Steps to help identify your child
Key traits associated with giftedness
What types of assessments might be used?
Steps to help identify your child
According to Palmer (2011) in an article in Psychology Today, early identification of the child’s giftedness is important because it will help the parents and the teachers place the child in programs that will work with their talents and needs.
Some steps that parents can take are:
- Undertaking testing to identify giftedness in their child.
- Enrolling their child in private preschool programs that start prior to primary school to identify giftedness in their child.
Parents should consider whether their child displays behavioural or social differences compared with other children of their age group. Research indicates that there is an overlap between characteristics of giftedness and emotional problems like ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Hence, without proper assessment it is difficult to determine if the child is gifted and/or has emotional problems.
Various studies have revealed that giftedness is associated with the density of neural connections in the brain. However, the environment plays an important role along with genetics, which makes it complicated to list a specific set of characteristics that is associated with giftedness. Thus, it is recommended that the child is compared to children of the same age group and the goal is to identify any behaviour that deviates from the norm.
There are three broad categories that are defined to help parents and teachers identify if the child is gifted:
1. Language is an important milestone in children’s development. Parents should pay close attention to their child’s development of language skills. Gifted children often develop complex language at a fast pace and develop a more sophisticated vocabulary than their peers. Some language traits are forming sophisticated vocabulary, speaking quickly, forming longer and complex grammatically correct sentences, asking questions about what they hear and see, picking up on double meaning phrases, reading prior to starting school, understanding and carrying out multi-step directions/instructions, and modifying language based on the type of audience.
2. Natural Learners: they absorb information effortlessly
Gifted children have the ability to learn quickly and efficiently. They tend to become very focused on a particular topic, conduct research independently on a topic that interests them, may have poor hand-writing since they think faster than they can write and do not pay attention to details, display excellent memory and can recall things efficiently, require little directions or instructions, understand their own thinking and learning process, and/or display creative thinking.
3. Emotional and behavioural features
Gifted children may understand their own emotions and emotions of others well, they tend to be energetic, think and talk quickly, connect with adults and other older children based on their interest, and may appreciate natural beauty and art.
It is important to note that the characteristics listed above are not absolute signs of giftedness. Some children tend to be more emotionally reserved, talk at a slower pace, and hide their talents in order to fit in with their peers. Intelligence assessments also have their limitations especially since they are time-based. It is possible that some children answer slowly in order to maintain accuracy, thus the score may fail to accurately identify the child’s giftedness. Most importantly, anxiety plays a major role in modulating performance, and if the child is anxious the test scores may not accurately reflect the child’s talent and abilities. A child may also excel at a particular skill (nonverbal skill task such as creating patterns) but may perform average in other task (verbal task such as vocabulary). If the score is averaged, this can impact the result.
For additional reading refer to :
Palmer., D. (2011). Is your child gifted? What to look for and why you should know.
Source: Psychology Today
Key traits associated with giftedness
- Unusual alertness, even in infancy
- Rapid learner; puts thoughts together quickly
- Excellent memory
- Unusually large vocabulary and complex sentence structure for age
- Advanced comprehension of word nuances, metaphors and abstract ideas
- Enjoys solving problems, especially with numbers and puzzles
- Often self-taught reading and writing skills as preschooler
- Deep, intense feelings and reactions
- Highly sensitive
- Thinking is abstract, complex, logical, and insightful
- Idealism and sense of justice at early age
- Concern with social and political issues and injustices
- Longer attention span and intense concentration
- Preoccupied with own thoughts—daydreamer
- Learn basic skills quickly and with little practice
- Asks probing questions
- Wide range of interests (or extreme focus in one area)
- Highly developed curiosity
- Interest in experimenting and doing things differently
- Puts idea or things together that are not typical
- Keen and/or unusual sense of humor
- Desire to organize people/things through games or complex schemas
Vivid imaginations (and imaginary playmates when in preschool).
Source: National Association for Gifted Children in the US
Identification process
The Ministry of Education guides teachers who are watching for giftedness to look at factors like:
- language
- culture
- gender
- physical ability
- learning or sensory disabilities, and
- personality style
Each school district or independent school has their own method for identifying gifted students. The Ministry of Education encourages teachers to develop a profile that consists of academic achievement, learning styles and strengths, interests, special abilities, and visions and goals for the future.
The Ministry of Education Special Education Manual of Policies, Procedures and Guidelines says:
Identification of strengths and talents should be ongoing and should involve using multiple criteria. Several of the following sources of information should be used as part of the identification process:
- Formal test results including indicators of cognitive ability, achievement, aptitude and creativity.
- Teacher observations including anecdotal records, checklists and inventories.
- Records of student achievement including assignments, portfolios, grades and outstanding talents and accomplishments.
In addition, the following may contribute to a deeper understanding of individual student strengths:
- Nominations by educators, parents, peers and self.
- Interviews of parents and students.
Retrieved from https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/specialed/gifted/identifying.htm
What types of assessments might be used?
There are a variety of possible assessments and each test measures a particular set of skills. The special education or other teacher in the school may implement some assessments and some would need to be implemented with the School Psychologist or a Psychologist working in the community.
The Achievement test is used to measure the child’s ability to decode what they were taught. The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence consist of both verbal and nonverbal tasks to formulate the intelligence quotient, or IQ, score. Supplementary psychological tests are used to test the child’s problem solving skills. Psychoeducational tests are sometimes used in addition to verify giftedness in the child.
For additional reading refer to :
How to engage in play with your children and enjoy it. (2010) Retrieved from
http://www.psy-ed.com/wpblog/gifted-assessments/
http://www.psy-ed.com/wpblog/
For more information on whether you should have your child assessed, please read our very popular blog on this topic : “ Should I have my gifted child assessed?”