DO YOU THINK YOUR CHILD MAY BE GIFTED? Often the earliest identification of gifted children takes place by parent observations. As early as infancy, it is apparent that some children learn more quickly than others the same age. There are many articles out there with a vast amount of information. Among them, this article discusses strategies for identifying and parenting highly gifted young children. It contains a chart contrasting the normal development and advanced development (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10106.aspx). The following article is a classic on the development and needs of profoundly gifted children in infancy, toddlerhood and the preschool years (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10124.aspx). It also points out that gifted preschool age children are at particular risk because few gifted programs exist for children in this age group.

Upon your arrival at BKPlay Academy, you may be provided with a checklist, where you can see how many items are relevant to your child. If your child shows certain number of traits in the checklist, he or she should be considered for a further assessment. Assessment requires the gathering of evidence of child abilities, which includes dialogues, journals, written work, artworks, portfolios, and/or parent/teacher observation along with the IQ test. Here is a short article that clearly explains the difference between test and assessment (http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10221.aspx). It explains that we need a straightforward answer as well as subjective information to identify gifted children.