Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help with DD's test scores

Just looking to understand her profile better. She took the WISC IV about a year ago, when she was 7. Here are her scores:

[deleted]

The person who tested her stated that the Perceptual Reasoning subtest was more difficult for her and she gave up easily when an answer did not come immediately. Perfection and anxiety were apparent on the working memory and processing speed subtests.

Verbal comprehension was a strength and perceptual reasoning created some emotional challenges for her. Tester recommended we work with her on puzzles.

My experience of her is that she is very interested in social aspects of school but not academic. She is very creative with regard to arts and crafts.

DD took the OLSAT this year and did not pass. I had purchased a practice OLSAT so I could get her used to the test (my older son did not pass either, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't anxiety due to feeling uncomfortable taking the test.) She did not score highly enough in the practice exercises we took at home either so it wasn't performance anxiety, and I knew it was unlikely she would pass.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any insight.

My DS7 has nearly the same WISC profile (though he hasn't taken the OLSAT).

The only insight I would have is that, if she is anything like my DS, she's not interested in school academics because it is not even close to being challenging enough for her. Do you have any options at all for acceleration? Is the OLSAT the only way to get services for her in your school district?

Do the scores from the OLSAT seem to reflect the same strengths/weaknesses as the scores from the WISC IV?

DD10 has a very similar WISC profile (especially in reasoning; with DD, though, her WMI and PSI are flipped, with WMI as her weakest area). DD has never taken the OLSAT, but has taken the CoGAT. DD's CogAT and WISC scores showed the same relative strengths (VCI/verbal), and her CogAT composite percentile was 99%.

DD's PSI was in the 99th percentile on the WISC (although still much lower than her VCI). DD tends to do very, very well on standardized tests. I have a theory that such tests (especially timed tests) favor kiddos with a high PSI, like DD (perhaps even unfairly so). Also, DD is not much of a perfectionist.

Are you dealing with a school/programs that will only look at the OLSAT? I believe that WISC is typically considered more accurate than OLSAT (individual testing versus group testing), although I know some programs are stubborn about only accepting their own tests. Those WISC scores, if accepted, can get her into just about any G&T program that will take them...

DD's overall happiness with school has gone downhill. She started school as a very enthusiastic student. Now, she seems to mainly enjoy the social aspects and calls school "boring." She is now in G&T and advanced programming at school, but I have come to suspect that she actually needs something that looks more like acceleration to stay engaged.

Okay, here are her OLSAT results.

[deleted]

By the way, What Do the Tests Tell Us provides a very interesting take on the OLSAT that may be directly related to your DD:

So it's a bit ironic that the OLSAT, which is often used as a gifted screener, may actually act more like a gifted masker in some scenarios.

Both my kid appear to be creatively gifted kids. My son is an amazing artist with a crazy imagination, and my daughter can take a piece of fabric, cut some holes in it, wrap it in a certain way, and make a dress you could put on a runway.

Academically, they look just like the other kids at school. Unless you ask my DS about cryptids, biology, DNA or dangerous animals…

This kid is also obviously creatively gifted, and did not pass the OLSAT http://rafranzdavis.com/braedens-story-our-gifted-child-isnt-gifted-says-olsat/

As a generalization, highly divergent thinkers often do not test well on group standardized testing, especially those with forced-choice formats. Similar inconsistencies between their performance on self-selected activities and school-selected tasks may appear.

Individually-administered cognitive assessments tend to have more open-responses, and, of course, include the clinical judgement of the examiner.

Interesting. I would have pegged my DD as a pretty creative or divergent thinker (full of original-sounding ideas), but when the school gave its "creativity test"...it was the only test she came out as average on (not sure that I think much of the test, honestly). Then again, since she is a good standardized test taker, maybe she isn't a divergent thinker.

In general, privately administered IQ & achievement tests may identify whether an individual is gifted, whereas school-administered tests may indicate whether a child is a match for whatever type of gifted programs/services that school may offer.