Children younger than four years old

It is possible without giving an IQ test to provide guidance to the parents of very young children who show signs of being unusually bright and who might have special needs.

I generally prefer to wait until a child is at least four years old to perform an intellectual assessment. Although the instrument that I use, the Stanford-Binet 5, is designed and normed for children as young as two, scores for such young children can be greatly affected by their level of cooperation because they are compared (for norming purposes) with others their age who also may or may not behave and comply very well when quite young. This means that a cooperative child can receive a score that is misleadingly inflated – too high – and a shy, reticent, or uncooperative child can receive a deflated score – too low – and also misleading. There are practitioners who will agree to assess a three-year-old, but I prefer to approach meeting the family’s current needs in other ways.

I email parents an intake form called Developmental Milestones that really helps me to estimate a child's Level of Giftedness before – or without – doing an actual assessment. Parents complete the intake form and send it back to me for analysis. Then parents schedule for a 1.5 to 2.0 hour consultation to discuss my estimate of intellectual level and my recommendations. I provide information on the best ways to nurture the child now and how to make decisions about future schooling. Then, when the child is around four years old (it is all right to wait longer), I can administer the IQ test.

During the consultation, I give parents articles relevant to their situation and explain what to expect "out there in the big world" of schools and real life. There is no additional fee for the intake form or its analysis. Once an assessment is performed, when the child is at least four years old, we can have a briefer follow-up session to review the particulars of the results.

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