Two ends of the rainbow

Owain had a quick screening/test last week. I was fascinated by his Rush Hour progress - (by the way, he is now halfway through the expert level of the last pack. Can imagine the Rush Hour withdrawal symptoms when the game finally ends) and wanted to know where he stood vis a vis other children. To say that I suspected my son of being gifted makes me sound horribly smug and boastful. So lets just say that I thought he was a bit 'unusual' for his age. I felt that it was good to know for sure if he was a 'special' child in some sense - if he was, then we could do something about it (I don't want any 'gift' to be killed off by rote learning in schools) and he was not, then we can also move on.

I tried surfing and emailing a few agencies here but did not get very far, apart from finding out that MENSA does not test for children younger than 10, and that the standard psych evaluation in psych clinics cost about $700 and up (so that rules it out!). Then I came across Morris Allen who runs the Morris Allen Study Centres. He is apparently the Chairman of the Singapore Association for Gifted Children.

I left an email for him and he was kind enough to call me back. We agreed to meet. He would have 'a chat' with Owain and make some observations. He also wanted to meet Cait, believing from his experience, that siblings generally tended to share similar IQ levels. I tried telling him about how Gillian had scored slightly below the 'normal' range and he pooh-poohed me, saying that children frequently under-performed on tests. So okay, won't argue with that, we'll just have a go and see.

The upshot was that we (Cait, Owain and I) met with him and the kids were 'tested' or 'screened'. The paper comprised a few sections, each focusing on different aspects eg classification, differentiation, sequencing etc. I thought Caitlin's paper looked more complex and required some thought and careful observation. She didn't give much thought and gave her answers quickly. I suspect a lot of the time, she was just taking a guess rather than actively thinking about it. Owain looked bored when Cait was doing the 'test' with Morris. He fidgeted about, asked for nen-nen etc. When it came to his turn, he frowned through most of the paper. Unlike Cait, his brow was furrowed and he took time to think about it.

One of his questions in sequencing was about the life cycle of a frog - there were several pictures, one of an adult frog, one of tadpoles, eggs and a younger frog - Owain had to indicate which picture was the 'start' of the story. He picked the picture of the adult frog. You think he's right or wrong? As I commented to Morris: this is the classic question - which came first? The chicken or the egg? :-)

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that Cait scored 14%. Morris noted that she showed signs of reversals and that she did not display the same concentration/focus/attention that her brother did. I asked if there was a possibility that she was dyslexic like her sister. He dismissed it saying that he did not believe in dyslexia, believing that it was more often the product of poor teaching. I know what he is saying but I also disagree that dyslexia is not a 'real' condition. I believe it is. But I also believe that teaching methods play a large part. Morris felt that most of us were visual learners but are not taught that way - we are taught in an auditory manner. Eg reciting aloud to learn words for spelling as opposed to visually breaking up the words into forms and shapes that are easily recognisable.

I came away with mixed feelings. Cait is not slow. I believe she is very bright. She learns fast, catches on fast. Verbally, her skills are streets ahead of her siblings at that age. And she has a big advantage going for her. As KH said, when I shared the possibility that she might be slightly dyslexic, she had one thing different from Gillian: a great deal of will-power. She is one heck of a determined child. As fearful as she was about the water, about learning swimming, she never let it stop her. As much as she used to dislike school (and she still asks from time to time, if she had to go to school 'today'), she would still steel herself to go.

So I take Cait's results with some optimism. I was also relieved: the fact that someone else spotted this propensity to reversals told me that my gut feeling was right. I had seen this, but typically, shoved it to the back of my mind (basically in denial), did not want to believe that I had another Gillian on my hands, preferring to believe that I was just paranoid since Gillian's experiences. Now that someone else has corroborated with what I observed, I can't shut this down anymore. She might need some help and a lot of patience, but I think she does have a lot going for her already and that will help her a great deal.

As for my curly-haired boy, well, he scored about 78%, according to Morris, placing him in the top 20% of the general population's IQ. Morris believes he is very bright and he showed a very high level of concentration/focus. He says that Owain should come back when he was five or six for a test again. At three, he is really very young and it is hard to test for this with any certainty at this age. However, he believes that Owain needs to be exposed to a wide variety of activities and concepts and the answer to this is a good Montessori environment. My problem is that good Montessori environments cost lots of moolah...

So there you have it - two different children, two different sets of 'issues' and challenges. I think we're going to have our work cut out for us again. sigh.