Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should I Request School Psych to Calculate GAI?

HI, I'm new here and my daughter just tested WISC-iv and got a FSIQ of 126 but I calculated her GAI score (88), which translates to a 135. In PA a child needs 130 to get into the gifted program so the GAI truly matters in this case. There was a 29 point descrepancy between her Verbal scores and the WM portion. Bottom line: Will the school realize this huge spread and go right to the GAI or do we as parents need to specifically ask for the GAI to be calculated. She was tested by a private school psychologist and we just submitted the score to the school district. Can anyone give me some advice? Thank you!

Possibly. It does sound like your DD meets the criteria for utilizing the GAI instead of the FSIQ. Here is a link to the NAGC's position on calculating GAI.
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=2455
If your DD does in fact meet the guidelines I would ask the psych to include a GAI calculation on her score report along with a statement as to why the GAI should be used instead of the FSIQ.

Another think to consider- your school district may or may not accept GAI for admission to the gifted program. My DD's school district uses FSIQ only. Hope that helps!

Yes, you should. She should not be reporting the FSIQ because it is invalid with such a large spread. And she should also cite the literature that indicates that it is "normal" for gifted children to have WMI and/or PSI scores that are lower (sometimes substantially lower) than their VCI/PRI scores.

Unfortunately, since this is a school psychologist, she may be less inclined to do any of these things.

Our school district doesn't tell anyone about GAI, but if you know about it and bring it up to them, they acknowledge it and will consider it (they are much the same way about other things too related to providing services to students :D). If your school district won't accept the GAI, appeal in writing.

Good luck!

polarbear

If you have not already done so, I would recommend that you read the PA Gifted Guidelines from the PA Department of Education website. A child does not need a 130 to be included in gifted services - the school district must use multiple criteria to determine if the child is gifted, not solely the IQ score. It also says that a deficit in working memory or processing speed cannot keep a child out of gifted services. I would request the psychologist include the GAI in the report.

Thanks everyone. Just requested the report to be sent to the school psychologist and we're waiting to see what happens. The private psychologist put a whole paragraph in the report about utilizing GAI since my daughter's descrepancy between VMI and WM was actually 37 points! I'm hopeful the school will take the GAI score of 135. Thanks again for the input!

That's great! My DD had a 40 point spread between her PRI and WM and a 35 point spread between VMI and WM so FSIQ was pretty worthless for us as well. :-) I hope the school takes the GAI. Ours wouldn't, but luckily her FSIQ was still over the required 130 so we didn't have to push the issue. Good luck!