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    TX G Mom - Thank you so much for responding! I suspect my daughter is similar to yours. As a psychologist, I could easily have my DD assessed by a colleague, or push the school to test her individually. But in some ways, I don't want to "meddle" if I don't have to. Any teacher who spends any quantity of time with DD pretty quickly learns that she is an outlier. If the school gives me any hassle, I will be on them. But so far, things seem to be moving along (albeit slowly).

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    A kid who does well on the CogAT is probably gifted. But the CogAt doesn't identify every gifted kid. Any kid who has trouble with timed tests for whatever reason is likely not going to be identified.

    Last edited by Kai; 12/27/10 07:50 PM.
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    Originally Posted by Drea4545
    But, as a parent, I know that verbal abilities are my daughter's strength!
    ...
    Anyone have an idea? I probably should request to see her full test battery. I know very little about the COGAT- it isn't something I use.


    Our ds10 had odd scores on the cogat as well, high-ish on verbal and actually quite low on quant., which I had always thought was a strength of his. Verbally he wasn't really all that super fast, but visual/math stuff he always just 'knew' (although sometimes he is pretty darn slow with certain rote aspects). But since then I have come to admit he's pretty great in verbal stuff, most of the time. He's certainly interested in it. I just figured the math part was not quite right for him.

    One thing that was a red flag that this test was pretty off was the special code you get for the learning profile...have you gone to cogat.com and plugged that in? Anyway, the one we got for ds said stuff like, 'place this child with faster children so they will absorb more over time.'
    This was just not something I was seeing at all, and finally after a couple years I have just gone over the school's head and ds10 is taking algebra and finally somewhat interested in math again, after several years of UTTER BOREDOM...so the cogat really does not work for all kids.

    Last edited by chris1234; 12/28/10 03:16 AM.
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    Originally Posted by Kai
    A kid who does well on the CogAT is probably gifted.
    I'll have to admit that this is just my own personal opinion based upon experience and talking with GT coordinators locally, but I don't necessarily agree that kids who do well on the CogAT are likely gifted. That, to me, is similar to assuming that all convergent thinking kids who read well or have high achievement scores are likely gifted. I realize that the CogAT is not an achievement test, but here's what I base my opinion on:

    * What is "doing well?" Many schools will consider a high score (95th percentile and up on any one piece) to be gifted. Most psychologists wouldn't consider a child who came out on any one piece of an IQ test (processing speed, working memory, one part of the verbal or perceptual reasoning subtest) at the 95th percentile to be gifted if none of the other scores were in that range.
    * Prepping is very, very common. There are a lot of workbooks out there to prep for the CogAT and kids who are pulled out for enrichment in the early 1st-3rd grade years due to high achievement or good reading skills are often "enriched" with critical thinking worksheets and games that help prep them for doing well on a test like the CogAT when it is administered.
    * The CogAT tests convergent thinking ability. The ability to see what the typical person would see and to see it very well isn't necessarily gifted to me. The child who can think outside of the box and create new ways to do things is, at least in my mind, likely more intelligent than the child who can learn the typical approach and regurgitate it well.
    * I, personally, know of two children who were ided as gifted based on 95th percentile CogAT scores in one area whose parents later had them retested on the WISC. Neither one was even close to gifted on the WISC. Both had higher than average (75th percentile+) WMI and/or PSI scores, but both also had VCI and PRI scores around the 50th percentile. One of these kids was tested twice two years apart b/c the parents were uncertain on the first WISC scores. The second testing came out a tad lower than the first, but at around the same spot. These kids had the 95th scores on the verbal or quantitative part of the CogAT.
    * Locally, about 15-30% of the kids who take the CogAT score at or above the 95th percentile on at least one part. I don't believe that we have that many gifted kids locally. We might have a somewhat higher than typical rate, but being generous I'd say maybe 7-10% are in the top 5%.

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    Not all schools give that score to plug in. My kids school doesn't even give you the score at all (unless you request a meeting to go in a see the score.)

    It is a good test, but it won't ID all GT kids. Just as one test might be better for a certain child than another test, this test is no different. Some kids just don't ever test to their true abilities while others pass with flying colors regardless of the test.

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    Well, the more I read about CogAT, the less I like it. But I guess the schools have to use something as a screening device. However, I am sure it is underidentifying kids, at least in the 1st grade, for further testing. It is true that this was the first "bubble" test DD ever took. And that is likely the case for the other kids in her class as well.

    Cricket2: My DD is in a "high performing" school. For instance, the third-grade Iowa Test average score was 90th percentile for math. That would put a huge swath of children eligible for gifted services if the school only used achievement scores (about 1/2). Iowa test scores above 90th percentile gets kids flagged for more testing, as does CogAT above 96th. The kids must also have creativity and motivation assessment scores above the 90th. Somehow the mixture of these measures brings down the number of kids eligible for services.

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    If they need all three, I can see that bringing down the numbers. Our schools need two eligible scores. These can come from the CogAT (ability), achievement, parent or teacher assessment of behavioral characteristics, creativity scales, leadership scales and maybe a few other things. Any two will do it.

    I, too, believe that the CogAT is underidentifying gifted kids, but I also believe that it is overidentifying non-gifted kids as gifted the same way achievement scores can. I guess what I am saying is that I generally don't think that it is a valid test of giftedness.

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    Agreed.

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    Originally Posted by Cricket2
    I, too, believe that the CogAT is underidentifying gifted kids, but I also believe that it is overidentifying non-gifted kids as gifted the same way achievement scores can. I guess what I am saying is that I generally don't think that it is a valid test of giftedness.

    The question is, is it overidentifying when you stick to a 99th percentile score defining giftedness?

    I'm in complete agreement that it is not a valid test of giftedness.

    Last edited by Kai; 01/02/11 07:09 PM.
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    Originally Posted by Kai
    The question is, is it overidentifying when you stick to a 99th percentile score defining giftedness?
    I don't know honestly. Are we talking about a composite score in the 99th percentile? I don't actually know any kids with scores in that range (at least not that have been shared with me wink ), so I'm not sure what that would look like in a kid.

    My hesitancy to absolutely say yes is that I do know kids with grade level achievement scores in the 98th and 99th percentile who have average IQ scores and who really don't appear gifted. Again, I know that it isn't an achievement test, but it also isn't an IQ test. Both that and that the test is multiple choice and relies so heavily on covergent thinking lead me to believe that is just isn't testing what we are being led to believe it is by schools (which is some variant of intelligence). That's not to say that some gifted kids might not score really well, but I'm not sure that scoring really well is a good indicator of giftedness.

    I could, of course, be wrong grin!

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