Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 200 guests, and 17 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    Word_Nerd93, jenjunpr, calicocat, Heidi_Hunter, Dilore
    11,421 Registered Users
    April
    S M T W T F S
    1 2 3 4 5 6
    7 8 9 10 11 12 13
    14 15 16 17 18 19 20
    21 22 23 24 25 26 27
    28 29 30
    Active Threads | Active Posts | Unanswered Today | Since Yesterday | This Week
    Identification, Testing & Assessment Jump to new posts
    Re: Posting IQ test results/Intepretration of them aeh 04/16/24 07:39 PM
    Welcome, Chaya!

    Am I correct that this assessment was done in Spanish? (I notice that you've listed nonstandard subtest names, which I assume resulted from back-translation from English to Spanish to English).

    I'm going to start with some context on testing of this kind that is important in interpreting the results. First, it is generally considered inappropriate to interpret the scores as age-equivalents, except in very rare cases, so I've tried to give some rough approximations for what the scores you've reported actually were in normative terms, with the standard subtest names. Since I don't know which version of the WISC-IV was actually given (Spanish or English), or what the child's actual dominant language (not always clear with dual language learners) or cultural context are, I'm not going to convert these to actual numbers:

    Block Design: average
    Similarities: average
    Digit Span: (beginning of) average
    Picture Concepts: extremely high
    Coding: very low
    Vocabulary: average
    Letter-Number Sequencing: average
    Matrix Reasoning: average
    Comprehension: average
    Symbol Search: average

    Second, interpretively, we have a few additional cautions: this is a fairly old version of the test (how old depends on where you are in the world and whether it is the Spanish version), and may or may not be based on norms appropriate to the cultural/linguistic/educational context of this child, so the results on any given item or task have an elevated risk of being imprecise in either direction (too high or too low).

    So when we look at the results in terms of scaled score classifications instead of age-equivalents (which, again, there are many excellent psychometric reasons for avoiding as much as possible--but that's another, much longer story), we see that most scores are comfortably in the average range, with only two notably outside of it: Picture Concepts, which is indeed in the extremely high range, and coding, which falls in the very low range.

    But let's say these do tell us something about his cognitive profile (and that is definitely making some big assumptions). It would suggest that, in the context of generally age-appropriate thinking skills, he is much better at concept formation using concrete images than he is at abstract verbal concept formation, and that his complex pencil skills are slow (notice that he did fine on Symbol Search, which is timed exactly as Coding is, so it's not speed itself that is the issue, but how it interacted with the specific Coding task--which could be due to anxiety, as you suggest, or possibly due to fine-motor coordination and handwriting factors). For what it's worth, the exercise is intended to be--as you note--very easy. The point is completing it efficiently, which can be affected by many different factors, including hand skills, anxiety, attention, fatigue, visual tracking, etc., in addition to pure motor speed.

    I would not say the data support a poor short-term memory, but it is possible that he just compensates very well using other methods. I will note that it is quite unusual for exceptional musicians to have low working memory skills, though, as there is some association between rhythmic accuracy/precision and long short-term memory spans.

    While it can be true that those on the autism spectrum test less consistently early in life, I would be cautious about interpreting his testing results with a view to diagnostic classifications such as those you list, based only on a few numbers. All of the diagnoses you mention are typically made using multiple measures and a high degree of clinical training and expertise. Asking the question is certainly reasonable, especially if you are seeing other signs in daily life that suggest this, but be open to a very different answer than the one you expected.

    Finally, I am happy this young person has so many adults in his life who care about him, and who are trying to help him grow in every way! A child cannot be loved by too many people.
    13 36,248 Read More
    Twice Exceptional Jump to new posts
    Re: Son 2e, wide discrepancy between CogAT-Terranova aeh 04/16/24 06:12 PM
    So here's a little more detail:

    The correlation between cognitive and achievement instruments is typically between about .5 and .6, so as a ballpark, we would expect a composite of 152 to generate an achievement measure of about 130ish--and that happens to be almost exactly what his math measure is. In his case, there's a pretty marked difference between his verbal cognition and his nonverbal/quantitative cognitive measures, which suggests that he might have a nonverbal/mathematical preference (not that 132 is exactly low!). So while the 89th %ile score he has in reading is toward the periphery of the standard error range for his global cognition, it's pretty much a perfect match for his verbal score on the CogAT.

    You may be wondering why I'm using the national percentiles and not the local percentiles, which look much more divergent. That's because the CogAT numbers you posted are almost certainly national numbers, so I'm just comparing apples to apples. It appears that your district is particularly high achieving, given that the average student is about a standard deviation above the national average, which may be clouding the picture when you consider your own child's profile.

    In short: I would not worry at this moment about an unidentified learning disability. A tilted profile at this level of global strength is not necessarily a disability, and he is objectively ahead normatively in every assessed area (vs the general population, not your local pocket of brilliance). I think afterschooling in math is plenty. You are monitoring his progress and making decisions based on his overall development, health and happiness. That is all any of us can do. Take a deep breath, mama, you are doing fine!
    2 4,969 Read More
    Twice Exceptional Jump to new posts
    Re: Testing with accommodations aeh 04/16/24 05:53 PM
    i'm back!

    So, as a general rule, standardized, norm-referenced instruments like the WJIV can only be used for their normative qualities if administered under standardized conditions. You don't need a quote from the manual (although fwiw, here's what Riverside says about using accommodations during testing with the WJIV: https://support.riversideinsights.c...accommodations-can-i-use-during-testing-) to support this well-established basic principle of normative assessment.

    I understand the argument that they gave accommodations for achievement testing because they wanted to assess writing separately from motor speed (although I think many of us would have chosen a different method to assess this), however, given that he has historically been identiifed as physically impaired, there should have been assessments in his area of identified or suspected disability (ie, physical impairment--in this case, occupational therapy evals and assistive technology evals).

    Another factor that the district might want to consider (which is more in the category of enlightened self-interest) is that, in the absence of documented disabilities, the College Board may not allow typing as an accommodation on the AP exams, which may very well lower his (highly likely to be) strong contribution to their average AP score performance in a way that is disadvantageous to their district scorecard. Note: the WJIV sentence writing fluency task is one of the types of tests (actually, the WJ is named) used to document a disability for purposes of qualifying for the typing and extended time accommodations, so obviously, using the accommodation on the test invalidates its use for that purpose.

    FYI, there are other instruments that have writing fluency measures on them, so if/when the IEE is approved, there will still be ways to document his actual level of development.

    So how is he actually doing with AT these days? It sounds like his typing has improved some.
    3 6,157 Read More
    Recent Posts
    Testing with accommodations
    by aeh - 04/16/24 10:53 AM
    Jo Boaler and Gifted Students
    by thx1138 - 04/12/24 02:37 PM
    For those interested in astronomy, eclipses...
    by indigo - 04/08/24 12:40 PM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5