Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should I be cocerned with relatively low PSI?

Our DD just had WSIC IV test. Here are her subtest scores:

VC 152 > 99.9%
PR 141 99.7%
WM 135 99%
PSI 118 88%
FSIQ 148

PSI is much lower than the rest subtest scores. Is it a concern?

Our psychologist will mail a full detailed report to us next week. I would like to get familiar with potential implication of relatively low PSI so that I can ask her better questions next week. She also mentioned that she will provide GAI in the full report because of the low PSI. Can anyone share some of your knowledge/experience if you happen to see a similiar score before?

Thanks a lot!

Those are some strong scores! Others on this board know more than I, but I believe it is fairly common for gifted kids to have lower PSIs. And your dd's is not actually all that low! In my relatively uneducated opinion, I don't think there is anything to worry about.

It might or might not mean anything. Is there a reason you were testing other than wanting to know IQ or for a gifted program? If your child is not having any kind of challenges, all is well in school and life, and the testing was simply to get an IQ #, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

There *are* quite a few of us here who have children with similar profiles where the dip in PSI *does* happen due to very real challenges - but we've also (I think most of us have) eventually had our children run into some kind of challenge at school. The dip in PSI, when it's meaningful, can be from a number of different reasons. My ds13 has a disability that impacts fine motor skills, which in turn impacts his ability to use handwriting. It's not something you'd notice unless you knew to look for it, but it definitely impacts him in a huge way at school. It shows up under the PSI subtests because one of the subtests requires a written response and the PSI subtests are timed. It also shows up, for ds, in timed achievement tests that require handwritten responses.

Once you have the full report with the subtest scores and the psych's observations you'll have a better idea if there were any concerns noted by the psych.

Best wishes,

polarbear

DS7 skipped a grade last year. Since then she has made a lot progress in both academic and social areas. However she still tells us that reading is not challenging enough. I believe it is true based on the worksheet or homework she brings home. I tried to explain this to her teacher and principal. I asked if DS can have reading acceleration by one more grade. But they told me that it is not necessary. That is the main reason why we had her tested.

In fact the PSI score is a surprise to us. We know that she usually works slower than my PG DS. But I did not expect there is such a big difference between them in PS scores. Furthermore, I know it is the coding subtest score that brings down PS.

DS told me that she was timed to finish a task. She could not go back to correct her mistakes during the test. She noticed that she made 2 errors in the middle of test. It really bothered her. She said that uneasy feeling slows her down. I am not sure about her explanation. I also read some info online regarding lower PSI. So I am wondering if there is anything that I shall ask the psychologist about, e.g. Any LD.

Thanks!

Also, DS scored 18 & 19 in 4 subtests. Shall I ask the psychologist to use the extended scores? I checked online. If extended scores are used, her VC will be 156. For the purpose of advocacy, is it worthwhile to ask for extended scores? Thanks again!

We also debated on asking the tester to use extended scores. Our son had 4 19's and an 18. The tester was unfamiliar with extended scoring but did take it on her own to read the advisory report and instructions. Ultimately we agreed that she would draft her report using a chart that represented both sets of scores. It did bump the scores up but when you are talking numbers in the high 140's to high 150's its our opinion that it is already too difficult to make any meaningful inferences beyond the obvious. To us the extended scoring has not been particularly useful in advocating for our child. The educators we are dealing with already get he has a very high IQ and don't seem particularly interested beyond that and aren't reviewing or consider particular numbers.
Now we've recently applied to Davidson Academy and I will be curious to learn if a school familiar with the numbers gleans any value from extended scoring in their decision making. I am curious as to why DYS considers GAI as a measure for acceptance but DA is still only looking for VC, PR or FS.
For us WM and PSI are definitely disproportionately lower than his other scores but they had no measurable, detrimental impact on his FS which was over 150 but for us we noticed it in the very high GAI.
Our tester has repeatedly told us that PSI will develop at a normal pace and won't necessarily get a bump because of the giftedness. At least anecdotely it seems many of the younger kids who test experience this discrepancy and from our own observations of our son it certainly does seem to be true.

my DD's scores were almost identical at that age except PS 79% but was never presented to me as a "problem" since it was still high average. If your DD is relatively well adjusted and not experiencing any problems, chances are it's not really interfering with her. There is slower than sibling and than so slow that she can't keep up with schoolwork or finish tests.

I agree with the poster about the school's interest in extended scores - if your child is so high they aren't typically interested in any more "break downs". Especially in a public school the emphasis is so much on keeping up on basic proficiency with so many of the other kids and tracking progress for all the requirements they are working under (with alot of stress) that a relatively well-adjusted child who's already been accelerated probably wouldn't be a high priority.

Unfortunately, of course.

My DD's WM and PS have gone down over the years especially the PS but no concensus has been reached as to why. She has fine motor, vision (eye teaming) issues that aren't really severe enough for strong $$ intervention but slow her down (we work on things at home). Upon tester's observations she also takes alot of time to think about how she will answer a question, and basically has a more anxious disposition when doing timed tests. The tester said it might be something where she can compensate with the work she's had in school so far but as the work gets harder will experience falling grades. But she said this might happen to DD until older high school or even something more intense such as if she went to medical school. She also has dyslexia red flags but would fall into the "stealth" category such as the Eides' research.

The frustration my DD has is more of the issue than her work/grades and the time it takes but not in her overall academic performance.

Maybe you could simply keep a watch out for you DD as she gets older and follow along in case she starts to struggle for some reason.

I got your point that extended scores are not necessary in DD's case. My biggest goal is to advocate reading acceleration for her. It appears that her VC score is high enough to support it. If the school doesn't believe in it, then they most likely won't believe in any extended scores.

So far I have not seen any obvious challenge that DD is facing in school. There was just one time that her teacher told me that DD has a hard time to finish her writing or end her story. So I was somewhat surprised by the PSI score. I am not sure if it is related to the habit that she tends to be perfect. Or maybe I will start to see her being challenged in the future harder task, just like what was mentioned in the previous reply.

I am also wondering what exactly the coding subtest is measuring. If two persons have the exactly same scores in the rest subtests except a big difference in PSI, more specifically coding subtest, what would these two persons be different in their learning or academic life?

The extended scores don't seem to be needed, but fwiw, we haven't ever been provided with extended scores for our ds and I always wished I would have asked for them in the report just to have them. Even if no one is ever going to need to see them or use them, I think it's a good idea to have them documented if you can simply because some day in the future you might want them, and it might be too late then to call up the original testing psych to ask for them.

If I remember the coding subtest correctly, it is a series of incomplete symbols that you have to mark based on a key to make the symbols match the key. It's a simple dash-type mark, and it's timed. Each of the WISC subtests seems to be a relatively short test, so from your dd's description of it, I think it's most likely she was simply impacted by a combination of not being a person who races by nature and worrying over the marks she felt she hadn't made correctly. Unless at some time in the future you feel that her rate of performance on timed tasks or with handwritten tasks etc is negatively impacting her ability to complete her school work or to show her knowledge, I wouldn't ever think twice about that score ever again I *would* ask the tester if they could put a note about what your dd said (worrying about the incorrect answers) in the report so that in the future if someone looking at her scores wonders about the difference, there will be a likely explanation documented.

"I am also wondering what exactly the coding subtest is measuring. If two persons have the exactly same scores in the rest subtests except a big difference in PSI, more specifically coding subtest, what would these two persons be different in their learning or academic life?"

The difference in their learning/academic life is really going to depend on what impacted the difference in score. If vision impacted it, they are going to have impacts in tasks that require vision skills; if it's fine motor related, things like handwriting speed etc will be impacted. If the lower score is due to a person who simply moves a bit slower with their handwriting, perhaps they approach their school work a tiny bit slower than a person with a rapid-fire coding speed. You noted that your ds with the higher PS score works faster than your dd - that seems to fit your description of how your dd approached the coding subtest. JMO, but I don't think that's necessarily anything to worry about - there is something to be said for taking a careful, well thought-out approach to your work One of my dds has an extremely high PS as well as a high WM score, and she seems to be working at light-speed compared to my other kids, but she also misses details thanks to her need for speed

Best wishes,

polarbear

If the reading level is particularly what you'd like to advocate for, did your DD do a standardized type of achievement test as well as what you mentioned? Such the WIAT? That is helpful for particular academic areas and it's good to have something independent and national/international if the school doesn't see need for testing or only tests to a certain ceiling (for example my DD's public elementary school only tested reading levels to 5th grade. If a child gets every answer correct, the school doesn't explore further, they just say "5th grade level" - even if they know the child has a high IQ etc.)