Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help requested, scores included, advice needed thx

Hi All, I would really appreciate some input on the following schools/profile for my daughter. She�s been on an interesting educational journey thus far. A few months into K back in 2008, she was very �bored� and uninterested in going to school. Since I�d had issues with my HG older son, I knew I�d better have her tested to know what we were dealing with. I took her to Dr. Ruf and she suggested after testing that we pull her from K and homeschool her. Unfortunately, due to family circumstances, we didn�t do much �school� that year.
Here are her scores from that first test:

SB5 administered by Dr. Ruf when she was 5 yrs 8mths
NVIQ � 138
VIQ � 144
FSIQ � 140
Fluid Reasoning 135
Knowledge 131
Quantitative Reasoning 122
Visual Spatial 143
Working Memory 141
Before the start of the next year when she would have started 1st, the gifted school she was to be enrolled in decided to grade skip her straight to 2nd doing 3rd grade work. There was no achievement testing done. So this was her first experience with school. She was very behind because she works slowing and really isn�t very interested in achieving. She�s more interested in her imaginative games and time with her friends (who are very gifted themselves and some were grade skipped as well.)
She spent two years in the gifted school and assigned work several years ahead. She struggled to keep up. She barely kept her head above water and was quite turned off to school.
Fast forward to this summer. At age 8, we moved out of state. We decided it was probably best to move her back with age mates in a regular classroom. The new elementary school is very good. Many high achievers and gifted children. Known as the �private school� of the public schools in the area�. Before we made our decision to pull her back through 3rd again we decided to have her IQ AND achievement tested this time. We wanted to make sure we had the whole picture.

So this summer she took the following:
WISC-IV
VCI � 121
PRI � 133
WMI � 113
PSI � 97
FSIQ � 123
GAI � 132
Her achievement scores for the Wechsler were:
Brief Achievement � 121
Broad Reading � 118
Broad Math � 125
Broad Writing � 109

Today she brought home her Cogat results taken last month at this new school. As a preface, I�m not a fan of the Cogats. My highly gifted son has always done terribly on that test. He scores above 99% on IQ tests and achievement yet the two times he�s taken the Cogats he has scores in the very low 90�s percentile. He�s had 5 IQ tests over the years all consistently above 99 and the Cogats are much lower. So my daughter brings home the following Cogat scores today:
Verbal 88%
Non Verbal 87%
Quant. Reasoning 60%
Composite 83%
So, would you consider her gifted? I know better than to push for her to attend a full time GT program like my oldest son. That�s not her level. However, her school offers GT pull out for kids 85% and above on ability and achievement. Which of her tests take precedence here? The county will use her IQ/achievement from this summer instead of the Cogats to qualify her. I�m just wondering if I should even worry about getting her ID�ed as GT? There are so many kids in her classroom working ahead of her.
The county won�t even consider her SB5 since it�s more than 2 yrs old. They believe kids �level out� by 3rd grade. They also believe that IQ changes and anything older than 2 yrs is irrelevant. The WISC scores should be enough as long as her teacher rates her high enough on the GT rating scale.

She has had quite an adjustment this year in her new regular classroom. The district is very test dependent and she�s coming from an environment that really never tested except for the NWEA Maps. This new school does benchmarks multiple times a year and relies heavily on test scores. My daughter processes slowly but insists on rushing through rather than taking her time to get the right answers. Things have gotten better the last month or so and (knock on wood) I think she�s adjusting to the new school environment. She�s in a 3rd grade classroom where at least � the class is reading at least 5th/6th grade level or higher. It�s a great environment. She�s not interested in being high achiever #1 in class and that�s ok. However, I�m not sure how much to expect from her. With my oldest son and my other two kids never having a problem acing all their school work, I�m really not sure what to expect with this DD. How do I know when she�s doing her �best� or when she�s just not interested in trying her �best?�
I�m sorry for the long post but I really wanted to give the complete picture.

Thanks
spirited mama

I'd always consider individual IQ scores over group achievement tests and, like you, haven't been the biggest fan of the CogAT for identifying gifted kids b/c I, too, have seen CogAT scores that haven't lined up very well with IQ scores in my kids and others.

This probably won't be a totally popular view, but I would also agree that I'd put more weight on the more recent IQ test scores than the older ones especially b/c her performance seems more in line with the more recent scores. Also, although I certainly wouldn't agree that kids level out by 3rd grade if they are actually gifted, I do agree that IQ scores can and do change over time especially in young children. See, for example, this article: http://faculty.education.uiowa.edu/dlohman/pdf/Gifted_Today.pdf

The WISC scores are still gifted and I would certainly still consider a child with a GAI on the WISC of 132 to be a gifted child. She just may be a more moderately gifted child than a highly gifted child unless there is something else going on.

If you suspect 2e issues, then all bets are off the table. I would never say that a child has to be homeschooled solely based on IQ #s (although we've homeschooled ourselves in the past), either. If school isn't a fit or homeschooling is the family's preference, then that's when the child should be homeschooled, not just b/c s/he has hit some specific # on an IQ test. My one non-2e HG child is doing okay in public school w/ a grade skip. (We don't have full time gifted programming available.)

Your dd does seem to lean toward math and visual spatial as strengths. Does her school seem to be doing enough for her in that area that she has to work to do well? I'd say that the ideal spot is where she can maintain good grades but has to work hard for those grades, not just show up.

Thanks, Cricket2. I do suspect some sort of 2E. My oldest is ADHD/anxiety. I thought that maybe my daughter was also showing some attentional issues as well. As part of this summer's assessment, the tester looked at that. She thought we should keep a watch for it but nothing was jumping out for sure in regards to ADHD.

Our state does not consider 2E so my daughter would either have to make the cut for GT or not. I think they miss many needy GT kids with this definition.

I do think my daughter is a bit of a space cadet:) and I'm not sure what the other E would be but I've considered it for awhile now.

She's very creative, talks super fast:), is usually pretending, doesn't enjoy reading, has trouble putting her thoughts together for the completion type test questions, and is generally a very well behaved child.

The school does not do much in the way of visual spatial. I think they are meeting her needs in math for the most part. The homework repetition for math is pointless and she flies through it in a couple minutes. Now that she's gotten older, she's the type of child that could care less if the work is challenging, she's mostly there to play with her friends...

Your dd sounds a lot like my ds6 minus the well behaved part. He also had somewhat similar scores, is HIGHLY visual spatial and does not particularly like to read, although he does like writing.He is also a very social guy and loves playing with his friends. I was actually surprised at my son's scores on the WISC as he is not a "typical" gifted child. He LOVES and excels in math but is NOT reading above grade level, and did not meet developmental milestones ahead of his peers. While our school only has a once a week gifted pull out program, they do make an effort with differentiation. My son uses a program called dreambox.com at school and at home for math, where he is working at about a late second grade level.

I'd like to point out the 2 SD gap between both the PRI and GAI and the PSI. This discrepancy is a flag for possible LDs, including dyspraxia and ADHD, or at least processing "bottlenecks" that could make it hard for her to show what she can do.

That sounds a lot like my younger dd as well. She's not interested in reading, reads slowly but with great comprehension, doesn't care about challenge, and attends school for the social aspect. Mine has ADD and is probably HG. What we saw in my dd's WISC was avg WM and PS and 99th+ PR and VC.

Mine, too, is well behaved in school and doesn't call attention to herself so teachers tend not to see atypical needs. We were in a similar situation with math in 5th grade with dd. Her individual achievement scores on the WIAT put her math composite at the 98th percentile. She's twice taken the EXPLORE and scored well above the cut-point for GT id in math (better than nearly 80% of 8th graders when she was 10 for instance). She wasn't complaining but she also wasn't having to work to do well and b/c her MAPS scores were all over the place and her CogAT also wasn't high enough on the quantitative portion, her school wanted to place her in the std math class with everyone from kids who were well below grade level to kids who just missed the cut for the accelerated class (about 1/3 of the school was in the accelerated class).

I wasn't good with her being in that grouping especially b/c it seemed likely that anyone else who was functioning at a similar point w/out a disability was in a much more accelerated class. We pushed. Dd subject accelerated in math that year and it was a struggle due to constant mistakes, attention, etc. By the end of the year she had an A in the class, though, and passed all of the tests the district gave to continue with subject acceleration in middle school. She's doing well in the 7th grade math class this year (she's a 6th grader).

I might be pushing for more in math at least in your situation. I wouldn't seek full grade acceleration or anything more for my dd at this point (or likely later) b/c her ADD does stand in the way of her performing highly enough to ask for something like that. I don't want to throw her into a situation where she is truly struggling to do well, but I do want her somewhere where she has to learn the value of hard work whether she wants it or not.

Thanks Cricket2. That does sound very similiar to my dd.

Her teacher quickly pointed out the low score on the quanitative part of the Cogat as a red flad that her math is actually low.
It appears the teacher feels this score carries quite a bit of weight in regards to a student's math ability.

I will have to make a better effort to keep her challenged in math but don't think the teacher will be of much help there.

She is in the highest guided reading group at school and has tested about 6th grade level (on Map test at our previous school.) However, this school has an assessment (one of too many) called "intervention by design." The teacher said that showed she is only at a 2.3 instructional grade level. I honestly think much of the issue is that my dd can turn it on or off for this tests depending on how she feels like responding that particular day. It's very frustrating. She is currently reading the unabridged Anne of Green Gables (about 7th grade level.) She doesn't read all the time but is plowing through it during down time at school. She's a tough nut to crack!

Thanks!

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess (based on a quick perusal of the intervention by design website) that the test is designed to find kids who are having trouble, not to find out where high achieving/gifted kids are. I have the same issue with with the DIBELS testing they give my son. It's designed to find kids who having reading problems, not give any sort of accurate measure of reading level, especially when they are at the high end. I wouldn't really take the score from that test into account for your daughter.

Here are a few random thoughts -


She'll qualify for the program, so which tests take precedence (for this program) is irrelevant - she can get in. The real question from my perspective is - what does the program offer? Is it something she'd benefit from or is it just extra work?

Re other kids in her classroom working ahead of her, you can't guess their relative IQ/ability status based on that, and in many ways, that's irrelevant to. It is at least an indication that the teacher in this particular classroom is challenging the children, which is a good thing, but that's about the most you can really infer from what *other* children are doing. I'd focus on your child's needs and forget those other kids

Here are a few random thoughts -


It's not unusual for a test older than 2-3 years to not be considered. Our 2E ds who needs accommodations in school and on testing has had to have re-testing every three years and will have to retest again prior to taking the SAT etc for college entry. Our district's G/T magnet school also re-tests achievement and ability as kids progress through school to re-qualify the children, and I've known children who were admitted in kindergarten and later sent elsewhere because the earlier scores didn't hold up and their teachers felt they were not properly placed in the program. Two of my children have been through IQ testing at 5 and again in 2nd grade; for my ds the results were very similar, but my dd's scores went from being MG at 5 to being completely flat-line "average" at 7. I have no idea which is the "correct" representation of her true IQ but from networking around a bit I believe that part of the discrepancy may be due to the difference in psychologists and potentially over-inflated scores in the early testing.


I wouldn't assume she's "not trying her best" - I agree with aculady that the 2 SD difference in processing speed and the other scores is something to look into and may be a sign of a hidden LD or other challenge. You also mentioned that she's a slow processor - I think that I'd focus, just for right now, on better understanding what's behind the score discrepancies in case that's impacting her in the classroom. If she's not achieving because she's just not driven to be a high achiever, that's something you either have to decide you're ok with or you're going to drive her harder via external motivation - but if she's not achieving as highly as she could because of an undiagnosed LD or other challenge - that's something that would help her tremendously to understand.

Best wishes,

polarbear

sorry to go OT, but this is so interesting to me. I didn't think there were districts out there that dared to do this. How do the parents react if a child is disqualified after qualifying initially?

(My DD also attends a gifted magnet. AFAIK, her half-hour IQ test at 6 will continue to qualify her for GT programs through high school and she will never be retested. I feel lucky she got in, and at the same time I really do wonder how accurate it all is.)