Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Test results/hearing loss and more

DD10 (5th grade) has been getting AIG services for math the last several years. She has not received services for LA due to scores on the ITBS and Cogat. We have not had her take the WISC because she is excelling in school and very happy there (vs. DD9 HG whom I post about here all the time!!), and if all is well - it just didn't seem necessary. BUT,DD10 is very unhappy that she is not AIG L.A. like her best friend and her sister and once again, took the Cogat and ITBS this Fall to see if she could become AIG in language arts. I received her scores yesterday and am wondering about the lower reading test scores vs how well she does in class.
Here are some scores followed by some questions:
Cogat: Verbal 84 Quan. 94 Nonverbal 99 VQN 97 test date 10/2014
Cogat: Verbal 84 Quan. 89 Nonverbal 87 VQN 88 test date 10/2013
Cogat: Verbal 73 Quan. 88 Nonverbal 83 VQN 84 test date 10/2012

Note how the scores have jumped except for verbal? Does this test just show achievement? DD10 had taken 2 months of pre algebra this year at an after school class before she took this test. Would that account for the large jump between 4th and 5th? Her Iowa scores are similar for math (99%)but the LA scores have fallen every year (86 two years ago to now 71). Her in class grades are now 4's for L.A. - high as they have every been. Her EOG Lexile score was 1075 at the end of 4th grade. I am just baffled by this uneven scoring. Is it time to do some more in depth testing? DD also has unilateral hearing loss. Would this affect ITBS and Cogat testing? I will add that DD is not a fan of writing; She is definitely a "math" girl. As an aside, since some of you follow the trials and tribulations of our DD9 story, DD9 and DD10 are not genetically related so that research about siblings and similar IQ's is not going to apply. It's more "nurture" than "nature" in our family.

Just some perspective:

1. The gain in Quant is only .3 of a SD (5 standard score points), so not statistically significant. Nonverbal, on the other hand, has gone up by 1.2 SD (18 standard score points or more). So it's just the Nonverbal section that's gone up.

2. The CogAT is not a true IQ test. It explicitly measures learned abilities, so, yes, it can be affected by achievement. Also, I've often seen noticeable differences when moving from form to form of the CogAT, despite the claims that the USS is a continuous measure across age/grade levels.

I also have three years of cogat data on my child and his scores have changed way more significantly than your daughters. His cognitive abilities don't seem to have changed and his school performance has been similar across these three years. I suspect that the different forms of the test are measuring slightly different abilities and that test conditions and child motivation on the day of the test also play a part.

My son's weakest area is language arts (though still above average) and his grades in that subject are excellent. I suspect that it just doesn't require 95th percentile+ abilities to get an "A" (or a "4" in your child's grading system) in language arts in elementary school. Perhaps I will see a dip in his grades once pre-ap and AP language arts begin in middle school and high school.

Thanks to both of you! Interesting about the fluctuation in Cogat scores perhaps a result of different forms of the test. Too bad the L.A. scores didn't go up as well
Does the assessment for Lexile scoring test something different than Cogat?

You've said you haven't had her tested with the WISC because she's very happy in school, yet you've also said she's unhappy about not being in AIG LA? Sounds like not all is happy? Do you feel like the wanting to be in AIG LA is driven more by having a friend and a sister in it or because she's doing really well in LA and needs/wants deeper/higher level work? Note, fwiw, even if she *doesn't* indicate she needs deeper/higher level work or maybe isn't doing brilliantly where she's at - if that's the case - doesn't mean she doesn't need more. If your schools are even remotely like the schools in my area, even a child who is truly at the 80th percentile in ability most likely would thrive on a higher level of challenge than the average classroom offers.

One thing I saw happen frequently in our elementary schools was that students who were openly and obviously either frustrated with school or having behavior issues due to poor academic fit - were tested for gifted and id'd when they met the benchmarks - so if a previously unidentified gifted student acted out or was *obviously* not happy with their classroom fit, even if there scores weren't quite what they needed to be, they were id'd and given gifted services. However, there were also students who were quiet, went along with the status quo, didn't want to stand out, or simply had given up thinking there wouldn't be more challenge - weren't necessarily recognized as gifted or weren't tested because they weren't having issues or causing issues in the classroom.

I personally am not a fan of the CogAT for gifted id. My ds, who's a > 99th percentile kid on the WISC in verbal, only scored in the 75th percentile on the CogAT in 5th grade. He's had multiple innate ability tests over the years due to being 2e, and his verbal scores are very consistent, so it's not a situation where he had one fluke high score on one WISC. Yet, in our school district, the initial gifted program screen is the CogAT *verbal* section, so I can't help but wonder, especially having seen the large # of people who post here who've had mismatches between CogAT and WISC/WJ-III Cog - are there quite possibly other kids out there who have *only* been screened with CogAT and weren't appropriately id'd as gifted?


I would think it would impact testing *directly* only if the questions were read out loud to her... but... I wonder if it might not have somehow impacted her developmental growth in reading as she matured, so that she might have some slight challenges that aren't obvious? Or her scores on verbal tests might be lower than they should be due to early reading development lagging behind ability due to the hearing loss?

My gut feeling is that - you have a child with hearing loss, a child who is hoping for more challenge in school, and that same child has a bit of unevenness in her CogAT scores - not necessarily year to year as much as verbal vs nonverbal on the most recent testing. JMO, but I'd consider private WISC testing to better understand her profile - even if she's not id'd as gifted or you don't uncover any significant issues, it will give you good insight and information on her strengths and how she learns.


I would wonder a little bit re - how much of this is due to a true skew in abilities vs how much is personality vs is any of it related to hearing loss?


I'm also parenting chidden who aren't genetically related. Part of the challenge is not only differences in ability, but differences in personality. You've got one gifted dd who stood out and "screamed" (figuratively, not literally lol!) that she needed "more" - but it's quite possible that your older dd also needs "more" and simply isn't showing the need in the same way. You've been such a wonderful advocate for our younger dd - I'd take some of that advocating energy and really think through - would further testing help your older dd?

I don't know the answer, but those are just a few thoughts to consider -

Best wishes,

polarbear

DD10, unlike DD9 is very happy at school. She loves her teachers and her friends, but she wants to be with her best friend in the AIG LA class AND she's competitive with her sister. It has been easy to parent her (educationally) because, as her teachers say, over and over, she is the "perfect student". In the back of my mind though, is the audiologist's warning to watch for clues that her hearing might have an impact at some time on her schooling. So when I see scores like this, I wonder. But, it also might just be different learning strengths.

I agree that we have spent much more time advocating for DD9 because she is the "squeaky wheel". I would not want to look back and find that we missed something with DD10 because we were hyper focused on her little sister. I think it might be a good idea to talk to DH about some outside testing.