So that year, Joey was moved to the older class. Despite dire predictions of psychological trauma, Joey adjusted well, even at first. He still wasn't really interacting with the kids in the class, but he seemed happy in class and didn't come home crying, so I figured that in time, he would feel comfortable and start interacting. Certainly, the material was a little more on par with his level (not really close, but a big improvement). In the meantime, we scheduled his Standford Binet V test, so we would finally know where he stood. To be perfectly honest, I was nervous... what if Joey wasn't as smart as I thought he was?? The preliminary session we had with the psychologist certainly did nothing to reassure me: you know how people will always ask kids that age certain questions, to see if they have the 'basics'? Well, this is the kind of stuff that we hadn't really worked on (at least not until Joey had to take the ASQ and the Dial 3 screening...). Things like 'how old are you'? Well, Joey knew the answers to this type of question, but he didn't like to be asked the same questions again and again, I guess, so when the psychologist who was to test him asked him, he answered "65". Right.... that was on a Friday, and he was to be tested that Monday. I spent that week-end talking to Joey about how important that test was, how he really had to be careful to show what he knew, and give the right answers if he knew them, etc. By the time Monday morning came, I was feeling really guilty for putting him under that kind of pressure. After all, should a three year old be expected to perform??? When he went in with the tester, I took out my computer and proceeded to pretend to do work for the next hour and a half. When Joey emerged from there, he was simply beaming. To my great relief, not only had he not buckled under the pressure, he appeared to have thrived on it. Joey had done well, and he knew it... he had found his zone of concentration, it seemed.. he was like one of these geeky (I mean that as a compliment) students who felt they had just kicked butt on their math test!! 
Joey scored 151 on the SBV. This puts him in the highly gifted range (exceptionally gifted with the previous version of the Standford Binet). Not surprisingly, I felt vindicated.
The first thing I did was have the results sent to Joey's pre-school and request that the district be contacted to see if there were any resources available for gifted children available through them. Commenting on the SBV results, the school said that they knew 'all along' that Joey was very gifted (hmm, right), that there weren't any services available through the district for gifted children at that age, but that if I wanted to fill out the form for the 'Special District' services, then we could get Joey some help adapting socially. Seriously??? I was livid. I said that there was no way in heck I was filling out that form, and instead, I asked for a referral for a private psychologist, so that Joey could be evaluated (again - this would be his 3rd developmental assessment that year - after passing the first two without any problem) in the group and private setting. So the school did that. They referred us to their favorite private psychologist, who proceeded to observe Joey in class and then in a private session. Her conclusion? That he was actually advanced socially, particularly when it came to pretend play because he had advanced vocabulary that he was using for this purpose. He was just cautious in the group setting, so more an observer than a joiner, something that she attributed to the fact that he was much younger than the other children in the class and perhaps his personality. She said to us that we didn't need to see her again, unless we had other concerns that came up in the future. Fast forward a few months later, Joey started talking in class, including to his classmates. Actually, they started looking to him for answers about academic stuff (and to make Marbulous designs for them), so little by little he was taking a leadership role, even amongst children who were up to a year and a half older. He also became more outspoken and better at standing up for himself.
Kudos to the teachers for recognizing this and to the school director for coming around in the end. This helped us decide to stay in the same school for pre-K, which Joey will start with the same class...
The rest of this year (which is our current year) will be covered with posts on special topics
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