Gifted child assessment

I feel a bit awkward asking this, I feel a bit presumptuous, but I need help with this.

Dd1 is 3.5. She walked alone by 10 months, first word at 9 months sentences by 13months etc. She Misses out on preschool next year because of the intake date. It's cut off is May 1, she was born May 31.

She is incredibly switched on, can count and recognise numbers, is self teaching herself to write. Crazy good memory, like will tell me when driving whose house we are near by etc.

I've been looking at early intake for preschool/kindy for her but they have to be recognised as a "gifted child". I feel like I am being a bit presumptuous getting her assessed? It's not like she is reciting quadratic equations or anything but she relates better with kids a couple years older. I have been reading on the signs of gifted children and she meets about 90% of the signs.

Has anyone else had this? How do you get an assessment? I just don't want to sound like one of those mums who is "my child is sooo smart, look at me" (if that even makes sense). I also don't want her being bored all next year when she seems really ready for kindy.

Help! Sorry if I sound like a dill!

From memory, about 90% of kids that are suspected to be gifted by their parents actually test to be gifted. So if you have suspicions, you are probably on the right track. You know her best of all.

I have a gifted 8 year old. He was a 9 month walker, speaking in sentence at 1, two part grammatically correct sentences by 2. He knew the alphabet by about 2.5, was reading/writing his name and a dozen or so words by 3. Decided when he turned 4 that he wanted to read so spent literally hours on Reading Eggs, so much that I was having to enforce breaks. He was obsessed with it for 6 weeks, then dumped it never to look at again - but was reading at a Year 2 level. He taught himself to write and I would find whole pages of letters in his room - it turned out it was all spelled phonetically with no spaces but if you sounded it out then it was whole notebooks full of writing. He learned his numerals after DH sat and played snap with playing cards for 20 minutes one day, and he used trips in the car as a preschooler to practice counting to 100 and basic addition and subtraction.
I just had his parent teacher interview today and he is 3.5-5 years ahead in reading, spelling and numeracy and at least a year ahead on everything else (except art and PE). Does that sound like a brag? It always does when you talk about how much a gifted kid is achieving.

No one wants to be *that* mum, but if you have a kid like that you need to be their advocate. You would do everything in your power to get what was needed to help a struggling kid. Gifties are the same - they have a special need and it is up to you to ensure that those needs are met. I think if DS hadn't gone to kindy when he turned three it would have been the death of me!! He was exhausting (sensory/behavioural issues too). Bored DS is not a happy or well behaved child. Even now his brain will not turn off. Tonight I had to ban him from talking when I was reading a book to my girls, because he questioned every.single.thing, complete with corrections, observations, theories and possible solutions. He was totally overthinking it - it was a book for preschoolers!

I am sure she would love the extra opportunities to learn and absorb knowledge that kindy provides. I am not sure about the public routes for getting an assessment done, but you can get a private assessment through an educational psychologist. I would suggest finding the gifted kids group for your state and finding out who they recommend.

I hope there is something to help in there. Good luck with it all.

Thanks Artechim, sounds pretty similar. You're right I would fight for help if she needed it, so I guess it's the same.

I've looked up education psychologists and they are exxy! It's like you have to have money for your child to be gifted or adVanced!

I have been extensively researching what I can and it appears the kindy's can accept in an early admin if the primary school agrees to enrol early. Does this sound correct?

Do I just contact the primary school to see how to best proceed?

Yeah, ed psychs are very expensive. I would ring the school and preschool and see what they actually want in terms of assessment. Across different organisations, it can range from wanting a full ed psych evaluation through to a reference from a daycare/kindy or even a parent referral. You need to clarify with them what they are wanting.

I am in NZ so not entirely sure on the Aus system but there should be a forum for gifted kids for your state and I am sure there will be people on there that know what the deal is.

I just wanted to add that if she is starting to write letters, find out how the school in your area teaches the letter formation and show her that way. Because DS completely taught himself to write the letters from what he saw, he forms them in a very round about way e.g. t's and l's start at the bottom. Initially you think that a letter is a letter no matter how you write it, but it turns out that for writing quickly in link/cursive later on you need to form them in a way so that they can flow. DS's teachers have been trying all year to retrain him but it is very ingrained and they have had almost no success lol.

You could get the assessment at a university service, they use psych students so it is a bit cheaper.

The krongold centre at Monash Clayton, or Swinburne uni also has a clinic.

It it really needs to be an exceptional child for the ed department in victoria to accept early entry, and try to be reassured that if she's not assessed as gifted, the teachers are still expected to modify and stretch the curriculum to provide it at an apprproately challenging level.