Many years of data have found a small but persistent gender gap in spatial abilities,which recent research suggests is exacerbated by gender disparities in play, adult expectations, and responses to failure. On the bright side, these are all amenable to intervention, and the skills themselves are fairly malleable.
For your child, yes, it is possible this test underestimates her ability, both because of the discrepantly low BD score, and simply because of her youthful age. Scores generally are considered more stable around age eight or nine.
For placement purposes, I typically suggest end-of-unit or end-of-course exams taken from the actual curriculum the school uses. Test up level by level until her score drops below about 80 to 90%. That will give you some sense of when she transitions from her mastery level to her instructional level. If having grades that reflect her normative status by age are important, then I would use 90 as the cut score. On the other hand, scoring in the 70s on a unit prior to instruction is still pretty good (so using 80 as the cut score), and bodes well for scoring high after instruction (so it doesn't eliminate the likelihood of high grades, by any means), but also gives the student a little bit of opportunity to experience the process of learning as something more effortful than unconscious absorption.
Last edited by aeh; 02/13/17 07:19 PM.
