I just got my 2nd grade daughter's Cogat scores today and they seem really varied. I'm not sure how to interpret them.

107 Verbal (67%)
123 Quant (92%)
138 NonVerbal (99%)
127 Composite (95%)

She did not make the cutoff for the 135 prereq for our G&T program, but she was high enough that I can "submit her for review". I feel like there are things (Math) that my daughter would really be well suited for in the gifted studies and perhaps not others. So I'm not sure if submitting would be the right call considering her verbal is so low. Any advice? I'm new to all this.

I'm not familiar with the Cogat but I think you should definitely submit it for review. The nonverbal score is very solid and I would think that despite the lower scores she could benefit from a G&T program or advanced math. I have heard that quite frequently gifted children don't do as well on the Cogat for various reasons. So it's possible that your child's verbal score (and/or quant) could be higher.

Can you get outside testing to submit with the review?

CogAT is a very imperfect instrument in my opinion, schools rely on it too heavily because it is cheap and easy to administer. IF possible, I would get outside testing, like WISC-IV and submit that with an appeal. But I would also find out first if they would accept outside testing as if can get expensive.

I would definitely submit for review. In our school district they administer additional tests during the review process. You could also talk to your school GT coordinator about your concerns. What is the worst that can happen if you submit for review?

My EGds also scored below "gifted" on his CogAT Verbal... but we already had other IQ data so I was very suspect of his scores, and in researching found that the CogAT can be unreliable in predicting giftedness among highly gifted students. Re wondering if the gifted program is the right choice for your dd when her strengths are in math and you're not sure about others such as Language Arts (just guessing there).... this is my advice - my ds is also a math/science kid, likes history etc, and is not at all a fan of writing/language arts. The absolute best educational choice for him has been to place him where he needs to be in the areas of his strength (math/science) and support him in the other areas.

I suspect you might be surprised by another test too - even though my ds isn't all that passionate about language arts, and he is clearly a math/science type of kid, his scores on verbal ability tests are actually very high.... except for that danged CogAT!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thank you for all the replies. I've been doing a LOT of reading and thinking in that past 24 hours. I was just truly so surprised at how low her verbal score was as well as the wide range. Then I read on a diff post on this site about how NV scores indicate visual-spacial learners, and also how many G&T programs put much less emphasis on NV vs Q and V. Which all got me to thinking...

When my DD reads aloud to me, she reads too fast, skips words, replaces words with incorrect words. She assumes she knows what it says without *really* reading it. Prior to these scores, I didn't think much about it. I thought she was only doing it when reading aloud because she was trying to read more fluidly, emotively and perhaps even impress me a little bit. (They did a whole "readers theater" workshop in her class. Awesome!) Also, nothing has come home from her (excellent) teacher indicating concern. Her reading level is a P (4th gr). Teacher did say at conference however that I should be working on identifying the "authors message" with her at home though.

So... now I'm wondering if she's doing this while she's reading to herself. Is that why she missing the authors point? And is that why that score was so low? And... if her gift is visual spacial, how can I use that gift to help her in other areas?

@polarbear, I posted my reply before I saw your post! You hit it on the nose! Apple doesn't fall far from the tree either. I was exactly the same way! (SAT: 740math / 420verbal) I'm a software engineer. Figures...

I have heard quite a few instances where there is a big discrepency between Cogat & individual IQ. My own PG DS scored below the gift on his Cogat math and was therefore disqualified for ous school district gifted program. My friend's son who is PG too. Both he and my son have 30-40 points difference between their IQ and Cogat scores.

Unfortunately in some public school the gifted program teachers only believe Cogat and doesn't take IQ score tested outside of the school into any consideration. They believe that the Cogat scores can accurately identify the truely gifted kids because high Cogat scores always turn out high IQ scores in their experience. Just like my PG DD, she got 160 in Cogat.

We also saw about a 30 point difference between IQ on the WISC and the CogAT and, like others, IQ was in the HG+ range (right above DYS requirements with very erratic scores and a number of ceiling scores). The things I've found interesting are;

1) I hear this kind of thing a lot with HG kids and especially with 2e kids
2) In my anecdotal experience, the nonverbal scores are a better indicator of a kid who will do well on an IQ test than are the other CogAT indices although the other indices are the ones schools usually use for GT ids
3) I have seen things come out both ways: kids who have individual IQ scores that are much higher than their CogAT scores and, unlike the part I quoted above, kids whose IQ scores are a good deal lower than their CogAT scores (usually with high achieving good students who do well on the parts of the CogAT that schools look at: verbal and/or quantitative more than nonverbal)
4) the strengths and weaknesses often do not line up btwn the CogAT and IQ. For instance, my kiddo who I mentioned above, has twice taken the WISC. Both times she had ceiling scores within the verbal comprehension section and that whole section came out above the 99th percentile. On the CogAT, nonverbal was her strongest area and verbal her weakest. She is 2e FWIW.

I am actually having the same issue except mine scored a 40 on the verbal. However, the person that gave the test was apparently extremely rude and refused to even speak with the kids. That complaint came from all of the kids in the room.

I am fighting the district like crazy right now. The appeal paperwork is getting put in right after we finish the MAP testing. Mine is in 2nd and tested on the MAP reading today. According to his score he should be starting 5th grade. He takes the MAP math next week. I am really interested in seeing that one. Math is his best subject by far.

There are ways to fight it which I am doing right now. Mine also visits the psychologist on the 15th for full testing.

I talked with a gifted progam coordinator in a public school who is supposed to be extremely experienced in gifted children. The program that she is in charge of is on top of the nation. I mentioned to her about a research paper done in 80s that describe the correlation between the group IQ test like Cogat and individual IQ test like WISC. The result is that the correlation between two only exists among the ordinary people. That makes sense for them to use Cogat in general population. However in the gifted population, the correlation starts to disappear. Furthermore, the negative correlation even shows up in about 30% of cases. This means that the higher IQ the lower Cogat. To my surprise she never heard of it. She said that all the students they selected for their district self-contained program based on Cogat score turn out to have high IQ. Therefore she believes that high Cogat equals to high IQ. Low Cogat equals low IQ.

I think her maths is a bit dodgy. The fact that people who do very well in the Cogat turn out to have a high IQ it does not follow that those who do badly in the Cogat have a low IQ. It is a common sort of mistake but it is sad to find it where you hoped for better.

My DD had somewhat of an opposite profile than your DD. She had a 99+ percentile in non-verbal, 98th in verbal & a 67th in quantitative -- more than a 30 point spread. Of course, according to Riverside and her score profile we should have challenged the validity of her testing. In her case, the scores were high enough for our gifted program.

These scores were enough of a red flag that I made it my personal mission to find out why such a difference. Four years and much testing later, she has a 504 for motor/visual integration issues (dysgraphia, though not officially diagnosed).

If you think something is not quite right, further testing may be your best bet.

Do you have a link to that study? I'm not questioning it at all, but would be interested to read it. I know that Hoagies has mentioned a study like that on the OLSAT, but I hadn't heard the same for the CogAT.

Like I said earlier, our one CogAT experience was not great (plus it was done in a classroom with more than 30 kids, parents walking in and out and talking, and the teacher telling them to just guess and finish if they were running out of time, and a kid with ADD, so it probably would have been bad news either way regardless of the test...). We just wound up having to pay to have dd retested on IQ b/c the CogAT was deemed to show that the first IQ test was due to good guessing. When the second set of IQ testing on three separate measures still showed a HG kid, they quietly backed away from that assertion.

My child got similar unrepresentative scores: verbal 81%, quant 94% nonverb 97%, composite 95%. We are appealing the results because he was so close to the requirements for the HC program -and the verbal was the first test administered, so the Coordinator said that could have contributed to the lower score.

I hope you get the results you are looking for!!