Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Choice of IQ and achievement tests

DS6 is not by nature an excellent test-taker. Now that he is on ADHD meds, maybe that will improve, but maybe not.

He is plenty bright, read fluently at age 2, and his language skills are off the charts high. Math facts are only so-so, but math concepts are good and ahead of grade.

But he has ADHD, serious handwriting and motor-skills difficulties, generally does not work quickly, and has poor stamina. And he's a bit on the anxious side. Measures of "fluency" always tank his scores, even though he knows the answers.

We need IQ numbers and math and language arts achievement numbers for him to test into the gifted program. (Has to be "across the board" gifted to qualify for anything.) My feeling is that untimed tests that can be given in small chunks with breaks will yield better results for him. Being able to answer orally rather than in writing is also a huge plus.

What tests would you want to give a kid like this? I'm assuming we will test privately, and the school district accepts a wide variety of tests.

DeeDee

SB5 for IQ - the routing questions will start him at his level, reducing testing time and also reducing distractability from having to plow through too easy work. Also it's not timed. My very 2e child looks much better on the SB5. Just be aware that on a good day with a good tester with the SB5 should show the best he's capable of and hide some weaknesses - but they're still there. I'm glad I've got a FSIQ in the gifted range to wave around, I'm aware she'd never get that on the WISC (GAI maybe but never FSIQ).

I've no idea re achievement, but maybe the WJ is better at separatin fluency from knowledge than some others and that might be good? Hopefully someone who knows better will chime in there!

I am not sure what to recommend, partly because I think a lot is going to depend on finding a person to administer the tests who is flexible and patient and wants to figure out your ds rather than rush through and just test him and outa there, kwim? We have also found that private psychs in our area usually have a specific set of tests they administer, so I can't go to psych A for instance and request the SB5 if that psych administers the WISC etc.

Here are a few random things we've run across in testing our ds with fine motor skill challenges that might help narrow your choices:

Will your gifted program accept the GAI on the WISC? Ours will but doesn't tell anyone that they will. The timed subtests on the WISC are the subtest under Processing Speed and one test under PRI. If you use the GAI calculation the processing speed tests are automatically thrown out and only the one timed PRI subtest will impact GAI.

As MumofThree mentioned, the WJ-III Achievement tests show the challenge of timed vs untimed in the way scores fall out for kids who have challenges with timed tests and with handwritten responses - so its possible to use them in a way to show that the lower results are impacted by the challenge rather than lack of ability. That said, our gifted program did NOT accept our ds' WJ-IIII achievement scores because of e lower scores on timed tests. When that happened, our neuropsych suggested we have another private tester administer a "form B" of the WJ-IIII Achievement tests (apparently there are two versions so that a child can be tested more than once per year) and to have the second set of tests given with oral response. I think the fluency tests would still be timed, but don't know for sure. The main thing I gathered from this is there is some flexibility potentially to give accommodations on the WJ-IIII Achievement tests. FWIW, we didn't do this but substituted a different achievement test.

ERBs - our kids take the ERB through their private school, and it includes a combination of ability plus achievement. Our ds receives his accommodations that are in his 504 for this testing, which include extended time. All of my kids, with and without LDs and accommodations, tend to score in approximate range with their ability levels on the ERBs. This is also true of Terra Nova with accommodations, which our public school uses.

I think the important thing to do is to attempt to get yes accommodations similar to what he will be allowed to have at school - which yuan get for at least some tests. When our ds was given the CogAT through our school district he was given extended time and oral response accommodations. He took the CAT-5 at Sylvan and I think (but can't remember for sure) that he was given oral response and extended time accommodations.

Last thing to look into - our school district's gifted program only uses innate IQ tests as one set of ability testing, and from what I gathered when our ds was tested, considered learned ability tests with the same weight as innate ability tests - so in other words, a child who doesn't have qualifying scores on the WISC, WJ-III Cognitive Test, or the SB-5 can still qualify with scores on CogAT and other "learned" ability tests - which unfortunately I don't know the names of because we had qualifying WISC scores.... but if you can get a list of the ability tests your district will accept you may be able to find some that can be given without timed tests etc or with accommodations.

I hope some of that random list helps! Good Luck!

polarbear

Eta - forgot to mention - our ds has had both WJ-III Cognitive and WISC - on the WISC his GAI is significantly higher than FSIQ due to timed tests in the processing speed section. The WJ-III Cognitive doesn't have a calculation similar to the WISC's GAI, it only gives a GIA which is similar to the WISC's FSIQ... yet my ds' WJ-IIII GIA is in range with his WISC GAI. I also like the combo of WJ-III Cognitive with WJ-IIII Achievement testing because the subtest results can be combined in different ways to show strengths in many different ones of areas. The way that works for each of my kids tends to result in the one area of challenge beisolated to one area, but a lot of areas of strength also show up... I'm not explaining it very well at all! I just feel like I had more specific info from that combo of tests and that the challenge of fluency was minimized relative to the WISC because there were a larger set of subtests on the WJ-IIII.

Our school psychologist administed a brief form of the WJIII for the achievement portion of the evaluation for DS' grade skip. There were no fluency subtests.

For now I just want to say THANKS!!! I have to seriously study these replies in conjunction with the list of what's accepted for gifted testing... time for the next advocacy challenge...

gratefully,
DeeDee

I feeling I should add that I assumed you would choose your tester with care :-). I was being literal and answered the question asked. Also, in Australia the sb5 is used almost exclusively by gifted specialists, everyone else uses the WISC, which is more useful if it's a diagnosis of a disability you are looking for. But for us, if we were wanting to get DD into a gifted program it would be the SB5 we would present, or get her to re-sit.

It is strange. Australia uses SB5 for gifted, NZ uses wJ111 cognitive, the rest of the world uses WISC mostly it seems.

Puffin, Australia is heavily biased to the WISC, there are only a handful of testers who use the SB5 (not one in my state for example), they are pretty much ALL gifted experts, there is at least one developmental paed that uses it, but they are paeds who have many IQ tests up their sleeve so that they can issue one the child hasn't already taken previously. There are also many psychs who are very good with gifted who prefer Wechsler tests (I can think of two in my city, there would be more too). So Australia is very Wechsler centric. Also there is a huge bias against the SB5 in some quarters. I know more than one person who's received they eyeroll and "Well EVERYONE is gifted on the SB" response from other professionals. Which I find pretty funny given that on this board it seems to be considered slightly "harder"...

Also, of the few NZ posters I am aware of on this board you are the first I know who's used the WJ, the others have had Wechsler results.

The WJ has no norms for Australia so it doesn't really get used here at all.

Thanks, Mum3. :-)

It's hard to know. I've ruled out the people who tested elder DS, because when they tested younger DS before they got some things wrong IMO. (Younger DS is way harder to test than elder.) Then there's another neuropsych who I think grasps the issues and is covered by insurance but doesn't necessarily have experience with the advocacy/school district piece, and one who has more experience with the school district but doesn't take insurance. Maybe there are others out there, these are the ones that are known to me.

Insurance would probably make it free or nearly so; otherwise probably close to $1500.

In any case, guess I have to make some phone calls. Sigh.

Thanks--
DeeDee

Hi Polar, and thanks--


I think they'd be much, much happier with a regular IQ score. The state technically requires that they accept the GAI, but it might be contentious. And yes, it would help a *lot* in DS's case.


I am so happy to know this is an option.


Funny, ERB is not on the list of approved assessments. Probably because it's public school.


That's amazing. Our district doesn't give any accommodations like extended time on standardized tests; they claim it invalidates the results. I will ask again.


We do need both IQ and achievement numbers, so this will be a fairly big run of testing.


Thanks so much, Polar! I will look closely at these.

DeeDee