Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy The score results

Well, I guess I was just looking at the bottom line: crazy scores mean that the child is too GT for a test not designed for GT kids, and that a standard public school curriculum with no adaptation probably isn't going to work for that child.

I agree that it can't be taken a whole lot further than that just from the test alone. What adaptations are needed for a given child depends on many factors, not just test scores, as I think we both agree.

I just took issue with the "completely useless" comment. Useless for some things, certainly, but potentially at least a little useful for other, broader aims.

P.S. I think curriculum-based assessments would be more persuasive for advocacy, if they're available. But if one has the AT for other reasons, I think it can be one more bit of evidence in the child's favor.

I think AT results can be useful to a point.

My dd like others, has her passions and sometimes, she is less interested in some subjects than others.

We noticed that in one subject, if anything she seemed to be going down hill and had taken a placement test at her new school which put her down a grade from where she had previously been in online.

I did nothing at first but let it be, as I wanted my dd to settle in. However, after initially saying she was liking their online program in this subject, she reverted to going back downhill. This I found out by looking at her results online one day.

We then approached the school and reminded them of our child's AT results in that subject. As the AT results were a good six months old at that point. We suggested her real level of abilities with that subject, were something like this:

AT GE + another grade because at least six months has passed and whilst we could see no visible evidence, then was internally probably some improvement + we then rounded up to the nearest grade.

That produced an approximate leap in grades of 2.5 grades.

The school agreed to this logic and put her into the new grade for that subject.

Thus far a month later, that has worked out fine and if anything my dd is much more motivated and back to being happy in a subject, that she was steadily declining in.

So, really I wouldnt write off the value of AT, especially if you see your child hit a brick wall on a subject.