Roll Call Thread - Page 3

[Marimami]

DD is 5, and we have no plans to test her, but we have lots of solid reasons for hanging out in this forum.

Holli

[Qbear'smama]

Hard to say for DD, she started school early (attending JK with 4 year olds) and is quite advanced in that group...MG? We have no plans for testing any time soon, either. She has participated in developmental studies at the local university where they told us she "thinks like a 5 year old" but that is as close to an assessment she's had

[heatherdeg]

ds will be 6yo in January. No clue what level of G he is, but he blew out every test they gave him during the last round of evals for his IEP (he's 2E). Literally: we had to end testing and resume at another time because he was going so far that it was dragging on too long for a 5-1/2yo to handle.

BUT... none of them were actual IQ tests. So who knows. He had an eval yesterday to either update or rule out his PDD-NOS dx where the dev ped noted that two of the subtests WERE indicative of reasoning/cognitive ability vs. recall and said that they certainly showed a level of potential giftedness; but she also noted that testing him next year (at 6-1/2yo) would be a better indicator. I'm not sure we'll do that. These evals were really just done for disabilities.

He still has some very clear auditory filtering/processing issues and is flagged for ADHD.

dd is adopted and just turned 1yo. Not sure where she'll land, but she's doing really well overall. I can't tell if she's ahead or behind because ds was severely delayed at this point. Thankfully the age gap is big enough that ds' advances can be blamed on him being SO much older--IF she doesn't follow suit and IF she's even sensitive to it.

[loraxc]

DD is 6 in Jan. She was nominated for GT testing at school, so we will have some numbers soon, but I suspect she is MG or HG. I actually think her subtests will be all over the map, with very high verbal and memory scores but low to average spatial ability. I can't say I'd be surprised, though, if she tested just below gifted (high average) OR if she tested PG. Really, I just don't know. She is a strange mixture.

She also is artistically gifted.

DS will be 2 in Feb. He had a rough start and was FTT and very hypotonic as a babe. His doctors considered all kinds of awful diagnoses, including muscular dystrophy, CP, and some fatal neurological diseases, though it was always clear that mentally he was all there, and we went through a lot of traumatic testing and had physical therapy for a while. At around 10 months he started to catch up, and now he is a nice strong boy with no delays. It's a mystery.

He is speaking very well (6-word sentences), knows the whole alphabet and has many books memorized, but is not as precocious as his sister was. However, he seems to have a much higher "EQ" than she does. He is extraordinarily sweet and compassionate and very tuned in to the emotions of others. There is something very special about him--it's hard to describe.

[isaoma]

DD turned 3 last fall. We don't know if dd is gifted for sure, but we have suspected that she falls somewhere along the gifted continuum. DD teachers at her Montessori believe she is gifted as well.

[SkySunSea]

I am Michelle, mom to DD, 9. We live in SD. She is 2E, with ADHD and sensory issues.

She tested at just-turned-six as moderately gifted overall and highly gifted on the verbal areas (WISC-IV). However, she was unable to complete some of the tests do to lack-of-interest and attention issues. There was some discrepancy between processing/visual-spacial that had us concerned for awhile as a suspicion of dyslexia and non-verbal learning disabilities, but that seems to have changed as she has grown up. We haven't had a reason to have her re-tested using the WISC-IV, but she just took the Raven test to be officially certified into the GATE program in our school district. No results as of yet.

She's been a conundrum child from the get-go....

[lovbeingamommy]

I'm Kate - DS just turned 4 yo a few weeks ago.

[joensally]

We're in the older end of the crowd, 10 and 7.

I'm not really sure how one could guess at a giftedness level in the preschool years...I think there's a lot of sleepers, and developmentally preschoolers are all over the map. I mean trying to discern between MG and HG. I think it's often pretty clear with preschoolers and some toddlers that they're clearly outside of norm, but I don't know about sifting through categories at that point in their development.

Announcing my kids' levels feels a little bit like telling you what size pants I wear . But I will say, in support of my paragraph above, that I had NO IDEA that DS was gifted until he was over 3 and an EI person pointed it out. He just didn't present classically (he has SPD, is very VS and is very self-directed so he only does what he's interested in). We don't actually have hard, final numbers for either kid as DS was uncooperative during his testing and there's a statistical discrepancy in the results which cannot yield an FSIQ, while DD has crippling test anxiety, but my bet is that his IQ is higher than his 'classically gifted' presenting sister.

(and now I have to qualify all of that by saying that I have come to believe that IQ level is not the stand alone determinant of anything, and a PG kid with high "EQ" and life skills is likely far less "at risk" than an MG kid with poor EQ and life skills. Humans are so much more complicated than IQ).

[no5no5]

Originally Posted by joensally

I'm not really sure how one could guess at a giftedness level in the preschool years...I think there's a lot of sleepers, and developmentally preschoolers are all over the map. I mean trying to discern between MG and HG. I think it's often pretty clear with preschoolers and some toddlers that they're clearly outside of norm, but I don't know about sifting through categories at that point in their development.

I do agree that it's not really possible to rule things out at this age. I also agree that most kids who are gifted or highly gifted are probably not obviously gifted or highly gifted as preschoolers. In fact, if it weren't for DD's reading (which is already something like 6 years ahead), I would probably not be thinking about levels at all yet. And even that doesn't have my mind made up.

Originally Posted by joensally

Announcing my kids' levels feels a little bit like telling you what size pants I wear .

So...what is your pants size, anyway?

[St. Margaret]

Sophie is 2.5, and we figure she's likely to be some kind of gifted based on her language and reading and counting and other crazy stuff she does

[Stephenie]

Keagan is 2.5 and most likely gifted. (early counting, some reading, large vocab etc) Eden is 8 months and way too young for such labels, but she's pretty great

[stlmomof2]

DD turned 4 in October. Her WPPSI score is 140, which I think makes her HG. No clue about DS who will be 2 next month. He knows half his alphabet and has been using the computer since he was 18 months old, but his language overall is not that great--maybe slightly below average.

[RiverTam]

DS1 is 7 and DS2 is 4 and a half.

[ejsmommy]

Like it says in my sig., dds are 6 and 3.5. Dd1 has always been an intense, spirited child and her early years were difficult. We came to find out she was gifted on our search to find out what might be wrong with her. When we IQ tested last year we were shocked and also sad, thinking how misunderstood she had been. She tested EG. She skipped K and is in 1st grade doing great.
Dd2 is too young to know for sure but unlike her sister, spoke very early and has always received comments about how well she talks and how bright she is.
She is constantly in a hurry to grow up.

[jilly]

Originally Posted by ejsmommy

Dd1 has always been an intense, spirited child and her early years were difficult. We came to find out she was gifted on our search to find out what might be wrong with her. When we IQ tested last year we were shocked and also sad, thinking how misunderstood she had been.

I had a similar experience with ds1. He was such an intense, spirited, sensitive child that I was on a quest to find out what was wrong with him. Now that I've found out (and he's got old enough that he's not quite so frustrated) I'm having to learn to just let him be.

[ChristaN]

That's exactly how we came to realizing that dd#1 was gifted at 6.5 as well. I never really thought that anything was wrong w/ dd b/c I empathized with her since she was a lot like my mom described me as a little person -- "payback" as my mom described it. Dh, on the other hand, was quite convinced that there was something wrong with her from the time she was born.

It really only got to the point where we sought testing to ascertain what that was, though, when school became a huge disaster and she was falling apart on us.

Dd#2 has been more like Stephanie Tolan describes gifted kids who have been sleeping through school dull eyed and less obviously gifted -- like a cheetah on zoo chow in a small cage with no motivation to run. That, along with her social morphing to fit in and be something she isn't, is what is leading me toward trying to find a way to homeschool her.

[LynnS6]

My kids are 5.5 and 8.5.

Right now both are 'suspected' gifted, but not identified. I suspect both are Moderately gifted, dd might be highly gifted, it's hard to tell because she's only 8.

Ds is a quiet introvert with sensory issues, so he's hard to spot. He also has perfectionist tendencies and won't try something until he knows he can do it. I asked for him to be tested this year, so we'll see what they say.

Dd is probably Moderately to Highly Gifted as well. She's 5 and reading at about a 2nd grade level right now.

[Tigerle]

This is getting to be a very interesting thread.

As others have said, I have no way to know to at this point, but have reason to suspect that DS, newly 3, is gifted due to his verbal abilities, puzzling skills, enumerating skills, receptive reading level (is that the correct term to describe this? He isn't reading but we read chapter books meant for 5 years and up to him) and generally doing stuff that the PBS development tracker says he shouldn't be doing for another two years or so. He is also very sensitive.

Also strong family history, but no-one's ever been tested - I'm going by anecdotes and achievement. One of the reasons that I want to get DS tested at some point (apart from probably needing it for schooling) is that I'd really like to get a handle on how the numbers compare to how giftedness plays out at least in one individual case.

[JollyGG]

My son is 6 1/2 years old. He's in second grade at a full time gifted program in our public school system.

My daughter is 3 1/2 years old. No evidence yet that she's necessarily gifted. But no reason to rule it out either.

[AAK]

dd will be 10 in January (attends the gifted program with the school district & homeschools--highly gifted although her giftedness is lopsided--verbal abilities are out of this world, and math is great too. But her spatial skills were average)
dd is 7--I suspect that she is gifted but she presents strangely, I also believe she is dyslexic. The combination (or my perception of the combo) is proving to be difficult in dealing with the school. She wants to be at home. It is a long story. If she is gifted, her IQ subtests will probably be the opposite of the older sis--her verbal skills I expect to be average, spatial skills are high.
dd will be 4 in January and I suspect that she is the most gifted of them all. This is only based on comparing her to her sisters.

Amy