Parents' Guide to IQ Testing and Gifted Education: All You Need to Know to Make the Right Decisions for Your Child

A great help to our family

Thanks to Parents' Guide to IQ Testing and Gifted Education and a consultation with Dr. Palmer, our bright and talented daughter is now back on track. Based on Dr. Palmer's recommendations, we were able to map out a better educational path, identify enrichment programs for her and find ways to connect with other gifted children. A year later, she has regained her love of learning. I highly recommend this book to any parent who suspects their child is gifted and who wants to make sure their child is getting the best education possible.

Great book by Dr. David Palmer of the Palmer Learning Center ¿ Extremely helpful

We were interested in finding ways to challenge our daughter who was working far ahead of most of the other children in her grade and was starting to complain about school being ¿boring.¿ She¿s always had good teachers who try to find ways to modify the schoolwork for her, but much of the time she seemed to be going over things she already knew. My husband and I read this book after having our daughter tested at the Palmer Learning Center (Dr. Palmer sent us a copy along with the assessment report). The information in this book, along with Dr. Palmer¿s report and recommendations, really helped us understand our options and find the programs our daughter needs. Our daughter¿s school doesn¿t offer formal gifted programs until third grade, but we were able to work with her teachers and come up with a plan where she is being accelerated in two subjects. We are also looking into enrolling her in a summer camp for gifted kids at a local university and trying out an online program in the future. The book is written for parents who, like us, have little background in testing and programming for gifted kids. Dr. Palmer offers straightforward and objective advice and doesn¿t push any one type of gifted education programming. He clearly explains what parents need to know about each topic in understandable language. If you have a child who is bored in school and you need help understanding what testing and programming for the gifted is all about, this is the book you should start with. Highly recommended! Chapters Include: A Closer Look at IQ Tests: What they Measure and What the Scores Mean Identifying Gifted Kids - Who Gets Tested and Why? What is Gifted Education ¿ And Is It Right for My Child? IQ Testing and Gifted Education ¿ Answers to the Questions Parents Ask Most Signs of Giftedness ¿ What You Should Look For and Why You Should Know Is it Good to Be Gifted? Optimal IQ and the Flipside to Being Gifted Bright Kids with Learning Problems ¿ When IQ and Achievement Don¿t Match Up IQ Testing in the Schools ¿ How Did it Start? What is Intelligence ¿ And Can it Really be Measured? Nature, Nurture, and Other Influences ¿ Why We Are Who We Are.

An excellent guide thoroughly covering the wealth of options available

Parents' Guide To IQ Testing and Gifted Education: All You Need To Know To Make The Right Decisions For Your Child by David Palmer Ph.D. is a no-nonsense guide written in plain terms especially for parents concerned about what the best educational recourse is for their gifted child. There is no one universal answer rather, the needs and personality of the child determine whether he or she would be better off attending standard classes, skipping grades, enrolling in more challenging courses, or pursuing other options. Parents' Guide To IQ Testing and Gifted Education has advice for parents of exceptionally gifted children, parents of children who are so bored with the normal school curriculum they are inclined to 'coast' on their gifts, parents of gifted children with learning disorders, and parents seeking to learn more about IQ tests in America, how they are administered, how their results are used, and what they really reveal. An excellent guide thoroughly covering the wealth of options available.

Palmer is right... including explanation of IQ scores

Palmer¿s book is a clearly written, user-friendly guide written specifically for parents so that they can understand the system of gifted programming and selection and effectively advocate for their kids. I¿d like to comment on a previous review that said the terms used in this book for IQ scores in the upper extremes are wrong. They are not wrong. As Palmer states when presenting score breakdown terms, '... the words used are just that - words. Don't read too much into the terms, and keep in mind that there are no universally accepted definitions when it comes to describing IQ levels.' Palmer's book offers parents a review of widely used terms associated with different IQ ranges and acknowledges that other researchers and experts may use other terms (e.g.: while some may call those that score in the IQ range of 120 to 130 ¿superior¿ others may use the term ¿mildly gifted'). The score range descriptors used in Palmer¿s book (or similar descriptors) are current and those typically used by the schools and universities, by the vast majority of professionals who administer and interpret IQ tests, and even by the test manufacturers themselves. Yes, there are a few psychologists, mostly those who specialize in the highly gifted, who use other terms and score breakdowns when describing IQ performance. Further differentiating those who score extremely high on an IQ test (above 135 or so) by using less conventional terms and more precise score analysis is arguably a good thing for this rare population of kids because such refinement can help in educational planning. But getting into this debate is better reserved for high IQ specialists and academic texts. Parents¿ Guide to IQ Testing and Gifted Education offers parents straightforward advice and much needed guidance without getting bogged down in such issues.

Great book for parents!

This book was recommended to me by a friend when my child was going through the gifted testing process. As far as I know this is the only book written specifically for parents whose kids are being testing and who need to understand gifted screening, IQ testing, gifted programs, and different school options. This book is written by an educational psychologist who has lots of experience and great insider advice for novice parents. It really helped me... highly recommended!

Good guide except the IQ score description is wrong.

Palmer¿s book is a good little guide except, unfortunately, for the incorrect and misleading description of the meaning of IQ scores. This is a clear, handy guide to the world of IQ assessment and gifted children. I recommend it heartily, but I must add a strong caveat that the author and I have already discussed: Palmer describes score ranges for different levels or degrees of giftedness that seriously understate the meaning of scores above 135 IQ, mis-stating how highly intelligent and different-from-others these children really are. For example, on pages 18-19, he uses outdated descriptions and score ranges that no longer hold merit, and this is a significant error. The most recent test to use such scores, the old Stanford-Binet (Form LM), was last updated in 1972 and has been replaced. That test is no longer considered valid, and further, the wide score ranges reported by that test seriously confuse those who would need to depend upon them today. Current valid group and individual tests (described nicely in his book) report scores on a normalized bell curve and tend to reach their limits at 150 IQ. Someone who scores at 144 on a current test, for example, is ¿exceptionally¿ to ¿profoundly gifted,¿ not ¿moderately gifted¿ and in need of few academic adjustments, as Palmer claims. A score of 144 is almost three standard deviations above the mean score, meaning a score in the top 0.2%. Such a child is not ¿moderately gifted¿ and will need learning adjustments. On page 82 he states, ¿Bear in mind that many children whose IQ measures in the moderately gifted range (130 to 145) can thrive in a general education program.¿ It is true in some academic settings, what I call a Type III School, that children at the low end of this range will thrive in the regular setting, but for children above 135¿and certainly above 140¿major adjustments are necessary. Again, this confusion stems from using a no longer valid test score range. Most educators and psychologists are somewhat confused about how today¿s scores relate to scores from older tests, resulting in many professionals overlooking level of giftedness as an important issue related to classroom and social adjustment. As the author of Riverside Publishing¿s Use of the SB5 in the Assessment of High Abilities (2003), I encourage parents to read the free bulletin, available on the Riverside website, in order to fully understand the meaning of any gifted-level IQ scores. All that said, Dr. Palmer covers every imaginable issue and question parents might have when they consider whether or not their child is gifted and whether or not to have their child assessed. I know of no other book or guide that covers these topics so clearly. Just be aware that his descriptions of IQ ranges and meanings of the scores are incorrect.

Valuable information for parents and teachers

Dr. Palmer's book, Parent's Guide to IQ Testing and Gifted Education, is a great resource not only for any parent who has ever wondered if their child might be gifted, it also will be highly informative to anyone interested in how and why schools use IQ tests. This book covers a wide range of important topics, such as the characteristics of giftedness, self-esteem, bright children who have difficulty with learning, what an IQ test does and does not measure, the influences of nature (heredity) and nurture (environment), and more. As a psychologist and parent myself, what I find particularly nice about this book is that it's written in easy-to-understand language and is not loaded with technical jargon. This book would be a valuable addition to any parent (or teacher's) personal library.

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