Hi all!
My basic question is about the Differential Ability Scale. More details are below, but the gist of it is to find out if anyone has experience with it, and how reliable is it in testing for highly gifted kids.
More details:
DS6 is current in DYS; he was tested with SBV and WJ III. We recently had our DD5 tested; she is also quite advanced, although to be honest, we really hadn't anticipated her being up at the DYS level. In her case, we used a psychologist who does testing in the home, who used the Differential Ability Scale, rather than the SB V [she can't take the WISC for another six months]. She felt this would be an equally valid test, and likes it because it does not take as long to administer to a gifted child who is relatively young and can't always focus for so long. Plus it cost us about a quarter of what the other tester charged. She has been doing this for a long time, and is retired from working for the school system; she also tested a friend's daughter who is in DYS, so I know she has worked with gifted kids. In the end, DD5 ended up scoring higher on the DAS than DS6 did on the SBV. This correlated reasonably well with the Woodcock Johnson, so I don't think it's a fluke, but wasn't sure how well the DAS correlates with the other ability testing.
Thanks for any information you have!
Susan
