Child Assessment & Testing - Giftedness

Giftedness refers to having exceptional intellectual abilities, as measured by standardised academic assessments. Generally an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of 130 and above is required to identify a gifted child. This equals to an intellectual ability that is better than 95% of children at the same age level.

While IQ alone is sufficient to identify exceptional intellectual ability, there are certain characteristics that set gifted children apart from others. These include advanced vocabulary, exceptional reading ability, independence, and strive for independence, exceptional memory and attentiveness, creativity, ability to exercise constructive self-criticism, keen sense of humour and advanced social skills.

We offer professional assessments, recommendations to parents and schools and assistance with planning for your child's future. We are happy to discuss your concerns and we are willing to contact school teachers and principals to advocate your child's best interest.

Within the scientific community there is a considerable lack of consensus about what is giftedness and what is talent. Professor Francoys Gagne, a French-Canadian psychologist, defined gifted and talented children as:

"A gifted child is a child who has ability (potential) to perform in any domain of human ability, at a level we would more usually expect of students some years older. A talented child is a child who is actually achieving or performing at a level we would more usually expect of students some years older."

According to this definition, giftedness is considerably more difficult to identify than talent. Giftedness is the raw ability, while talent is using and acting upon such ability. This is why many gifted children are overlooked at home and within the educational system. It is difficult to directly observe giftedness as teachers and parents can only observe a child's behaviour and interaction with others. Although there are hints and observable signs that a child is different from his/her peers, without formal knowledge of ability level these signs are easy to misinterpret.

Early identification of giftedness can help children with their learning experience and motivation. In other words, nurturing and supporting giftedness can later translate into real talent where children learn to apply and use their abilities and live up to their full potential. When gifted children "slip under the radar" and fail to learn the skill of self-motivation, they can develop complacency, avoidance of challenges and may develop an attitude toward learning that will hinder their long term development.

The first step in idetifying giftedness is evaluating a child's raw intellectual ability. This process involves comparing a child's performance on an IQ test to the performance of other children of the same age and sex on the same tasks. Due to the standardisation process of IQ tests, children of the same age and sex are expected to perform similarly. A performance that is notably above the average indicates exceptional cognitive (thinking) abilities.

Apart from IQ, it is also necessary to observe a child's behaviour and approach to the process of assessment and test items. Testing behaviour of gifted children often include the following characteristics:

- They often misbehave or show lack of motivation when tasks are too easy and fail to stimulate them. These children gradually become more interested in the testing process as the difficulty of tasks increases.
- They may approach test items in unusual and imaginative ways or repeatedly ask questions about subtests to clarify their meaning.
- They may try to engage the interviewer in conversations about different topics the subtest reminded of them.

Incorporating these behavioural characteristics is important at the scoring stage. You will find that our reports include a substantial section dedicated to describing testing behaviour, and where appropriate we include this in our conclusion.

Equally important is the information provided by parents and teachers. Early development, reaching milestones, interaction with others, behavioural characteristics all contribute to the identification of a gifted child. Gifted children may not show any behavioural characteristics during the assessment and often the parental observations and teachers' reports are the only sources of information.

Gifted children need help. Children are not adults, and despite their extraordinary abilities gifted children still lack depth of insight and objectivity. To maintain their academic involvement and interest in the learning process, schools provide various options for gifted students.

The most common options are enrichment and ability grouping. Enrichment (as the term suggests) refers to enriching or adding to the standard work load. This may include additional work at the child's current grade level or at a higher level, tapping into the requirements of a higher grade. Ability grouping is the attempt to bring children of similar ability and interest together regularly and provide them with a unique learning experience. This may take place daily or at set times during the school week.

When children's abilities are highly advanced and their social maturity is also beyond their age level, schools may consider partial or grade acceleration. Grade acceleration refers to advancing children to a higher grade in all subject areas. Partial acceleration refers to advancing children to a higher grade only within the subject areas of particular talent, such as English or maths.

While acceleration is a viable option for gifted children, schools are understandably reluctant to offer it to parents. Being one to two years younger than one's class mates may not be a problem while children are young, but could lead to significant difficulties during the later years, particularly around the time of pubescence. When acceleration is discussed it is extremely important to keep children's long term interest in mind and see if other options may work better.