INtparent: I have to agree with you regarding age and giftedness. When my oldest was 18 mos. old s/he went to the post office with the babysitter. S/he talked a lot by that point. And I guess s/he got into a discussion with the babysitter about how the mail worked ( where did it go, how you pay for postage, how long does it take, why didn’t everyone just put it in the mailbox with a credit card, etc). The people in line were flabbergasted. They all stopped to ask her questions. And they did not believe the babysitter re: age. According to the babysitter, one woman got a little mad. (Apparently she had a grand daughter who knew more. lol) I have videos of my kids having conversations before the age of two. They were my kids so that was our normal. But they spoke as though they were about 7-8. Often they ask philosophical questions or will ask a question to confirm something they do not believe. We didn’t test until our oldest was 12, as part of CTY. The results were surprise, giftedness. My eldest still does not believe that s/he’s in that range. There must be more people out there who are like me or who are even much smarter. Glad S/he’s humble but I think it’s from listening to all of those public school teachers talking about their ideas of intelligence. The world is against giftedness because most people cannot stand the idea that intelligence is inherited and to some extent cannot be changed. Yet, they can support gifted athletes. Makes no sense whatsoever.
@QuantMech, I should like to add that no one should be made unhappy by going public school. That one should also be on the list of “fairness”.
@tigerle One of the advantages of homeschooling is that my kids have never had to experience busywork. In my 23+ yrs of homeschooling, I have never handed my kids a worksheet. Ever. Their educations have been mastering knowledge-based content fairly easily with a shift in focus toward higher order cognitive skills as the main focus for the rest of our time on a subject.
My background is in child development/psy along with education. I quickly dismissed everything I ever learned about education in college. I started creating my own plans that were more in line with Bloom’s taxonomy in methodology. I could never used a prepackaged curriculum with teacher’s plans b/c it would drive not only my children crazy but me as well.
There are definite ways to create assignments that require more thinking that are not busywork. BUT, it requires allowing teachers to teach vs.requiring teachers to stick to scripted lessons. My niece has been teaching for over 15 yrs. She says during the past several yrs that her ability to teach has become more and more restricted b/c she has less control over how she teaches vs more based on experience. (She has even been named teacher of the yr in the past!) She says that now she cannot deviate from the script that comes with her curriculum even when she knows that her students would do better if she could just teach them the way they need.
I am also very grateful that I had the privilege of being able to do homeschooling. I think just being able to tutor a gifted and enthusiastic kid from the beginning young age is a dream come true for many educators. Alas, majority of parents of gifted kids do not have the privilege and the current school system can’t, as you demonstrated how, support them adequately.
Simple grade skipping, 1, 2 or more grades is not an option for every kid.
My gifted kid was:
Doing adult jigsaw puzzles at 2
Reading Harry Potter in kindergarten
Sitting in our driveway telling me every turn needed to get to grandma’s house at age 3 (We will go north, then we will turn East by the big tree, then we will go north to the Burger King, then east…10 turns, perfectly)
Describing to me how negative numbers work at age 4
However:
She couldn’t spell her own name until age 8
She did not speak to any adult outside me, my husband, and 2 grandmas until age 6
She failed the district kindergarten readiness assessment at age 5 because she simply sat in the room and stared at the teacher doing the assessment
She was unable to write legibly until about age 10- I could decipher it but barely. She put no spaces between words and nothing was spelled correctly
She was unable to take scantron type tests for many years- she would get the right answer, for a very hard math problem, for example, on the test booklet, but then taking that answer, matching it to answer C in the booklet, then moving over to a scantron page, finding problem 20 and bubbling in C was harder for her than doing the problem
Most of the above issues resolved with maturity (she still can’t spell anything and doesn’t like talking to strangers, but she can do it if she has to) but she needed to be in classrooms with teachers who still challenged her while recognizing that she was not a miniature adult.
“@theloniusmonk My kid had her first 160+ IQ test at four. Testing suggested by her pre-school teacher. What should we have waited for? Why do you think giftedness doesn’t show up early? She had a huge vocabulary at that age (better than many adults). Other kids were puzzled, and adults were in turn delighted or taken aback. The whole point of providing services to gifted kids (and in my opinion, every kid) is to allow them their own pace of learning. Why shouldn’t that start very early? If someone else blooms later, they can then accelerate at that time (or should be able to in a well constructed education system).”
Where did I say giftedness doesn’t show up early? I’ve mentioned Mozart and he’s probably the best example. Anyway for your daughter, for sure a traditional class setting with age peers is not going to work at an early age. I don’t know who would object to putting her on an IEP say and giving her advanced instruction and yearly testing to see where she’s at.
“Don’t you think it’s necessary to provide early help to developmentally challenged kids? Would they tough it out if we don’t put them in that bucket and treat them as if they don’t have the learning disabilities?”
It’s definitely necessary for LD students to have help regardless of age, I have not said otherwise. You calling them people with LD is a indicative of my point in a good way, previously they would have been called slow, ■■■■■■■■ etc…
Sorry your grade school experience was like a prison, sculptordad, but mine and my kids was not . My point was that in addition to being challenged intellectually, kids need to learn to work with and relate to kids that are different in many ways, including intellectually.
When I see the kids from the GT program that are now adults, most of them are doing well and their professions vary from resident surgeon to lawyer to teacher and even to a naval officer (who is likely to end up with a math/econ PhD) to grad school. Certainly, kids that were not in the GT program are in similar occupations.
Many of these now-grown kids did well socially. I have read alot about social issues with gifted kids (especially when mine were younger), but not sure there are any valid studies that show that HG kids are more likely to have mental health challenges.
The problem in elementary school is that teachers don’t want to teach specific subjects at specific times, so unless you can get two teachers to cooperate it’s almost impossible to get subject acceleration beyond whoever is in the classroom to make a group with your kid. My oldest had a really nice first grade teacher. She fought for months with the school principal to let him go to another classroom for math. She just couldn’t believe that he would be happier and that there really weren’t any other kids like him. (When she finally agreed to testing he tested fifth grade for concepts - as high as the test went - and third grade for math facts - he didn’t have the multiplication tables memorized.) I think at that point she did finally get that there weren’t any other first graders like him. He ended up in a reading group with just one other kid. The did research papers in the library a lot of the time.
In middle school I insisted that my son be allowed to take a final exam to prove that he already new the material. After they reluctantly let him move up - not as far as they should have IMO but at least to the honors section of the next grade up - I talked a few other parents into doing the same thing.
@intparent my son’s pre-K teacher said at the end of the first day of class with him - “you know your son is gifted.” I’d never even heard the word before. I knew everyone in dh’s family read early they are all smart, but have never seemed like geniuses. My education was mostly overseas in elementary school - I went to a Japanese K, skipped first grade, and was in a one-room school house for 4th and 5th grade where I could work at my own pace, so being bored was not something I had experienced until much later in my schooling. Honestly having experienced the one room school house, skipping a grade and also a class where two grades were in one classroom - I’m pretty baffled by why we are so hung up on the idea that you have to be with your exact agemates. When I was 9 I played with kids from age 7 to 12 regularly.
@mathmom, I was what was called a “split classroom” in 1st and 2nd grade. They didn’t have enough kids to make up a full class of either grade, so one teacher taught both together. The first test of that was great for me, as I got to be grouped with the 2nd graders in some subjects. In general that teacher was great – she gave me harder math and arranged for me to have a private time in the library to check out “big kid books” from the section that we normally weren’t allowed in until 3rd grade. I loved her. 3rd thru 5th – well, they were awful, dull years.
@mom2and, you wrote wrote:
“I have read alot about social issues with gifted kids (especially when mine were younger), but not sure there are any valid studies that show that HG kids are more likely to have mental health challenges.”
And there never will be any, as I argued in post #343, because it’s so hard to get a representative sample.
@theloniusmonk, you wrote:
“Where did I say giftedness doesn’t show up early? I’ve mentioned Mozart and he’s probably the best example. Anyway for your daughter, for sure a traditional class setting with age peers is not going to work at an early age. I don’t know who would object to putting her on an IEP say and giving her advanced instruction and yearly testing to see where she’s at.”
The OP, mathmom’s S’s principal, most other elementary school principal you’ll encounter. That is kinda the point of the last 26 pages.
So, Mozart and @intparent ‘s D get to be gifted enough by early age for special treatment. Anyone else? where would your cutoff be, if you were in charge of a school or a district? 1 kid in the world every 300 years is a bit thin…
There are some though. Try google scholaring: “gifted children fine motor skill”, “gifted children twice exceptional”, “gifted children anxiety”, etc.
Please do distinguish what often comes with gift but often gets better as they grow - delayed fine motor skill, sensory overload, etc from what they often end up developing and sometimes gets worse as they grow because our society doesn’t support them adequately - depression and anxiety.
Many believe all kinds of things – the world is flat, the moon landing was a hoax etc. The more important measure is what evidence they have to support those beliefs. I haven’t seen any well researched evidence of an intelligence sweet spot, where you become far less likely to be successful, if you exceed the sweet spot. There have been quite a few studies that looked in to such issues. For example, the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth tracked 12 year olds who scored in the top 1%, top 0.5%, and top 0.01% on math or verbal SAT over ~40 years and compared rates of various life events. They did not find evidence of a sweet spot. Instead some metrics of success continued to go up as score went up, even to the top 0.01% (1 in 10k). For example, the rate earning PhDs increased significantly, with each grouping, particularly PhDs in math and physical sciences.
I have no doubt there are many anecdotal examples of exceptions. Anecdotally I know many gifted persons who were successful, as well as quite a few that were not (as measured by traditional metrics of success). I know some who have been arrested for crimes that could have had jail time sentences, and others who have founded well known companies… one who was in both of these groups. I know some who were miserable in school, and others who were not… some who made friends easily in school, and others who did not. The large individual variance relates to success (however it is defined), chance of school issues, and general life happiness being dependent on a large number of variables beyond intelligence, especially an estimate based on a one-time grade school test score.
While I agree with you on that the claim was not backed up by data, please let me clarify that the claim was meant only for K-12. Because “the current system” is flawed.
From college on, my opinion and personal observation are also that there is no sweet spot. The smarter you are, the better. (Especially for PhD)
I have stayed out of the entire IQ/disabled conversation bc I agree with @mom2and. I have a disabled adult ds who has a very high IQ. He is an Aspie with multiple comorbid conditions. I do not believe his issues are at all connected to having a high IQ and believe they are entirely related to autism. His siblings do not exhibit any similiar behaviors, so I see more normal behaviors in my kids than the extreme behaviors of our Aspie. I have also been around enough non-high IQ autistics to see the similarities in theirs and ds’s behaviors based strictly on autistic behaviors completely removed from intelligence.
What I do see in our autistic ds is a greater awareness of his disability vs normal behaviors compared to the awareness of his autistic peers. I am not sure if that is a result of intelligence or simply living his reality of seeing multiple younger siblings have lives progress to adulthood normally while he struggles with so many things. (He is number 2 of 8 kids, and 4 are living very normal adult lives and and even the 16 yr old functions on a higher level.)
But isn’t Asperger’s Syndrome a subset of high IQ? Only some with high IQ have Asperger’s Syndrome but all who has Asperger’s Syndrome are gifted by definition.
I have seen a few seriously autistic kids while taking d to her volunteer work at a center for them (peer mentoring). I don’t think most of them were able to have a greater awareness of own disability. There a couple of Asperger’s too. And the distinction between Asperger’s and normal Autistic kids were enormous. Asperger’s were more like normal gifted kids in many sense, just more intense, common and numerous issues.
No. Aspergers and high IQ is a myth. The diagnostic criteria have been changed and Aspergers is no longer diagnosed outside of autism. But, even so, the criteria was no intellectual disability which equates to an IQ below 70.
All of the arm chair psys who believe they know everybody and their brother is obviously on the spectrum…well, let’s just say they annoy me.
And, I can share that my ds may appear normal to the ooutside observer, but he is disabled. He is highly educated. The only job he can cope with currently is donation sorter at Goodwill.
I know more than one PhD in math or physical sciences who is way under employed or unemployed. It is not a marker of success.
The definition of success is somewhat arbitrary. Most Americans define success in terms of personal goals and personal relationships, rather than degrees or income. However, most studies look at more objective criteria, such as the latter. That said, completing a PhD is a notable achievement, regardless of employment. And when the longitudinal study looked at only PhDs who had tenure track position at a top 50 university (as ranked by America’s Best Colleges), the same pattern occurred, although the sample size was extremely small for all test score groupings.