Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing with grad students vs a licenses psych

I have heard people mention having their testing done at local universities. Grad students do the testing and are supposed to be supervised by a licensed psychologist. I am considering this for DD9 who is still complaining that school is boring and too easy.

The school doesn't think she needs testing and I doubt they would accept the results. But I'm trying to gain insight into how she learns and where she fits as far as the difficulty level of her work. Maybe if I can make more specific, targeted requests, her school might be more accommodating. (A gal can dream, right?)

There's no way I can pay thousands of dollars for the top testers in my area, but my state university can do it for $500. I'm not sure which tests, though. I'm still getting more info.

I am wondering . . .

Would this type of testing give me the information I'm looking for?

Are there questions I need to ask up front to make sure DD has a good experience with this, recognizing that the testers are less experienced and are learning the process?

Has anyone had a good experience with this?

Is there a downside? I can't afford to throw away $500 on bad testing nor can I afford $2000 for an expert opinion.

Thanks for any info/insights!

We had testing done by a grad student, and the report was signed by the supervising psychologist, so it is considered a valid assessment.

Our school system is doing their own testing for gifted services, but the report we have (which was free for us!) gave us direction and a leg to stand on when we told the school that he was testing in the 99.9th percentile.

I really second what Dottie says about an inexperienced tester potentially making it longer than it needs to be, even if they are experienced with the WISC but accustomed to testing kids for LDs, anxiety, etc rather than gifted.

My HG+/PG kid was bored witless by her tester at 4y9m. I was in the room and could see her engaged with the first few items of a subtest and utterly over it by the time they had crawled their way to her level. And she was not impressed by the cutesy poo interaction from the psychologist (who was trying to make her feel safe).

We retested 6 months later with a gifted specialist who tested her in less than half the time, left DD buzzed and happy and her score was 1/2 a standard deviation higher (now DYS level).

My DD is not the most co-operative little person, well she is for some people, not for others. A compliant kid may have been fine. We actually took her to another psychologist regarding possible selective mutism a couple of months later, because she won't talk to most adults, who happily told us she was rude, not anxious, and not a compliant bone in her body and that starting school would be "interesting" - ie could be wonderful or disastrous.

I had my son tested by a grad student with the WISC-IV last month. It was a good experience. I don't know if scores would have been different with a tester who generally works with the gifted. We didn't expect him to qualify for DYS but his Explore scores were high enough that testing was worth the chance. And he did qualify!

My son's 9 and I think his age makes a difference. I think with a child at 5, you've got much more chance of boredom or acting out. We homeschool and so this counted for his school for the day, so he was motivated to do his best and not rush through anything.

I'd say we had a good experience It was interesting seeing the report and hearing how he took the test.

My son was tested at 4 by a grad student and at 8 by a psychologist who had been testing students for close to 20 years.

His numbers came out to be very similar (of course the first test was the WPPSI and the 2nd was the WISC so there was some difference).

Neither tester had much experience testing children with numbers like his. Neither had much to offer in the way of recommendations because they were not super familiar with EG/PG children. However the numbers were useful in advocating for a grade skip and acceptance into DYS.

Both experiences were good. The grad student, who was younger, was more patient.

Personality and enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity in the tester probably play a big role in the success of the testing and other than going with highly recommended testers (who are pricey), I don't know how you'd filter for that. But to some degree, all those variables must be factored into the actual testing. It's supposed to be objective, not subjective, right?

Thanks for the input, everyone. I think we are going to go for it. It will take a few months to get on the schedule anyway, so I guess if we have a better idea before the fall, I can still change my mind.

We had a dreadful experience with a student tester. I should have put a halt to the testing in the beginning, when I had specifically asked for any of three specific tests for DYS and they decided to change to a different one to fill their numbers. After I asked them to change back, she agreed, but begrudgingly. that should have been clue #1!

My son was young, just over 5 at the time and hadn't been tested before. The student he got had never worked with kids under 8, had no experience really testing for giftedness and was not very organized in her own procedures.

About a quarter of the way through the testing, my son asked what the mirrors were behind her and why they were covering the wall. She told him that there were people back there watching him take the test. He, being an intense perfectionist and also totally creeped out by the idea that people were staring at him that he couldn't see, completely panicked. He refused to answer her questions. A more trained student, or a GT professional would have given a better answer first and secondly, would have stopped testing when they realized it was not going to go well.

Instead, I have a report that says that my son has extreme learning issues, needs a full-time classroom aide to function and that he is most definitely not gifted.

LOL... same child qualified for DYS, with a different, trained psychologist, a year later.

My oldest was tested by a grad student when she was 7 on the WISC-IV. I don't know how accurate the scores were or whether they would have been different with a more experienced tester. I do think that issues outside of the tester like major anxiety related to timed things depressed her score as much as anything.

She came out MG with wild scatter (btwn 19+ to 8 within one subtest, for instance). None the less, when all of that wild scatter was averaged, she was a 98th percentile kid which was more than our local schools require for GT ids and she's gotten all kinds of accommodations with that alone: grade skip, GT/accelerated classes, etc.

I do tend to think that she is more gifted than the scores would indicate as she's consistently performed higher than that even with being up to two years younger than many of her classmates. The only benefit I would see to having had the scores come in more in line with where she is more likely to be, though, would be if she qualified for DYS. She might be that able, but maybe somewhat below, which wouldn't surprise me either.