Formal identification of gifted children If you think your child might be gifted, you can see an educational psychologist for an IQ test and a report on your child's advanced learning. This report is likely to focus mostly on academic learning but often includes notes about social and emotional gifts too.
The optimum time to test for giftedness is between the ages of 5 and 8 when test results are necessary to advocate for kids at school. An intelligence quotient (IQ) test measures the person's ability to reason.
They are extremely curious about objects, ideas, situations, or events. They often display intellectual playfulness and like to fantasize and imagine. They can be less intellectually inhibited than their peers are in expressing opinions and ideas, and they often disagree spiritedly with others' statements.
Giftedness can create problems and conflicts; being a gifted child can also mean difficulty socializing with age peers, thinking styles that don't always mesh well with the demands from the environment, even children who see themselves as little adults, challenging teachers and parents.
Reasons to Test Gifted Children
If you suspect your child is gifted, testing will allow you to understand their specific learning needs, including strengths and weaknesses. By identifying giftedness early on, it's more likely that your child's giftedness will be developed into talents.
A gifted child's IQ will fall within these ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 130. Moderately gifted: 130 to 145. Highly gifted: 145 to 160.
The potential for giftedness or a high level of intellectual development begins very early in a child's life. Studies since the early 1970s consistently show that such development is the result of an interaction between the child's genetic endowment and a rich and appropriate environment in which the child grows.
The research shows that while children are born with the potential to be gifted, the environment and nurture plays an important role in developing those innate abilities. In fact, researchers estimate conservatively that environmental influences can add 20-40 points on measured intelligence.
Signs of intelligence include better rhythm, liking dark humour, being prone to worry, sleeping late, high self-control and new ideas. Signs of intelligence are many and varied and go way beyond a standard IQ test.
Research shows that the signs of intelligence are usually good memory and thinking ability, good attitude and hard-working nature, general and tacit knowledge, language proficiency and reasoning, decision-making, trust, creativity, achievements, good intuition, and problem-solving.
At the kindergarten level, many gifted and talented tests will cover basic skills like listening and following directions. Examples of elements that questions may involve include classification, analogies, finding patterns, number puzzles, and sentence completion.
Many gifted children are highly sensitive individuals. 1 They may take things personally and become upset by words and deeds that other children may easily ignore or get over quickly.
A gifted child may have to concede that he has broken a rule, but he can still argue over the consequences. He may think the rule was unfair or the punishment is unfair, and with gifted kids, issues of fairness are not simply matters of debate. They often have a deep sense of justice.
Many gifted children may exceed the academic ability of their peers, but lack other basic skills. For instance, a student may be able to multiply, divide, and tell time early on, but struggle to tie their shoes, ride a bike, or remember to bring their backpack to school.
Gifted children often struggle socially and emotionally. Social interactions are difficult and they don't always know how to behave or read cues from others.
Gifted and talented children might behave in challenging ways because they question rules, feel frustrated or lack learning opportunities. You can tailor strategies to support children's behaviour, social and emotional needs.
The most common mis-diagnoses are: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (OD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Mood Disorders such as Cyclothymic Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder, Depression, and Bi-Polar Disorder.