Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Think your homeschooled child may be gifted, but you're not sure? Join us for today's Home School Heartbeat as Mike Smith asks Kathi Kearney to suggest ways for you to make certain.

Mike Smith:


Joining me this week is Kathi Kearney, a teacher who specializes in helping families with gifted children. Kathi, how can parents tell if their child is "gifted?" By that I mean, are there any assessments available to determine if our children are gifted?


Kathi Kearney:


Yes, and the best assessments are individual assessments given one-on-one by licensed psychologists or another diagnostician who is trained to give those tests. These types of tests will look at all different facets of a child's cognitive ability, both verbal and nonverbal abilities. And you'll get information that will help you to determine the best type of educational program and approaches and methodologies to use with that particular child.


Mike:


Kathi, how do you prepare a child for this kind of testing?


Kathi:


The best thing to do is to just let them get a good night's sleep the night before, give them a healthy nutritious breakfast, tell them to do their best and not to worry if there are some questions that they can't answer. These types of tests are designed to have questions at a number of different levels, and with this particular type of an individual test you need to be able to take the child to the highest level that they're able to do, and that means that there are going to be some questions they're just not going to know the answers to.


Mike:


Well, thank you very much, Kathi. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.