Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Figuring out old test scores.

Hello.
I'm currently a Junior in high school, and I recently re-discovered some ancient test results (IQ and otherwise) that I'm not entirely sure how to interpret. The degree of scatter is startling, and while the tantrums I was prone to throw when faced with trying circumstances under the age of ten undoubtedly played a role, I don't know if they alone are sufficient to account for the observed discrepancies.

I was administered the WISC-IV at age 8 as part of an evaluation for possible LDs due to non-academic difficulties with school. The results (with extended norms) were as follows:

VCI: 164 (>99.9%)

• Vocabulary: 22 (>99.9%)
• Similarities: 20 (>99.9%)
• Comprehension: 19 (99.9%)

PRI: 104 (61%)

• Matrix Reasoning: 12 (75%)
• Picture Completion: 10 (50%)
• Picture Concepts: 10 (50%)

WMI: 113 (81%)

• Digit Span: 14 (91%)
• Letter-Number Sequencing: 11 (63%)

It was noted that my performance on LNS was likely impaired due to distraction and frustration. The PSI subtests were not administered due to a refusal on my part to complete timed tasks. BD was aborted after I threw the plastic blocks across the room when I noticed a mistake in my work, and PCm was substituted for it. A previous (separate) BD test gave a scaled score of 15 (95%), and the SB-V Non-Verbal Visual-Spatial Processing subtest, which was given with the WISC-IV, yielded a score of 12 (75%).
However, another psychologist gave me a nonverbal test, whose name I cannot recall, several years later. The resulting score was 148 (>99.9%), which is quite inconsistent with the WISC.

I failed to gain admission to my district's gifted program due to onerous group testing requirements. In early elementary school, my CogAT was slightly below the threshold, but verbal achievement was >99%. This shifted in 5th grade, with my comparatively abysmal math achievement and Quantitative scores dragging down my above-requirement Cogat V, NV, and verbal achievement.

None of this testing information would be of the slightest interest to me if not for one thing: my career plans. I've become significantly more adept mathematically since the last batch of tests, to the point of having taught myself vector calculus with H. M. Schey's book before entering HS. It is my current plan to become a professor of physics, and all indicators suggest I'm capable achievement-wise (e.g. 5 on AP Physics C: Mechanics test as a Freshman, As in Intro to Quantum Mech. and Intro to Complex Analysis as a Sophomore, 36 on ACT Math at age 15). However, I am concerned that my spatial ability might be a significant hindrance if the WISC was correct.
Many studies suggest that visual-spatial reasoning is crucial for success in STEM research.
At the uppermost level, Roe's psychological study of eminent scientists in 1953 indicated that all testees possessed S.D. 15 spatial IQs in excess of 123. This is in all probability partially due to a strong floor effect on the multiple-choice "VSM test" designed for Roe by the ETS, but I still doubt that any successful physicist could score in the average range for perceptual reasoning.
In light of this, do these scores suggest that it would be unfruitful for me to pursue a VS-intensive field like physics in a professional capacity?

Welcome!

The most important two pieces of context for your early testing are your report that you were not fully testable (apparently for emotional/behavioral reasons) at the time, and that you were young. Both of these (but especially the first) suggest that not too much weight should be put on your lower scores on the WISC-IV (principally in the PRI). It is possible that you have relative weaknesses in visual spatial domains (as throwing the blocks may well have been a chicken-and-egg situation, where the behavior was an outgrowth of the difficulty of the task, rather than the task having been spoiled purely by the behavior), but that does not preclude mathematical strengths (the best predictors of math ability were either not administered or didn't yet exist on the WISC-IV).

FWIW, it is possible that your true VSI/PRI is closer to the 120s than the 100s, but also possibly not. Depending on what you were given for the later nonverbal test, I suspect that instrument was more parallel to Matrix Reasoning than to BD, and likely was a measure of fluid reasoning rather than visual spatial thinking. Of course, FR is even better correlated with mathematics reasoning than VS/PR is. Some areas of physics (e.g., not classical) are likely less dependent on VS than they are on FR.

But generally speaking, I find that present performance is a better predictor of future performance than past performance is. Especially where the data that causes you to doubt your potential in a field of interest to you is already questionable and inconsistent, I would focus more on present measures that demonstrate you are capable of physics achievement, as predictors of future physics achievement.

IOW, I see no reason for you to give up on your dreams, just because a test given seven or eight years ago, when you were in a challenging place in your life, doesn't match typical patterns.

Also, goals can grow and change, as you experience and learn more about various fields of study. Pursuing an academic physics career, as appealing as it currently appears, may lead you into areas that you find even more fascinating and rewarding.

I agree with this completely.

I've never taken an IQ test, but my profile seems to be similar to yours, and I had similar goals to you at your age. I did the first two years of a physics major and did decently well, but decided to drop it because other interests called to me more. I don't consider the time in physics class wasted.

I think I do have a genuine spatial weakness compared to the average person, not just a relative weakness (learning to drive was extremely painful for me, for instance), and that did make a lot of physics work challenging - I had a hard time picturing some of the situations in physics problems, and had a dreadful time with things like vector cross products. I still got As and Bs in physics classes, and I had the ability to finish the major; it just didn't seem like enough reward for the effort when the intensive course in electromagnetism came up, and so I switched to computer science. Someone with my abilities who was more motivated to do physics could probably have gone on to graduate school in it.

You're not stuck with what you decide on in high school for the rest of your life - you're not even stuck with something if you get an undergraduate or graduate degree in it. Not to mention, with the economy the way it is, no one is guaranteed a career track that they'll get to stick with forever; this is even more true now than it was when I was in college (undergrad class of 2007).

Even if you later decide physics is not for you, what you learned studying it can enrich your knowledge of anything else you decide to pursue. No learning is wasted.

Anisotropic - Your post struck a nerve. A bunch of them in fact. I have a DS who has dreamed of being a theoretical physicist since he was about 3, and has a school and testing history not unlike yours.

First thought: Elementary school math is typically all about computation, and tends to reward speedy calculations. It's not that uncommon to have strengths in conceptual math, but also weaknesses in retrieval of math facts. In other words, you can be really good at math, but still really bad at the stuff they call math in elementary school.

Second thought: While WISC testing is generally fairly reliable and stable by age eight, there are exceptions, too. Here's one such story; take it for the anecdata it is. Like you, DS was tested at 8 (just for giftedness). But he was also tested again at 10 (for writing LDs and anxiety) and 14 (LD and ASD). From virtually the moment he was born, he has always shown an incredibly affinity for math. In school, he had enormous problems with writing and, as he grew older, language expression more generally. Yet the testing at 8 showed high verbal, average fluid reasoning, overall mildly gifted. He was compliant in the testing, liked the tester, and she thought the results were reasonably accurate. And yet, there were some pretty major discrepancies with what we saw in real life.

When school problems cause us to do more testing a couple years later, I was both profoundly shocked and yet somehow also not at all surprised that DS's scores jumped up about an SD overall. We got a picture that was more in line with what we experienced in real life, but there were still some real oddities in the data, and overall results still suggested language strengths and math weakness, even though his real-life achievement was the opposite. After another four years of escalating school problems, more testing (and first time with the WISC-V, so we expected scores to drop), and most everything's gone up yet another SD or two, and for the first time fluid reasoning tests not just in the gifted range, but PG. Visual-spatial, on the other hand, has gone from being his super-power to his lowest score (except processing speed), because of the timing requirements. With that caveat, the testing finally presents a picture that feels rather more like this child, who has been notably unusual since literally the day he was born.

So what changed over those 6 years? I don't know. Did the earlier tester simply miss how much DS's anxiety and inattentive ADHD affected his willingness to give answers when he wasn't absolutely certain? Did he actually develop and grow that much, and the tests genuinely reflect where he was at, at that time? Did LDs and some ASD-like weaknesses get in the way of his ability to respond to certain kinds of questions? All I can say is, testing is pretty reliable, but it isn't infallible. When one-off, one-time, very specific measures don't seem to agree with your much more complex reality, trust yourself, and trust reality.

Because if I'm going to be totally honest here, I've read the same kind of studies you have, and have had the very same fears over the years. I've often wondered if DS was just surfing on high VS and working memory and was going to hit a mathematical wall, a hard limit on his conceptual capacity, at some point. Should I should be gently nudging him towards, well, almost anything other than a dream that only included theoretical math or physics? But math brings him joy, genuine, true joy. And I am so glad that at no point did I ever give room to that fearful voice that tried to whisper, "but what if at some point it gets too hard?" Such a day may or may never come. Live in this one. Believe in this kid that I see, and the evidence of my own eyes (and, hmmm, testing results that seem to be slowly catching up to what we felt like we already knew?!). In the meantime, he's learning, growing, expanding his horizons to know there are also many other choices out there in the world - but at this point, it's still the theoretical math that brings him joy. I hope it always will.

p.s. love your username

aeh, pinewood, Platypus, thank you for taking the time to respond to my post. I apologize for the delay in my reply, but I have been quite busy in the intervening months, which is, all things considered, probably for the best.

Two facets of the early testing that I did neglect to mention in my initial post are that I have an Asperger's diagnosis (this has been observed to result in MR/BD/VCI > PSI/PCn/PCm, but is somewhat perplexing considering my high score on Comprehension, which the psychologist considered a probable underestimate due to flippant answers to several items) and that I was taking escitalopram at the time of the evaluation (broad cognitive impairment suggested, e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0229-z).

I do recall encountering figural content of the type found on an MR/Raven's test during the second assessment, which might well have been with an instrument akin to the RAPM. Even so, the jump from 12 on the WISC matrices subtest to 148 (about 2.53 standard deviations) is more than a little strange. PCn would also seem to fit more with the FR cluster than VS, which only amplifies the weirdness.

aeh, your hypothesis does appear to fit with which topics in physics have been easier for me to learn. I've had greater difficulty with visualizing complicated scenarios in classical mechanics than with Green's functions or operator algebras in quantum mechanics, for instance. On the other hand, visual proofs (especially for conservation laws and diffusion) are mostly very intuitive. As far as interests go, I'm actually leaning more and more towards biophysics as a potential area of specialization. I took a few upper-level bio courses at one of the two colleges I'm dual-enrolled at this year and really enjoyed them, but I'm not wedded to the idea.

Lastly, how "accurate" would a GAI be in terms of the WISC results? I know that the diverse indices make broad statements about ability suspect and that DYSP/PGR take a high VCI on the WISC-IV (>=145 for DYS, >=160 for PGR) as sufficient evidence of a high LOG, but having *only* the VCI in that range makes it look like an outlier regardless of its g-loading.

Please don't be too hard on yourself. In trying to understand the behavior of your younger self, it may help to know there is a difference between meltdowns and tantrums. It's unfortunate if neither the parent(s) nor the tester made the distinction.

In order of your questions or points:

- My experience with learners on the autism spectrum is that very high-functioning ones often are able to perform quite well on Comprehension, as it doesn't measure how you actually perform on social communication and interaction tasks--only how well you are able to articulate the conventions for doing so. Obviously, you have consistently demonstrated very high language-based intelligence, so learning how to use language to describe a set of conventions isn't necessarily a greater challenge than any other set of rules. I often see a disparity between Comprehension and rating scales of those same learners' IRL application of the conventions.

- I've also observed that, quite often ASD learners become increasingly testable as they become more conversant in the conventions of standardized testing over the years, and in the conventions NT learners use to ask and respond to questions. Consequently, striking increases in test scores are not all that unusual (in particular, many others have observed that tests requiring pointing-only responses seem especially confusing in the early years--perhaps there is insufficient context and corrective feedback). So it's a dramatic rise, but not unprecedented in this population. And yes, PCn has been aligned with FR on the newest edition of the WISC. But in my experience, it also seems to be easily interpreted by divergent thinkers in ways not anticipated by the scoring criteria.

- Glad to hear you're starting to find yourself attracted to some specific areas. I have some memories of my biophysics (mostly macromolecules and fluid dynamics) coursework--I can imagine some possibilities there for you. Keep an open mind, and continue exploring new topics; I think you'll begin to see patterns in your interests and best fits.

- I probably wouldn't bother interpreting the GAI in addition to the VCI. It's too broad a range of index and subtest scores feeding into it. And you don't need a similarly high GAI to validate classification as PG with 2e features (you have at least one identified second exceptionality, in the form of ASD).

It sounds like you've had a good term in school. I'm happy for you!

Unfortunately my positive experiences in school have only been a recent development. Public school was profoundly mismatched to my personality and learning style, and it didn't help that everybody involved discounted the possibility of even baseline giftedness due to my poor performance on the CogAT. In elementary school the ASD was addressed by having monitors follow me everywhere and manhandling me into a "safe room" (the use of which has, thankfully, now been banned in my state) as punishment for even the most insignificant of offenses (e.g. swearing). At one point the police became involved. I'm at least glad that nobody thought to diagnose me with paranoid schizophrenia, because I distinctly recall thinking that everybody was out to get me. At least I had a reason.

I continued receiving special education services and no accommodation of my ability (even when it began to show in the form of consistent ceiling achievement scores in both math and language), all the while believing myself not to be especially capable. I knew about the CogAT results, but not the individual testing. Supposedly using the WISC would have been "unfair" to those who couldn't afford outside testing. Well, not accepting it seems unfair to 2E kids. I may be an affluent white male, but I hardly ever feel as if I've been tremendously privileged.

The district grudgingly granted me three years' worth of math acceleration after I took courses over the summer and a teacher advocated for me, but I was not permitted to advance into calculus even though I had already taught myself at the age of 12. Perhaps jumping so far ahead of grade level in such a short span of time was unthinkable for somebody of what my intellectual caliber was perceived to be.

I transferred to a private school for 9th grade and have been much happier since. They have had no qualms about letting me take courses at a local college and my state's flagship public university. I only wish I had discovered the opportunity to do so sooner. I'm now taking classes around 5-6 years above my grade level in math and 4-5 in science, but they feel too easy. I never have to study to earn 97+%, and it's starting to create some cognitive dissonance between the perception I used to have of myself (maybe bright, but not extraordinary) and the feedback I receive from those around me.

It can take time to shake off the effects of early negative experiences, but I am encouraged that your recent years have been so much more appropriate to your needs. What you describe as cognitive dissonance can also be conceptualized as corrective reality testing, as more accurate feedback from your environment gradually affirms your identity as a capable and resilient individual. As more positive years become part of your personal history, the new healthy narrative will become increasingly the arc of your life story, while the bitter years will fade into a kind of prologue, possibly even one that can help you to become a more compassionate person, who understands, as you note, that even individuals who appear to have every advantage (whether in SES, education, physical strength or beauty, etc.) may bear invisible burdens.

I believe in your ability to become a stronger, kinder, and more creative person than anyone who may have misperceived you in the past could have imagined.

Digressing, has anyone retested around the age of 18, after final brain development and compared to tests from 6-8 years old? I was told by a PhD in testing that scores very often went up or down 10-20 IQ points and wondered if anyone had that experience.