Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Help with Interpreting DD WPPSI Test Results

dear forum members,

Our DD passed her screening test with the board of education. Thank you so much for the guidance, this is process is still very new to us. We tested her because it was a requirement for entry to certain schools. We decided to give it a shot with no expectations, and now we're pretty excited she passed! I received a report, and would like some members to chime in on any interpretation, or suggestions?

DD Age during Testing: 4 years (48 months)

WPPSI-IV
Receptive Vocab - 13
Block Design - 19
Picture Memory - 12!
Information - 17
Object Assembly - 19

Full Scale IQ - Very Superior - Standard Deviation +3.0 (standard error measurement)

WJ-IV test
Letter Word Identification - 69%
Applied Problems - 93%


1. How do I translate this information to a rough approximation of her IQ range?
2. Test suggests she is really poor is remembering, but good in design and assembly?
3. Why is there a discrepancy between the tests? The WPPSI would suggests she is gifted, but the WJ suggests she's average. Curious what it means.

She is very young, and we're just trying to expose her to things where possible. Looking forward for some feedback!

Welcome!

It is unclear to me whether your reference to +3.0, surrounded by both the terms "standard deviation" and "standard error measurement" means. If it is a z score (which "standard deviation" would suggest), then the approximate FSIQ would be around 145 or so. If it is a reference to the SEM of the FSIQ (which "standard error" would suggest), then it tells us nothing in particular about the FSIQ, though we can infer that it is at least 130 from the Very Superior classification.

I assume that she was actually age 3-11 at the time of assessment, and not quite 48 months, as she was clearly administered the lower preschool level of the WPPSI-IV. Whether she was actually 47 or 48 months at the time of assessment, keep in mind that she is very young for stable scores.

So, to answer your specific questions:
1. at least 130, but possibly up to the 145 range.
2. No, she is not really poor at remembering--or anything else assessed here. Her score is the high end of average, which cannot really be construed as really poor. It is, of course, relatively weaker than her extremely strong visual spatial skills, but hardly an absolute weakness. There are many reasons a score may be low, especially one in an area such as working memory, and especially in a very young child. She may not have been perfectly attentive (which is not particularly unusual in a very young child). She may not have found the task entirely engaging (also not unusual in three year-olds). There may have been other factors (fatigue, hunger, distraction, lack of familiarity with the task-type, etc.) I hesitate to make any type of serious interpretation regarding a lower score on a memory task in a small child.
3. The WPPSI-IV is a cognitive instrument, which is the more appropriate test for classifying an individual as intellectually gifted. The WJ-IV is an achievement test, which indicates the level of academic skill a person has acquired/can demonstrate. One would not use the WJIV Achievement as a stand-alone instrument to determine giftedness. In the case of your child, again, she is very young, and may not have been exposed to or developed certain early academic skills--which is not that unusual for very young students who are later found to be GT. Some GT learners are very early readers, and others are not. The range of expected development for a certain level of cognition is very, very wide at this age. And of course, as with cognitive testing, achievement testing is vulnerable to the vagaries of very small child test-taking skills.

I should also point out that her mathematics skills are assessed in a range consistent with her overall ability, and with her visual-spatial skills. Her word-level reading skills, on the other hand, are very similar to her receptive vocabulary, suggesting that the profile of her achievement is consistent with the profile of her cognition. I would ask additionally if, by any chance, she is growing up in a multilingual environment, or if English is not her primary or first language, as that might be expected to have some effect on the specific subtests I mentioned (receptive vocabulary and letter-word ID). Typically, dual (or more) language learners, have some early lags in vocabulary, but then generally have better long-term metalinguistic (high-level language thinking) outcomes.

Thanks for the detailed explaination aeh!

Youre right - she is bilingual, although in a strange way. We tried teaching her mandarin but havent been very strict about it, so it ends up being a salad of a language.

I appreciate the write-up, it was very helpful.

Hi and Welcome. I am not a PhD so I can’t with great accuracy interpret your child’s tests however going back and taking a look at my son’s IQ test in lay terms very superior is an IQ between 120–140. And what your daughter is experiencing is very normal – it’s called scatter. Super high in some areas and average or below and others – and this is all typical normal with kids daughter gifted. My kid has a slower processing speed than other kids. Oh! My kid is bilingual and if your child is bilingual that can really change scores.

Also until you’re five or six years old I don’t believe you can get really stable scores. I could be wrong.

Each test has its own way of evaluating. My kid for instance scored differently on the WISC-IV, the WPPSI, the Stanford Binet, and the Woodcock Johnson tests. And he just got his results back from his PSAT’s and he was surprised and I was surprised at his overall score because he’s just not a great test-taker.

The other thing to remember about these crazy tests is that it’s just a snapshot in time. Lots of things affect these tests – did you get enough sleep the night before, was she hungry at the time of her tests, was she upset about something, etc.

So where do you go now - what do we do with all of this stuff - well, life is going to go on just like it did before. This might answer some of your questions about your child,that you were wondering about - or maybe not ha ha.

Keep doing what you’re doing. It’s all child led - let her be your guide in regards to what she’s interested in, and the subjects that she’s really interested in dig deep and give them depth!!

pdx, actually, Very Superior on this instrument is 130+. 120-129 would be considered Superior. But you may be including the confidence interval, in which case there is a little more latitude in aligning scores with classifications (though 120 is still too low to be Very Superior). Stable scores are generally more realistically acquired after about age eight or nine.

I would definitely agree that one must remember that any test is only a snapshot in time.