As per the psych's instruction I contacted GATCA (the G&T Assn. of WA) and they advise that the subtest discrepanancy is likely due to learnt behaviour: i.e. as dd has never been sufficiently challenged at school her pervasive fear of failure will have stopped her from attempting any questions when she wasn't 100% sure of the answer, apparently research shows that this can be the case with as many as 1 in 3 kids, particularly if they are exceptionally gifted. This makes sense as the psych said she kept crawling under the table and hiding behind the couch during the PRI questions. K x
This is all very interesting to me. Thank you for posting about your experiences and thoughts everyone!
Our younger dd, age 10, has been IQ tested twice. Once her VCI was in the 99.7th and PRI was in the 99th and the second time, a year later, the PRI had dropped to the 75th if I recall correctly (VCI was similar to the first testing). Since she also did achievement testing @ the time of the second testing and it was more in line with the first IQ score, a psych she's been seeing recently felt that the first IQ score was likely more accurate. She has significant anxiety and was coming off a year in which her teacher kept telling us (and her) that she wasn't that bright and just "guessed well" whenever she scored highly on anything (including IQ).
B/c she is also a very divergent thinker, she has also spent a lot of time hearing that her answers are wrong as she approaches things so differently. The above quote is interesting to me for that reason b/c I can certainly see in our dd's case that she has learned a fear of failing b/c, in her mind, she has failed at a lot. It also hasn't helped to have an older HG sister who is a superstar student.
