You HAVE to join the triangle based gifted group called PAGE - parents for academically gifted education. They have summer camps, a web forum, meetings, good advice about local schools, even advocates that work inside our public schools (I was one for Salem Elementary) for challenging our gifted kids. http://www.ncagt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=7&id=21&Itemid=41

Thanks for the reminder. I haven't talked to PAGE people in about 12 years. My teens needs are currently being met (one in college, one in boarding school), but I was wondering what current parents experiences are like now. By necessity, I was involved with advocacy activities with schools, teachers, administrators when my kids were young. As an advocate at Salem Elementary what role did you play? What were your responsibilities? Have you met with parents, through PAGE or the school, whose kids needs were unable to be met by the schools?

As an advocate, I went to the PAGE meetings, posted articles in the Salem PTA newsletter, let other parents know about PAGE and PAGE meetings, and brought PAGE ideas to the principal and AG coordinator. Salem has "OM" Odyssey of the Mind teams for each grade during the year, so that is VERY good for gifted kids to join, and keeps them challenged even after school. For profoundly gifted students, I find that the AG courses and OM go well with elementary kids (provided you work closely with the AG team to make sure they are working with your child in the most challenging way, and giving extra work whenever possible), and then you need to move to a private or magnet school for middle school. That is what I did, and see many others doing the same.

How do you know if your child is profoundly gifted - is there a test - like IQ - where it's determined or is it just their performance on work. Is it obvious?

There is an extensive body of literature about assessing "gifted", with definitions that vary at the individual school level. "Profoundly gifted" is generally accepted as an IQ score of 99.9 percentile, that is, one in a thousand. Testing is not ideally indicative until ages 4 to 9 yrs. Profoundly gifted is usually obvious to parents. The children are astonishingly different than their peers in unusual, as well as expected ways. They can absorb, process, and utilize information faster than most adults. Meeting the needs of the profoundly gifted in a gifted classroom, is less likely than meeting the needs of a gifted child in an ordinary classroom. IQ's of 125-155 are socially optimal, by at least one researchers theory. Children with IQs significantly above that, perceive the world in such a different way than their age peers, that the extreme developmental differences in the profoundly gifted demand unusual parenting skills-- As do any developmental discrepancies from what is seen as normal children. Whereas teachers or schools may perceive the child as being "pushed" academically, demanding the appropriate academic environment often actually holds the child back, more than pushing their abilities. There are kids in our middle school classrooms that are capable of doing the academic work at Harvard. This of course, does not necessarily mean that a better environment for them than the local middle school is Harvard. But imagine that you, with your adult capabilities and knowledge, are forced to spend the day, or the year, pretending to learn with 13 year olds as your peers. Often the profoundly gifted have been homeschooled, and sent to public school for strictly social, never academic, reasons, if sent to school at all. A profoundly gifted child can be behaviorally identified (without IQ tests and all their cultural bias). She is usually observed to already know what all the other kids are spending the year trying to learn in any given classroom. But the definition of "profoundly gifted" is by IQ as an accepted cut-off.