Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Inaccurate results?

Very well put! My preconceived ideas include solving calculus (such as a whole textbook worth not just one) problems at age 3 or younger (ha!).


Almost have mine under control thanks to you Dottie! It's a very dogged affliction though!

Thanks for everybody's input. I particularly liked your comments, kathleen'smum:

He does indeed seem to be "coasting". He is not particularly interested in doing things, picking up books, reading (which is all I EVER did as a kid), or doing projects. He mostly wants to drive race cars around the house. I agree that I have a lot of preconceived notions about "gifted" that probably mostly come from the way the kids in my generation were -- all four of us had pretty similar profound interests in reading early and often, and I just don't see that in him. At the same age, my younger brother was going to be a paleontologist and knew every dinosaur and the difference between the Jurassic, paleolithic, eocene, etc. My son dabbles in reading about science but doesn't have that drive to read nonstop. He occasionally says stuff that amazes me though, so maybe he's just a lower key kind of kid than we all were.

Thanks again for the thoughtful comments.

That's an interesting finding, and I guess not surprising. Perhaps their norms for five year olds are not as reliable. I'm sure he's very very bright, I just found the discrepancy between my view of him and the way other kids on the board are described to be surprising. I agree with the other poster about the issues with vision/coordination, etc. He is in therapy, so hopefully those things will improve...

I think intensity is a huge factor, as is personality type. I am not a big fan of her levels of giftedness work, but Dr. Ruf talks about the differences between personality type on the Meyers-Briggs (spelling?) and how different factors can influence how a child presents (http://www.educationaloptions.com/r...pesandEffectiveSchoolLessonPlans2008.pdf). Some kids are just easy going - I have noticed with local gifted kids/families I have interacted with that it seems easier for people/schools/teachers to believe that "intense" kids are gifted compared to the laid back ones.

BTW, a bunch of great posts on this. In the end, each child is different and you really can only do your best to support them as they move along.

I have a question about the SBV often having super high results with the 5 yr olds. How much is that because the SBV (it seems to me) is most often used by gifted "experts". A child that seems to need testing by a gifted expert at, or before, 5 was maybe always more likely to score high?

That is an interesting question, and good point.

I read a lot of conflicting info about this test. I have read a lot that says that children usually score lower on this test, and the Ruf's levels (as debatable as they are) do have lower thresholds for the SB-V. But then I read a lot on here about the really high numbers for 5 year olds.

I'll be curious to see how my DS does if I retest him with the WISC at some point. He was 4.7 when he tested on the SB-V, I wonder if his score is part of the "5 year old inflation theory."


*****Must get back to working and not get sucked into researching iq tests, yet again. LOL*******

Ah Dottie, always the voice of reason. Must you be so rational? I certainly think my kids outcomes will not easily be predicted by their initial IQ tests.

Amber, I have also read that both the SB-V and the WISC-IV return lower results than their predecessors. It's all very confusing.

There *is* a way that your son could have received very high scores by accident. The evaluator could have used the wrong tables to produce the score. To get the scaled scores they take the raw scores and then look at a table of scaled scores depending on the kid's age.

I know this can happen because it happened to me.

I was having my 2E son evaluated for the third time and when I came to pick him up from one of the sessions, the evaluator pulled me aside.

"Your son is brilliant," she told me. She handed me his scores. His GAI was 160. He had four 19s on the VCI and PRI indices (WISC-IV). This did not correlate with my experience of him *at all*. In fact, I was expecting a GAI (on a good day) to be no more that 140 or so.

A week later, I asked for the raw scores because, as he had four 19s, I wanted to see what his GAI would be with extended scoring. The raw scores weren't on the charts; they were too low. So I determined that based on the pattern in the scores that his GAI would be about 140.

Sure enough, she was using score tables for a kid two years younger. And his GAI turned out to be 140.

So yes, usually the advice is that high scores are in line with reality, but low scores may not be. With this particular son, I've had both high and low scores that have not been real.

It can happen.

This is exactly how I see it. Well put, Dottie!

Wow, Kai! What a mistake!

Fortunately, I know that at least the interpretation of the raw scores were correct. I got the raw scores and had Aimee Yermish look at them to make sure he shouldn't have had the extended IQ performed (he didn't need it), and she confirmed his scaled numbers and resulting scores...

That would be disconcerting for sure.