Tricky? Yes, one could certainly call her that!
I had seen that first thread, thank you. Familiar with one of the testers mentioned, though no personal experience with her.
How can we tell if a tester is one of the good testers? (I only have the one experience, so no comparisons.) How do we know if we've had a tester that didn't get the right info? Does experience with gifted kids usually mean a good tester for gifted kids? (I did read that second thread, too.)
I do wonder if this particular tester we had, who advertises her experience with gifted kids and was suggested by a gifted school, was a good experience. I don't think there were any issues with dd's scores. I think the psychologist may have substantially underestimated my older child's scores though (either that or I am a little dilusional, which could be possible I guess as I am his mother). The tester's report stated that the VC scores were best understood as an estimate due to the scatter in the subtests. So, would the fact that she noted that make her a good tester? Or, could some of the scatter have happened because of a mismatch (tester/child)? I told her that ds has severe issues with time limits, so she didn't tell him he was being timed on one of the perceptual reasoning subtests. She also told me that she let him continue after the time limit and that he completed all the tasks (although she could only count the ones he completed before the time ran out). I think it was block design, but I'm not sure. Which one of those subtests is timed? She mentioned a possible attention issue and suggested more investigation (possible ADD). Now that he's older it is obvious that he does NOT have ADD, but I can see how she may have had trouble keeping his attention during the testing. His mind does tend to wander from the task at hand when he's not interested. Testing was 2.5 years ago.
I do have to say that I like the type of information from ds's WISC-IV better than the more limited info from dd's WPPSI. We don't need more testing, so I don't plan to do more. Dd homeschools, but is having issues with reading (reads two grade levels above age/grade level, but constantly loses her place, eyes tire quickly, and sometimes struggles to sound out words possibly due to not seeing all the letters in the correct order). She has an appointment with a neurodevelopmental optometrist next month. Hope to discover something that is treatable. She is nearly 7 (WPPSI was done at 4). I want her to enjoy reading.
Thanks for any thoughts you can share.
-Kate
