Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment C CAT

First, I apologize if this is long.

Does anyone have any experience with the Canadian Cognitive Abilities Test (C CAT)?

DD5, in Senior kindergarten in Ontario, was given this test by her school's special Ed teacher, as an initial screen to being designated gifted. She scored above 99th percentile in the verbal and quantitative sections. I don't know what her percentile was for non verbal - as her teacher just quickly mentioned that DD had completed the test at pick up and informally mentioned those scores to me. I want to find out the non verbal score to see if there is a large discrepancy.

DD5 is going to be put on the list for a psycho-educational evaluation. Is the C CAT a good predictor of the results of a psycho educational eval? DH and I were surprized by this score. Of course I've known for awhile that DD is pretty sharp, I've been posting on this forum off and on for the last two years, but we expected results in the low 90s not above 99th.

Is there any significance that her higher scores were in verbal and quantitative? Do those sections depend more on previous experience? The definitions on google of the non verbal section states the non verbal section involves detecting essential similarities and relationships and doesn't require info the student has gained from previous experience.

I feel like I have imposter syndrome. I actually asked DH yesterday if getting above the 99th percentile could be a fluke. Are these scores the result of us being involved parents and reading to her every night? We don't officially school at home - but we work on printing, because of her weak fine motor, and have discussed topics like adding, multiplication, general human anatomy, basic ideas about physics when she's asked about them.

In the back of my mind,though I don't rationally believe it, is the mantra, "everything evens out by third grade." Is she going to even out as the other children get older? My gut reaction is no, and even her teachers are saying no she's going to test gifted, but there's still a part of me that's in disbelief.

Sorry for all of the rambling. I have a lot of thoughts swirling around. Any thoughts on the C CAT would be greatly appreciated.

Hopefully someone can offer a more CCAT specific piece of counsel, but this is what I was able to find in a short search:

- The CCAT, from my reading, closely resembles the COGAT. (Please see CCAT sections, see pp. 3, http://www.assess.nelson.com/documents/CV-02-10.pdf)
- There is a predicted 90-97% correlation between the COGAT form 6 and WISC III for grade 6 results. (see pp. 12, https://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/docs/dlohman/CogAT-WISC_final_2col2r.pdf)

A few caveats:
1. Assumes CCAT ~ COGAT
2. Assumes grade 6 and SK tests have similar g correlation across tests
3. Old test versions' correlations may be outdated

1.yes, they are the same test, but restandardized for the Canadian population.
2&3 are still caveats.

Greetings from another Canadian imposter

My DS8 did the CCAT a while ago but the school hasn't shared the results as of yet. When they do I can let you know how they compare to his WISC results. It is meant to test ability as opposed to achievement which generally depends a lot more on environment and exposure. Of course despite their best efforts to focus on ability I'm sure there are ways that knowledge comes into it which is why things like testing ESL kids can be a challenge. I don't think any amount of enriched environment is going to make an average (or even high average) kid test above 99th%ile.

From what I've read and heard the CCAT is a decent predictor. The main criticism I've heard is that it misses kids more than it over identifies (2e kids for example). My DS is 2e so I will be very interested to compare his results.

Finally, onto the imposter stuff. I had a similar reaction a couple years ago with DS's first WISC scores but eventually came around. Yesterday we received his new even higher WISC scores and I'm going through a second round of shock so I empathize.

One thing that helped me put it in perspective was thinking about it as 1/X where X is how many people have a particular IQ or higher. Looking at around 90th%ile (120 IQ on this chart) you're looking at 1/11. Moving up a bit then look at 135 (99%ile) and it is 1/102. And so on. Thinking about my graduating class of around 500 kids and it seemed like less of a shock (at least for me, of course YMMV).

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx

As for the evening out thing, this has certainly not been the case for us. The older DS gets the more obvious it is becoming. Of course our DS was/is very asynchronous and in many ways was behind in school rather than ahead until reading finally clicked for him.

My feeling is that for that age group, the scores will be heavily dependent on outside learning rather than actual IQ. Some kids that age don't even know their numbers yet, may not have learned counting, and wouldn't do well on the quant section. It doesn't mean they are not bright.

I think the non-verbal section would be more represenative of real cognitive ability, so it will be interesting to get that score.

That being said, she did a good job and she obviously needs some enrichment or acceleration in school, at least for the time being.

Thanks for the links Aquinas and aeh for the confirmation.

Chay (my fellow imposter!) I was hoping you'd chime in. If you don't mind sharing how your son's CCAT compares I'd be interested to know. You can PM me. I tend to agree with your comment: "I don't think any amount of enriched environment is going to make an average (or even high average) kid test above 99th%ile)" It's good to know that there are people out there who empathize with the shock.

Blackcat, I agree that the non verbal section could be more representative of real cognitive ability. I believe she completed that section yesterday afternoon. Not sure if the teacher had that score available or if it was lower but I'm going to email and ask what it was.

Thanks for all of the input.

I'll PM when I have the scores (if you don't hear from me in a couple weeks feel free to PM and remind me - things are bit extra crazy at the moment).

No experience with the CCAT and not for K, but FWIW - DD9 was tested in 2nd on CogAT and scored a composite 99%. Her WISC IV a year or so later was above 99.9%, with relative strengths mirroring the CogAT results (highest Verbal on CogAT/VCI on WISC).

I have not heard as many stories about the CogAT overidentifying kiddos, as I have underidentifying gifted kiddos (it seems to miss many here who later have a high WISC score). I tend to think that a high CogAT score, then, is usually not accidental.

Another Canuck reporting in.

DS10 did the CCAT a couple of years ago, in grade 3, so I've paid attention when it comes up in discussion. He was also 99th on both sections (I think that's as precise as the scores get, and I don't think they did a non-verbal section). So his CCAT was consistent with his WISC.

Comments I have seen are generally similar to the CoGAT experiences reported here: it's OK for a group screening test, but it IS a group screening test. So it's short, it's comparatively more reliant on knowledge than abstract cognitive thinking, and it's nowhere near as dependable as a much longer, one-on-one, proper assessment such as the WISC. I have seen many posts on our provincial gifted forum describing children who did much lower on the CCAT than the WISC, especially, as Chay notes, in 2E situations. With a fairly young kid, I might wonder if there's more room for higher scores too, reflecting greater exposure to advanced materials, though aeh can holler if I'm over-extrapolating there.

Overall, what I have advised some friends is: the CCAT gives mostly reasonable scores, so if your scores match what you see in real life, they probably are reasonable. If you see a mismatch, though, question the CCAT before you question your own sanity.

That said, eyreapparent, if you've been feeling comfortable on this board for two years, I would strongly suspect the accuracy of that 99th!

Thanks Loy and Michelle for the data. Very useful, I'm learning a lot about C CAT/CoGAT. I'll try holding off on questioning my sanity, though with my kids sometimes that's a herculean task!

Chay, thanks so much and no rush

So, emailed DD's teacher not expecting an answer until Monday but she happened to message me (We really lucked out with her the past two years)

Her result for Non Verbal was 93%ile. So Stanine 8. That seems like a noteworthy difference. Not sure if it's typical to have two sections at Stanine 9 and one at 8.

Apparently, special ed is also going to do reading assessments with DD. That's a whole other story, but I've got a grip on that and we are working on a plan to skip over the regular phonics work in the curriculum.

This forum is fantastic. Thanks again for everyone's help.