How to tell if a child is gifted?
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linden2000:
Agree. They do not like drilling and can get very poor grades.Chenonceau:
[quote=\"sean wife\"]Are most gifted kids naturally motivated?
No.
Gifted kids dun like to learn boring things or in a boring way. If you bore them they won't engage and then they will get very poor grades.
Especially in lower primary, when a lot of the focus is on handwriting and punctuation, they can get frustrated when many marks are deducted for punctuation mistakes or bad handwriting.
For Maths, they may be able to figure out the answers in their head but do not write down the workings or jump steps and hence, lose many marks though they get the final answers right. Similarly for Science, they may have the vast knowledge in their heads but when answering the questions do not write down the key words which the markers look out for and so still do not get the marks.
And for some gifted children, because they are so used to acquiring knowledge fast when they are younger, may give up more easily when stumped by difficult material when they are older. Some gifted children are underachievers.[/quote]Dun need gifted kids to dislike drilling. DS is far from gifted and he is resisting school because of all these drilling type of lessons and homework. Tedious, that is how he describes school. He finds school boring and from an easy boy whom I do not have to tell twice to get his work done, I am now faced with one who keeps procrastinating. And this attitude is spilling over to other areas, not just with school work. -
Funz, I feel your pain keenly!!
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Funz:
So how is that child now? Sounds so sad to be hearing this...and also maybe we should be thankful for ur 'challenging' kids...o :sad:2ppaamm:
But er... I also believe all kids are motivated, until that motivation is removed from them by adults.
I use to believe that too until I encountered this kid. He came our centre at 2+yrs old. Not talking much but parents say he loves numbers. Initially we thought he could be like some of the kids we have handled, unable to converse yet at that age but able to do puzzles, count, recognize numbers and letters and even add and subtract. Highly intelligent but delayed speech development. But this kid confounded us. We have never seen a kid so uninterested in anything, be it work, play, food, music, anything. The parents comes in and puts him in a chair for breakfast. You will find him still in that chair even after assembly still holding that same piece of bread or cracker and staring into space. He is not even motivated to get out of the chair to greet his parents when they come can pick him up. Nothing the teachers do could rouse his interest in anything. We have suggested that the parents send him for some assessment to see how to 'unlock' his 'zest' but parents insisted that he is like that cos he is still young and he responds well at home. Nothing about his behaviour aside from this lack of interest in everything suggests autism or any of the more known development issues.
I cannot fathom how a kid this age can be so disinterested and unmotivated. -
sean wife:
So how is that child now? Sounds so sad to be hearing this...and also maybe we should be thankful for ur 'challenging' kids...o :sad:[/quote]He is 4yrs old now and still like that. Parents will still put him in a chair when they send him in and there you will find him when the kids disperse to their respective classes. He can speak now, he will answer only when spoken to but will not initiate conversation. Because he does not initiate conversation, he will not say when he needs to go to the toilet. As such he is about the only kid still on diapers in his class.Funz:
[quote=\"2ppaamm\"] But er... I also believe all kids are motivated, until that motivation is removed from them by adults.
I use to believe that too until I encountered this kid. He came our centre at 2+yrs old. Not talking much but parents say he loves numbers. Initially we thought he could be like some of the kids we have handled, unable to converse yet at that age but able to do puzzles, count, recognize numbers and letters and even add and subtract. Highly intelligent but delayed speech development. But this kid confounded us. We have never seen a kid so uninterested in anything, be it work, play, food, music, anything. The parents comes in and puts him in a chair for breakfast. You will find him still in that chair even after assembly still holding that same piece of bread or cracker and staring into space. He is not even motivated to get out of the chair to greet his parents when they come can pick him up. Nothing the teachers do could rouse his interest in anything. We have suggested that the parents send him for some assessment to see how to 'unlock' his 'zest' but parents insisted that he is like that cos he is still young and he responds well at home. Nothing about his behaviour aside from this lack of interest in everything suggests autism or any of the more known development issues.
I cannot fathom how a kid this age can be so disinterested and unmotivated. -
Wait a minute. If he is not interested in everything, how is it that he is unable to converse yet at that age but able to do puzzles, count, recognize numbers and letters and even add and subtract? And to pick those up way ahead of his peers. He must be VERY INTERESTED in those things. Something does not tally here, right?
So he is interested in something, but sitting there doing nothing seems to be something he has accustomed to doing, a pattern he has learn and something he feels most secure/adapted to. I have no idea why he has learned to look so bored in everything, but I will be curious to know why… His parents also said he is different at home or with familiar people. They are probably telling the truth. Hm… -
Funz:
He is 4yrs old now and still like that. Parents will still put him in a chair when they send him in and there you will find him when the kids disburse to their respective classes. He can speak now, he will answer only when spoken to but will not initiate conversation. Because he does not initiate conversation, he will not say when he needs to go to the toilet. As such he is about the only kid still on diapers in his class.[/quote]I have met a person like this before, my son's teammate. He has absolutely nothing to say to anyone, no friend etc etc. BUT, he is an excellent athlete. He responds well to ONE coach and they are a good team. He has no friends, but he will train alongside with his team mates. They all laugh at him and think he is the weirdest person on earth. He has absolutely nothing to say, and not interested in anything else, just trains alongside. I'm about the only outsider whom he will ever smile to, because I made special efforts to talk to him (and I deliberately talk rubbish, but things he can relate to), despite him just giving me one word answers. Whenever he needed help, he would approach me, if I could not help, I had to look for help for him because he would not know who to ask, even up till he turned 16.
So how is that child now? Sounds so sad to be hearing this...and also maybe we should be thankful for ur 'challenging' kids...o :sad:sean wife:
[quote=\"Funz\"]
I use to believe that too until I encountered this kid. He came our centre at 2+yrs old. Not talking much but parents say he loves numbers. Initially we thought he could be like some of the kids we have handled, unable to converse yet at that age but able to do puzzles, count, recognize numbers and letters and even add and subtract. Highly intelligent but delayed speech development. But this kid confounded us. We have never seen a kid so uninterested in anything, be it work, play, food, music, anything. The parents comes in and puts him in a chair for breakfast. You will find him still in that chair even after assembly still holding that same piece of bread or cracker and staring into space. He is not even motivated to get out of the chair to greet his parents when they come can pick him up. Nothing the teachers do could rouse his interest in anything. We have suggested that the parents send him for some assessment to see how to 'unlock' his 'zest' but parents insisted that he is like that cos he is still young and he responds well at home. Nothing about his behaviour aside from this lack of interest in everything suggests autism or any of the more known development issues.
I cannot fathom how a kid this age can be so disinterested and unmotivated.
Something strange happened recently. He is now in the army. He decided to open up in JC2 and he started talking, and recently, even sent a \"Happy Birthday\" note to his coach. All of us were elated by his performance. He can now even reply with more than a Yes/No.
Don't know what this is, but if I were the parents, I'd put him in sports. Too much sitting around and too sedentary a lifestyle is not good for health. At least get this part sorted, and like this boy I know, he might just open up one day to outsiders besides family, become a great athlete, and got into the uni. People thought he has no passion for anything, but I know he is passionate about his sports, his computer games, his school work. He just does not look or act it.
O, and of course he is gifted. He scored >265 for PSLE (probably failed oral), and went to an elite secondary/jc. Ha ha... -
2ppaamm:
Think you misread. I said he is not able to speak when he joined us at 2yrs old. But parents say he likes numbers. We thought he might be like some other kids we handled b4, unable to converse but able to do activities that call for numbers/words knowledge, etc.Wait a minute. If he is not interested in everything, how is it that he is unable to converse yet at that age but able to do puzzles, count, recognize numbers and letters and even add and subtract? And to pick those up way ahead of his peers. He must be VERY INTERESTED in those things. Something does not tally here, right?
So he is interested in something, but sitting there doing nothing seems to be something he has accustomed to doing, a pattern he has learn and something he feels most secure/adapted to. I have no idea why he has learned to look so bored in everything, but I will be curious to know why... His parents also said he is different at home or with familiar people. They are probably telling the truth. Hm...
Not that this child whom I say is totally uninterested is able to do all those.
Till today we have yet to see him doing much. Time to play, sit in a corner, time to do art, hold crayon or brush and stare into space, time to trace or write, hold pencil and stare into space. -
Funz
I think the parents should really bring him for assessment. Sad to say but it could be a case of autism. He is like my son. My son also will not initiate conversation. He prefers to play by himself. At 4, he also wouldn’t say he needed to go toilet. He also wouldn’t say when he was hungry. We had no idea what happened in sch becoz he would not tell us anything. I remember when he was younger, we could only ask closed ended questions becoz he would only say yes and no. He could respond but it wasn’t good enough and not typical of his age.
The difference is that my son has his interests or rather we tried to find things that interested him until it eventually clicked. He liked round stuff and spinning things so we showed him books on the moon and it took off from there. -
Oh, my son also will hide in the corner when they are having class. Even in k2. He also spaced out and in his own world sometimes.
He has just been diagnosed with high functioning autism. -
Mashy, 2ppaamm,
We suspect that there is something different about this boy but just could not put a finger to it. We have suggested many times for the parents to send him for some assessments the parents did not want to. My teachers are at a lost. They feel bad that this child is not making progress in their class and does not seem to find any joy in any of their activities. They have been trying ways and means to engage him but his response is still one of disinterest. A teacher bought him a puzzle for his birthday and asked his parents if he liked the gift. The mum told the teacher, he did not open it at all. :faint: We probed the parents further asking them what peaks their son's interest, what activities do they do with him at home. Answer is, iPad. :slapshead:
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