Evangeline recently was evaluated in case she needs speech therapy.

[conuly]

The answer seems to be no... and also, that she's brilliant.

I read the results over Jenn's shoulders, and they carefully broke down the various parts of the testing and what the results were. One area she did well in, apparently (well, aside from "all of them, because the girl is smarter than we realized"), was figuring out what an object was from three clues.

To this I say "Huh. That's just 'I'm thinking of a word'! That's not genius, that's just practice." This is the game we play when waiting for the bus. We pick a word and give clues, and the first person to guess gets the next turn. I'm guessing the version they gave wasn't nearly so hard as the version we give. After all, their goal isn't to trounce their opponents.

For that matter, Evangeline's pretty damn good at winning from the "non-guessing" standpoint as well. The other day she started off "I'm thinking of a word, and it starts with the letter B" and the next clue was "You use it to carry things" followed by "It comes in different sizes".

It wasn't bag. Or basket. Or bucket, or bookbag, or bundle. Give up? We gave up, there's no shame in that, no shame at all in conceding to a five year old. You know what she was thinking of that starts with a b, is used to carry things, and comes in different sizes?

Your body.

Because you carry things in your hands, you know.

Yeah, I don't think they make the clues on IQ tests nearly as hard as Evangeline does out of her own mind. (Well, we all do. We want to win.)

The people writing all up about Evangeline also said she's a sweet, easygoing child with good manners who likes puzzles and identifying different types of vehicles. I already knew this, but now it's, like, official. Coincidentally, Michael's had a sale on puzzles today! Not kid puzzles, but she can do big ones with help.

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

Nice! At least I guessed bicycle before I gave up.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

So why was she getting evaluated in the first place? Is it a standard thing?

I think much of "brilliance" is actually just a curiosity and practice. Particularly in children, whose brains tend to be wide open to learning...

[conuly]

To see if she was eligible for speech therapy. You can be eligible for speech therapy and still be brilliant - I had speech lessons but was still in the gifted classes, for example. And it's my understanding that this evaluation goes on for ANY type of individualized education - if you want your child to have accommodations of any sort, the first thing they do is make sure they know what help your kid needs.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. I was just wondering whether she was having trouble with speech, or whether it was just making sure in case you were missing anything, or whether it is standard procedure in the US to test all children aged X, or anything like that.

[conuly]

Her teacher was concerned that sometimes she's unclear.