Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Gifted and Talented program decision appeal

We have recently moved to Texas and our children are in public school for the first time. They were recommended to test for the Gifted and Talented Program. DD(9) is very smart, learning comes easy for her and she loves it. She was reading independently at 4 and taught herself to bake at 7. She has journals filled with stories and business plans. She is always asking her teachers for more work and is full of questions. She is a perfectionist and gets anxious at new or surprising situations. She shows several outward signs of being gifted.

She was given the Cogat and didn't score high enough for the GT program. She did score evenly across the board with her verbal, quantitative and nonverbal. The school looks at the objective (cogat scores) and subjective data (grades, teacher inventories, portfolio). Her subjective data was all very high. She gets 100s on nearly everything, both of her teachers scored her very high and her portfolio was ranked high. We have appealed the decision and have requested that she be retested. Her achievement test (terra nova) from 2nd grade scores her 95-99 in all the math related portions. She could sleep through school and still make all As. How do you reconcile the test results and the high performance of a child? Is this poor test taking? What can I do to help her be challenged in school with or without the GT program? Have you experienced this before?

My DD(7) scored high enough on the cogat to earn acceptance to the GT program. She is less of a perfectionist and her scores are only slightly higher than her sisters.

My DS (5) bombed the Cogat, but I feel it was on purpose. He is a horrible test taker. When I can get him to focus, he does wonderful, but if he doesn't care, he just picks answers randomly.

Thank you in advance for your comments!

Welcome!

I think you'll find that a lot of families here had DC who scored less well on the CogAT than on true individually-administered IQ tests.

Would your district accept WISC-V scores if you had your DD tested by a psychologist outside of school? Our district (and most in our area) will only accept the WISC-V for gifted program admission. Cogat not accepted.

If your DD had a WISC score of 130+, you could definitely make your case for gifted services. (Our district is now up to 134+ for gifted program admission, which I personally believe excludes some DCs who do need those differentiation services.)

And speaking as a parent w/DCs who apparently do not demonstrate many "characteristics of the gifted" at school - until a WISC is finally administered - I'm here to say that I'd go for outside testing if you can. I have been there/done that/got the T-shirt(s). Even if your district will not accept an outside WISC-V score, at least you'll have additional info to advocate for your DD w/teachers on an individual basis.

Good luck!

The CogAT has a bad rap in gifted circles as a poor instrument for identifying gifted kids, but it's one that's widely used because it's a group test and easy to use. I believe the test format changes -- I think it's a picture test for the youngest, then has words in maybe 2nd grade, and speed will be a factor for kids who are slow processors.

If your district accepts outside scores, the results of an IQ attest like the WISC would probably be more reliable than a second administration of the CogAT.

FWIW, my older child is PG and a DYS but was excluded from our previous district's gifted program on the basis of CogAT scores the first time she took it. The second time she took it she was >99% across the board. One child, two massively different scores--kind of ridiculous.

Here are some older threads about the CogAT:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/155509/2.html
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....arch/true/CoGat_Question.html#Post222343

I am sure they would take it into consideration. We still haven't heard if the appeal will be accepted and she will be allowed to retest. I am having difficulty finding a place for her to take the WISC-V. How do you find a psychologist who administers these type of tests and what is the price range? We live in east Texas.

Update: They have accepted our appeal and are going to retest her. They will have her take the Stanford and Naglieri standard tests, along with a logic based activity and an interview.

I live in Texas, let me know if you need any more help. My kids have very variable scores on group administered gifted screening tests, but very high on individually administered tests. I would not trust the school districts to test my kids.

DD did very well on one version of the CogAT and a little more than a year later on a different (timed) version, she bombed it (except for the verbal section, which she completed). Was the version timed? If so, see if you can figure out how many questions were answered. DD did a timed version in second grade.

We had her tested privately and her general ability index on the WISC was 150. On the CogAT she was barely above average. Same exact thing happened to one of her friends. They were both too slow and careful with their answers and didn't work within time limits.

We have used an Educational Psychologist in Houston for testing. Not sure where in East TX you are, but if you are close to Houston I am happy to provide her contact information for you. She provides testing for the Wechsler tests which include the Wisc (6-16 years) and the Wppsi (2.5-7 yrs). There is nothing like a true IQ test to determine a child's abilities and level of giftedness. The Cogat is not a true IQ test, although it tends to correlate with IQ. There are plenty of kiddos who don't score high enough on the Cogat to be considered GT, but then have a very high score on an IQ test. In addition to the reasons given by the other posters (like the fact that it can be timed), the Cogat does not allow for elaboration on an answer. On an IQ test (or at least the older version of the wisc my daughter took last year), there are sections on the test that a child can elaborate and score more points per answer. If you have a highly verbal child, this should allow their true abilities to shine through. I have been round and round with the appeals process, and no matter what the grades, the parent information/referral sheet, or the teacher says about my child, the district is only interested in the test scores. To really strengthen your case I would highly recommend private IQ testing.

Thank you all for your comments. I am meeting with the District Coordinator for the GT program today to review her second round of testing. If she is still not admitted I'll definitely need your contact in Houston. We can do that over the summer.