Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I.Q. and grade levels ahead-strong correlation?

In my kids, IQ and grade level equivalents have no relationship, while the scaled scores of index scores correlate with one another, at least within a standard deviation or so. Grade level equivalents appear to be produced by a random number generator.

Attempting to make correlations with grade level equivalents in our family's case of high IQ and achievement are a fruitless endeavor, as they seem to be the poster children for "asynchronous development," paired with variable rates of average development in different skills.

I hear all the time that PG kids are underserved in most schools and that parents need to advocate aggressively to get the most basic of accommodations - and those are the parents who know how to navigate the system. There are also parents who have no awareness nor the ability to advocate due to various reasons.
So, if a kid with IQ of 150+ does not get any acceleration or differentiation and has never seen advanced topics in math, how would that child work 2-3 grade levels ahead in that subject? Intuitive understanding due to high intellect can not take that child too far. I believe that the correlation between high IQ and working at a higher grade level is not a given. It is mostly due to the learning opportunities available to the child.

Not a random number generator. Regression & curve smoothing. But still with little relationship to real-world instructional levels. Which is why the APA and NASP specifically dis-recommend the use of grade equivalents in assessment reporting and interpretation.

Agreed that giftedness + opportunity = achievement. I believe it is important not to conflate giftedness and opportunity.

That said, there is much credit to be given to what another person recently termed on another thread, "a child-driven educational thirst".

Some may say the number of opportunities available to a child are dependent, in part, on the age of the child, and the number of questions the child may ask of parents, teachers, and other adults the child comes in contact with (pediatrician, dentist, eye doctor, grocery store clerk, hardware store employee, neighbors, relatives, librarian, etc). Some kids may read wrappers, labels, boxes, prices, road signs, car speedometer, billboards, making connections and formulating questions. A family which lets these everyday opportunities go by may also not make best use of formalized learning opportunities such as courses, tutors, or acceleration.

While some courses and tutors may be costly, there are many stimulating resources freely available and readily accessible for a child/family seeking every opportunity for positive mental stimulation and intellectual growth.

The take-away idea may be to strive for one's personal best, maximizing the opportunities which one may have or be able to create.

I know this. I should have maybe worded it "as if generated..." The GE does not correlate well across subtests, nor does the same scaled score equate the same number of grades ahead for a given subtests across the years (so a 130 in kindergarten is very different than in 4th). DS has identical scaled scores on different subtests, yet the GE is wildly different. Looking at his GE's on the latest round of WJ (which, granted, will qualify him for special ed), range from -2 to +14 of his current grade level, which the SS's range from low end of average to +78 points above the lowest score.

OK, geeked out on DS' WJ scores.

Grade 4.4 norm: GE is broadly linear over 78 SS point variation with a decent quality of fit. Residuals between ±1.5 GE (furthest above the fit line is Applied Problems; furthest below is writing fluency)

Grade K.6 norm: GE also broadly linear over 50 SS point range. Residuals +1.1/-0.6 (Picture Vocabulary and Spelling).

Note that DS is about to come out with a dyslexia diagnosis.

All of this, of course, says nothing of his IQ, which does not have nearly the point spread as the achievement, none of which would quantitatively predict either the highs or lows of achievement.

Clear now.

The scaled/standard/all z-score-derived scores correlate with each other because all the psychometric work goes into making sure they do. That grade equivalent tables exist at all is an unfortunate concession to age/grade-locked teacher-thinking, which is an outgrowth of our warehoused approach to formal education.

One of the few times I find some utility in age/grade equivalents is when attempting to describe the cognitive development of extremely low functioning students (e.g., teens with skills at an infant level). Mainly because most people have no sense what that many negative SDs means. And because the number isn't nearly as important as what they can and can't do to interact with their environment. But just as with the other tail of the curve, there are so many developmental asynchronies and gap/splinter skills that an equivalent still doesn't provide a particularly accurate picture.

It's odd that we ever expect equivalents to be legit, when you consider that there -may- be one or two items at each grade level (whatever that might be) on a NRT like the WJ. Obviously, there is no way they can be comprehensive.

On the geek theme--a little light reading on norm construction, re-weighting, curve smoothing, with an example of a section of the age equivalent curve for one subtest:
http://www.riverpub.com/products/wjIIIComplete/pdf/WJIII_ASB9.pdf

Technical data on standardization; look on p. 17 for smoothed curves for major clusters, by age:
http://www.riverpub.com/products/wjIIIComplete/pdf/WJIII_ASB2.pdf
Not much detail, but it gives you an idea.

I think grade equivalent scales and mental ages are as important as z-scores. Suppose the distribution of intelligence were much more compressed than it actually is, so that only 1% of 10-year-olds were as smart as the average 11-year-old. You could still create IQ scores with mean 100 and standard deviation of 15, but the need to make special accommodations for children with IQ of 130 would not be so urgent, because they would not be that much smarter than the average child their age. When, in reality, 10yo children with IQ of 130 are about as smart as average 13-year-olds, this suggests the need for accommodations.

aeh, from the actual PISA report there is support for your statement although the comparison is to the top performing country being two years ahead in Maths than the top performing US state.

Key findings
• Among the 34 OECD countries, the United States performed below average in mathematics in 2012 and is ranked 27th (this is the best estimate, although the rank could be between 23 and 29 due to sampling and measurement error). Performance in reading and science are both close to the OECD average. The United States ranks 17 in reading, (range of ranks: 14 to 20) and 20 in science (range of ranks: 17 to 25). There has been no significant change in these performances over time.

• Mathematics scores for the top-performer, Shanghai-China, indicate a performance that is the equivalent of over two years of formal schooling ahead of those observed in Massachusetts, itself a strong-performing U.S.

• Just over one in four U.S. students do not reach the PISA baseline Level 2 of mathematics proficiency – a higher-than-OECD average proportion and one that hasn’t changed since 2003. At the opposite end of the proficiency scale, the U.S. has a below-average share of top performers.