How Do you know if your child is "Gifted" ?

Fit2BMe - posted on 10/09/2012

For DS, it was obvious, and we got many comments, however we were very adamently against making assumptions or allowing others to do so. Kids are kids. They all have their strengths and they all have their weaknesses and getting hung up on labels can be so damaging. So our first priority was to not make a big deal out of anything, lest DS every mistakingly perceive that his intelligence is where his identity or value lay. We also did not want to praise him for it, as we strongly believe in praising good character over giftedness.

Things that made up, and others, suspect he was gifted included the following:

-early with all of his milestones as a newborn and infant (sitting by the start of 4 months, cross crawling by 6 months, cruising at 7 months, walking at 8 months, started refusing to poop unless he had a clean diaper in hand at 8 months, words started at 6 months though I wouldn't accept it, and at 12-14 months he potty trained himself--no exaggeration. He hated messes and control has always been a big deal for him.)

-at 13 months he recognized many letters and their phonetic sounds having simply played with a toy repeatedly, by his own interest.

-by two years old he was speaking in full sentences, knew all colours, shapes, letters and sounds, had picked up many site words NOT from being coached or taught but because he was obsessed with books and would see them repeatedly. He could name all different sorts of trucks and their parts (like skid steer and hydrolics, boom, excavator etc) and new many dinosaur names.

-his speech was most notable as he skipped the baby talk phase and went right into speaking like an adult.

-at 2.5 he would talk about the water cycle, plant life, was already reading at a late kindergarten level, would talk about things like photosynthesis and ask crazy complicated questions.

-by age 3 he was functioning academically at a grade 1 level with everything minus the fine motor skills. Fine motor was at a n early kindergarten as he was not interested.

-he was also able to swim before the age of 3 years, and at the pool would talk to everyone about ecosystems, the solar system, and whatever else he had taken an interest in.

-he has always been extremely deep thinking, with endless probing questions, all self Motivated and driven. He's always taken keen interest in math, reading, patterns, his globe, and science (his favourite), and learns primarily from books.

-At age three he started grade 1 at a special school for half days only. While I was not comfortable with school at this age, his teacher is fantastic, very used to gifted schools, and we have seen over time that when he does not get the stimulation he needs and craves he stops playing and becomes withdrawn.



In the afternoons we are playful and silly and make sure he has tons of time to just be a little boy. These kids are, afterall, still first and foremost kids. Even if they don't present like it all the time. And silliness and play an the freedom to "just be" is SO important. He LOVES creating with Lego and gets lost in imaginary play. :) He has a great character, though we are working on tempering his perfectionism and helpin him to worry less about things like safety. Overall this is just who he is. We received the label however do not use it. We just say "He is who he is."

Toni - posted on 10/09/2012

i think it's a gut feeling when they are very young. I know I had started keeping things to myself about what dd could do around other moms because of the reactions. I also found it confusing because she's not a genius and I haven't "coached" her so she doesn't know a heap of things. But she didn't talk until 2 and because of that I volunteered her for a uni study on toddler speech development. She started talking that week and the staff didn't believe me, within 7 days she could name 8 colours, count to 10 (counting objects rather than reciting) and name the basic shapes and ended up in the top half of the study group. We went in for the clinical assessment and discovered she was above the 99th percentile for visual capability. That basically means she understands what she is looking at. So pure accident but it's been really helpful. I get her more complex puzzles now, and let her watch a bit of tv because she actually does learn a lot from what she is seeing. We started putting starfall on as well and she now knows the letters of the alphabet when written. She also has quite remarkable hand eye co ordination which is related to the same thing. so we have been able to target her physical activity to match her current skills so her confidence improves.



At this stage we are not getting her iq tested she is still only 2 and there really is no benefit - if she still seems advanced before school starts we'll look at it then as it can be helpful with choosing the right school. I tend to think she is very bright in general and obviously advanced in that one area BUT this can all change as she develops and she may become one of those well achieving kids at school only - and that is fine with us. I don't know if it's arrogance but I have a suspicion that a lot of the charts/milestone things have the bar set really low, because I see so many kids who in one way or another are doing amazing things their peers can't do.

Fit2BMe - posted on 10/05/2012

We had him tested.

Sandra - posted on 10/02/2012

With my oldest child I never really thought about it until I took my son for a doctor appointment right after he turned 5 months old.



We were military and seeing a new doctor at our new base for an ear infection. He went through all of the developmental milestone questions. One of the questions he asked was if he was babbling. I told the doctor that he didn't really babble any more now that he was talking. He looked at me like I was crazy and asked me in a humoring voice what exactly did he say. I listed off all of the words he could say probably about a dozen at that time. I could tell he didn't believe me and my son wasn't feeling well and unusually quiet.



At the end of the exam when we were leaving the doctor said, "bye Joshua". My son perked up lifted his head off my shoulder waved at him and said "bye bye". I thought the doctor was going to fall over. He started looking through his chart and asked me how old I had said that he was.



Up until then, I didn't even realize that he was talking that much better than other babies. By 7 months old not only could he say a lot of words, but he could point out pictures in books. He started doing that with the night before Christmas. He loved finding the cat and the mouse. He could talk in sentences at a year old and say woulds like more difficult words like tickle and balloon.



He loved to sing and knew all of the words to many kids songs way before his 2nd birthday. His favorites were the man on the flying trapeze, take me out to the ball game, the alphabet, and thanks to Barney- happy birthday in Spanish. He learned to read when he was four.



He always liked talking to adults. Lots of times he would be with the adults instead of playing with the children. He started stuttering when he was about two. Usually only occurred when his dad was deployed though and completely disappeared after his dad was discharged when he was 4.

Rebekah - posted on 09/11/2012

We had our son evaluated by a private certified school psychologist. He was 6 yrs and a few months when tested. It is really your decision if you want to pursue that or not. I knew my son was bright without having a test to confirm that, but you do need to know the IQ numbers if you are wondering if he's eligible for the school's gifted program. For me, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just a biased mother who naturally thinks her kid is amazing...I wanted confirmation about what his cognitive skills really were and how that was going to jive with the regular ed program. His IQ is right at the cutoff of "giftedness," but performance-wise he's 2 years (and more in some areas) ahead in reading and math. So I needed the results of testing to see what the teachers could do to challenge him, given that he's already beyond the content of what they're covering in class. My son is also at a private school that does not have a gifted program, so I also wanted to compare what he could get educationally at the private school versus the public. I couldn't do all that exploration without having that detailed evaluation.

Nicole - posted on 09/08/2012

I have a question on the other page so I'm not the best resource! ;-) I do know this: you truly don't know until they have their IQ tested. If they have an IQ above 130 or so then they are considered gifted. There are varying degrees of giftedness. I think every child is gifted but from what the experts (the gifted teacher at our school and the doc) they want to wait until my son is around 6.5-7 for maturity reasons during testing. I know they need to be tested by 8.



HOpe that helps a bit. :-)