Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Re-testing: what do you think are the benefits?

I'm taking my youngest daughter to see a pysch that specialises in giftedness to deal with some anxiety and school reluctance. The same psych administered the SB5 when my daughter was 4-ish - she's now 7.5. The pysch has recommended that we now do the WISC-IV to see how she's travelling. Her arguments are: that it might give us some information about potential learning disabilities; it will boost my daughter's confidence and teach her more about how her brain works; and it might help us get a more accurate number.

Has anyone retested using a different instrument? Was it worth it? What do you see as the pros/cons?

jojo

My DS7 was tested right after he turned 5 (I don't remember which tests off hand). The SpEd teacher & Diagnostician suggested re-testing him in the Spring with the other tests that are age appropriate for a 7yo. I'd like to see what everyone's input is as well. We're definitely doing it, just a matter of waiting till they administer the test.

I'd say that whether you should re-test or not depends on a number of factors. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1) What are the differences between the two instruments, and how significant are they?
2) How much time has passed?
3) Are there any significant changes/new challenges you've observed in your child that additional screening would help identify?

As for the first one, I'll let people more familiar with the differences between the two tests answer it.

As for the second... probably enough. My school system mandates re-screening for gifted services every three years (unless both the school and the parents agree there's no need), so you're right on the edge there.

As for the third, I'd say that unless you or the psychologist have a strong reason to suspect a learning disability, I wouldn't worry about it.

It's always possible the psychologist is offering this as a way to collect more money.

We're meeting with the pysch again tomorrow so I'll update then. It's interesting Dude to hear that some school systems mandate re-screening every three years. Interesting! I'm not sure there's a strong reason to suspect a learning disability - not strong enough to justify the expense anyway. I'll have to ponder this some more. Thanks for your input... jojo

I thing that if the anxiety and school reluctance are worrysome enough to bring her in then some testing is a fine idea. I thnk enough time has gone by given how young she was at the first testing. Hopefully there is nothing new to learn but that anxiety and reluctance has to be coming from somewhere and having insight into the source is good.
Peace
Grinity

in our case, Butter was tested at 2.5 +1day by a friend who is a psychologist for the state he lives in and specialized in testing children (usually because they had behavior problems and checking for AS, autism, ADD, etc) I don't remember which test but it showed minimum 2 deviations above norm...last year (2nd grade) they administered the Raven matrices district wide. Same result...but since kinder, Butter was constantly in trouble at school for noncompliance, refusal to do work, poor judgement, etc. I thought once they realized she was GT, things would change...when 3rd grade started, things went downhill FAST, much faster than ever before. We took her to be tested because I could see that whatever they were doing in the classroom wasn't working, plus the ped suggested ADHD and we had to rule that out (or in...). I thought we would be able to use the test results to get more appropriate work, but we wound up seeing that just wasn't going to happen and what a terrible fit the school was for her. We took her out, shes in independent study now until we can figure out how the school can give her what she needs.

I'm glad we had testing done. We had both WISC4 and WIAT acheivment. Now I have a better idea of what is going on in her head and what she needs from me at least. We haven't gotten to where we get what she needs from school, but will address that after the break.

Grinity has a point, the anxiety and reluctance are coming from somewhere...I felt like any more answers we could get would be worth any money it cost, plus, if you are thinking you will ever want to enroll your child in DYS or talent searches, etc, you will need those numbers.

I hope you get the answers you are looking for

It's one of those things that's a lot less significant than it sounds, because in practice, as long as the student is doing well in the G/T program, the teacher and the parent are going to agree to waive re-screening. It basically gives the school a fail-safe if they think they've misidentified someone.