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Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 46
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OP
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Four years ago, my older daughter was identified as gifted at age 6 after her school psychologist administered the WISC IV; she scored a FSIQ of 138 and a GAI of 142 (which were higher with extended norms). She has always been a high achiever, reaching all milestones early, so her scores were not necessarily a surprise.
Her younger sister on the other hand, has always seemed more "normal", (7 year old, 2nd grade) with grade level reading, math etc., but very perceptive and mature, with a wicked sense of humor and a good vocabulary. She was recently given the OLSAT at her elementary school, and scored substantially lower (SAI of only 98). While I don't believe my younger one is gifted, I still thought her results would indicate that she is "bright", rather than average, to below average. It just seems very odd that there would be such a discrepancy between siblings (almost 3 standard deviations!!)
Has anyone had a child that scores substantially lower on the OLSAT than on an individually administered test like the WISC-IV? just wondering if I should accept these scores as a valid reflection of my 7 year old's abilities?
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Joined: May 2009
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Both of my children score substantially lower on the CogAT (which I assume is similar to the OLSAT) than on the WISC IV.
Another thing to consider: Do you think it's possible that your younger daughter might have an undiagnosed learning disability?
I finally got serious about figuring out if my older son (then age 8) was actually 2E rather than simply average with slow processing speed when my younger son started reading at age 2. Several years later the older one was diagnosed with dyslexia and determined to be HGish.
Last edited by Kai; 12/04/13 06:43 AM.
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Joined: Dec 2012
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Are your children full siblings? If so it would be unusual for them to be that far apart. I have heard of biggish gaps but if the score doesn't reflect what you see there could be a problem. Or maybe it isn't a good test and she was having an off day or misunderstood some of the instructions.
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Joined: Mar 2013
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My DD19 who is 4 1/2 years older than my DS, is not gifted. She has LD's but even without them would not be considered on the gifted end. My DS14 on the other hand could read at 3, and max out his OLSAT when he took it in 3rd grade. There has never been a question he was gifted, and it's quite evident without testing.
In my school district they don't administer the OLSAT till the kids are in 3rd grade and 8 and older. They won't administer tests for LD's until 2nd grade. While I don't completely agree with them there attitude is the tests can be unreliable under a certain age. Children grow and mature quite suddenly, 7 is quite young to "decide" a child isn't gifted like her sister.
I would let your younger daughter grow and learn and not worry about the test results unless you really feel she isn't being challenged or is having problems. Children are different. Testing is imperfect.
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Joined: Mar 2013
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Just found this link: http://learningandlifeskills.typepa...-lennon-school-abilities-test-olsat.html"Notice how the skillsets being assessed change once a child reaches 3rd grade - moving from a heavy dependence on figure-based reasoning to more verbal-based reasoning tasks. Notice also that students are not assessed for quantitative reasoning until 3rd grade, as well." Perhaps this is the reason for the "lower" score.
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Joined: Jan 2013
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Our district actually moved the OLSAT in the 3rd grade b/c they were finding the scores to be really far off that early. In fact, I had the same child score significantly different in 2nd grade vs. 3rd grade when they made this switch. I wouldn't put too much stock in the OLSAT as a single measure in the 2nd grade. That said, its not a bad measure to have if this child necessitates further testing later on.
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Joined: May 2013
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The group ability tests like the OLSAT, CogAT, etc. do not measure the same things as the WISC.
DD's WISC GAI is approx. 32 points higher than her CogAT. Part of the problem with the CogAT was that it was timed and she didn't finish a lot of it. The section that she finished (verbal) was still a little lower than the WISC--97th percentile on the CogAT vs. 99th on the WISC.
First thing to do with these tests like the OLSAT is figure out if it was timed, and if it was, did the child answer all the questions. Then check to see if there were discrepancies among sub-tests (for instance scoring 30 points higher on one section than another). That would indicate a problem with the test (or a disability).
I would not come to the conclusion that she is not gifted based on the OLSAT. DD's CogAT composite was "high average" but her WISC is over 99.9th percentile. How sad it would have been if I had just taken the CogAT composite score at face value.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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OP
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Are your children full siblings? If so it would be unusual for them to be that far apart. I have heard of biggish gaps but if the score doesn't reflect what you see there could be a problem. Or maybe it isn't a good test and she was having an off day or misunderstood some of the instructions. Yes, they are full siblings. Starting to wonder whether she has a learning disability of some sort.
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Joined: Feb 2010
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OP
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Posts: 46 |
The group ability tests like the OLSAT, CogAT, etc. do not measure the same things as the WISC.
DD's WISC GAI is approx. 32 points higher than her CogAT. Part of the problem with the CogAT was that it was timed and she didn't finish a lot of it. The section that she finished (verbal) was still a little lower than the WISC--97th percentile on the CogAT vs. 99th on the WISC.
First thing to do with these tests like the OLSAT is figure out if it was timed, and if it was, did the child answer all the questions. Then check to see if there were discrepancies among sub-tests (for instance scoring 30 points higher on one section than another). That would indicate a problem with the test (or a disability).
I would not come to the conclusion that she is not gifted based on the OLSAT. DD's CogAT composite was "high average" but her WISC is over 99.9th percentile. How sad it would have been if I had just taken the CogAT composite score at face value. Thanks for the response. Her verbal score was 96. Subsets were verbal comprehension and verbal reasoning, where she got 5/12 and 9/18 correct respectively. Nonverbal score was 104, and her subset there were 8/9 (pictorial reasoning) and figural reasoning (11/21). So she got about half of questions correct in each subset, except for the pictorial one). I guess I can ask her teacher if test was timed... not sure if she would be able to tell me if she answered all the questions. We might have her privately test with the WISC to see what is going on here. Thanks!
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Joined: May 2012
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THis is what Hoagies tells us about the OLSAT ( http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/tests_tell_us.htm): "The most common group intelligence tests, OLSAT and CogAT, are used in districts and programs across the country. Notable gifted professionals recommend them for screening potentially gifted children. However, a small study noted a potential problem with the OLSAT and very gifted children. While the correlation between group and individual intelligence tests is quite high for average scores, in this study that correlation almost disappeared for gifted scores. This means that while an average child will score very similarly on a group IQ test and an individual IQ test, a gifted child may not score similarly at all. And the study suggests that this group test may even result in a negative correlation for some gifted children: the more gifted the child, the lower the group ability test score! ["Investigations of the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test to Predict WISC-R Full Scale IQ for Referred Children" by Anna H. Avant and Marcia R. O'Neal, University of Alabama, Nov. 1986, ED286883] Though this study is no longer available from AskERIC, it can be obtained on microfiche from most education university libraries.
A 2001 study using the OLSAT noted a problem with the OLSAT and twice exceptional (gifted and learning disabled) students. A Comparison of the WISC-III and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test with Students Referred for Learning Disabilities, by Thomas Guilmette et. al., Providence College and Brown University School of Medicine, showed that LD kids tended to score an average of 7.5 points lower on the OLSAT than their WISC-III full scale IQ scores. This study is available in the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, or for a few dollars from SAGE Publications on the 'net.
"The use of the OLSAT-6 in estimating overall intellectual abilities in children with suspected learning disabilities is not encouraged because it may frequently underestimate students' actual abilities, which may result in fewer appropriate referrals for further educational and intellectual abilities." "As with previous studies with gifted students, our research indicates that the OLSAT-6 appears to underestimate WISC-III FSIQ." -- Guilmette et. al., A Comparison of the WISC-III and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test with Students Referred for Learning Disabilities" My son scored much lower on the OLSAT than on the WISCIV (however, he is twice-exceptional). I believe it is timed and my understanding is that the ability to listen closely and remember oral information affects the verbal portion more significantly than the non-verbal portion of that test and that the child must be paying complete attention to each word for every verbal item in order to answer it correctly. The tester only reads the question once and the question is not permitted to be repeated. ETA: I put very little stock on the OLSAT - I believ it misses a lot of gifted children. A LOT.
Last edited by Irena; 12/04/13 10:21 AM.
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