Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment To test or not to test...

Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated...

DS (3 years, 10 months) appears to be about a Level 3 based on the Ruf estimates (reading at around 3, doing addition and subtraction, etc.)

Through a local university, we can have some basic IQ/Aptitude testing done for $120. (It includes the KTEA-II-Brief Form and the KBIT-2.) It takes about an hour and can be done once he turns four.

My initial thinking is that we'll do the brief assessments now. If his scores are high enough, they will qualify him for summer programs/Saturday morning experiences for gifted children. The "to test or not to test" question comes here. We don't really need the scores now, although I am curious to see how he will do with peers of similar cognitive ability. (His same age peers don't seem to "get" him.)

If the scores are high, and I think they will be, we'll do a full blown assessment at 5 or 5 1/2 prior to entrance into kindergarten so that I can work with the school to get his needs met. (Of course I could just wait until he is 5 and do the complete assessment.)

I've tried to think this through, but I'm wondering if there are any drawbacks/pitfalls that I'm not considering!

Thank you!
Kathie

Hi Kathie_K, welcome!

There are of course no "right" answers as to whether one should have their child tested if not absolutely necessary. But I personally think that if you will attain some benefits from it and it won't be unduly hard on the child, then go for it. In your case, it sounds like their are some classes that your child could attend. You are lucky to be in an area where there are classes for such young gifties - most classes requiring certain test scores seem to start around elementary school age for kids around here. Also, our son wouldn't have gone to anything at that young age if he couldn't also be hanging on to my leg.

You may want to consider testing before age 5 if there's a possibility that early entrance to kindergarten would be good for your kiddo. In many ways it's easier to start early than to skip later. In our personal situation, we had our son tested at age 4 so we could have results to bring to the school for a possible early start of kindergarten. We ended up choosing to skip 1st instead, which worked out OK.

There are also some drawbacks to testing very early; optimal testing is sometimes said to be around 7 or 8. Others who know more about testing can comment more on that.

Kathie: If the testing is needed to get him in the extra Saturday programs, I would say do it!

My son had testing done before age 3 due to suspicions of delays, and for him the tests were fun! Now, at age 9, he still loves all tests...especially the long hard ones. Other kids have test anxiety, but I maybe since my son was exposed early to tests and thought they were fun, he continues to look forward to them. (I have no idea if that's the reason, but it could be!!)

Kate

I am going to revive this post as I am currently looking into doing the same testing with DS4.5. We are also considering some of these classes that start at age 4 if he would qualify. We do want to do a full assessment in the future but would rather hold off till after 6 years old for the test to be more reliable. DS4.5 is always open to anything new, interesting, engaging so I am thinking he could do well on the test if he thought it was a fun thing to do. And if he doesn't cooperate at least we wouldn't be wasting all the $ on more expensive testing at this age.

Now, my question is, are these two tests worth it? Does anyone else ever consider these other than this particular program that uses them for qualifications if you do not have other scores to provide to them?

We don't really have any specific need for testing at this point other than wanting to have some idea of where DS is at and to possibly qualify for these enrichment and summer classes.

Have you done these two tests (KTEA-II-Brief Form and KBIT-2) and were they helpful for you?

Also, I did notice some posts saying a child would have KBIT-2 score higher than on other tests so we would keep that in mind too.

I am interested in responses to this topic as well. I have decided to take DS (4 years, 2 months) for testing at Vanderbilt which is a couple of hours away. From the description of the test that was given to me by the educational psychologist, I am pretty sure it is the KBIT-2. I am interested in getting DS' results, and I was told that Vanderbilt will accept this test for admittance into their program (which begins in kindergarten).