What is Gifted Education? Evaluation of a gifted child
Welcome to Vanguard Gifted Academy's educational channel. This is the fifth episode of our new exploration series, “What is gifted education?” My name is Dr. Mark McKee. I'm a clinical child psychologist, and I've been working with gifted children for more than 30 years.
Parents often come to me with concerns regarding their children. Some of those parents come because they would like their child evaluated to see if they are gifted.
When we do an evaluation, we often find out that a child who has performed relatively poorly in school or has performed poorly on standardized tests is a gifted child who's been bored and not interested in what's been going on; a child who has felt out of place.
A number of these children are also diagnosed with ADHD and, in the discovery of a gifted child, we find out that they really are quite smart.
They're interested in a wide range of things that the public schools simply don't address. When a child starts to read at the age of two and then goes into kindergarten only to be told “you're going to be learning your ABCs”, these children are the ones that sometimes get a little bored and have behavioral problems. Whenever we understand that a child is intellectually gifted and they become involved in a program such as Vanguard or other private schools for gifted children, they flourish. They are in the process of discovering that there are things they can learn, and they are able to learn at their own speed, which they truly enjoy.
Another concern that parents bring to me is the standardized testing that goes on in school. Group administered tests are relatively valid as long as the child is motivated, interested, and puts in a good effort, but that is not always the case.
This is one of my favorite standardized test stories. There's a little girl that I saw a few years ago. She was seven or eight years old at the time and had been coming to see me for some anxiety. I had done an evaluation and found out that this child had an IQ score well above 140. When she came in to see me one day, she sat down on the couch and looked at me and said, “Dr. McKee, we had those ISAT tests today. I hate those things.” (She’s not the only one that does). Then she looked at me and got a little smile on her face. She said, “You know what I did? I drew flowers, didn't read one question.” She drew flowers! Then her parents call me confused and said, “Dr. McKee, you told us she was intellectually gifted! Why is she only scoring in the 40/50th percentile on a standardized test?” But, I thought to myself, you know, the 40/50th percentile is awfully good for flowers. My point being, the standardized tests that the school gives can be highly dependent upon whether the child actually tries or not.
There's a wide range of different tests that look at very specific types of constructs of the mind, if you will. The global IQ is a good measure of a person's potential or their potential to learn, especially with children. Their potential to master academic work, their potential to engage in life and work with others.
With gifted children, depending on the research that you read, an average IQ score on the bell curve is 90 to 110. 110 to 120 is high. 120 to 130 on the Wechsler scale is known as very high. And 130 to 160 is known as extremely high. Again, depending on whose research you read, giftedness starts somewhere around 120-125 and above.
There are numerous things that can negatively impact a child's score. Maybe the child just physically doesn't feel well that day, maybe they are lacking the motivation to take the test, or maybe they have anxiety.
Schools like Vanguard and other private gifted schools are created in a way to specifically address gifted children and provide them a pathway to learning that allows them to go at their own speed and allows them to become deeply entrenched in ideas that they want to study. They offer a unique opportunity for children. As such, I would encourage parents who think their child is gifted or who may have concerns about their child not performing well when they know their child is smart, to have him or her evaluated. Have their child come in and shadow for a day and just simply experience and discover that there are other alternatives than the public schools.
This is your journey with your family. We want to be here as a resource for you, so please follow us on Facebook or YouTube. As always, thank you for listening! We appreciate your time and support.