Clever Kids Consultancy Sydney

I tried to sell my Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition through the Australian Psychological Society last month, but no-one even gave me a call to negotiate the price. Perhaps it is a good thing that I was forced to keep it, as I sometimes use it with adults. But I don’t think I will be using it very much with children anymore.
Why? Let me go back a bit: When I completed my post graduate diploma in psychology I had to make a very difficult decision: What assessment tool or tools I should invest in for my gifted consultancy. At the same time I was excited. This was the moment I had been waiting for: Only qualified psychologists can administer or purchase IQ tests, and I was finally qualified. I wanted to be sure that I had the best tools available for assessing gifted children, and a mistake could be expensive – these tools are worth several thousand dollars each.
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I turned on ABC Radio 702 this morning on the way to the city and heard an interview with Gillian Calvert, the groovy Commissioner for Children and Young People. She made a statement that caused the hostess of the program to do a double-take. Her message was that the best place for babies under 12 months was at home with their parents.
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It has been a long, hard battle, but finally, we have victory: The 0-2 year olds who have until now been cared for by 1 adult to 5 children in 3/4 of the State’s child care centres will no longer have to wait quite as long for their turn to have a cuddle.
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A comment was left about the 1:4 blog I posted some time back. The writer wondered whether the prospective 1:4 adult to child ratio for babies may have been a factor in the current ABC crisis. It was a reasonable comment, but the problems with ABC may be a little less innocent than the mere tightening of the financial child care belt.
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It is probably not everyone’s idea of a nice holiday, but I have been re-reading Gagné’s journal articles and other papers with additional interest in preparation for his return to Australia… (see the NSWAGTC December eNewsletter about the event). For those readers who do not know Gagné’s work, his Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), is the predominantly accepted gifted model now used in Australia, and it forms the basis of the most recently updated gifted policy for NSW public schools. You can read more about the policy at: http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/gats/programs/organisation/definitions.htm.
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I’m not normally a fan of Miranda Devine’s opinion pieces, but last weekend (Jan 31-1 Feb, SMH News Review, p.7) she wrote an article that could change my mind about her writing altogether. She was quoting research that demonstrate the lack of substance to the majority opinion within the Early Childhood field that children should be held back from school for as long as possible – especially boys.
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For those who do not know, I have a gifted consultancy with a website, and I can be contacted via email through the website. As it is available on the world wide web, I sometimes get email enquiries from other parts of the country. Last August I received an email from a mother in Ballarat, Victoria, who thought she had a very gifted little girl, and had read my article on early entry (available on this website). She wanted more information, and I sent her some advice.

I suggested that she should have her little girl’s IQ tested, so that she had some credible evidence to show the school where she intended to enrol her child. Yesterday she contacted me again to thank me, and to let me know the outcome of her attempts at enrolling her daughter in a school. Suffice it to say that the first school would not enrol her child, as they thought her too young. But mum did not give up, and finally found a school principal who was willing to enrol her child. She writes that her daughter had no problem settling in, and was more ready than some of the older children who are in her class. The story made the front page of the Ballarat Courier. Please find the link for the local news story.

I have been away this weekend and during a leisurely Sunday morning I had time to read the Sydney Morning Herald (28-29 March 2009) where I found an article on p. 3, “Youngest Kindies Catch Up”, and could hardly wait to get home so I could share the news with you, my reader.
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It has long been known that gifted children tend to have imaginary friends. Now there is Australian research to support this observation.

The first large Australian longitudinal study on the effects of child care on children’s adjustment and achievement indicates that long hours in care, and multiple care arrangements in the early years (for example, the baby or young child would attend a number of different care situations each week such as be with the nanny in the morning, dropped off at long day care during the day and perhaps attend a family day care carer’s home some of the time), were predictors of lower literacy scores.
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