I am reading Ruf's book and find it confusing. There seems to be so much overlap and I am confused how she really defines a level.

Reading, I am thinking that DD3 is a level 3 but then I see her whip through a maze in her activity book and I read that this is a level 4 or level 5 thing. And other things make me think level 4.

I could put check marks all over the place. And when I take into her inquisitiveness, about obscure details, then I put her level 5.

I really didn't record many of the fine details early on-- too sleep deprived through the first 2 years. But I know we noted that her verbal skills were strong and her vocabulary was well over 2000 by 2. And at 14 months she knew rhomboid because there was this weird peg shape puzzle at the playcenter. Probably doesn't know rhomboid now.

So I can check off so many things, but the big identifiers are the non-linear weird things that come out with random frequency, or her strange inquistiveness about the outlying details, but I do not understand how to quantify that on her scale.

Am I just suppose to read and say "that is interesting"?

Ren

I think you'll find some disagreement about Ruf usefulness on this board and I'm thinking that Grinity will tell you something quite different, so I'll leave her to her perspective as she'll tell it better than me.

I don't find the levels useful at all because of the variability in memory, the overlap in levels, and the cultural differences that would determine many of the indicators like Santa Claus suspicions. What does "reading" mean? For us, we pretended it wasn't happening until at least the Cat in the Hat level was being devoured in front of us. I can imagine other parents first labeling reading as a few sight words. Counting -- does that mean just rote being able to repeat the numbers? Or something that requires much more understanding of numbers? And being independent on the computer by age two would seem to have more to do with the willingness of the parents to allow a toddler on a computer than with the ability of the kid! Mine weren't allowed anywhere near my computer.

In addition, I think that many of the early milestones require a level of physical development that has nothing to do with intellectual development. So while early verbal ability does clearly indicate precocious verbal skills, not having any verbal ability doesn't help much because maybe the kid has less developed *language* or maybe the kid has less developed motor facility with the tongue or less coordination. If I looked at two of my kids, they would fail to meet any verbal milestone for level 1 gifted and definitely didn't know many words at age 18 months -- they didn't know any! For level 5, they would need "large receptive vocabularies" by 9 months old -- but that requires indicating with one's body something about having understood a word. My kids couldn't point at that age and couldn't talk either, so they could not meet that milestone any more than they could meet the Level 1. But many of the other milestones that occur later in terms of reading chapter books, they end up level 4 or 5. As I interpret that, I just pick out a bunch of phrases from each list that best describe my kids but that doesn't give me a real "level" as it's just a hodgepodge of various things from not on the list at all to level 5. Maybe other people's kids follow a program a little more straightforwardly, but mine didn't, so I don't find that it helps me much.

While a pile of case studies has great limitations as research, from a mom perspective, I got the most from reading Miraca Gross' study of these kids (Exceptional Children or something like that). For me, I recognized my kids in those kids and established my own understanding of LOG from comparing my kids to those kids. Some of the descriptions seemed a bit ordinary to me and I wondered why the kids were in the book, whereas some of the descriptions made me really, really glad that other parents had faced much harder issues than I faced and their kids were clearly levels beyond mine. After reading a bunch of them, I had a bit more feel for what "exceptional" looked like and what a range it encompassed.

Ok Grinity -- now we need the other side!

J

I second the Miraca Gross book (Exceptionally Gifted Children), and had the same thoughts after reading it. I didn't connect with Ruf's work because my kids ranged from age 8-12 when I first read it, and having them so close together left me very clueless about the first 6 years of parenting!

Knowing virtually nothing about "giftedness", I remember one day (that I recorded!) at about 11 months with #1. Being a big fan of the "What to Expect" books ( ), Inever expected much from DD1. I was surprised when I realized at 11 months that despite very limited verbal skills, she really seemed to understand so much. I gave her command after command (Do this, get that, go there, etc) and she did them all. That was possibly my very first "hmmm".

Flash forward to 5 years later, kids now 6, 4 and 2, and I suddenly had a 2 year old who was just like my 4 year old! Hmmm!

Anyway, back to Ruf....half of the check offs I don't remember, another 1/4 I don't agree with (Santa/etc) and the other 1/4 show up in lists 2-5. I think the best "levelling" comes from comparing to other GT children, as awful as that sounds. And yes, kids will show up in several different lists for different abilities, and at different periods of their lives.

In short, she made a commendable effort in a very difficult area, but I for one just read and said "that is interesting".

I think the preschool skills are really hard to quantify and depend on the child. The levels really have more to do with how quickly a child masters something after being introduced to it. There's an item in the level 3 list that says

"Most spontaneously read with or w/o previous instruction before kindergarten"

Well, what defines instruction? If you are reading to your child for an hour or two a day, isn't that instruction? Or you play phonics games and teach your child the ABC's, isn't that instruction? And how does the child that gets 30 minutes of reading a day compare to the child getting hours? But on the other hand, if your child is raised in a home speaking and reading English, they aren't one day just going to break out and read Spanish regardless of GT level if there is no exposure.

Before kindergarten, my DS maybe would have been labelled a level 1 or 2 based on the Ruf lists as they are. But would now in first grade be labelled level 3 or 4. We did not "hot house" at all. We mostly read at bedtime, but let him explore on his own. But if the Ruf levels had items on visual spatial things like following directions to construct lego sets for 12+ year olds - hey, we'd be level 5! Or ability to grasp and explain conceptual math. Or maybe the ability to ask too many complex questions in less than 24 hours. He could not read at the start of kindergarten, to my knowledge, but I don't ever remember handing him an early reader and him struggling with it. He reads very long and complex chapter books now independantly, that my 5th grade niece wouldn't approach. So, even though we never observed him reading before kindergarten, he clearly has it in him to be an advanced reader.

So I do think the content of the lists is somewhat subjective and perhaps just a guideline that may or may not be accurate for your child! YMMV!

Thank you, after all the forum comments about Ruf's, I thought I should review.

I think the thing that is noticeable is the relative judgement she makes. Like when DD3 was tested recently, the psychologist mentioned she self corrected when it got harder and she wasn't bored. She said that 3 year olds don't self correct and that told her more than the test results.

Like now understanding she is non-linear and what that means and what comes out of her mouth is different than an auditory learner. Though because her father is such a highly gifted auditory learner, she has some of that, the memorization is amazing.

So then I find web pages that relate non-linear is found in the exceptionally and profoundly gifted.

It is not that I want to put a fixed number on it. But it is strange. You think OK, she is bright, am I overemphasizing some event, then that "what did you just say?" moment happens again and you don't want to be caught where you don't provide the right learning environment for her.

Good thing I am starting to work again next week, less time to obsess.

Ren

I know exactly what you mean. I wanted testing to tell me whether I was nuts or whether some abilities were really not typical in this age group. When I got testing, I thought it didn't help at all because there's all kinds of ceiling issues and the tests are so limited and I ended up thinking the tests confirmed that my kids were smart and that was pretty obvious. I didn't learn anything important. And about 2 years from the first time I ever considered these questions, I still wonder if I'm overemphasizing this one issue -- some would call this denial on my part! I think about all the other things that matter in life and wonder whether elementary school decisions should be high on that list when I could think of many things I value equally or more. But then there are those moments when I get shaken up by a new ability or new curiosity or new limitation found in school and I wonder if I should be taking this much more seriously.

No evidence of this today since I'm thinking a lot about these issues and posting too mcuh, but normally work does keep me sane and limits my thinking in circles.

J

Wren - I think that is a perfect example of some that is not on the Ruf's list but is clearly something that is beyond age level! It is also not something that necessarily every parent would notice if their child was doing it.

And I also obsess way too much too since finding out DS is HG. About our 2nd child too. Before I would obsess too, but perhaps about different things. Good luck starting back to work!

"This is interesting" is pretty much what I think about the book. It was the first gt related book I read and as such it did a wonderful job for me. It clearly showed that there were huge difference between gt levels, but it also showed that you couldn't clearly separate the children and say "this one is level x and that's it"

I found the parents comments and the examples the best part of the book. What a relief it was to see that others had kids just like I did. As for the milestones I think you need to take it with a grain of salt. It helps to look at them and see what's considered advanced, but not much beyond that. Yeah kid who started reading at the age 2 is for sure gifted, but he may be as gifted as another one who waits till K to start reading. She also doesn't consider 2E kids. You cannot just leave them out of the picture. The more I read about gt kids the less I believe in her categorizing by milestones even though DS5 wasn't that hard to place there (some 3, mostly level 4)

When I look at my two sons, my younger one would do much better on the milestone list than my older one, but I actually think my older one is more gifted. I may be wrong on that of course.

Like somebody else said it also depends on the definition of many of the milestones. I was so glad I didn't have to fill out the DYS milestone list because I was rather struggling with what some of them really meant. By my definition DS5 started writing words before he started reading, but that would probably look rather silly on the questionary.

Some of her comments were very useful though, such as fast progression from sounding words to chapter books usually meant that the child was gifted.

Like I said nice first read about gt issues, but don't put too much weight on it.

Well, I'll speak up for Ruf, since hers was the book that was most helpful for getting me over my PG-specific GT denial with DS6.

For DS6's whole life, I thought that he was MG, since that was what DH and I were as kids. Sure, he did some pretty amazing stuff with reading and puzzles and patterns, but I just figured all MG kids were like that. Denial, denial, denial...

Then I saw his WJ3 test scores from K and freaked! They were a full standard deviation higher than I expected them to be across the board! I had a moment of "How cool!" and then several days of "OMG!!! What does this mean? Was this a fluke? How can I tell? Help!"

Ruf's book--and especially her approach toward LOGs and her specific examples and lists of traits--helped me to get over my denial and see the reality of my son's abilities. Her lists aren't perfect, certainly, and it would be handy if they were less fluid and reliant on parent memory. But I have yet to see someone build that particular "better mousetrap." Since GT kids are not one-size-fits-all, I'm not sure there *is* any way to be more specific and less fluid. Test scores? With tests not designed to test the tail? (Especially since part of what I was trying to do personally was to figure out if further testing was even warranted!) School IDing? We all know how bad teachers and adminstrators can be at even acknowledging the existence of LOGs! So what else is there?

It seems to me that a list of traits like this is about the only thing that's going to be at all useful for a parent trying to figure this LOG stuff out. Ruf's lists are far from perfect, but they're very helpful for someone who is unable/unwilling/afraid to see just how GT her child is. When I finally sat down with DS6's baby book in front of me instead of just working from memory, it was very clear that he is not a level 3 (as I kept supposing he was), but is at least a level 4, and is a level 5 kid when it comes to the things he loves to do. There was no doubt about it when I took the time to really check.

Certainly Ruf does a better job of establishing the difference between level 1 or 2 and level 5 than between, say, a 3 or 4 and a level 5 kid. But in fairness, that top end is hard for all of us to distinguish. Still, I do think there's a real difference between those levels, and I'm glad she tried to find some way to muddle them apart.

I guess what I'm arguing is that test scores aren't always a good enough tool for us (and are really expensive!), especially at the start of this journey, so what else could we use? Ruf's lists and levels are an imperfect tool, but they validate parental observation, and I think that's laudable. We parents *are* the experts when it comes to our own kids. And hopefully Ruf's work will provide a starting place for the work of others to build upon, perhaps finding some tool for distinguishing PG kids that is less flawed.

Kriston, I think we came to our GT a-ha moments in a similar manner. For me, MG-GT was "status quo". That's what I expected, if not so much in scores necessarily, certainly in "output". Being one of 4 GT sibs, it was just "life as usual". It wasn't until DS messed with the status quo that I got involved in the numerical side of it all, and realized he's pretty much "gifted squared" (top 2% even in the top 2%!)

But initially, he was just different from the rest of us, and only in hindsight did all of the LOG stuff factor in and make sense. Factor in too that I was probably HG+ as a child. In all honestly, my girls didn't strike me as GT, and only when DS surpassed them by so much did I even think in those terms. There are still days that I see them as "slow" and him as "expected".

Yup. DS6 had a bad math day today, and I found myself thinking, "Is this kid really smart enough for Davidson?"

Never mind that the math problems he WROTE FOR HIMSELF to complete involved finding the lowest common denominator and converting a fraction to a decimal...

Um, take a step back there, Insane-o-mom! His former class of 1st graders are maybe adding one-digit numbers by now. A little perspective, please!

I am a Ruf supporter also. Aside from “Guiding the Gifted Child”, her book has had the greatest impact on my understanding of our children.

I agree there could be additional milestones listed, such as “use of eating utensils” and “neatness while feeding themselves” such as Dottie had mentioned some time back. I think that may be another valid indicator and I’m sure there are plenty more.

As an example of how I use the listings, I know that my daughter used a spoon and fork quite well at a very early age. I am able to remember exactly how old she was when her skill was pointed out to us by numerous people during the week of my brother-in-law’s wedding in the early summer, while I was pregnant with DS. It wasn’t a new skill at the time, but I can definitely state that she could feed herself yogurt, Jell-O and fruit without spilling a drop some time before 21 months old. We lived in many different places when the kids were infants to pre-school age, so it may be easier for me to remember what they did when and where.

IMO, Ruf does differentiate very well between different progressive skills, such as, receptive versus expressive language; rote counting versus letter or number identification; word recognition on signs versus reading beginner books. I personally don’t find the lists at all subjective. My suggestion is to start with level five and work backwards. Find a level where you can answer 75% of the bullets with a "check", and that is a general starting point. From there, read the anecdotes of what other children of that level did at various ages to further tweak the presumed level for your child. I would guess this might help parents of half the GT population narrow down their child’s LOG.

I consider these listings as a means to identify gifted children who do develop certain skills and abilities early, rather than exclude those who have not met the listed milestones by a certain age.

Good point, delbows!

First of all this is so true, I call it establishing a base camp, not measuring the peak of the mountian. Most of us 'don't get out' enough to really understand what normal development looks like. Teacher-ID isn't foolproof, nor is Local testing (ours discribed DS as bright, and perhaps bored, but didn't suggest that his behavior was anything to do with poor educational fit, but was sending us off to look at NVLD, since his profile was spiky), nor is testing with a Gifted experienced testing,although it's much better, and yet these children continue to have special educational needs, that depending on personality, can be visible in various uncomfortable ways if they are not met.

I think the book is quite specific about what qualifies as reading, for example. And although she doesn't directly address 2E, there was that example where she pointed the parents towards addressing vision problems because the reading was so far below the other skills. I wish I had been around that kind of thinking way back when, when DS was crying because he could read at age 3. Everyone else thought that I had lost my mind to be upset that he was upset - of maybe they thought I was 'trying to get attention' - who knows? But I dare any of you to imagine telling your closest friends and relatives that you are worried bacause your 3 year old is upset that he can't read!


I certainly expected my son to be bright, like the rest of my family members, I just didn't understand that being bright was possibly anything but a positive thing even though I remember being bored and feeling like an alien during elementary school. I just assumed that was some stray experience that was a personal failing - which was the way everyone acted.

I think this is a landmark attempt to show the variety of human behavior. I do think a lot of kids who don't show up on the scales are much brighter than their parents would place them. I also think that Ruf is quite clear that the "ESTIMATED Levels III through V are 'fluid.' I take this to mean that if I had homeschooled my level III and gotten him the help he needed with his vision development he could well be doing Level V behaviors by now. I think that that is true, AND I'm ok with that! He has learned valuable life lessons by the path he has taken, and certianly environment can be expected to have some effect on these kids, yes? But it isn't the kind of environment one can really control - if a Level V best friend who was a good social companion happend to move in next door to us when DS was in Kindy, that would have meant more then any other thing I could have done.

The main point is that reading any of the normal milestone development books can lead one to conclude that the authors of those books are misguided, or trying to make us feel good. The people who put the age suggestions on the game boxes - they must be wrong too! Those IQ test? They aren't designed for the tail, and they are too easy anyway! The gifted programs in schools - they are way, way too easy! How about those other parents at the state gifted association - isn't it embarrassing when they brag about their kids, because our kids are doing so much more? Let's face it folks - our brains are in business to tell us that 'everything is fine' and 'no one home but us fish.' I think it's a better choice to say, "Ok, our kids have unusual needs, the rest of the world isn't out to dissapoint us, or cheat us, they just don't see kids who are level III or up every day, or every year, or every 5 years."

What would it take for me to but you in a new mental conception of LOG, today?


Too me it's a relief to read a milestone list that my son doesn't leave in the dust! At least my job of finding a reasonable fit isn't as large as it is for some of you. But I have to deal with the fallout of so many years of misunderstanding, which many of you won't.

So, the links on the web are great for keeping track of these babies. The book is great of analysing the various parts of the early tasks. Overall the behaviors themselve vary amoung children, widely, but if this book seems like it is talking directly to you - well then it's going to be useful!

If you are a linear thinker, and looking for you child to exactly line up, but you child is more like mine, not reading at three, but wanting one more chapter of "the phantom tollboth" - this book isn't going to help, so give it away, or save it for the next kid.

If you are a non-linear thinker, and can read between the lines, then I think it can be useful, and is useful with a spiky child. OK, so we told him about Santa at age 3, but he also knew that his grandparents were lying about there being 'no more' ice cream treats - it's the same type of reasoning. Ok, he's not teaching himself to read, but the book says that there isn't anything magic about reading, it says that figuring out the system of reading is what is remarkable, and my kid is figuring out other complicated systems at this young age (like sexism, and classism) - We grown ups bring many different learning styles to the picture, so different books will 'speak' to us differently.

I'm hoping that there will be prospective studies on early milestones with 1000s of participants, but I don't think they will every be able to give everyone a label that says what their fate will be. There is really only one kind of person, but each person can have different needs. These various kinds of assesment are just a way to find out what you child might need now, and what they might need in the near future. LOL - Reminds me of the talent searches, CTY said: "Take this test and see where your child should start on our afterschool online classes." I called them up and said these are his scores, where should he start? They said, Oh, with scores that high, we really don't know. Why don't you try one and see how it works? Is that the story of my life or what?

((panting, slowly getting off soapbox, hoping there is something there that will make sense))
Love and More Love,
Grinity

I spent some time last night looking over the "data" in the Ruf book and was reminded of my problem areas. Maybe I'm too into the numbers, but with a kid like DS, who seems so "low key" otherwise, it's really all I have. But there is a kid in the level 1 with an LM score of 165, a WISC-III of 139, and near DYS level Explore scores from 3rd grade. I can't make any sense of that. Then there is one kid in the level 5's with scores close to DS (which while certainly high, are not "level 5 high"). And some of the level 4 scores don't impress me as much as that kid in level 1! Very inconsistent....

I have to say "that is interesting" to the posts. I am about as non-linear as you get and I found it difficult to read between the lines.

I get there is that intrinsic element but as Dottie points out, if the scores are all over the map, who defines the difference to put a child in level 5 that has much lower scores than a child in level 3? Her bias on their motivation to learn? And if their learning styles are different, what is quantifiable, if the scores don't do that?

There is a little girl, birthdate 3 weeks before DD3, we met on the evaluation for the gifted preschool at Columbia. DD3 birthdate missed the cutoff by almost a month so they wouldn't take her. They did offer a spot to the other girl but they didn't take it, they put her in Montessori instead. Happen to run into them at the Harvard Club Christmas party. This little girl was extraordinarily smart. Her father gave me their contact and I was thinking I would like to try and set up some play dates and see how that works.

Someone mentioned about when their child played with a peer, the differnce or potential difference in development.

So thank you for submitting the idea.

Ren

I love thinking of this as helping some identify but not being exclusionary, but I think having such a list ultimately can mislead parents rather than help them. If this was my first access to any GT literature, I would have been forced to conclude that my kids weren't GT at any level based on milestones that I believe are largely physical in nature. There is certainly no level at which my kids come close to hitting 50% of the list, let alone more than that. If I'd been exposed to this and decided not to bother asking the school to test because I must be wrong, I might not have learned much that I needed to learn last year in order to advocate for my kids.

Every time this issue gets raised again, I wonder where there is evidence that physical precocity indicates anything about future IQ testing. Like Grinity, I want to see the study! I understand there are links between language development and future IQ but since much of language depends on physical development too, that gets a bit convoluted.

I'd guess you are quite right in the conclusion that this is helpful for some GT parents and that is reflected by the Ruf support on the board, but I'm in the group that finds the whole enterprise perplexing (and even potentially damaging) because it bears no relation to my experience. For me, adding other potential milestones like neatness would only worsen the situation since my DYS still can't keep food reliably on his fork, especially when he's talking excitedly about some concept. I now have a bunch of scores and have done lots of reading and think I have a better sense of where my kids are (up to the limits of ceilings) and it completely inverts in my experience where the slowest developing kid tests the highest and the fastest developing kid tests the lowest. The only reliable indicator in our house was how early reading occurred. I suspect that works so well for us because I have highly verbal kids, but for people with more V-S type kids, other indicators might be more helpful. And even then, since reading emerged with spoken language at roughly the same time, I can't even put a "milestone" number on it. Who knows when the kid could read? I only know when he could communicate well enough to show me he could read, and while that was early enough to scare us, it may not reflect an accurate milestone. Regarding the "instruction" post above by kimck, I agree that exposure clearly matters and everyone's definition of exposure would be so drastically different. DS started reading signs on the way home from a vacation that I can date precisely. Because it was our vacation, we took videos to entertain the kids and let us have a little peace. One of the videos was a cartoon "ABC" type thing that had items labeled with words and lots of discussion about how words sound. As best as I can tell, DS learned to read from watching that video three times. Was it just that I noticed then? Did he already know? Or if we'd been better parents and not brought the video as a babysitter, would he have learned to read 6 months later and hit that milestone on a different Ruf level?

Even looking just at the range of abilities in my MG-PG kids, I can't imagine coming up with a useful checklist. Each kid can do so many things the others cannot do well and vice versa. Like the objective tests, there is just so much lost when the phenomenal diversity contained in one little being gets put into discrete categories. I sympathize with the desire to categorize and am still wishing I could have a 1/1000 or 1/100000 type number for my kids. I've come to believe that no current test gets you objective evidence of one or the other, and subjective checklists don't help me much either. When the objective and subjective evidence seem to conflict (Dottie's example above), then I become hopelessly confused and despair at ever really understanding anything like LOG.

J

Interesting post, J, and I see what you're saying. I've certainly had my moments of despairing over ever understanding LOGs and how they apply to my kids.

But if tests aren't enough and lists don't cut it, then I guess I have to ask what *would* cut it? I mean, should we reject the admittedly imperfect tools we do have because they don't work well for all kids? If these tools work for IDing some kids, then it seems to me we should improve the tools, not reject them, as I feel like you're doing.

Maybe we need a broader list to cover the sorts of things your particular kids ARE doing, which is what the proponents of "eating neatly" are really saying, I think. It's less about how these kids eat or the precise month when they read and more about unusual behavior, right? There are obviously some unusual behaviors that your kids are doing/have done to show you that they're more than MG, or you wouldn't have done any of the research you've done or the advocacy you've pursued. Maybe those milestones aren't on the list, but maybe they should be! Or maybe the list of milestones needs to be written in both the specific (which is what helped me) and the general, to funnel those kids with a more unusual profile to be IDd.

And BTW, I think that if reading emerges with spoken language, you've got a pretty early milestone there! Even if you don't know the exact month it happened, it's clearly unusual. I think the precise date doesn't really matter as long as you know that the behavior emerged unusually early, and I don't think Ruf's lists should have scared you off if you had kids reading THAT early! It seems quite obvious to me that there's a really, really GT kid behind that behavior!

I absolutely wish we had better, more definite ways to ID these kids, but until we do, I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. It really is sounding to me that, as delbows indicated, the problem is less with the conception of the checklists and more with the way individuals are applying the lists.

That is a serious problem, but it seems like a more correctable one! Better instructions, a less "This is how it is" tone...but I still think the substance of the lists is valid and useful in SOME form.

K-

Please correct me if I am wrong here because I have not ordered the book yet.

I seem to recall looking at an on-line preview of Exceptionally Gifted Children where Miraca Gross displayed a chart which specifically annotated the age at which each of her study subjects first walked independently. As I said, this was a “look inside” option, so I don’t know the full context but it seemed that the gist of it was that most of her subjects walked independently (much) earlier than usual. I was surprised to see this information because I thought the consensus of experts no longer believe there is any correlation between early walking and IQ.

I don’t believe even Dr. Ruf uses that milestone in her levels.

Data (test scores) are important snap-shots of performance. However, instruction can also enhance performance on these measures, especially multiple choice achievement tests. I think there is more to determining intellectual ability than just a test score or only early milestones.

I have the book and will have to double check that one, but I can't help thinking of DS and how he "learned" to walk. It was almost comical. He was actually afraid of his push walker at 9 months, because he knew it would move before he was ready to move. He used it at about 10/11 months with what in hindsight was his "mathematical precision". He would go back and forth, back and forth, and the turns were hysterical....very calculated. I never saw a kid operate a push walker like that! He waled "independently" though probably dead average at about 12.5 months, but rarely fell.

I agree, we can't toss the baby out with the bath water, but this is surely a hard group to measure! I just worry that those with "power" would lean too heavily on any type of measure, and throw common sense straight out the window (like perhaps my school does now with it's hard 130 line!)

I think it's hard for entire GT families to rely on generalities, because as I've said before, nothing seems unusual to them until they enter the real world. Honestly, I thought my kids were perfectly normal and other kids waaaaaaay behind in many of the things we can now see as "GT flags".

Tough job...I'm glad I'm not the one drawing the lines!

Yeah, IQ distribution may resemble a normal curve in the total population but I doubt it does within the social circle of many GT individuals. I had the (obvious) realization the other day that there may be kids a standard deviation *below* 100 in the classroom (or more? less? I have no idea.) Somehow this thought had not occurred to me before. (OK, Grinity, perhaps I should get out more.)

Maybe fMRI or something similar will be useful someday in identification. After all, if it really is a difference in *how* one thinks, you'd think it would show up in brain activity. But then, that would really be overkill. All the lists I've seen have quirks, they probably all have a limited shelf life.

I find these comments more interesting "between the lines" than Ruf's book.

And I have to agree with gratified3 that fastidiousness at the table doesn't make sense to me. DD3 can use her fork very well, many times she refuses as a challenge.

DD3 is a perfect Ruf example of a baby/toddler that ended interaction and attention, just for the stimulation but then she gives anecdotes about a toddler playing by themselves for hours, absorbed in some activity. How do I spell contraction in terms?

Working as suggested, I figured level 4. Maybe level 3, definitely not lower. The strange thing, when I went through Level 5 list, I could see many things, but the parental anecdotes were a few months ahead of my memory of events. So I don'get her perception of how she created the list. I also agree that physical development has to assist the verbal and early talking astounds me. What I did notice with DD is that when she did hit a milestone, she was away to the races.

I wish she would define the non linear and auditory differnces. I think that would be more interesting.

Ren

I think the "table manners" criteria can somehow be traced back to me, so let me clarify what possibly started that. My kids weren't exactly perfect little eaters by any stretch, but they were "regular people" much sooner than many of my friends' kids. And while some other clearly GT kids were less physically developed in those early years, that was ONE area where my kids seemed well ahead of your more typical (crawling, walking, etc) milestones.

I've had the same experience with my kids. DD9 didn't read until she was 4 (almost 5), but then she was reading chapter books within a year. She was talking a lot way before her first birthday, too.

DD6 was much the same as DD9, except she read earlier and walked much earlier (10 months versus 12 for DD9).

DS2 went from crawling to running at 13 months and from barely talking to full sentences at 18 months.

Off to the races is right!

Okay, let me throw my hat in!

DD7-PG didn't walk until 14 months. I see a lot of Ruf's level 4 and 5 stuff with her. She did question Santa by 3. BTW another friend's child who is PG point blank looked at the fireplace and stated, no way Santa was going to fit down that. And I think she was 2, if I remember correctly.

DD5-HG walked at 9 months, running at 10 months, mostly running away!!!!!!
Could read sentences before DD7 but then didn't want to read til 5yr 5mo and has quickly just about caught up to where sister was at this particular age.

So,,,,I don't know.

They're all different.

Incog

But that's not a contradiction. It's just that some kids are extroverts and need stimulation--like your DD--and some kids are introverts and can happily entertain themselves--like my DS. What distinguishes the HG+ child is the *extremity*, the *intensity* of their need for alone time and/or stimulation. Your DD didn't merely like stimulation, she NEEDED it, and LOTS of it, all the time! My DS didn't just like to be alone sometimes, he preferred to entertain himself for HOURS with his puzzles, even though he was just a young toddler and wasn't "supposed" to have that kind of LOOOOOOONG attention span for anything! Neither sort of intensity is the norm for kids!

The developmental paths everyone is describing for their kids are, indeed, all different. (Ruf doesn't argue that all HG+ kids are exactly the same!) But all these developmental paths have two very important things in common: they're all significantly different from the norm, and they all demonstrate an incredible intensity!

What I think Ruf does is to try to make clearer what constitutes "significantly different" and "incredible intensity."

Okay, I will stop jumping in, I promise. Sorry!

K-

P.S. Just as an aside, the neat eating thing works like a charm with DS6--he actually got *booed* at his 1st birthday party because he was perfectly neat about eating his cake! Can you imagine booing a 1yo at his own BD?!?

DS7 did not, would not, and still pretty much won't, play by himself. He constantly wanted to talk and to learn information through conversation, books and tv (tv only after age 2). And I was constantly criticized by friends and teachers for it - e.g., he's too reliant on you, you need to ignore him, he needs to learn to play by himself, I see what the problem is - you're too nice to him, etc. And I, being ignorant as I was, listened to them. He'd just sit there no matter how long it took. And the principal at his last school told me not to google the answers to his questions. He needs to learn how to research by going to the library and looking up the answers. "Kids are getting too much instant gratification; they need to learn patience." (and that was respect to a five year old)

And he never believed in Santa until we rigged a convincing display with evidence a couple of years ago that I still feel guilty about. He asked for the truth right before Christmas this year and I asked if really wanted to know or just believe. He chose believe, but he knows.

Needless to say, I don't know where he fits on Ruf levels, and there is that 2E element...

I can't remember if I heard this directly from her (I saw her speak last summer) or if I read it somewhere, but I thought/think Dr. Ruf was planning on a level 6, for 2E's. I love that it sounds more impressive than the level 5, LOL!

And Kriston, that's horrible! Boo-ing a 1 year old? It reminds me of my mother. She looked at my pregnant belly after our first ultrasound, and said (to my belly) "You were supposed to be a boy". Um...okay.

They are all different! (I meant the kids, but the adults are pretty different too!)

Krison, I think you'll relate to this. DD5 is like, the pied piper with other children. It's not uncommon to see her running on the playground with, like, 10 children running and skipping along after her. HOWEVER, at some point she gets so overstimulated, she abuptly dismisses all of them!
So she looks like this highly social child, but she also chooses to spend hours in her room with her figurines creating elaborate story lines. Even at 5 she babbles along non-stop, creating different scenarios, voices etc.
Our highly respected Psyd. tester assures me she is NOT crazy, Phew!

Incog

LOL, 'Neato! I do love that!

That's totally me, you're right. I'm highly social...until I'm OVER IT. It's like I run out of social "juice" and have to retire to quiet.

I think this is pretty normal for GT people. I read somewhere (Lisa Rivero's "Homeschooling the Gifted Child," I think) that GT people tend not to fit as neatly into the intro/extrovert boxes: we're VERY social when we're social and we're locking ourselves in our rooms talking to ourselves for hours when we want to be alone.

Still, it's all about the extremes. What's more extreme than BOTH extremely extreme extremes in the same person?

<grin>

So this means, there is no stereotypical high IQ child? And yes, many will hit milestones at these points, but it not exclusive?

Alert, intensity, OK, but I wouldn't have noticed, I thought it was normal. It was the fact that strangers came up to me when she wasn't even 2 months old and commented about her intensity of observing the room.

What I am coming to understand is that DD3 is non-linear, like me, but also has a strong auditory capability like her father. She has to understand the whole picture (like on Elmo's world some small dark mark was on Elmo's door, what is that? That is the kind of thing I seem to ask) Yet her verbal skills were early and extensive, her ability to use language is like her father's.

The psychologist who tested her is a big IQ tester in NYC, so she has seen it all and so I trust her judgement that I have a remarkable child in abilities but it is hard to make that leap. Is it a fear that I will build up too many expectations? And down the road it will be a mistake?

I guess that was looking for the emotinal support I think many of you have gone through.

Ren

Interesting 'neato. Both my kids are like that. When I drop either of them off at school, the kids come running for them. It's especially interesting at my daughter's school. She is one of the youngest in her mixed age preschool class and even the oldest kids love her.

And I think I am that way too. I definitely crave my stimulating adult conversation. But I appreciate my alone time too.

That's how I read the book. These are case studies, not "rules of GTness." And her sample size was too small to say "This is true for all GT kids, no matter what!" She's offering generalizations based on her observations, but the point, I think, as delbows rightly pointed out, is to help parents to see that what we see as "normal" for these kids is NOT normal for most kids.



Yes, exactly! For my part, I thought nothing of my DS saying "BBBBB" when pointing to a "B" at 15 mos., but it totally freaked out the other moms in our Kindermusik class! It was perfectly normal for him, so I was really surprised by their *violent* denial of what was common behavior for him.

Ruf helped me to understand why the moms reacted as they did--DS was doing PG stuff! What was normal for DS was very much not-normal for most people. Aha! The light bulb came on for me.

When you live with these kids, I think GT denial becomes a way of life. Dottie and I (and others) are still struggling with it, despite everything we know and see.

I didn't mention this, and it's another whole can of worms, but I also felt like Ruf's book gave me permission to try other school options for DS. It made it clear to me that in our situation, public school--even in what's considered a "good" school system--wasn't necessarily going to be good for DS. This validated my feelings, gave me permission to skip advocacy, and allowed us to go straight to homeschooling and then a special arrangement with a GT school for part-time attendance next year. I think we saved DS a lot of heartache and me a lot of headache by not swimming upstream in the public school, and I'm not sure I would have been brave enough to do that if it weren't for Ruf's book.

Ruf's take on public schools is controversial. I just know that her take helped us.

Physical development (50% delay at 12 months) couldn't have assisted my son's advanced (50% advanced at 12 months) receptive and expressive language skills. The tester did say this was unusual. Luckily his motor dyspraxia (recently diagnosed) and hypotonia did not affect his speech and his verbal gifts have always stood out among kids his age and even kids several years older.

Well, I'm finally reading the Ruf book, and I was quite surprised by one comment she made. I think it was in the chapter on level 4's or level 5's. She said that a level 5 is equally high across the board and that a lot of level 4 and level 5 has to do with motivation and current circumstances, and that the levels can change over time. To me, this seemed like a strange thing to say in a scholarly book, like she was afraid to come out and take a stand without leaving some serious wiggle room. Isn't the point of having all those characteristics of levels of giftedness to give an alternative to just having hard test data? Isn't it a bit cowardly to come up with the five levels of giftedness and then to say well, it's not set in stone, your children may move from level to level depending upon their current environment and motivation? Are these really 5 levels of giftedness, or are they five levels of current knowledge and motivation? Maybe I misread it, but I found it a surprising comment. And please don't be offended by the word "cowardly," I meant it like wishy-washy, or unsure, or leaving herself an out for those who may disagree with her theory...

I have not read the book but I think that the list of characteristics of GTness are actually mixing Gifted and Talent.

For example, ability to decode abstract symbols is a GT characteristic. Ability to read is the talent.

Development of talents depends a lot on motivation, appropriate environment, etc.

I've been thinking about a similar thought lately. I'm reading a totally different book (my intervention book on assessment) and it too talks about levels of giftedness changing over time. I think the first time I read that, I was too shocked and "insulted" to think about it further. But it makes more sense with passing time.

I certainly wouldn't go as far as schools sometimes go, as to say a child was GT yesterday, but is not GT today, but I do see how the needs can change and yes, even the levels to a lesser extent.

Take the very basic skill of reading. A super early reader could easily warrant the PG label as she devours chapter books at age 3. If that same child is more "on par" in 7th grade, is she still PG? I'd place money on her giftedness, but maybe it's not as extreme in the long run.

I'm thinking out loud, and hope I'm not offending out loud as well. Keep in mind my own son read at 3, and while an excellent reader today, is not necessarily a "PG" reader. He has some nice peers in the other MG kids in his class. Maybe his "PG-ness" shows up more in how he thinks now rather than how he decodes....but things are at least different, no? I realize that was a very limited example, but this whole subject of "g" is anything but straight forward!

I agree Dottie that it has to be in the way they think. But then I cannot figure out the difference in the levels, it is so subjective. I do see in DD3 that "what did you just say?" moments that really strike you. But I am not objective or knowledgeable enough to figure out if that is level 3 or level 5.

She isn't even 3.5 but she can read when she wants to. And she wants to when she wants to, not when I decide to put a book in front of her. She wants to have control over her abilities. She will do math when she wants to, do puzzles when she wants to. There is internal motivation, sometimes it is very strong, how do I measure that? How did Ruf measure it? She does not disclose her methodology. Doesn't even hint at it. Just provides a checklist that has a lot of overlap.

She says that level 3 can do the elementary curriculum in 2 years, a level 5 in one year. So in this group here, how many PG kids have done the elementary curriculum in 1 year? And moved through high school by the time they are at least 12?

She talks about middle school being kind of a wash for level 3s.

Any comments on how your kids have fared compared to her examples?

Ren

Middle school could very well be a wash for ND's too, sad as it may be!

I'm not sure Ruf's picture of "elementary curriculum" is the same as what schools offer today. There's a difference between placing a PG 6 or 7 year old past elementary school and having him skip all 7 years of elementary school completely. My own son at 9 is well past elementary in all areas, but still gleaning a good bit from his 5th grade placement all the same. Where does that place him?

I think we're all trying too hard (Ruf included!) to put numbers on things beyond measure. It'll make your head spin if you think about it too much! It does make for interesting reading though.

I think there's a big difference between being able to do elementary in one year and actually doing it. I have no desire to have my kid in middle school at 7. By testing, he was past elem in reading before it started. He could be through with math with a concerted effort for a couple months as he could multiply, divide, and do fractions before he started K. And he taught himself through middle school science before 1st. He learned all the states and capitals and a good deal of geography long before K. He'd need help with writing as he's not nearly through elem school with that. Would he be motivated to get through the entired elem school curriculum in one year? Sure, he pretty much did most of it just for kicks in his free time. But there's no chance I'm letting him advance that far that fast. I think he gets a great deal out of public school with some accommodations and his internal motivation has been undimmed. If Ruf requires success in going through the elem school c