Hello, I'm a new member with a big concern about our school wanting to retest using the Cogat. It's a loaded question, so I'm sorry that it's so long.
I have two children who were placed in gifted program using private testing in NC nearly 2 years ago. In the meantime, we moved abroad for one year and are now in Georgia (US) permanently. Since it was within two years from the private testing, we presented it to our school for consideration in gifted program here. They have looked over it and are asking to completely throw out those scores and retest using the Cogat for academic and mental and teacher rankings for creativity and motivation (the later two were not tested previously).
DS is currently in 2nd (held back a year for maturity and processing speed) and DD is 4th.
Once my daughter's mass second grade Cogat scores came back (two years ago), we were alarmed, since they were so low (compared to psyed done two years before that), so we returned for private testing and also had our Kindergarten son evaluated at the same time (scores below). DS's second grade cogat at that time: V: 88, Q: 69, NV: 54.
To complicate matters, both were also diagnosed with ADHD (which would, IMO, invalidate DD's 2nd grade cogat scores, since she was not yet dx or treated and tested in a distracting setting).
Both are now medicated and reported as model students, but no official IEP, 504 or testing accommodations have been implemented at school. Teachers say they see no signs of ADHD. My concern is that we don't want this cogat to be the test that determines if we need testing accomidations or not. Apparently, if they don't qualify on this set of testing, they are locked out for two years from trying again. We've been through so much, with strong behaviors at home, I feel providing some challenge at school might help alleviate. Their school work is way, way too easy and I receive push back for any extra work at home.
To further complicate matters, both have a huge processing speed delay, which I think may impact testing more than attention, since we seem to have that under control. Also, no child ha had any formal testing or test-taking prep since that time (no tests were given abroad) and they missed a year of the common core curriculum.
Would you be concerned about the use of the cogat for a child with this profile? What does the Cogat manual say about this? Is this included in the norms? Are there accomidations I should ask for?
Private Testing scores (2 years ago)
DS (Kindergarten at the time of testing): WISC-IV: FSIQ: 130SS (98%)/GAI 140SS (99.6%); WJIII-ACH: %ranks: 97, 98, 99 & 95
DD (2nd at time of testing): WISC-IV: FSIQ 138 (99%) & GAI 148 (99.9%); WIAT-III: % ranks: 95, 81, 98, % 99
The above testing MORE than meets the requirements for gifted placement here, but they are throwing it all out for the cogat. What do you suggest I do? Any suggestions? Please help!
Thank you so much!
