Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment compounded confusion WPPSI III

Hello and greetings to you all

I�m from Melbourne Australia and very new to the domain of �giftedness�.

My son was recently assessed using WPPSI-III and WAIT-II and I have been trying to put meaning to it all�
Parental instinct told me I had a bright cookie �.but now that my son has turned 6, I�m wondering how best to maintain his wonderment and zest for learning (he�s a real bright eyed wonder with a zillion and one questions coming at me all the time)�he is able to master topics at a fast rate, however �zoning� out is common He�s a happy and well like student at school and his usual areas for improvement are usually �needing to sitting still� and not �blurting out answers��.hehe but how? that�s him�But�I think (instinct again) I need to start advocating more for him�

The school psychologist said ds6 (I�ll get a hang of all these acronyms eventually ) results were �extreme� but that I shouldn�t rely ? on them because his reading level was very high for his age(???)
Okay so then that means???..results are unworthy?...tainted??�.compounded confusion
Help�I�m interested in dissecting these results, ascertaining the level of giftedness and am wanting to know how big a black hole is (ds6 last query )

WPPSI-3 (5 years 10 months)
Verbal IQ score 134
Performance IQ score 134
Processing speed 144
Full scale IQ 155

Individial subtest scaled scores

VERBAL � Information 16 Vocabulary 16 Word Reasoning 14
PERFORMACE Block Design 14 Matrix reasoning 15 Picture concepts 16
PROCESSING SPEED Symbol search 17 coding 17

Also we were told that his ability to identify words from sight was at around 11 years
And decoding was around 15 years �

I await your esteemed responses �

Wow--is it the high processing speed that bumps the FSIQ up so high?

Here's a start on the black hole question; seems they are not very huge...depends on the mass of the original star.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=160

There should definitely be some folks around here able to flesh out those numbers for you - they look like amazing scores!!

The Schwarzschild Radius tells us how big black holes appear to be. No one knows their actual size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius

As for our local sun, you can tell him that a lot of people think that its center is composed of a superconducting superfluid surrounding a black hole. Some people think the Earth and many of the solar planets and some moons ( ie IO ) have black holes in them that were created during the big bang.

Wow-- that processing speed score is *really* high. I'm going to guess that is *is* the high processing speed that bumps the FSIQ up so high; my ds (at age 5y5m) was in the mid 140s for both Verbal and Performance on the WPPSI, but a 119 for processing speed -- and his FSIQ came out in the upper 140s. So it would seem that the really high processing speed put your ds over the edge -- 155 really is incredibly rare.

I'd be curious to see the WIAT scores as well! I understand what you're saying, Dottie, but it's also possible that the IQ score isn't accurate due to the low ceiling on the test ... if the reading score is higher than expected, could the IQ results be lowered from low WPPSI ceilings? Though I guess there are only really one or two ceiling scores there ...

Dottie's the expert, listen to her! She taught me everything I know (almost).

No, no, no! Our sun and the Earth do not have black holes inside of them! Any object can have a Schwarzschild radius. It is merely a ratio of the mass for a given volume... i.e. a density. If an object reaches a certain density, then the gravitational energy will cause it to collapse into a black hole. The sun and the Earth have a certain amount of mass. If you squeeze all of the mass of the sun, for instance, into a sphere of radius =3 kilometer, then our sun would gravitationally collapse into a black hole. The Earth's mass would have to be squeezed into a 9mm sphere in order to generate a black hole.

Trust me, it's not gonna happen anytime soon!

WHew - that's a relief ebeth!

Dottie -- my ds's scores that fed into the FS were:

19, 18, 18, 17, 17, 16, 14

... a total of 119, which yielded the FS 148.

From what I understand from KG's scores, it's the fact that all 3 are high that bumps up the FSIQ so much. KG's PIQ and VIQ were 144 and 143, respectively, and the PSQ was down at 119 (he got a 17 on Symbol Search but only a 10 on Coding).

OP, that score is nutty! As Dottie said, we're not used to seeing that, especially on Processing Speed! Usually it is the Processing Speed that's lower, not higher, than the other scores.

My ds's WIAT scores were also "higher than expected" for his IQ scores ... Dottie might have better insight on that side of the equation.

Hey Dottie, could you please explain what you mean when you say, "...any time you have scores in that range, accuracy is questionable." Do you mean for the WPPSI or the WISC-IV or both? I ask because my dd is in that range and I had the impression that in that range it might mean there were ceiling issues and the score could actually be higher. Do you mean that it's actually more likely to be lower?

I don't know Mia, it still doesn't look right. DS had

PIQ 142
VIQ 149
PSI 131

His subtest total was 120 so his FSIQ was 149. I think the FSIQ is determined by the subtest total. I don't think it's weighted in any way (except by the number of subtests in each category.) I could be wrong, though! I don't have the scoring manual.

If you add up the OP's subtests you get

17+16+16+16+15+14+14=108

If I were the OP, I would get this double-checked with the tester. Maybe some of the subtest scores were reported wrong.