Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion RIAS Assesment Vs Standford Binet

Due to some issues in school my 5 year old son had the RIAS (Reynolds Intellectual Assesment) completed on him this week by the school pshycologist.

While I expected he might fall in that gifted range I was unprepared for her to tell us he had a total composite score of 160+ with his verbal reasoning at 147 and non verbal at 156. From what I understand the test maxs out at 160 so it becomes fairly inaccurate at those higher ranges.

I am now debating if I should spend the time to get the Standford Binet completed on him so he can apply for groups such as the Davidson institute.

My question is do any of you have experience with the RIAS being completey incorrect and scored way too high? How does it compare to some of the other more extensive tests? He is not quite 5 and a half and I am wondering if it is worth getting
further testing now so I can confirm if he is truly in a higher gifted range or since I am getting such great support from his school as it is that I just leave it alone until the need arises for further testing.

Personally, unless there's some need that won't be met by the school with his current score, I'd wait until he's 6 and can take the WISC.

My DD took the RIAS at 6 1/2 and scored in the MG range, so that wasn't our experience (not that I think she is PG, but based on school performance we expected slightly higher scores). However, I wish I had more info on her. It's a very short test and just doesn't give the same depth of information as the other, lengthier instruments do. In my time here I have seen a fair number of posters saying that their child's scores were fairly different on the RIAS than the SB or WISC.

We also got a one-page report with probably less than 200 words total--not sure if this is typical. Very very short.

Since the school
Met with us we got no report the person that administered the test said in 20 years she had less than 10 kids score as high as he did. My main thinking is having support from the school psychologist and principle I want to see if they are willing to do the Stanford Binet to get a more clear picture because we may move by next year and who knows what a new school system will think. If we test now we can apply for the DYS if his score stays similar. However I don't want to waste time testing if it's inaccurate that young.

Ultramarina- do you usually see the RIAS score inflated higher?

My son took the Rias at 5 1/2- he got >160 on nonverbal, 147 on verbal and his total IQ was >160 (he hit the ceiling). He also got a 99th percentile on the Ravens. We have not needed any other testing so we haven't bothered to do more- Mensa accepted his RIAS score.

No, not necessarily higher. Some have said higher, others have said lower. I wouldn't really be inclined to disbelieve the score, although I don't know if there is any chance that this is one of those tests that can overscore very young children. Based on my (superficial) knowledge of the test, I don't think so--it doesn't rely on reading ability or math calculation or anything. I just think you may be disappointed by the report's brevity; we were.

Well the school Psychologist did the test so she did a full meeting with, Us, the Principal, Counsler, Gifted Coordinator and Teacher because she felt they all needed to understand how Gifted he is and that he will need special accomodations or a different style of learning in the classroom. So I got a pretty long breakdown of how he did. However with fewer subtests I think more extensive testing does give more insight into strengths and weaknesses.

Jacks's Mom your boys scores are close to identical to mine. How old is your boy now? Have you had any issues in school and did you advance him a grade? The reason we did the testing is they moved my son into first grade. He had never had schooling really and so he couldn't write and his teacher immediatley said she didn't think he could handle being in the class. He is so advanced with Reading and Math and ect you know how it is.. That we didn't know what to do he loved learning the new things in 1rst. So we asked for the test to decide if he really couldn't handle being a higher level. In 3 weeks he has caught up fully writting everything they are doing and I think is ready to start moving on to harder Math and more advanced concepts.

Also did you consider doing a portfolio with your two tests to the DYS.

Individual results will vary, but the RIAS has a general reputation for under-representing IQ, because of quick discontinue criteria. Basically, if you miss two questions in a row, you've hit the ceiling, and they move on to the next section. The test is designed for brevity over accuracy.

Mathematically, it makes sense that if a number of people are hitting the quick-discontinue and having their scores deflated, there's a tiny subset that isn't, who experiences significant score inflation as a result.

That's interesting, Dude; I hadn't heard that. DD's test notes, such as they are, say "DD gave up easily if she could not answer right away." In a certain mood, she can get very "Who cares/I don't know" if things are a little challenging. (This is especially true if she has to respond orally vs. a written answer--I'm not sure how the test was administered, but I assume it was oral.)