Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Choice of IQ and achievement tests

I am not sure what to recommend, partly because I think a lot is going to depend on finding a person to administer the tests who is flexible and patient and wants to figure out your ds rather than rush through and just test him and outa there, kwim? We have also found that private psychs in our area usually have a specific set of tests they administer, so I can't go to psych A for instance and request the SB5 if that psych administers the WISC etc.

Here are a few random things we've run across in testing our ds with fine motor skill challenges that might help narrow your choices:

Will your gifted program accept the GAI on the WISC? Ours will but doesn't tell anyone that they will. The timed subtests on the WISC are the subtest under Processing Speed and one test under PRI. If you use the GAI calculation the processing speed tests are automatically thrown out and only the one timed PRI subtest will impact GAI.

As MumofThree mentioned, the WJ-III Achievement tests show the challenge of timed vs untimed in the way scores fall out for kids who have challenges with timed tests and with handwritten responses - so its possible to use them in a way to show that the lower results are impacted by the challenge rather than lack of ability. That said, our gifted program did NOT accept our ds' WJ-IIII achievement scores because of e lower scores on timed tests. When that happened, our neuropsych suggested we have another private tester administer a "form B" of the WJ-IIII Achievement tests (apparently there are two versions so that a child can be tested more than once per year) and to have the second set of tests given with oral response. I think the fluency tests would still be timed, but don't know for sure. The main thing I gathered from this is there is some flexibility potentially to give accommodations on the WJ-IIII Achievement tests. FWIW, we didn't do this but substituted a different achievement test.

ERBs - our kids take the ERB through their private school, and it includes a combination of ability plus achievement. Our ds receives his accommodations that are in his 504 for this testing, which include extended time. All of my kids, with and without LDs and accommodations, tend to score in approximate range with their ability levels on the ERBs. This is also true of Terra Nova with accommodations, which our public school uses.

I think the important thing to do is to attempt to get yes accommodations similar to what he will be allowed to have at school - which yuan get for at least some tests. When our ds was given the CogAT through our school district he was given extended time and oral response accommodations. He took the CAT-5 at Sylvan and I think (but can't remember for sure) that he was given oral response and extended time accommodations.

Last thing to look into - our school district's gifted program only uses innate IQ tests as one set of ability testing, and from what I gathered when our ds was tested, considered learned ability tests with the same weight as innate ability tests - so in other words, a child who doesn't have qualifying scores on the WISC, WJ-III Cognitive Test, or the SB-5 can still qualify with scores on CogAT and other "learned" ability tests - which unfortunately I don't know the names of because we had qualifying WISC scores.... but if you can get a list of the ability tests your district will accept you may be able to find some that can be given without timed tests etc or with accommodations.

I hope some of that random list helps! Good Luck!

polarbear

Eta - forgot to mention - our ds has had both WJ-III Cognitive and WISC - on the WISC his GAI is significantly higher than FSIQ due to timed tests in the processing speed section. The WJ-III Cognitive doesn't have a calculation similar to the WISC's GAI, it only gives a GIA which is similar to the WISC's FSIQ... yet my ds' WJ-IIII GIA is in range with his WISC GAI. I also like the combo of WJ-III Cognitive with WJ-IIII Achievement testing because the subtest results can be combined in different ways to show strengths in many different ones of areas. The way that works for each of my kids tends to result in the one area of challenge beisolated to one area, but a lot of areas of strength also show up... I'm not explaining it very well at all! I just feel like I had more specific info from that combo of tests and that the challenge of fluency was minimized relative to the WISC because there were a larger set of subtests on the WJ-IIII.