Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When to test?

"Squirt, where was he tested? For standard purposes, most will use the grade the child is in, regardless of his age. Many of those tests also have fall and spring versions (and norms!) just to complicate the matter further. If you have the results printout, it should be clearly marked."

He was tested by the school district. I don't have the results printout, just the two scores. I'll ask because now I am curious. I just wondered what the thoughts were on it as a test. We are having him take the 2nd grade ITBS in June to help decide what to do next year. I'll make sure I ask whether it is spring or fall.

I'm one of the few people (to my knowledge) on the forum whose kid had both the SB-V and the WISC. DS6 had a horrible test day for the SB-V--lacking several hours of sleep, illness coming on, etc.--so he tested GT on the SB-V but not DYS-level, and it was clear even to the tester (who had just met him for the first time that day) that DS6 was not really showing what he could do. "He seems tired," the tester kept saying. He advised us to retest with the WISC to get a truer read. We did and we're glad we did.

Plus I'm not 100% convinced that the SB-V was a good test for our DS6. He showed verbal on the SB-V, which is supposed to be more geared to spatial kids, but he showed highly spatial on the WISC, which is supposed to be better for verbal kids. <shrug> Odd.

Anyway, the nice thing about the WISC, I think, is that it's shorter than the SB-V by a lot--like 2 hours shorter for us. That's a lot better for a younger child. Because it's shorter, it's also usually cheaper.

I think I'd recommend starting with the WISC for a younger child, even though this seems to be running contrary to some of the wisdom I'm hearing in this thread. But I also recognize that since the WISC is what got my son the good score, I may be unfairly biased in its favor...

CFK, I'm surprised. Both our testers (two different ones!) led me to believe that it's pretty standard for the SB to take longer than the WISC. Since the SB was a good two hours+ longer--we had to break for lunch and come back to finish it!--and the WISC took only an hour total, I didn't really question them about it.

Interesting. Maybe it's more dependent upon the tester than I was led to believe? Hmmm...

Anyway, I got a lot out of the WISC, but I agree that the achievement test was more earth-shattering for us. It's what told me that DS was potentially a DYS candidate. The WISC showed me some bottlenecks to watch out for, and I'd not seen those before. But the achievement test (Woodcock-Johnson III for us) changed the way we approached education for our son.

It's good to know so that I don't give out bad info. I hate to do that! So thanks for straightening me out.

I never keep references handy, but I thought the optimum age for testing is 7.9. Clearly it also depends on when you need results for advocacy.

It must have something to do with the tester. My dd took the SB (when she was 5yo) and was finished in just a little over an hour. I think the tester can choose where to start the questions so the child does not have to spend an inordinate amount of time on easy questions. This is where it is beneficial to have your testing done by someone who regularly works with gifted children. Dottie can correct me if I am wrong.

Summer

I agree that a GT pro is always a good idea, but I should mention that our SB tester is one of the nationally acknowledged experts in the area of GT testing. Seriously, like one of the biggies! We actually travelled to see this particular tester because of the expertise factor, and that's one reason DS6 didn't sleep well before the test.

Seriously, MUCH experience...and books published on the subject of GT ed! This was not some newbie, so I don't think that was our particular problem.

My guess? I think my son's sleepiness had a lot to do with the long test time. The SB tester didn't even do extra tests with DS6. Just the required ones.

Still, the SB tester told us that it takes 90 minutes-3 hours for the SB if the child is GT, and it took our son over 3 hours!

OTOH, the WISC was just barely over an hour, and that tester even threw in an extra verbal subtest at the end to soothe her own curiosity. This second tester was a different, local one, who is experienced with GT, but young and not a nationally recognized old hand like the first tester.

Weird.

I know I�ve posted this before, but I wanted to chime in that the psychologist, who tested my son almost two years ago, told me that he absolutely recommended the WISC-IV over the SB-V if I was looking for higher scores to get into a program.

He has decades of experience in testing gifted children, but is not a name that most here would recognize.

Also, I don�t know where I�ve heard this, but my understanding is that around 7-9 is the best age for testing.

BTW, the SB-5 testing was well over two hours long for my son.

I want to clarify that the psych advised to go with the WISC-IV when I initially contacted him by phone rather than after my son tested.

My son took the SB-V and I remember it taking about 2 hours with a very short 5 minute break (enforced by the tester--my son didn't want to stop).