Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISCIV correlation with WJIII Ach?

Hello!
I need to draw on the wisdom of all on this board who've BTDT or even if not. DS8 sat for WISCIV and scored FSIQ 144 (99.8%) and a GAI of 151 (>99.9%). In order to apply for DYS, he's going to sit for the WJIII Ach shortly at the recommendation of his tester and others.

Some of you may have seen my prior post regarding DS8 (a third grader). He's a bright kid, precocious in many ways, performing well ahead of his grade but isn't (as far as I see) knocking it out of the park across the board.

Can anyone comment on whether the WJ is more or less "difficult" in relative terms to score highly on when compared to the WISCIV? Or am I just comparing apples to oranges? Well I know I am comparing apples to oranges but can anyone comment from a perspective of "well my kid was around there on the WISC and did X on the WJ?"

I think the testing is pretty much the only way DS could qualify for DYS since I can't think of any type of portfolio we could put together that would match some of the amazing portfolios I've read about on this board! As such, I am not really getting my hopes up.

Thank you all in advance!

Welcome!

It's comparing apples and oranges. One is an academic achievement test, and the other's an IQ test. Assuming a child without testing issues such as perfectionism, who had an okay and representative testing day for each type of test, it'd be possible to score high on an achievement test but not so high on an IQ test if the child were simply academically advanced, i.e. a bright hard worker who had been properly stimulated. It'd be possible to score high on an IQ test but not so high on an achievement test if a child had been relatively undereducated up to that point, compared with others with roughly the same potential.

I think it's also possible for a very bright child to score relatively poorly on a particular test due to divergent, creative thinking. The Wikipedia page on Richard Feynman states that he achieved an unwhopping 125 on an IQ test, surely an underestimate of his intellectual ability no matter how one views the accuracy of IQ tests.

I have no wisdom. But if I were to pretend to have some, I'd advise you not to stress. I think you might want to consider trying a portfolio first, unless the money for testing is no big deal for you. A while back I put together some info on DYS portfolios that may be helpful. For example, you should realize that you don't need to send past academic work samples; you can have your son generate something new as a work sample. Plenty of people have had their children speak on video about topics that interest them, for instance.

Read the threads linked to from that page and you may feel that you have a better chance than you thought of gaining entry for your son with a portfolio. And the consensus seems to be that you don't prejudice your child's chance of entry by submitting information resulting in a "need more info" temporary denial; that is, if your portfolio submission is rejected, you'd probably have just as good a chance with testing afterward. Good luck.

Thanks lucounu (first and foremost for pointing out my references to DS as DD (can you tell I am a newbie poster?) :)- I fixed that).

We are fortunate in that cost is not really an issue so we are just going to go ahead with the testing and see what happens.

Your information regarding the portfolio is really helpful. I will review all that you put together on that issue and see what we can do. DS sure wouldn't pass up a chance to talk on video, that's for certain.

Thank you very very much. I greatly appreciate your time and insight!

OCJD
I can tell you what my experience has been, since it sounds like our kids might have some similarities in that he isn't "knocking it out of the park" across the board. We had our DS8, also in 3rd grade, take the WISC-IV to see if he qualified for DYS. He scored a 142, but his GAI was also not high enough for DYS so our situations are different, but I have some thoughts on Achievement Testing.

DS8 also took the WIAT test, which I know is different than the Woodcock Johnson, but it is an achievement test nonetheless. I think a student who has been allowed to work at their ability level will do much better on an achievement test than kids who are bright but who are learning at the "age specific" rate of teaching. There is no acceleration at our current school so DS wasn't exposed to much above his grade level but was able to figure out some of the more difficult questions, like fractions. My son did not do well on this test at all, however. When we had our follow up meeting with the tester, she showed us some of our son's work and he made mistakes, seemingly on purpose, on things I know he knows. For example, when subtracting double digit numbers he didn't do any borrowing. He had been doing this for a LONG time and he was (re)learning it in 2nd grade while he was sitting for the test. In the writing section, the test would give a word and the child was to write a sentence using that word. Well, on one question the word was "until", and DS7 (at the time), writes, "I can't wait until this test is over." (HA!, he is his father's son!)

My point is, it depends upon the temperament of the child and what they have been exposed to. I would not discount the portfolio option if your little guy sounds like our lovable DS.

My son just took both. His achievement was actually much higher in Math than what would be predicted from his IQ scores. (145+ FSIQ, 145+ GAI and scored 158 broad math on achievement, 160+ on math problem solving). He seems to be underperforming on reading and writing (120+ broad reading and written expression).

The tester explained that it is impossible to outperform your IQ on achievement test no matter what your environment and learning to date and that this discrepancy means there is an underlying problem or learning issue. She thinks my son has stealth dyslexia and that his lower IQ scores are actually not a reflection of his true ability now. (Not that 99.9% is actually low ;)) She believes that his IQ is probably higher and once he gets vision therapy and auditory processing evaluation/interventions, his IQ would probably jump up closer to his achievement scores. She said IQ is relatively stable except for those with processing disorders. They can actually get higher IQ scores over time.

My son is in 1st grade, just turned 7, and the questions he was able to answer on achievement testing were quite remarkable. Like averaging temperature increases per hour given two different time periods.

Thank you very much qxp, Dottie, and Eleanor (in addition to the PP I thanked).
Eleanor-that makes a lot of sense and sounds somewhat familiar. DS8's school has differentiation but it's in large groups and not based upon GT-identification so he is in a class of 30 other kids, most of whom are not GT-identified. But that work is not acceleration as far as I can tell, it's just his teacher taking the time to expose them to some concepts from the next grade. As such this year in 3rd grade math, he has not been exposed to much beyond 4th grade. Now with language arts/reading, he is performing a couple of grades higher because he can do that on his own. This all relates back to my question on a different thread about whether I'd been underserving him all this time by not doing more with him. He attends a high performing school in an affluent area but, aside from a GATE magnet school in the district, the formal GATE program is nothing more than what I explained above.

qxp-that is fascinating. It would be hard to imagine what your DS will do after the vision therapy, etc. His performance is pretty high already! Good luck with the therapy.


Dottie-those numbers are so very helpful. Thank you! Given that you are a "veteran", your insight is so welcome.


That brings me to the question, if an 8 year old whose educational options at his current school are limited, scores in the HG range on the WISC-IV in a forest, does he make any sound? In other words, is his WISC score meaningless if he doesn't make DYS level scores on the WJIII Ach?

I think I may not be explaining it well.