To want to get my child tested by an educational psychologist....

[royaljelly]

Sorry quite long as a bit of backgroung is needed.

My daughter turned 2 at the end of June 2011 and she is really intelligent (may be biased).

The main factors are:

Can count to 20 in English

Can count to 8 in Spanish, (we do not speak spanish and think she has picked this up from Dora),

She recognises if you ask her to count in Spanish or English.

Often counts backwards from 10 correctly, even whilst playing

Will remember statements, such as, 'We will build a den after dinner'. As soon as dinner is done we have to build a den.

Recognises colours such as pink, purple, brown, as well as primary ones and will get the correct crayon even if the wrapping is a different colour.

Recognises shapes and can draw them if asked.

Spots mumbers in the street and calls them out.

Has circled the toys in the Argos catalogue for Xmas.... we thought she was scribbling but she has a definate view on what she wants, (quite a tomboy and has missed out the entire girly range except for a kitchen).

As parents we thought she was rather bright, but thought our own biased views made this the case. This has now been picked up by her childminder and even people at the bus-stop who think she is older than she actually is.

I have been on the Mensa website and they have said that for children under 10, their tests be carried out by an educational psychologist.

They seem to mainly carry out tests on ADHD or troubled kids and partner now thinks that if I go ahead and organise this it may label her.

I think that if we get advice on encouraging and building her intelligence then this will benefit her in the future.

I should add that we do not sit her down and command her to draw shapes or count, but do this as part of family fun time ie: sat on one parents knee as we play Trivial Pursuit with her much older brothers, (she gets to move the counter).

Do I go ahead with the tests or not. I am afraid of becoming complacent with her intelligence and not allowing her to have the best opportunies in the future.

Sorry, I CBA to read the whole thread, but OP your daughter seems pretty much normal, bright, but not profoundly gifted. What do you want to assess her for?

I get the feeling the OP's ideas of gifted children have been formed by the kind of article that appears in the Daily Fail/local papers, where it is almost obligatory to put in a mention of Mensa membership at the age of three, or GCSE in maths at the age of 6 (usually they don't mention that it's actually a grade D or something).

Most parents of very intelligent children don't choose to a) put their children through unnecessary tests or b) get their pictures in the paper. It is much more helpful to read with them, play with them, support them when they get to school, and definitely not make a big thing about how clever they are, as that can lead to problems of perfectionism, over-confidence, reluctance to admit that anything might be difficult and so on.

If you turn out to have a profoundly gifted child like Jabberwocky's, then you may be advised to go through testing in a few years' time. But to be honest, from the things you said your DD could do, it sounds like she is bright but nowhere near the level of profoundly gifted.

I mean is she counting objects, adding and substracting etc?

Because counting to 20 is not anything extraordinary.

Ed psych will think you're bonkers (unless he'll just care about getting money out of you).

TBH, I wouldn't trust the stats from an Ed Psych report on a 2-year old. The results would be very unreliable, and I would doubt the ethics of an Ed Psych prepared to take OP's money in these circumstances.

OP - your daughter sounds lovely. Enjoy her, treasure her, encourage her cuiriosity - I'm sure that you would be doing these things anyway, so why do you need an Ed Psych report to tell you to?

EyeOf Newt. I have a gifted child. I was a gifted child. I understand what it's like from both sides and, you know what? It really isn't all that big a deal.

There are lots of gifted children and only a tiny minority of those are true geniuses.

OP. IQ is not fixed. It can change with time and, yes, with influence. If you want to pay someone to tell you what you already know, that your daughter is quite clever, then whoopee doo. I couldn't give a hoot what you spend your money on. Your deluded if you think there's a section for IQ on a typical application form for a cleaning job though. Or any other job for that matter.

And I joined Mensa. I stayed a member for one year and didn't renew. So what if my IQ at the time was reputedly in the top 0.2% of the population. The one meeting I went to was pretty tedious, to tell you the truth.

If you want leads to an organisation which can give you more appropriate leads and ideas as to how you can help bring on your daughter, then you would be far better looking to the NAGC.

I was also a Mensa member. It took me 5 years to realise that £25 a year was not worth it for a free pen and a monthly magazine.

Not so clever then

You got a pen?

I was ripped off [hgrin]

I have 4 children and would say that youngest children of large families do tend to learn and develop quicker. That's different from being gifted though.

People do often feel that having a label will help them but frankly if you had your child tested at that age, any honest professional will tell you that you would need to retest a few times until they reach 10 years old. This is because they change so much developmentally. It's like saying that a child walking at 8 months old is destined to be a successful athlete.

Looking back on my children at that age I can't honestly say in retrospect that you could tell who had a talent for what. Only one of them was hugely keen on books and went onto read very early, but as far as the rest was concerned, you could not tell whether they had a talent for say drawing, music, ballet, maths or writing at that age.

If you really want your child tested I would do it a lot later on.

themed - I agree about the youngest children learning more quickly. I am sure my 2 year old has picked up stuff from simply observing her older sisters coming home with reading books and numeracy homework. And because they are older she copies other things she sees them doing as well.

Feenie - can I join the bright enough to join but not bright enough to leave quickly club? I don't remember getting a pen.

I've still got it!

Dd's teacher asked at parent's evening if she had any older siblings. She was experienced enough to know that many precocious children are picking things up from older brothers and sisters. Parents do tend to tailor activities towards the older child so when a two-year-old can trot a piece around the Monopoly board or knows about the secret passage in Cluedo, it's a case of monkey see, monkey do.

Can work the other way as well. An only child in the company of adults until they start nursery or reception. Especially if it is reception it would be odd if they were not ahead of the others . This is especially the case for vocabulary.

I am cynical of only children being ahead of others when they start reception having been in the company of a parent continuously. They start ahead and get encouraged by the praise they recieve so....... work to stay ahead.

I have 4 & the youngest shows all signs of being the least bright of my lot.
Oh well, he'll have to excel at being dead cute, instead [hwink].

catsareevil I agree about adults discussing IQ. I never thought it relevant, but the HT where I work asked me if I've ever had mine tested.

I said yes, he asked what is was, I told him, he said it didn't surprise him and conversation ended.

Not quite sure why the conversation came about except we were talking about my Uni course and my dyslexia (the normal are employers meeting needs of employees meeting).

I still have no idea why it matters! He didn't even offer me a payrise!

OP, the problem with your posts is that your ideas for your dd seem to be totally overshadwed by your worries about your ds- this is not going to be the way to make things fun for her.

I speak partly as a university teacher, partly as the mother of a child who could certainly do the things you mentioned aged 2 (plus some rather more complicated translating tricks into another language)- at 14 she is bright and predicted to do very well in her GCSEs, but not in any way that an ordinary state school can't cater for.

I am not expecting my daughter to be the next einstein and i realise that she will probably make a few mistakes in life. She may even go completely of the rails and rebel against her parents like I did.

I would hope I can find advice to encourage her intelligence so that if she does rebel, some years later she can get it back.

Imo the best model here will be you, not MENSA or an EdPsych: you need to show her that learning is fun for everybody.

I would also want to encourage her to have a good work ethic and do anything that makes her more marketable for jobs.

Yes, but the best way to do that is to model it in your own life; let her see how much pleasure you get from working hard at whatever you do.

Some of you have slated this idea of UNI and any other qualifications or even membership into MENSA, as we all know in the current climate 100 people applying for a janitors job (even degree level) everything counts towards that high paid position.

The problem with Uni is that you don't just have to get in- you need to do well whilst there which ime is mainly about taking responsibility for yourself (speaking as a university tutor here), so again not something an EdPsych can do for her.

Again, modelling hard work and intellectual curiosity as a parent will be the most formative thing you can do for her. If she gets used to hearing you thinking about things and sees that you enjoy learning more about the world for your own sake, she may want the same for herself.

If I can find any way / oultet to encourage this above her peers then I am going to take it.

If you want her to do well at uni- take out that bit about "above her peers" and concentrate on teaching her to enjoy finding things out for her own sake. Ime (20 odd years of university teaching) the students who do best are never the ones who are narrowly focused on stealing a march on the rest of the group; the ones who thrive and get good degrees are the ones who enjoy thinking.

cory I so enjoy reading your posts :) you have a nice way of phrasing even difficult things. Well said!

(I might be a bit biased, being a fellow Nordic )

Are you, Eye? I didn't know that!

MENSA and any one who ventures near it is for self obsessed losers

The only person I know who joined Mensa is a dentist & apparently the whole year at medical school did in a batch lot.....nuff said

My advice to you OP would be to let her be a child and do nothing unless it turns into a problem in some way

Ds has been assessed by an Ed Psych and has a very IQ. The reason he was assessed was because he has accute social problems - which according to the Ed Psych are common in the highly gifted as they do not understand how other children think.

What difference does this make to his day to day life? As little as possible. I want him to love learning and frankly you could not stop that. I do not want him to regard himself as elite or to be seen as wierd by his peers (and he can easily be seen in this way).

The greatest gift I can give him is to ensure his happiness and this is done by making sure he has friends and is happy at school. It will not in my view be achieved by making him do GCSEs at 10 and nor will this improve his future employability. Outside of academia employers do not look for genius, they look for intelligence and someone who will work well with their colleagues within a work environment. I personally would avoid employing someone who had acheived precocious things as a child and represented themselves as a genius unless I could be assured that they were also a well balanced individual. It has been my experience that these things do not often go hand in hand.

Yep, cory, I am Nordic but not Scandinavian

I have a feeling OP has stopped reading this thread