I want to start this by saying I am not 'gifted' but DP is and he has been formally IQ tested. In terms of his life experiences, I want to agree with what previous posters have said about not learning to persevere with a task because so many things come easily he never had to learn to work at things, especially school related. Obviously he has done this to some extent to gain his quals etc but now, if something doesn't interest him, he finds it extraordinarily difficulty to stick at it or get motivated. He is not great at concentrating for long periods, especially if he is even slightly disinterested and so he does procrastinate a lot. I think this is due to him having twice as many trains of thought to keep track of than the average person but it's also about the interaction of ability and personality style too.

He is good at pretty much everything he tries and he does have good social skills so he is usually able to get along with most people and hide his frustration with people when they don't know how to do things, even after he explains it LOL! He has told me that he constantly has to remember that maybe other people don't know what he does and therefore they're coming at a task or situation with less knowledge (and so in his opinion choosing poorer solutions).

We get lots of comments about DS (who is 27 months old) in relation to being bright/verbal/smart/good memory etc from friends, strangers, GPs, neighbours, childcare workers and so on. I find it hard to know how to respond to these comments because I only have one child. To me, all 2 year olds look bright and inquisitive and eager to learn and I don't spend enough time with kids other than DS. I am kind of hoping that DS is 'bright-normal' because the gifted road can be a tough one and lots of gifted people do not reach their full potential and feel socially ostracised.

I guess though all of that stuff relates to 'adult' or even 'older child' issues and right now you just need to focus on coping with the (nearly) 3 year old you have. I think the association links earlier in the thread sound great and I was going to suggest you contact Mensa in your state to see if they have a parents group. They do accept child members with appropriate testing evidence etc so they may have a parents group you can tap into.

I am interested in what the paed is talking about when he/she says they can test your DD when she is 4? In terms of IQ testing, this can be done (at the absolute earliest) at 2.5 years and it would be a psychologist who conducts that assessment, not the paed. Paeds do other observational assessments across the developmental milestones which is also important information because (as I'm sure you know), intelligence is not just about accademic success and an IQ test will tell you a child's potential to achieve in accademic settings only. The older the child after 2.5years, the more reliable the score will be, especially if you are expecting a score at either end of the spectrum.

I don't know if this post is helpful or not because I feel like I've just been rambling lol. I guess you need to continue to focus on your DD as an individual. She still has weaknesses as well as strengths and there is still a lot of development ahead - both cognitively, behaviourally, personality wise and socially. I do hope you can find a supportive network of other parents who you can identify with and share experiences. I will be interested to hear how you go. In terms of your DD being on the go, there is a great facebook page I found recently called play at home mum (could be spelt mom) with awesome play and developmental ideas (plus notes and photos on how to do some of that stuff yourself) which might stretch your DD.

ETA - forgot to mention the psych can also do an adaptive behaviour assessment which will look at your DD across the various developmental milestones so you could get this information a bit quicker than 4 y.o. One of the more common ones is called the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale.