Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Bright Son, but he wouldn't cooperate for WPPSI

I am pretty dissapointed and am looking for anyone who may have gone through something similar. My DD (5.9) took the WPPSI-3 this morning. ...well, he started the exam. My child would not cooperate to complete the test. While he is an agreeable kid, he is very stubborn (this same child was so adamant about not being potty trained that he constipated himself for 6 days (back at age 3.5) .
This psych tests gifted kids all the time and she said that he seemed very uncomfortable and uneasy in the situation. Even with breaks, he wasn't attending to the task at hand. He did answer nonverbal questions for her and was doing well with them.
This is a child that is typically VERY verbal and will chew your ear off about any sport, the best players, and it's current statistics. Yet he wouldn't answer "What is a dog?" for the psych.
I am frustrated and fear that without a gifted score my child will not be challenged in our public school system. He will continue to coast (in kindergarten he's always placed with struggling students so he can help them. These are kids struggling with site words and while he can read chapter books.)
Anyone face this type of dilemma?

Hi, welcome!
ususally 'ds' -- 'dear son' is what folks use for the male kids.
dd is for dear daughter, just fyi.

5.9 might be really too old to sit well for this test -- it might have been zero challenge, and thus the behavior issue.
I am sorry to hear that, we had our dd4 take this at just barely turned 4. I am pretty sure if she took it 8 months from now that would be a 'goof-fest'....

Good news is, there are other tests, even beginning at age 6, that could be used to get a better picture of your child's potential. I know they cost $, but might be worth considering. Did your tester recommend this particular test?

Gah, that sounds terrible and familiar. A couple of things you might try: 1) Explaining over and over, over a long period, how IQ tests are set up on purpose to make everybody fail some questions, and that that's the only way they can find people's limits; and 2) Searching for easy testing opportunities that you can use to build up testing confidence a little bit (DORA and DOMA come to mind, as you can do them over the web at home, and I think the Raven matrices test mentioned here recently is another one like that).

I'm sorry to hear the testing went badly... I think it's bad when that happens for lots of reasons, including possible waste of money, not getting the results you needed for advocacy, not getting information which would help you understand your child better, and possibly worsening testing avoidance/anxiety. Hang in there.

Wooops, typo on my part (I know DD is for daughter and DS is for son)...goes to show you I've had a stressful morning (sigh).

I'm very frustrated. My son is bright (teachers, friends, and strangers remind me of this all the time) and yet in order to guarantee him a spot into the gifted/talented class for first grade I have to have him tested. He is so young! And as most boys are, he can be immature. B/c he is not 6 yet (and timing is of the essence--need to have scores in before school is out-before he turns 6- so they can assign teachers/students for classes in Aug), the WPPSI was the psych's only choice as he is not old enough for the WISC or SB (or so she said).

The psych did bring me back in the room when they finally aborted mission with the test and the first thing I noticed was that her answer sheet was uncovered. My child could SEE very clearly that she was circling 0, 1, 2 for answers. Any child, much less a precocious one, is going to react to that.
She didn't charge me the full amount for the assessment (since I didn't even get a score), but it did cost $$.
Now we're back to square one. Considering going to another psych that's been recommended (this psych recommended doing that as well).
My husband and I have chosen not to share this whole testing process with our families (they would think we are nuts for doing this with our 5 yr old), so the more feedback, the better.
Thank you in advance.

I would try the Stanford Binet, myself. You don't have to wait until he is six, and there is plenty of ceiling in the test. See if you can find an examiner that will let him do it on multiple days, so that you aren't tied up too long at any given time. We did three testing sessions of two hours each for my 5y3m old last fall; however, he is a VERY cooperative kid who was really engaged in the testing. (We called him the "puzzle doctor".) The psychologist, though, noted that he was particularly interested in the harder questions, and with the routing system they use, you get to skip the easier questions on most of the subtests, so you don't burn the kid's interest out answering ridiculously easy questions.

hi locounu,
can you please elaborate on DORA and DOMA
my dd4 is testing soon and i would like to 'warm her up ' to the idea in anticipation of these challenging situations
thanks
amom

They are sold by this online company:

http://www.letsgolearn.com/

Testing is IIRC $20 per test. Your daughter can take the tests online, and after completion a number of PDF reports are generated based on the same info (the teacher report seems the best and most detailed). DORA is a reading test, and DOMA is for math.

Good luck. Hopefully it will help your daughter prepare psychologically, and it should also give you a chance to see if there is any risk that she will rush through the later testing, or whether she shows other tendencies that might impact her score. One thing that I found with my own son is that on one timed part of the DORA, since the test instructed him to go fast, he went so fast it seemed like he was clicking several times a second, and his accuracy went down on that one portion.

So glad to have found this thread..having the same type of dilemma with my DS! We had him tested at age 5 (he's now 8) with WISC IV (I think) and he was highly qualified for the gifted program. Our districts gifted program starts in 3rd grade, which is next year for him, but he had trouble staying focused on the assessment test the district administered. And they won't accept any outside tests! So we have a kid who needs more advanced work according to his teacher and a qualifying score to get it, but because he can't do the test their way, we are apparently out of luck!

So sorry I don't actually have any ideas to help you, but I'm thrilled to try some of this online testing to help him get comfortable with the process and try again later I guess.

Our 3 year old drove the tester bananas for the WPPSI. She tried testing her for 20 min, but my daughter was all over the place and wouldn't answer. AND when she did, she'd give multiple adjective clues to the nouns she was supposed to name. (If it was a banana picture, she'd say, "Isn't it sweet? Isn't it juicy? Isn't it yellow? Isn't it fruit? Does it have seeds?") Then, the psychologist talked with her Group who said it would be okay to try again in a few months (after we had talked with our daughter about just answering the questions with no fooling around). We came back and my daughter remembered the questions one by one. "Number 1", she quoted, "what is a banana?" "Number 2", "What is a car?"
(I can't remember exactly what the objects were, but she could remember them in consecutive order.) That was it. Inconclusive results and no testing for the little girl. She won that round.