I've gotten SO much from all of you, and I'm happy to finally be able to contribute something! My DS is definitely proof that WHICH test and the "testing day" do matter a LOT! I'm sharing our story for those who have been frustrated with their DC's test results to show that your hunches about where the results may be off may be exactly right!
Some of you know our story - in a Montessori school at 3.5, DS began having pretty bad behavior, usually revolving around getting into older children's work or "pushing the teacher's buttons." When he began his 4YO year reading and was still being given letter identification lessons, his behavior started to fall off the cliff with daily issues, and escalating frustration all around (DS, DH & I, the school). When we had a conference about it, we went in with the hypothesis that he wasn't being challenged enough, but they actually shot us down immediately by saying that DS was "just a discipline problem," was "an average 4YO" and, finally, was "crying out for parenting." They gave him a month to get his act together and required us to go to a parenting therapist.
We were devastated by the conversation (on a lot of levels) and acutally read Losing Our Minds that night. We felt pretty confident that we saw DS in there - and felt like he was solidly a Level 4, with a couple of strong hints of 5. We rushed him into what we now call "emergency testing" to see who was right. DS was in a HORRIBLE place in regards to schools and teachers (and psychologists, apparently, since he thought she seemed like a teacher!). Though he scored a 142 on the WPPSI-III, he flatly refused to complete part of the test, yelled at the therapist and claimed not to know things like what a dog was. When he was done, he told me that he was never doing "that" again. The psychologist told us that we should probably have him evaluated for ODD based on what she had seen - and that is a crushing diagnosis! We were in a tailspin (and we had to take DS out of the school after he was physically assaulted by a teacher whose buttons he apparently pushed one time too many � and I saw it happen!). We sought out a neuropsychologist to help us.
The neuropsychologist was fantastic in our consults with her prior to her visit with DS. An expert in misdiagnois of highly gifted kids, she felt strongly that the ODD was quite possibly a hasty diagnosis (NO issues at all until he started school, high correlation of bad behavior to lack of new lessons, etc.) and we decided to travel to have DS see her for a 2 day evaluation. She wanted us to take some time before we came to let him �unwind� a bit at home, etc. She and her staff were prepared for the kind of behavior that the previous psychologist saw.
Remarkably, DS didn�t exhibit ANY of the bad behavior over his 2 days of testing. He was calm, compliant, and other than being much more interested in the snow outside (something novel for him!) than the testing itself, he had a pretty good two days. He still ate junk at the hotel continental breakfast before testing and still didn�t sleep great because we were in a �cool� hotel room, but he was in a MUCH better place for her testing (which included not just IQ but other things as well). Her diagnosis was a really smart kid with no ODD or other issues. That said, his test scores were curious � they ranged from �stratospherical� (her word) to just really good � overall, they were consistent with his WPPSI scores. At the end of testing, the neuropsychologist predicted that DS might have a real �breakout� testing day once he was fully past all of the issues of the fall, and she encouraged us to come back in a year or so and let them do the same battery again.
Fast forward to this past week (several months had passed). We�re getting to the point where we really have to fish or cut bait on our options for DS for school in the fall (he�ll be 5 next week). One of his options is a public school program for HG/HG+ kids. They ONLY accept the SB-V and the WIAT-II as qualifiers for the program � no other tests are acceptable. As luck would have it, I think those are the only tests he HADN�T had. We had reluctantly scheduled these to check DS�s eligibility for this program, but in the interim had more or less decided that wasn�t the right program for him, so we were going to skip the tests � our whole family was just so OVER testing and scores, etc. and we were enjoying having our eager, sweet boy back! But, the appointment took a long time to get, etc. and we figured we might as well let him have a shot at the SB-V just to see how he did � months had passed since his last test and he really is in a totally different place (e.g. with more time between his horrific school experience and now), even since then. We decided to let him take the test.
He got a lot of sleep the night before, DH made him a giant omelet in the morning and he had NO sugar prior to the test. As we pulled out of the driveway to go, I thought �WHY are we doing this again???� But, as we drove there and DS rambled on excitedly in the backseat about dinosaur cloning, I thought, �Wow, he�s in a particularly good place today�this really is a good day to test him��
Well, he very nearly maxed out the SB-V � he hard-ceilinged (19) 6 of 10 subtests, soft-ceilinged (17/18) three more and got a 16 on the remaining one. Though we very strongly suspected that his previous scores had significantly underreported his ability, I think we�re even a bit shocked at by how much! His WIAT scores (esp. on the verbal side) were similarly high.
I bore you all with this story to say �trust your gut.� If you�ve read up on this and you see something in your child that doesn�t come out in the tests, try again and use a different test. There�s NO doubt in my mind that the SB-V is a test much more suited to DS than some others � interestingly, �Fluid Reasoning� was one of his �stratospherical� scores in his testing with the neuropsychologist and that factors a lot into the SB-V apparently. We feel simultaneously very vindicated somehow that his school experience really WAS our first foray into the world of HG+ square pegs in round holes (and not a case of �poor parenting�) and terrified of what comes next! TRUST YOUR GUT!
Oh, and after all we�ve been through over the last year, I think I chose my screen name pretty poorly!
I no longer feel very �newtothis!�
