Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC V split scores

My DS6 just sat the WISC V and WIATIII, and while I haven't received the report yet the psychologist told me of his scores.

She used the primary subtests, so there were two in each category. Every single one had a split!

I didn't​ get the overall IQ.

The psychologist did say that he found the test boring. She said that she thinks all his scores are below what they should be, and thinks in two years he will score much higher.

I don't know what to do with a profile like this! Surprisingly, his WIAT showed all areas around 90-95%ile.

He is extremely bright and very much an out of the box thinker. He hates school and does not want to participate or write, and has average grades. The teacher lets him read whatever he likes, thankfully. He has massive impulse control problems which he has been working really hard to control (and doing a great job!). He can be highly focused when interested. When he's not interested he will sit in his reading corner, but can still answer all the teacher's questions. He has received the reputation of being a "trouble maker" because he play fights when encouraged and is the last to stop and is the only one who gets caught.

The psychologist says he should be grade skipped but in a few years' time when he has developed better regulation and foundation skills.

I'm so confused.

BTW his serious and academic brother is PG and has been grade skipped twice, so the school has certain expectations. I'm not sure they'll take a chance on my wild child.

6 is very, very young - his impulsivity may have diminished a bit by 8 - maybe enough to get him to actually try on the test.

I feel your pain because grade skipping and after schooling in Maths made our DD go from being a person as explosive as nitroglycerin with just as little provocation to someone far calmer (most of the time).

Try some after schooling in areas of interest and participation in physical activity or martial arts to give him an outlet and help his self discipline would be my wholly unqualified and non-professional advice.

BTDT advice is just as valuable as professional, in its own way!

Where your evaluator feels these are low estimates of his true ability, and he's still working on his self-regulation skills in the classroom, I would agree that you consider them minima, and focus on feeding his intellectual stimulation needs outside of the school setting for a little while longer. School-based grade-skipping places many non-academic demands on little children, which you'll probably be balancing for some time to come. Though there can be a chicken or egg quality to some of the behavioral symptoms. (E.g., madeinuk's DC's behaviors appear to have been secondary to intellectual understimulation, vs our DC, who was equally a whirling dervish grade skipped or not grade skipped--though understimulation definitely exacerbated it.)

Also, I'm guessing your DC is still in kindergarten, or is a young first grader. There are pretty significant developmental/philosophical differences in teachers of primary students and intermediate (grade 3-5) students, especially in their ascriptions of intent. If current teachers are already perceiving negative intent, older grade teachers are likely to paint the behaviors even more negatively.

Thank you for both of your advice.

The psychologist has requested he be placed with a teacher of my choosing which is an excellent, compassionate teacher with understanding of gifted kids.

He has improved so much with his behaviour and effort I now have faith that he will improve further.

I also feel a grade skip should wait, but I also worry that he will grow to hate school more so in that time. I waited as long as possible to do testing until the point that he could actually sit and do the test and it be early enough to help him.

He scored highest on vocabulary, then figure weights, then block design, then symbol search, then picture span. Can you suggest where I might see these in real life academic abilities and what interests I can suggest to him? He is only interested in Minecraft and robotics.

I have thought about martial arts, but he has such a temper towards his brother I worry about weaponising his body lol

Thank you.

I'll​ repost this and hope that someone can answer:


He scored highest on vocabulary, then figure weights, then block design, then symbol search, then picture span. Can you suggest where I might see these in real life academic abilities and what interests I can suggest to him? He is only interested in Minecraft and robotics.

I see that I didn't answer your original question. Mainly, the statement by the evaluator that these were likely low estimates, due to his lack of engagement, I would hesitate to put too much weight on the splits or relative strengths, as illustrative of his true learning profile. With a great deal of hedging, I will note, though, that his strong reasoning subtests all have in common that they are the more concrete of the two contributors to the index score, which suggests that he is currently in a stage with more interest in knowledge acquisition than abstract application. This is not particularly shocking developmentally in a young child. It also indicates that he is doing just fine at acquiring academic skills at his level, doing whatever he is doing now.

Thank you for your reply.

I'm confused about his WIAT scores, as, aside from reading fifth grade level humourous fiction, he doesn't do any above level work. We don't do any academic work at home. Is this just a natural ability in maths, then?

Possibly. Keep in mind, though, that being able to perform at the 90-95th %ile in math does not necessarily mean mastery of skills qualitatively far above grade level, especially in the early grades, where much of the skill difference from grade to grade is in degree only, not in concept (e.g., if you understand single-digit addition and subtraction, there is no particular conceptual reason you would not be able to grasp multi-digit addition and subtraction, with and without regrouping--yet the average age-peer student does not achieve skill mastery of the latter skills without direct instruction and extensive practice). So a child who truly understands the basic math concepts of first grade will not all that startlingly be able to apply and extend them to skills not taught until one or two grades later.

Also, the average student does not show independent mastery of grade-level skills at their instructional level. They show mastery of skills somewhat below instruction, and developing skills for those for which they are currently receiving instruction. The norms order the examinee against the general population, not against grade-level instruction.

So yes, it's a bit natural ability, but it's also that your DC probably actually understands simple addition and subtraction, where most age-peers (certainly the ones in the US and Canadian WIAT-III norm groups; you may be able to speak more to the norm group wherever you are) are just implementing taught procedures. A symptom of one of the pervasive flaws in mathematics instruction in many western educational systems.

Thank you. It's such a surprise to find out that DS does have strengths, even if there's discrepancies. He is so different and wild, and I have been worried about how he'll go at school in the future. So to see his WIAT scores was amazing.

He doesn't have any interests in anything other than Minecraft and he thinks about all sorts of things but not exactly a tangible interest I can encourage. My eldest is so academic and focused, and he's well liked by peers and teachers. I sometimes feel sad about my youngest because he is so intense and misunderstood. I guess his scores really reflect how unique he is lol.

Thanks, again.