Gifted Testing

Who are the gifted and talented kids?

Gifted and talented children have accelerated intellectual abilities and often meet developmental milestones earlier, exhibit impressive verbal skills, and have a mature mind-set. Because their minds are usually moving “faster”, and craving more stimulus, they may present as fidgety, bored, or disinterested in an unchallenging learning environment. In other words, being labeled as “gifted” in a school setting means that compared to other same age peers, the child is capable of learning at an advanced pace.

In a regular classroom, sometimes a gifted student might know a substantial part of the curriculum and be so ahead of their classmates, that they might become frustrated, fed up and not care about their work. These kids are like star athletes without trainers. Gifted students need well trained teachers who will elicit and nurture their talents in school , and fully challenge these kids to reach their maximum learning potential.

What is gifted testing, and why?

Gifted certified teachers are familiar with the needs of gifted children and trained on how to best serve them in the classroom. In a classroom for gifted students, changes are made to a regular curriculum to make certain the children with an advanced capacity to learn are challenged and stimulated with motivating material through differentiated instruction.

Most Miami-Dade and Broward county public, charter and magnet schools offer quality gifted programs. The grades in which they are offered vary and depend on the particular school. These gifted programs provide the students who have been evaluated as gifted with an accelerated and enriched curriculum designed by teachers trained in gifted education.

Eligibility

For a child to qualify as “gifted” or be eligible for placement into these gifted programs, two criteria must be met. First, his or her current teacher must recommend the student for gifted placement. Second, the child must achieve an IQ score of 130 or greater on a test assessing cognitive ability. Such a test must be conducted by a licensed psychologist or school psychologist.

The school system offers gifted testing free of charge. However, the schools are often inundated with these requests and therefore have an extensive waiting list. A parent might have to wait a substantial period of time before their child can be tested in the school system. Furthermore, there is also an extended wait period for the results of this test. When testing finally becomes available for the child, the actual testing sessions occur at the school’s discretion. In other words, regardless of whether the child is tired, not feeling well, or not at peak performance level, the test will be administered. It is important to note that if a child is tested in the schools under these circumstances and does not perform well, he will not be eligible for placement in a gifted program unless he is retested with another test, following a significant amount of time, sometimes up to two years later. For these reasons, many parents choose to have their child tested by a private licensed psychologist

Our practice strives to schedule your child quickly and efficiently for gifted testing. We provide affordable evaluations. We will give you your child’s scores the same day of service. We provide reports ready for submission to MDCPS and Broward County Public Schools within days of the evaluation. We test all children in the morning, when they are fresh, alert, and not drained from their daily activities.

Your child’s morning is your child’s morning. With each child, we dedicate as much personalized attention as needed. We do not rush the kids, and we like to answer all the questions parents may have regarding schools and gifted programs. Additionally, if there is ever a concern about the child’s academic abilities, we go all out to help the parents help their kids reach their maximum learning potential.