Klaus took the Stanford-Binet V (SBV) last week as part of our ongoing effort to convince him he's not an idiot. "That boy, he has no idea how smart he is." (Any Dirt Band fans in the house?! LOL) He's had very uneven scores on various tests over the years. That along with the ADD and his generally pessimistic world outlook have always given him doubts.
Anyway, we got a preliminary score report from the assessor, Dr. Deborah Ruf, who is marvelous and I highly recommend anyone in the Twin Cities area looking for a gifted assessment to contact her. He came out 98th percentile, which was lower than we expected.
Now I can hear you all, "98th percentile is great! What do you want from the poor kid? Lighten up!"
Which I would, if I didn't know how his brothers scored on the same test and what Klaus is capable of that his brothers aren't. I talked with Dr. Ruf last night and she confirmed that his test score does not tell the whole story. This is why she has come up with a different way of assessing gifted kids that she calls "Levels of Giftedness." It's based more on what the child has achieved and shown himself capable of than on how he performed on a given test on a given day. The level she assigned him is much more in line with what I know about Klaus than his test score is.
You can find out more about levels of giftedness from Dr. Ruf's website or in her book, Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind. The book also gives recommendations about school placement, how one's needs compare to others in his or her classroom and other educational options for gifted kids based on level. I high recommend Dr. Ruf's book to anyone looking for a more "whole child" assessment of giftedness.
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