavior supports, try to get this stuff under control. When you're saying he's over-stimulated, the ps would bring in an OT and do supports for that. They actually have programs like "How Does Your Motor Run" where they would teach him and do some intervention. With that aggression, same gig, there are supports. Doing the same thing over and over? That's really concerning.

 

I'd be more concerned about the behavior than his gifted status. Fwiw, my ds is wicked challenging sometimes to work with. I'm just saying as a btdt mom, that's what I would be more concerned with. Maybe it wasn't on your radar and at all what you're asking. 

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Another parent told me that early admission to Kindergarten would require gifted testing in our state, so that’s what made me think about it. But as I don’t want to put him into public school for K anyway, then maybe there is no purpose at this stage. I have not yet inquired as to whether the school offers gifted testing for preschoolers for the purpose of early kinder entry.

 

He’s been going to preschool since he was 2, because I was pregnant with my third child at that point and he’s very demanding. The social aspect, time away from home, and the structure have been very good for him. He’s not challenged there intellectually. The school doesn’t do letter work until the pre-K year, which is next year for him, and I don’t think they show him the more interested, complex classroom activities available. I think finds the classroom a bit over-stimulating and defaults to the same safe activities over and over. I was thinking if he were officially “gifted,†the teacher might take my suggestion more seriously about offering him more challenging activities, at least some of the time.

 

He really loves doing workbooks and learning games with me and will request flash cards, but I don’t offer those activities much because he already spends the morning at preschool and I think he needs free play time more than he needs to learn to read at age 4, which I’m guessing he would be doing already if he didn’t go to preschool. When it’s time for Kindergarten I plan to take him out of preschool and put the next child in, so that I have a little time to focus on teaching the oldest. I could do that in August, rather than 1.5 years from now, but I’m not sure whether replacing most of his social time with academic intellectual challenge will improve or worsen his behavioral problems. (Mostly aggression toward his 2yo brother.)

 

If a bright young child enjoys letter and number activities, and is likely to quickly learn to read if given the opportunity, should you provide that opportunity and let him decide the pace, or should you wait until he’s a little older to offer, to try to delay his being academically advanced for his age? Aren’t most people saying that early academics are unhealthy nowadays?

 

 

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I have a gifted kid who was strong in language. I taught him to read at 4, and there were absolutely no downsides. It was fun, it was at his pace, and he really enjoyed reading! He didn't write much until he was 6, and that was fine. 

 

I also started math games with him around 3, and started a K math program when he was 4.5. It was never forced, we only did as much as he was ready for in a lesson, and I scribed for him so he didn't have to deal with writing anything. We used Horizons K, which is colorful and fun looking. He has always enjoyed math, and has continued to work at a faster pace, but I have added in different supplements at various times.

 

I don't understand why someone would say it's better to delay teaching a kid who is ready. Early literacy and numeracy skills are so useful to kids - why hold that back? I understand if the kid resists, or the mom just doesn't have time ... but if it's a positive experience, go for it!

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And I’m so confused by the world of psychological testing. How do you request a “full eval,†and what things do they test for? Both giftedness and disabilities would be considered? He was seen by a child psychologist a year ago, really because I just wanted advice for parenting a child for whom the usual advice doesn’t seem to work, but she didn’t seem very thorough or systematic and all I got out of that was that he isn’t autistic and needs a lot of structure and predictability. She said that he was likely to have some kind of behavioral diagnosis once he started school, but didn’t meet criteria for diagnosis at age 3. Then she moved across the country. So it’s entirely possible that he will also have ADHD or a conduct disorder or something, besides giftedness, but I don’t even know what evaluation to ask for, or if it would be helpful yet.

 

Hoagies Gifted does not have recommended psychologists in my state. Using Google, I found ONE office 1.5 hours away that lists giftedness testing as a service. I don’t know anything about how good they are.

 

 

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Just the fact that it was on your radar and you took him in is telling. Most common age for an aspergers-ish diagnosis is 9. You get these kids in at 4, 5, 6, and they actually still pass social thinking (pragmatics) testing, etc. The deficits are there, but they get diagnosed later.

 

Personally, I would act on the assumption that it's probably *more* than what that early psych eval said and get some intervention. Yes, OT and maybe bring in a behaviorist. A 4 yo boy should be able to be in the same room with his 2 yo sibling. A behaviorist is what you would be looking for. They could do some Social Thinking programs like We Thinkers. It's PERFECT for his age. You might be able to get it covered by your insurance. 

 

He's dysregulated, doing things perseverately, aggressive, and overwhelming. I mean, that's a more extreme take of what you're saying. ODD, conduct disorder, these are profiles. You can go to the Social Thinking profiles and see where he's falling. Socialthinking - Articles  To me, what you're describing, the mix you're describing (gifted plus conduct disorder plus ADHD plus sorta spectrumy stuff) is what later gets a spectrum label. It's just a matter of when. But read the profiles and see. The kids don't fall into them really definitively until more like 8. At that point, done deal, very clear. 

 

Yeah, I would pursue some interventions and not let people blow you off. If you let them blow you off now, all that will happen is he'll be 6, 7, 8 and you're still trying to sort it out. Maybe not even a psych eval. Maybe just start with the behaviorist and let them come in and work with him. Some kids slide into their final diagnoses. They start off with one and then keep stepping up till it gets where they're going. It's not always immediately obvious. My ds started being told ADHD inattentive and SLDs and that I was a lousy parent. Later we got an ASD 1 diagnosis added. Now we're looking at whether that support level needs to change to ASD2 or whether something else should be added. It's a process, and definitely what they could distinguish at 2 or 3 or 4 isn't where he'll be by say 12. So be open, flexible, keep pursuing it. But if you could start SOMETHING now, I would. He should be able to be in the same room with his sibling. They can work on that self-regulation and get him some help. That's an OT issue and BCBA /behaviorist issue. They could give you some progress there.

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And I’m so confused by the world of psychological testing. How do you request a “full eval,†and what things do they test for? Both giftedness and disabilities would be considered? He was seen by a child psychologist a year ago, really because I just wanted advice for parenting a child for whom the usual advice doesn’t seem to work, but she didn’t seem very thorough or systematic and all I got out of that was that he isn’t autistic and needs a lot of structure and predictability. She said that he was likely to have some kind of behavioral diagnosis once he started school, but didn’t meet criteria for diagnosis at age 3. Then she moved across the country. So it’s entirely possible that he will also have ADHD or a conduct disorder or something, besides giftedness, but I don’t even know what evaluation to ask for, or if it would be helpful yet.

 

Hoagies Gifted does not have recommended psychologists in my state. Using Google, I found ONE office 1.5 hours away that lists giftedness testing as a service. I don’t know anything about how good they are.

 

 

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It is common for gifted kids to be very intense. My guess is that they are extra perceptive, and all of the stimulation can be overwhelming. My youngest had a really rough time from ages 3-7, basically until we began medicating him for ADHD. It was incredible how much the meds calmed his aggression - but I think he was just so overwhelmed with stimuli, that any little thing that happened was basically the final straw before he blew up. 

 

I would be so, so careful about having him in an environment that is pushing his triggers. The longer he has those negative behaviors, the more ingrained they get and the more he sees it as part of his identity. I worked SO hard to keep my kiddo in situations he could handle, and kept focusing on what he was doing right. Without going into details (I value his privacy), when he was 5 it was clear that he felt deep guilt for his behavior, and it was damaging him.  His psychiatrist said that untreated ADHD often leads to ODD (oppositional-defiant disorder) and I totally believe it. 

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You might like Play Project. 

 

I'm just trying to throw out things you can pursue besides a psych eval. if you already did the psych eval to some level a year ago, then maybe do some other things first. Your ped could get him qualified for OT or give you the referral for behavioral help to get insurance to cover it. See what you can get without the diagnosis and then talk with them, especially the behaviorist, about what they're seeing and when it would be good to do evals to get words for it.

 

Sort of a back door way to get there. Psych evals don't always change lives, because they just cost a lot of money. That OT eval, you get that and it might literally change your lives. Sometimes a good OT eval can be that way, connecting dots for you you didn't realize about why behaviors are happening or how he was feeling or what was going on. And an OT eval can be around $100 and covered by insurance, while psych can be $1-3k and elective unless you have a referral to get it covered and end up with the labels your insurance wants to see.

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Some of the things they look at, when distinguishing some of these labels, are things like whether the dc can *manipulate* and whether he gets a social pass. Like it almost sounds like your dc gets a social pass. In other words, the gut take of the teacher is that he's performing at ability and understanding level, that he's not being bad relative to himself and what he understands. 

 

Gut pass is seemingly subjective but it's actually clinically significant. So just notice that, like when he has behaviors, what do people expect and how they respond to him? An RSC profile (from that Social Thinking profiles article) does NOT get a social pass. They can manipulate and lie, and even though they have significant social thinking deficits, they have just enough in other areas that people do not give them a social pass. Also a WISC profile on there (often your ADHD with social deficits) does not get a social pass. But your preschool does not seem to be calling you up and going oh my lands get your kid under control, are they? I don't know, you didn't mention it. If they're not, then that's really telling, that their gut sense is that his behavior fits with his thought process, ie. that he's getting a social pass. Very significant. 

 

My ds is an alpha and can make things happen, but our behaviorist distinguishes that (doing something to get what you want) from the perspective taking required for manipulation. Lying, same gig. Someone told me my ds lied once. We're talking ONCE, and even then I'm not sure he did. 

 

Well whatever, that's totally in the weeds for you probably. But it's stuff to think about and notice. Kids can be going somewhere diagnostically and just not be there yet. We ran a pragmatics tool on my ds at 6 and he passed. He passed because you could pass with a raw score of 2. I kid you not, 2. He was just too young for that tool to catch it. We ran the same tool two years later and he failed in spectacular splendor. He was just too young initially for the tools to show his particular level of deficits. 

 

So my advice is address what you're really seeing and don't let people blow you off. Where he's different from his peers and having troubles, consider being on the pre-emptive side and bringing in supports, simply because it's better too have too much support (too much self-regulation instruction, too much social thinking) than not enough. 

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The reason I’ve seen suggested to delay is that being academically advanced makes school boring, and can cause social problems. So if I teach him to read and add numbers now, I’m making it less likely that he would enjoy kindergarten or early elementary, if I don’t end up homeschooling. And given that he’s a difficult child with two close-aged siblings, and that I’ve not tried homeschool yet, I can’t rule out going to school as an option.

 

I think that he does mostly well at school. He isn’t aggressive with other children, only with his family, so it’s probably as much a parenting problem as anything else, but I don’t know how to help him and can’t find anyone to help me help him! The teacher says that he prefers to work independently and is slow to join a group, and that he prefers the older children, but he does play with other children sometimes and is able to do things like serve snack, wait in line, etc.

 

He has not been evaluated by OT. I don’t think that he has SPD. He does have poor gross motor skills for his age, he has never been able to snuggle for more than 5 seconds, and he has an unusually high pain tolerance. I know those are symptoms. He does not have other symptoms like texture issues and has always been a good eater and sleeper. His teacher told me once that she thought he should be evaluated for auditory processing disorder, but then she changed her mind, so... I have that on my radar. He doesn’t seem to have problems with that at home, though is incapable of telling me what sound “ball†starts with, even though he can tell me what sound every letter makes - I assume that’s normal at age 4, but I wonder if it could be an auditory processing symptom too. The same teacher recommended an eval by the public school preschool intervention people, but then said we’d give him some more time first. In short, he has some minor adjustment problems at school but does well in the classroom setting overall. He had great difficulty following instructions his first year there, but he was only two years old. I have heard some bad things about the public preschool where they do therapies.

 

 

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On early entry, as someone who did it, I would advise against it. DD was bored out of her mind in K except for the days she got to go to 3rd grade for reading or to play math games with the 6th graders, was bullied, and we STILL have repercussions from that year at age 13. Emotionally and socially, she just wasn’t ready to compete with kids who were 2 years older, and that’s what happened. Being younger and more advanced made her a target. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't even officially start homeschooling early, and I have refused all on-paper grade skips after that first mistake. DD is an 8th grader who is dually enrolled in college, not a 13 yr old high school graduate. It’s a small distinction, but one that keeps her “child†status a bit longer.

 

Thank you for this perspective. We were offered to skip my son from K to 2nd and chose not to for maturity reasons but I often wonder if we made the correct decision.  But he STILL struggles with maturity. So there's that.

 

The reason I’ve seen suggested to delay is that being academically advanced makes school boring, and can cause social problems. So if I teach him to read and add numbers now, I’m making it less likely that he would enjoy kindergarten or early elementary, if I don’t end up homeschooling. And given that he’s a difficult child with two close-aged siblings, and that I’ve not tried homeschool yet, I can’t rule out going to school as an option.

 

 

But that is assuming the parent is teaching the kid something they would not learn anyway.  I read to my kid constantly, but made no efforts to teach him anything. But I read to him and answered his questions. When he asked what a letter was, I told him. When he asked what a combination of letters was, or how to spell a word -- I told him.  So the only way I could have prevented him from learning to read at age 4 would be by NOT answering his questions. NOT reading to him.  He was reading Dr. Seuss books in Jan-February when he didn't enter kindergarten until the next September. (And didn't turn 5 until August) I have no idea when he started reading on his own.  For the longest times, I believed he was a good memorizer and had memorized books we had read together frequently...

 

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I know I must sound so dense, but I really just don’t understand where I would start to find something like a behaviorist or therapist of any kind for him. I asked at the pediatrician’s office. It took her weeks to get back to me with the name of this one pediatric psychologist who had just moved into town and immediately moved away. Seriously, if anyone is willing to spend 5-10 minutes to poke around and see if there’s anyone you would try in my area, message me and I’ll tell you where I live.

 

 

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And I’m so confused by the world of psychological testing. How do you request a “full eval,†and what things do they test for? Both giftedness and disabilities would be considered? He was seen by a child psychologist a year ago, really because I just wanted advice for parenting a child for whom the usual advice doesn’t seem to work, but she didn’t seem very thorough or systematic and all I got out of that was that he isn’t autistic and needs a lot of structure and predictability. She said that he was likely to have some kind of behavioral diagnosis once he started school, but didn’t meet criteria for diagnosis at age 3. Then she moved across the country. So it’s entirely possible that he will also have ADHD or a conduct disorder or something, besides giftedness, but I don’t even know what evaluation to ask for, or if it would be helpful yet.

 

Hoagies Gifted does not have recommended psychologists in my state. Using Google, I found ONE office 1.5 hours away that lists giftedness testing as a service. I don’t know anything about how good they are.

 

 

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We traveled 1.5 hours to get the testing done. It was the nearest viable option. Also didn’t know how good they were, but the office was at least professional, responsive, and knew what I was talking about/wanting when I called and inquired. To request a full eval, I called and stated that I wanted testing done for my daughter for both IQ and behavioral concerns. I stated that I suspected diagnoses of _____ and _____, and giftedness, and I wanted the testing to include those, but also to generally screen for anything I wouldn’t know to name because we were struggling with her and needed some direction. At the time, we had some very specific mental health concerns.

 

As far as timing goes, we had meant to wait until age 7 or 8. I knew that IQ testing was supposed to be most accurate around that age. We then had a significant uptick in mental health concerns at age 6.5, so we moved that up as soon as possible.because of the information gained, I’m glad we went with sooner rather than later. If it was only for IQ, I still would have waited a bit.

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My son has an autism diagnosis and our insurance requires that for behavior therapy he be supervised by someone with BCBA certification (or a certain psychology degree). So — this is what I have used.

 

https://www.bacb.com

 

I have lived in one small town and then another, and something to keep in mind is that a supervisor may live a long distance away, but supervise around for families in small towns.

 

If it’s not an autism or insurance type of thing, I think you can call around to counselors or therapists of different kinds. I would try asking around to anyone who works with kids. They may know where other kids have gone. You can try to ask around with other networks, maybe someone can introduce you to another parent who has some personal experience.

 

For a good book about behavior strategies but not autism or ADHD specific (and I know nothing about ADHD; a fair amount about autism) I really like the Alan Kazdin books. They are quality books with quality techniques, and they are pretty flexible to use as you think they will work.

 

 

https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Parenting-Toolkit-Step-Step/dp/0544227824/ref=la_B001I9Q6VO_1_6/145-7277464-5286651?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516223733&sr=1-6

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I found our behaviorist by networking. Like go to homeschool support groups in your area and just start getting connected. Also try searching for Play Project therapists. They're becoming more common, and the approach would be very homeschool-friendly.

 

Another way is to google and search for OTs and SLPs working with a lot of autism and ask them who their people are going to. They'll sometimes be in the loop on who to try. 

 

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My DS#3 was granted early access to 1st grade this year, and so far we're happy with the decision.  I wouldn't have sent him to K a year early; he wasn't socially/emotionally ready, and he loved his play-based preschool last year. 

 

I originally planned to enroll him in K at the homeschool charter I used with my older kids, but then we had a bad experience with the K teacher not taking well to my moderately advanced older student, and DS#3 was quite a bit farther ahead than my older kiddo was at the same age.  I thought he would be miserable in this K teacher's class, so I started looking into early access so he could jump right into 1st at the charter.  Early access is a very selective process in our district, with only about the top 0.1% of students accepted, so I honestly didn't believe he'd get in, but I figured there was no harm in trying. 

 

It was a 4-step process with disqualifications occurring each step of the way.  As he moved through the steps and got closer and closer to being granted early access, I started to get nervous about grade skipping.  I read books about acceleration (I highly recommend A Nation Empowered), and  I looked into other alternatives. 

 

I thought about just homeschooling him for K and then enrolling in the charter a year later.  I marked that one off because my older student wanted to leave the charter and I would need another student enrolled if were were going to keep our borrowed curriculum.  I considered enrolling him in half-day public K for social conditioning and homeschooling for academics in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, K in our area is highly academic and I couldn't find a half-day program within a reasonable distance.

 

Luckily, after he was accepted for early access, the GT team was there to hold my hand.  They found a different homeschool enrichment program (classes 1 day per week, but not a charter) that turned out to be a much, much better fit for accelerated students.  They also put together an ALP for him, and he has a gifted resource teacher assigned to him who is very approachable, knowledgeable, and awesome to work with.

 

It's been a wonderful year so far.  The enrichment program now has him in the 1st  grade room only for about 1/3 of the day and he goes to 2nd-3rd grade classes for the rest of the time.  We are considering a second skip into 3rd grade next year, but we're still undecided.

 

The main advantage to the whole process has been the support he now gets from our district.  He'll also be able to take district-paid DE classes that much earlier.  Having his scores has helped me understand him better and got me researching the needs for different kinds of giftedness.  He joined DYS and I'm looking into other opportunities for him to grow socially.  It's still very early, but so far I'm happy with our choice to accept early access to 1st grade.

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I've done a lot of research on Giftedness testing. The research shows most parents are accurate at determining whether their kids fit the profile or not. Parents are at least as good if not better at determining Giftedness in their children. We've been homeschooling for 7 years and I knew by the end of Grade 1 that my DS was Gifted. Don't plan to do any testing besides maybe the SAT exam when he's old enough (it's not required in Canada or for the university we're planning on sending him to). There are tons of helpful resources out there for Gifted education, that's all I've needed. That said, where we live we have the option to choose extreme flexibility in schooling up until Grade 10. So the asynchronous nature hasn't been an issue, since we can be extremely flexible. As the years have gone by the asynchronous learning has become less of an issue so I'm fairly confident that by the time he gets to Grade 10 he'll just be flying through everything that's at grade level, and he won't be bored by the stuff he's advanced in cause it will mean easy grades, mastery, and they are still topics that interest him (that's what happened to be in school anyways... time will tell if it works for him but right now I'm not worried). We plan to homeschool all the way through the end of high school and the Giftedness is part of that decision, even with individual learning plans and Gifted programs etc. it's just not good enough in our area to consider that option so that's another reason I haven't bothered with testing. I've read tons of books on Giftedness and my favourite ones so far have been "101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids" and "The Gifted Adult". "The Gifted Adult" is really fantastic and goes over the shortfalls of IQ testing and really expands on all the other types of intelligences which are common in Gifted people.

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