Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment SB5 useful?

My daughter recently took the WISC-IV and got a really wide spread in her scores. The school unfortunately thought nothing of it. Because they only recognize the FSIQ, they will not provide gifted accommodation (she missed the FSIQ cutoff, but would easily qualify if they'd look at her GAI). Even more disturbing, they seem to be ignoring the red flag raised by the wide discrepancies in her score. I understand their motivation for ignoring the high scores (they have a cap on GT enrollment), but I don't understand why they would ignore the discrepancies.

Just now I shared her scores with a psychologist outside the school system, and she immediately suggested further assessment with the Stanford-Binet. She suspects 2E and wants to explore.

So now I have two questions for all of you:

1. What will the SB5 show that the WISC-IV doesn't?

2. In your experience, will having results from another test taken outside the school assessment procedure help at all in terms of the school?
Given the school's seeming indifference about any of this, it seems to me necessary that I bring in an outside consultant. On the other hand, if they're not responsive to results from a test that they administered, why would they suddenly become responsive to someone/thing else? Plus, bringing in an outside consultant seems somehow aggressive to me, even though I don't want it to be. Has anyone else done this and had it gone well? and if so, how did you approach it?

I've not been in your shoes but just from reading others' experiences, I would first bring your concern to the school that a psych you contacted is concerned about 2E issues given the spread in scores so that you can find out if they are receptive to an outsider's opinions. Some districts have an approved list of psychs they will believe - thinking that IQ scores can be purchased I guess. If they are fine w/ the person you've spoken with, I say the more data the better if DC is willing. Now if they won't accept info from an outsider, it's your choice. IF you want the info for your own knowledge about your child, then go for it. if your school has someone they prefer, talk to that person and see what he/she makes of the WISCIV spread.

SBV could show different results. I've read that the WISCIV is for more verbal kids and SBV for more mathy kids and/or kids who have timer anxiety.

FWIW, my dd took the WISC IV twice with her IQ scores varying by more than 20 pts btwn the two administrations. Both times she came out gifted, but the first time bordering on PG and the second time just barely at MG. She also took the SB5 at the same time as the second administration of the WISC (one yr post the first admin) and came out bright (like 1 SD above the mean), but not gifted. The test administrator said that she had some very odd and divergent answers on the SB that hurt her score a lot dropping one section into the 16th percentile. On the WISC IV, the first time around her scores varied from around the 50th percentile (I don't have the results here, so I don't recall exact #s) to the 99th percentile. The second time they ranged from the 25th to the 99.9th w/in subtests.

We also had the WIAT (achievement) administered b/c that is supposed to help diagnose LDS and her scores on that and another reading achievement test were in the 98th-99th percentile on math, reading, and writing, so there is no LD according to the psych who tested her.

For the most part, we are happy with the psych and with the ruling out of LDs, but it still doesn't answer questions for us on erratic scoring and I take some exception with the note that the psych put in the report that dd is less able than her sister whose WISC score is a few points above the second administration of dd#2's WISC and that she shouldn't get any special services in school that make her stand out b/c she is self-conscious about being different.

This is, of course, just one anecdotal story, but I don't know if the SB5 is going to tell you whether your dd has LDs or give you the answer. At least for us, it left as many questions as it answered.

eta: dd also took the RIAS ability test during this same second testing process and the score for that one was not able to be calculated due to wide discrepancies btwn subtests.

mmme, maybe it would help if you reframed it from "aggressive" to "assertive." This article Assertiveness and Effective Parent Advocacy is written for parents of children with special education needs. Even though in many states, the law doesn't address the special education needs of gifted children, those needs still exist.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/advo.parent.sherrett.htm


http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/test.iee.steedman.htm

Our tester is no longer using the SB V for any testing because he did not like the results he was getting. He feels like the old version (SB IV) is a better measurement tool.

Sorry wish I had more details as to why the results weren't trustworthy. Maybe after our next appointment???

Nevertheless, it may be worth asking about the SB IV too.

Did you get any more details on this, SP? I've read Ruf's report (warning: PDF) "SB5 Assessment Bulletin Number 3", and she says that the gifted population in the norming sample for the SB5 had an average score of 123.7. (She cites the SB5 Interpretive Manual itself for this data.) Presumably this gifted population had an average score > 130 on some other test or tests prior, so this suggests that the SB5 might score low for gifted kids. And Ruf concludes exactly this in her report: the standard gifted categories, she says - 130 for MG and 145 for HG+ - do not apply to the SB5. Gifted cutoffs are lower on this test.

From memory I think we have some anecdotal evidence for this around here. I think I remember that Kriston's now DS8, for example, showed a supporting pattern: low(er) on SB5 at 5ish and high on WISC IV a year or two later. And perhaps JBDad's DS too? I can't remember.

Still, there seems to be a countercurrent that suggests the problem, if there is one, is in the other direction. One sometimes hears rumors of kids - especially in the 5-6 y.o. range - scoring extraordinarily high (perhaps artificially high?) on the SB5. I'm pretty sure I saw Dottie say this once, but I can't find the post. Am I mis-remembering Dottie? Were these really results for the SB4 instead of the SB5?

Anyhow, the question is what we are supposed to take away from these conflicting impressions. Are the results from the SB5 artificially low? Artificially high? Are they really just right? What kind of discontent are people feeling with the test, if any?

Or maybe just a first question to Dottie and Kriston and JBDad: am I remembering correctly what you've said?

Puzzled (as usual),

BB

My fuzziness on the SBV is that kids are scoring either very low or very high - there is no middle ground. Anecdotally, i know two boys who I bet money (and I don't gamble often) are both HG++, and both scored 130FSIQ on the SBV and it wasn't just that one subtest skewed the scoring. Both boys score nearly across the board 99.9% in achievement on WJIII. The tester for one of the boys was questionable (school did the test) and the other tester was a gradstudent being overseen by psych so I don't know how much that factored into it. OH, and both boys are very HG+ in math and SBV is reportedly better for mathy kids.

SB5 has similar scoring to the WISCIV FSIQvsGAi due to the low scoring by previously identified gifted kids.

All this ambigiuity and on top of that, the lower ceilings...schools look at IQ scores and laugh. 140? Ha Ha Ha we've had plenty of kids w/ a 140. 150? NO problem - plenty of kids just like him. But my impression is they are confusing the scores w/ the old SB-LM and scores in the 180s-200.

With the priviso, I know little about testing!

The tester that we used said something like 6 year olds tend to do the best on SB5. Still she only has less than handful in the 150s on the SB5 across all ages.

When you consider the shape of the tail, it means to me that any line drawn up in 'tail land' is such that there are 2 'hair's breath' of difference kids sitting on the sad side of the line for every 'skin of their teeth' child on the happy side. AND when you consider that most of the kids in the tail are in the 'skin of their teeth' region, not the upper reaches, that is a lot of sad faces! And a lot of teachers shaking their heads!

So, my solution? There have to be a few different 'gifted programs' so that there are NO CHILDREN who aren't getting their special educational needs met.

It might look like this:
For the top 10%: School sponsered contests and activities such as Odessey of the Mind. Self selected. Lots of afterschool activities.

For the top 7-4%: Subject Grouping within a grade level.
For the top 3-2%: Freely given subject acceleration into the gifted group in a higher grades. Use Accomidations freely, so a child who is ready for 5th grade math in K, but doesn't have the handwriting skills can still participate in some reasonable way.
For the top 1%: District wide Self Contained classroom.

OK, this may not be perfect, but its cheap, and it would provide a way to met everyone needs. We could stop spending money on assessment to prove that kids are gifted, and just let kids request what they think they might like. We could teach the character trait of flexibility and self knowledge, and being willing to try things that might now work.

It just seems so obvious to me. I must be insane. Oh well.
Grimity

I know of 2 districts who do just that Grinity! They have 3 tiers of *giftedness* each with it's own accommodations.