Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Raven's v. WISC and the Visual Spatial Learner

I am never sure whether to be brief of detailed...

In brief I sat DD 9yrs in front of this version of Raven's matrices today:

http://www.clipsite.com.ar/HOME/Salud/Test/Raven/

She scored 51/60, which apparently is an IQ of 136 (obviously this is a non verbal number only).

What I am trying to make sense of is how this ties in with her WISC-IV scores from 2 yrs ago:

VCI 126
PRI 115
WMI 83
PSI 112.

We are having her retested with a gifted specialist using the SB-V in October, which will provide useful new formal information, but I am wondering how much weight to give the Raven's result in the meantime.

I think the Raven's correlates with the matrix spatial part (?if I"m naming that correctly) on the WISC. The Raven's is just one part of the WISC, which tests alot more things. So you could be very spatial but not so verbal. I do think the IQ of 136 is terrific and hopefully it gets her into whatever GT program is available to you.

Ah she's still in special ed at the moment :-). But catching up fast. But I have every confidence that she's going to need the GT program in good time, which might cause some consternation at school! I am not sure they have too many crossing over from special ed to GT. Though I have heard of at least one kid going from special ed to scholarship in the space of a few years, now that I think of it.

But back to the WISC - as you say, the raven's is supposed to map to part of the PRI in WISC, but 2 yrs ago she actually did better in the VCI not the PRI! I have just recently asked the tester for the sub test scores on her WISC, so that might reveal that she did really well on matrix reasoning but poorly on some of the others.

She was very aware of how behind she was academically at the time she was tested, and pretty anxious and down on herself.

I just put 9 for her age. She's 9yr 2 mths and from what I understand the 9yr norm is 8yr9-9yr3. Though I am having trouble finding much information.

I don't think there is any correlation between Raven's and the WISC VCI. I was just confused that on the one hand I read that being a VSL she should be stronger in PRI but she wasn't in the WISC-IV. The Raven's on the other hand WAS higher than her WISC VCI, which makes more sense. Then again, she may just test better all around now that she is less anxious and less inclined to shut down after being unable to answer a question. October will be interesting and we probably don't have any real need to know more before then.

I do think this will be her last year of special ed though :-). Particularly now that I know what to do for her to teach her to spell and she's learned a great deal of the yr 4 math curriculum in the last two weeks (we are on holidays, first day back tomorrow). I feel like she's really finding her feet at the moment, which is lovely.

So, out of curiosity I plugged dd10 in at a 10 y/o although she is 10.5. She needed some help at the beginning as to what they were asking her to do in that the instructions were in Spanish and then she wanted to know if she was getting paid to do this -- lol!

For comparison sake, she has ADD and is a highly erratic tester but has taken the WISC-IV twice (at 7 and 8). Her matrix reasoning scores were 14 and 12 respectively and she got 54/60 on this which it said is the 95th percentile and then an IQ of 136. I'm not sure how they work that unless they're using a SD of greater than 15.

I wouldn't put a ton of stock in my kiddo's scores and how they correlate with a real IQ test, though, given that her PRI scores went from the 99th percentile on test #1 to the 75th on test #2. She's just not consistent at all. Her VCI scores stayed more consistently very high.

eta: re Dottie's musings about kids with attentional issues and this long of a test, she did get up a couple of times and then come back to it to inquire again about what she would get from doing this. I told her that I was trying to figure out if it worked and she then wanted to know if people who spoke Spanish were given all of the right answers in the Spanish instructions and how that wouldn't make any sense... Basically, we had a lot of side conversations going with her then getting back to the screen. I'm not sure if she'd do as well without someone willing to humor her and carry on conversations about other things during the testing.

95th percentile seems to be as high as the charts of ravens norms I have found state. So I think more correctly it should say "above the 95th".

I am posting from my iPhone when I should be sleeping, so more thoughts tomorrow...

Ok, back after some sleep. I found it fascinating that both of you brought up ADHD and this test!

When DD saw the Psychologist 2 yrs ago it was for investigation of learning delays not giftedness and giftedness was never mentioned by her as a possibility afterwards. The psychologist noted in the report that DD tired easily, was restless and vague in her answers and often lost focus. That she complained of being tired when tasks required effort or when she needed to listen to instructions but that she did not have the same difficulty when she could listen while also looking at something relevant. After the ADHD talk came and went, Auditory processing disorder and possibly dyslexia were talked about as possibilities, this was all in person but not really mentioned in the report.

Just last week, as I was booking into a 2E conference it was suggested to me that the majority of kids this person knew who were strongly visual spatial learners with auditory processing issues/deficit had all been diagnosed with inattentive ADHD once they hit high school. And interestingly that their auditory issues had resolved on treatment for the ADHD. We were strongly advised to investigate now, even if we don't think we would change anything now, so that when she needs help in highschool it's been long documented.

In our case though this possible ADHD seems to have impacted the WISC more than Ravens. With the Ravens I tried once before, she did about 5 and refused to do anymore (boring and annoying I guess). Yesterday afternoon I felt she was in a good space and tried again. I left her alone for about 10-15 mins and when I came back she was getting annoyed but had only 19 to go. So I gave her a piece of chocolate and sat with her, chatting with her a bit, and taking the opportunity to point out where her Dad and I had made mistakes as a chance to model that everyone makes mistakes and we aren't phased by them.

So she got a long way in on her own but I did have to help her stay happy and focused through the end. And she was also pretty quick (20-25 mins?) so didn't spend long enough at it to get too bored. I would say she did it at the same speed I did, partly just on my vague sense of time passing and partly because once I sat down I had generally only just worked out the problems again when she would make a choice and move on. Interestingly this was about half the time it took DH to do the test when he did it but we all came out with scores in the 135-137 ball park.

Ya, me again. Driving home I remembered that I also had DD4yrs9mths do this Raven's test a few weeks ago, in between the two sessions of the WPPSI testing. She scored 90th percentile for an 8yr old (the youngest age it would let me enter and proceed with the test). I am guessing that equates to higher than 90% for a 4yr9mth old but who knows without norms.

What was interesting to me is that Matrix Reasoning, which this apparently equates to, was the section of the WPPSI that DD was doing so badly on that the psych decided she was tired and pulled the plug! And Picture Concepts & Completion, which I think are closely related, and use the same types of pictures were her weakest scores (both 13s).

I have no idea how matrix reason compares between the WPPSI and WISC, do they use similar pictures (really poor cartoony images)? I wonder if my kids found the pictures hard to relate to compared to the more adult style and straight pattern analysis of the Raven's.

Just out of curiosity, I had my ds10 take this test this morning. He is adhd inattentive and unmedicated today because there's no school. He had rolled out of bed minutes before I sat him in front of the computer. I didn't feed him breakfast. His 2 brothers and 2 sisters were in and out of the kitchen (computer room) the whole time. So I basically set him up for failure
At first he seemed interested in the test. Maybe for the first 10 questions. Then he asked why he was doing the test, why it was in spanish and what "Raven's v. wisc" meant. After about 10 more questions he tried to decode the spanish text. At that point I went to shower so I don't know if he got up or not. When I came back he had 19 questions left. He did about 10 more then helped his little brother with a video game (5 min break). Then he finished.

He scored 46/60, 95th percentile and IQ 133. On the wisc he scored 143 on PRI with a 19 in matrix reasoning. So, what can we learn from this? I should never open up a gifted testing center in my kitchen.

Sounds like this could be a useful tool for gaining entry to GT programs everywhere.