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    Joined: Jan 2013
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    Just a question from a parent who is still somewhat skeptical of the WPPSI score and what it means moving forward. I hope some of you that took the test could provide some testimony as it pertains to your situation. FTR we took the WPPSI at age 4.5 because we were curious to see if we needed to consider alternative schooling. Did anybody else do this and how did this information correlate to your child's trajectory? I know you can score lower based on a number of factors but can you test high on these things? Also, how did that "all kids will even out by third grade" axiom pan out? TIA!


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    Huckleberry, I may be in the minority here, but one of my dds had her WPPSI score (taken at 4.5) decrease significantly - across the board - when she was tested with the WISC in 2nd grade. She's also since then taken the WJ-III Test of Cognitive Abilities and it is more in line with her WISC score than her WPSSI, and her experiences in school lead me to believe the super-high WPSSI scores (for her) weren't accurate. OTOH, I haven't heard of many other kids *at all* who've had the same experience.

    JMO, but I wouldn't think too much about the WPSSI scores for now, but instead take the queues from your child. Honestly, even if the scores do hold up and were 100% accurate... it will most likely be tough to predict now where your child will need to be in a few years - children and their needs are all so different, and IQ #s are only one part of what makes up your child. Even two kids with the same IQ likely have very different strengths and challenges.

    FWIW, the way I've always understood the "third grade" bar is that it doesn't mean all kids are thought to suddenly be the same iq/ability... but instead means that around 3rd grade is the time you start to see most kids fall into where they will ultimately be based on ability - so for instance, a child who started reading late but is going to be a great ahead-of-grade-level student in reading will be at that level by 3rd grade - but way back in kindergarten might not have been reading yet. Another child, otoh, who started reading at three might not end up in the "top" reading group in third grade because they were an early reader, but weren't ultimately a hugely-over-the-top-in-ability reader. That's a bit of an exagerated example to make a point - but fwiw, that type of "evening out" absolutely did happen in my children's classes.

    Can you tell us a little bit about your child - what are your concerns about your local schools, what is he/she doing now, does he/she start K next year or is he in school this year? And I just realized.. if I look back at your other posts I could probably find that info! I apologize, I don't have time to do that right now - will do it later. I was just thinking we might be able to help with more specific advice that would be helpful now rather than guesstimating whether or not a WPSSI score will stand the test of time.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

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    Huckleberry - My DD did the WPPSI at 4.75yrs, her score was in the (just barely) HG range but we felt there had been a spoiled subtest and not great rapport with the tester, and school were being difficult. So she then did the SB5 at 5.25 and scored more than half a standard deviation higher, into the DYS range on FSIQ. Due to our strange school start system where a child must do at least 3 and no more than 6 terms of their first year of school, she did two terms of K and then was skipped into a yr 1/2 composite class the following year (when she should have done another year of K), due to a quirk of class composition all of her classmates had been 6 termers, so she was fully a year younger than the next youngest child and fully two years younger than half the class. It was the happiest I had seen her in a year.

    Eighteen months into the skip I really wish I had let them place her into the yr2 section of that class, she wasn't ready for yr2 at the beginning of last year, but she's ready to be in yr3 now, not yr2... Arrrghh. So for us that WPPSI at 4.75 years was definitely a minimum. Though at the time, like you (seem to feel), we figured she was no more than "normally bright", she seemed perfectly normal to us. I have had one of the few friends I've spoken to about her journey say to me "She seems like a perfectly normal kid to me" (with absolute kindness of intent). She does seem perfectly normal... We used to joke she was HG at dress up and sandpit.

    Last edited by MumOfThree; 06/12/13 05:05 PM.
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    DS took the WPPSI when he was a young 5. The examiner did not do a good job of establishing trust, and DS was resistant from the very beginning. The scores were low, and they clearly do not correlate with DS's capabilities in the classroom (and elsewhere).

    So I'm very skeptical of putting any stock in low scores. High scores probably are indicative of high native intelligence (as traditionally defined), unless the tests are gamed somehow, but low scores? I remain unconvinced they mean much.

    Also, keep in mind the Flynn effect as a confounding factor for IQ testing across different tests:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

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    Originally Posted by Portia
    As for the Woodcock Johnson III, it is an achievement test - not an intelligence test.

    I just wanted to clarify this one thing in case it was mentioned in reference to the WJ-III I mentioned that my dd took (in my reply above) - there are "two" WJ-III tests - one is a set of Tests of Achievement, the other is the WJ-III Cognitive Abilities test, which is an ability test that will give you an IQ #. I was referring to the WJ-III Cognitive Abilities test in my reply. Although it doesn't seem to be as widely used, it is the ability test of choice in our school district (for gifted and for LD), and I've found it very useful for understanding my 2e kids' abilities.

    pbear

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    Originally Posted by polarbear
    Can you tell us a little bit about your child - what are your concerns about your local schools, what is he/she doing now, does he/she start K next year or is he in school this year? And I just realized.. if I look back at your other posts I could probably find that info! I apologize, I don't have time to do that right now - will do it later. I was just thinking we might be able to help with more specific advice that would be helpful now rather than guesstimating whether or not a WPSSI score will stand the test of time.

    Best wishes,

    polarbear

    Gladly. My dd4.9 is intense, creative, bright and exhausting. She is an only child and has had me at home with her since day 1. She started to grasp things quickly but to what extent I wasn't so sure. I thought it was cute that she could do things earlier than what Babycenter predicted but I wasn't convinced that she was gifted. Nevertheless, like I stated above. we had her tested "just in case" and she scored a FSIQ154 (with subtests high enough to comfortably hold on the blackjack table) which at the time didn't even register with me. I mean I knew she was bright but compared to Fred Tate, she didn't compare;) However, when I researched giftedness I started to appreciate the varying degrees of giftedness and how each SD away would potentially require that much more specialized planning.

    As I was starting to make some sense of what we are dealing with it was also pretty evident that our local school would not be an option, and that sent us scurrying to the local G-privates trying to get her in before the spring deadlines. (Didn't like to make this decision so quickly, especially since we had to borrow from her college fund to pay for kindergarten(!).

    This is where the research started to become faith. I know that in theory being surrounded by other gifted children, learning at a faster pace and with more depth would be ideal, but we're placing a large wager on her best perceived option. We've already enrolled her at the G-School and have made the commitment for year one, so I won't allow myself to second guess, but I will say that had the score come in around,125-130, we would have very likely went in another direction.




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    DD9 scored at a gifted-but-not-DYS level on the WPPSI at age 4, with no substantial subtest scatter. At age 8, she had substantially higher scores (DYS-level GAI) on the WISC, and also substantial scatter that earned her a dysgraphia diagnosis.

    It's interesting that she didn't have nearly as much scatter on the WPPSI, which I think has to do with fewer fluency tests and pencil-and-paper work, so she wasn't challenged with the stuff that is difficult for her.

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    I think testing at age 4 is quite inaccurate, but in an asymmetrical way. There are plenty of things that could cause a highly intelligent 4 year old to bomb the test and have their true IQ drastically underestimated, but it's hard to see how IQ could be too drastically overestimated.

    As to the "all kids will even out by third grade" axiom, it's propaganda and nonsense. Higher ability kids learn faster (if given the chance) and so achievement gaps increase with age.

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    Originally Posted by 22B
    As to the "all kids will even out by third grade" axiom, it's propaganda and nonsense. Higher ability kids learn faster (if given the chance) and so achievement gaps increase with age.

    I agree. This is like saying that "all girls start their periods at 12" or "all boys' voices change at 14." It's simply not possible to predict and generalize that way.

    Take my DD10, for example... she was one of those early 3 year old readers who seemed to tank in public school... then in the "infamous third grade" seemed very average. Then in grade 4 she became obsessed with books, in grade 5 was in the gifted math stream, and now reads a novel a night (she was the first kid in her school to read all of their assigned reading challenge novels this year - grade 5). Grade 3? Meh. Now? Much more like herself.

    Last edited by CCN; 06/12/13 09:03 PM.
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    Originally Posted by 22B
    ...it's hard to see how IQ could be too drastically overestimated.
    I'm not saying that this is the case with the OP's child, but I do believe that IQ can come in "too high," so to speak and have seen the numbers drift down over time like polarbear mentions in some instances. The highest number ever achieved isn't necessarily the most accurate number forever.

    In the instance of early numbers being higher than they later wind up, I've seen it happen in instances where the child is at least above average and in a very enriched environment. For instance, getting even one question wrong when you are at the upper age limit for a test will significantly diminish your scores (the ceilings we all hear about). The same is true on the other end: younger kids who get even a few "hard" questions right will wind up with their scores shooting way up. A kid who lives in an environment where s/he is exposed to a rich vocabulary, has opportunities to acquire knowledge (books are read to the child, science museums are visited, etc.), etc. is a child who may wind up with a higher score early on b/c his vocabulary and knowledge in relation to his age peers in the norming group may be better. This may or may not be due to factors that will impact the child's general intelligence in relation to peers as s/he and those peers continue to develop and age.

    In regard to the OP's child, though, the best advice we got was to do what is right for your child *right now*. If right now, the school system is going to make your child unhappy or create an environment where she won't learn anything, doing something different is totally reasonable regardless of what her long term IQ scores may or may not be.

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