About Giftedness Testing
Giftedness assessments help identify bright children who may benefit from specialized instruction or a specialized school setting. Children can be gifted in different ways. For example, children can be gifted with regards to their intellect, creativity, artistic abilities, or leadership skills. Children can also be gifted in a specific academic area. Giftedness evaluations through Rise are designed to assess children who may be gifted intellectually or in certain academic areas.
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Components of a Giftedness Assessment
Reasoning Skills: Giftedness evaluations explore different aspects of your child’s reasoning abilities. For example, some children can be thought of as having a detective-like mind. They are good at things like finding patterns and using logic to come to conclusions with information they have never seen before. Other children may have an architect-like mind. They can see things in their “minds eye,” figure out how pieces can fit together to form a whole, and imagine ways those pieces could fit together to form something entirely new. Other children may have a more librarian-like mind that readily learns and retains information over time. These children may have advanced vocabularies, be seen by others as knowledgeable individuals, and be good at articulating their ideas.
Academic Skills: Giftedness evaluations also explore different aspects of your child’s academic strengths. For example, your child may be highly skilled in areas like math, science, literature, or writing.
Social and Emotional Functioning: It is not uncommon for gifted students to excel in school, while struggling with social challenges, mood, or anxiety. If these are areas of concern, they can be incorporated into the evaluation process.
Reasons to Evaluate
Evaluations are used to help identify children who are gifted in terms of their intellect, reasoning abilities, or academic skills. Some parents pursue testing to determine if their child would do best in a school specializing in educating students gifted in these areas. Some parents wish for their child to gain entrance into a gifted/talented program at their child’s current school. In this case, it is important to note that each school district sets its own criteria for gifted and talented programs and has its own process for entry into the program.
The Testing Process
A giftedness assessment begins with a parent-interview that lasts approximately one hour. Testing can typically be completed in one or two testing sessions with your child. During the testing session, your child will be asked to complete a wide variety of tasks. For example, he or she will be asked to solve puzzles, explain how abstract concepts relate or assemble blocks to match a model. Your child will also be asked to complete various academic tasks, like solving math problems or writing an essay. Once testing is completed, the results are reviewing in a feedback meeting.
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The fee for a cognitive abilities assessment (IQ test) is $600. Insurance does not cover these types of evaluations. Additional assessment components can be added as needed.