gifted/talented kids

[pinkchez]

How many parents have got kids with gifted kids?
I am setting up a support group for the kids and parents.

I have teachers doin their best to get my son labelled as ADHD etc but it isnt going to happen, he is highly gifted, his IQ is in the top 2% of the population at age 8, but this comes with some issues, he is scared of new situations, doesnt like shopping centres above ground floor, chews clothes, wont sit still, gets bored etc,
does this sound familiar?
I'm trying to establish a support group if anyone is interested?

Pink- I'll email you.

Simple manners take very little effort. Your responses have been rude and insulting to members of this forum, many of whom have direct personal or professional experience of the issues you have highlighted.

I hope that your manner in your "support group" is a little more measured and polite and a gread deal less abrasive or I doubt many people will find it a place they want to visit more than once.

great

pinkchez, my ds1 is/was very similar. I recently went to a talk where the speaker discussed how these kinds of issues are very common in gifted children. But I think she (an educator) had really missed the point. The fact is that being gifted is one of the risk factor for Sensory Processing Disorder which can cause everything you mentioned.

Once ds1 was diagnosed we started OT working to desensitize him. It has been a year and a half now and he is MUCH improved. If no one has mentioned this to you I think it is well worth looking into.

i've said this on one of your other threads. But I'll say it again. An IQ in the top 2% of his age group is not gifted, just very bright. There is no reason why normal schooling/classroom situation should be causing behavioural issues.

Fancy us lot giving uneducated responses! I think I'm quite educated actually - certainly have plenty of education related letters after my name and very bright kids to boot. My mother also signed me up for some dire clever kids association. I think op will find life easier when she realises that the issues need to be addressed to make things better for her ds. 1 in 50 kids are in the top 2% (a couple of mine included) - it's not all that big a deal. Social issues on the other hand are a big deal - they need support if a child is to achieve his/her potential.
Grrrr

Being in the top 2% may or may not be a big deal but it does come under gifted. An IQ of 130 is classed as gifted and that is around the top 5%.

Blimey, I've got 4 if that's the case - better not let them know!

pinkchex, I think what posters are trying to say is that your ds's problems may be something apart from his also being gifted

there are many profoundly gifted people who do not have problems

your son's problems as described sound like some form of SN

there is no reason someone very gifted should not also have SN of this type

in fact, this is not uncommon

a statement would help with the SN side

and btw, parents of children who are gifted but do not have behavioural problems are likely to have less need of a support group

it is not the giftedness itself that is a SN

missmem - who classes an IQ over 130 as gifted? At DS1's school I reckon this must cover about 75% of them, although I've never had Ds1 tested. Due to Spld DS2 has been tested as is well above 130, gifted is not a word I would use for him (i can think of alot of other words though!)

lazymum, here is one interpretation of IQ:

Lewis Terman (1916) developed the original notion of IQ and proposed this scale for classifying IQ scores:

Over 140 - Genius or near genius
120 - 140 - Very superior intelligence
110 - 119 - Superior intelligence
90 - 109 - Normal or average intelligence

Since schools would have, typically, a very small number of children in the genius category it makes sense for them to classify anyone of very superior intelligence as "gifted".

Jabberwocky - that makes much more sense. Can I also make the assumption that an IQ>140 is quite rare and would put a child in the top 0.1% of the age group not top 2%

What does gifted actually mean?

Jabberwocky - I don't know if that is out of date but below 130 is not gifted and above 160 is profoundly gifted. I have looked online (sad, I know) and an IQ of 130 is in the top 2%, 140=0.37%, 160=0.003%.

That's only one definition of gifted though (I think it's probably what's used in USA). In UK educationalists tend to say top 5% or 10% of the population is gifted which is much more inclusive. I hesitate to put an IQ value on it as there's quite a degree of error in measuring IQs I think and also IQ isn't always (usually?) a metric used in identifying gifted in UK, but 130 IQ ought to be well inside.

I can categorically state that ds1 is not a genius so I think that Terman scale is way off! He is exceptionally bright but not always able to use his intelligence and I suspect that ds2 (no idea of IQ but would put him at very bright rather than exceptionally so) will get better exam results than ds1 - and no matter how bright he is, it still doesn't stop him from having all his other difficulties ...

This chart is more up to date. It takes into account the different IQ tests that can be taken. Some tests have a maximum of 150, others have a ceiling score of 170+. There is a great variation between IQ tests. The percetile is more of an indicator than the IQ number.

Bright: 115-129, or one in six or 84th percentile
Moderately Gifted: 130-144, or 1 in 50 or 97.9th percentile
Highly gifted: 145-159, or 1 in 1000 or 99.9th percentile
Exceptionally gifted: 160-174, or 1 in 30,000 or 99.997th percentile
Profoundly gifted: 175+, or 1 in 3 million or99.99997th percentile

Point taken. I did not spend more than a few seconds googling IQ interpretations. I think the basic idea here is that most schools will have to widen their interpretation of "gifted" in order to have an adequate number of students per class. I mean, you can't exactly justify a separate curriculum for 1 - 5 students per grade. So whether you are Bright or Moderately Gifted probably doesn't matter that much in the long run. I think it is more of an issue for those students who are actually at the higher levels and those parents DO need a support group as they are responsible for filling in the gaps and dealing with the psychological issues that accompany those children.

As far as I know, the government's G&T programme is designed to recognise the top 2% in a school. In the mainstream school where I work, that top 2% would be considered at best, average, in most other schools. So, even though our brightest children may be working below the national expectation, we still have to label them as G&T! Madness!

That is one of the main problems with schools labelling their kids as G&T. Kids who would be classed as top 2% gifted in one school may not even make the top 10% in another school. If schools really do want to identify their gifted kids then they should get them tested by some form of national IQ test at the age of about 7. The kids who have been early developers or pushed/hothoused by their parents will stand out less then and the true gifted kids can then be identified.
Moderately gifted kids can be accommodated quite easily within the classroom, as you get into the 99% band and above it gets harder to meet the needs. A child may socially and emotionally need Year 1, yet academically need Year 4+ for some academic subjects...what does one do then?

On the contrary!
When G&T was introduced, a lot of schools were less than excited (I'm being polite here) about the idea and opted out of it by saying that they didn't have to 'do' G&T because they claimed that they had no eligible pupils. That's why the Govt changed the definition to the top x% of a school, no matter whether it was a selective or a sink. Now all schools have to enter into the scheme and identify their G&T, which means that the rough diamond at the sink school stands more chance of being spotted.

All we need now is for them to actually do something with the kids other than just stick them on a register.

Yes, we regularly get into dicussions about top 2% and top 10% at our state primary (I'm a parent governor). Our head is being forced to introduce G&T more formally though he isn't keen for all the obvious reasons. Additionally, there are lots of able and achieving children at the school. It's a high performing primary in a leafy affluent London suburb with many highly educated/high achieving parents (in DS1's class alone I know of 5 Oxbridge educated parents - I know that doesn't mean their children are able etc but it is an indicator of the parent base). So I'm sure that more than 2% of the children in the school are in the top 2% nationally and more than 10% are in the top 10% nationally.

I think we're discussing high academic ability here.Why would an IQ of 129 not make you gifted yet an IQ of 130 would? It's a nonsense term, especially as it is applied by the government.Littlefish and username are spot on about the G & T programme.

I work in a highly selective school where most of the pupils would probably fall into the ' gifted' category if you're just using a raw IQ score ( which can, anyway, be improved with practice). So most of them wouldn't even get on the register. But it doesn't mean we can just lump them all together - they vary widely in individual abilities and learning styles, not to mention all the other factors like motivation, organisation, maturity and adolescent hormones. Applying a label such as ' gifted' doesn't help - some parents are very keen for us to know their child is 'gifted' and they've already set them on a pedestal. In the context of the school they can suddenly feel unremarkable,so what's the point?

By all means, try and get the education that suits your child but, if you're going to apply labels, make them useful ones.

I always think that the government scheme is probably right to apply criteria on a per school basis. If you stand out from your peers that's when you may need some extra interventions regardless of what actual level your peers are relative to the population at large. If there's a large number of bright (or gifted) pupils at a school then the school can support them within the normal teaching environment because there are enough of them to make a sub-group that a good teacher can cater for (very occasionally you still might have the odd genius amongst them who needs something more). In a challenging school where most children struggle & sit foundation level papers (if at all), then it would seem appropriate to me to have some extra funding for children who are maybe only good average nationally, but stand out and need extra support to go further (sit higher tier GCSEs or whatever). It's the outliers that are more difficult to cater for, and so I do agree that 5-10% is too many. It should be 1% or less & only where a child is significantly at a different level from the rest. AND call it something else 'gifted' just has a huge cringe factor.

However, since very little actually seems to happen it's not really an issue.

I am fairly regular poster on MN, but am using a name variation as I don't know how to write this without somebody hearing it as boasting.

I have an IQ in all the, er, top categories mentioned above. (well, I was tested that high once, heaven knows how far it's fallen since... )

Anyway, back to OP: I could believe the boy's high IQ may link to some of the issues OP mentioned, that could also be down to SN. I know with me that I just don't think like other people, I struggle to understand their priorities and logic (or lack thereof, as it were). I also have slight sensory issues which I believe stems partly from greater sensitivity overall. 2 DC have been labeled gifted. One of them chews clothes, and the other sometimes acts up (gets told off for talking in class, especially). The clothes chewer is just plain quirky, very much like me as a child. The talker hates waiting for seemingly obvious things to be explained -- obvious to him, anyway, his brains contribute to his inability to be patient.

Other posters are still right to say OP should be open-minded about the possibility of a SN diagnosis; it might be an avenue of support after all.