Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing results

I appreciate the help I've received in the past and thought I'd throw a few things out there about the testing recently completed with my DD6 (just finished K). I've been mostly lurking for several months and figured out some things on my own, but have some new questions.

DD6 was tested at school with the RIAS in February:
141-non verbal
118-verbal
133 full scale

I had problems with this and it didn't appear to fit her. I also felt like I needed additional information to decide how hard to push for accomodations like acceleration. If she really is 'only' MG then I'd like to try to stay within the standard school framework. If I was suffering from GT denial and she was much higher on the scales, my approach would likely be different. Also I thought if I was in denial, she might qualify for DYS.

She was tested on WISC-IV and WJ-III a few weeks ago, with these results:
VC - 136
PR - 137
WM - 120
PS - 138
FS - 143
GAI - 144

WJ-III was 128 (GE-2.3), high score was Broad Math at 130 (GE-2.5).

So, a little higher than I thought, but not too far out. On the verge of DYS, but not quite there. The tester indicated that the lower acheivment score was directly related to lack of exposure to some of the concepts. Certainly confirmed my doubts about the verbal portion of the school test.

I don't understand how the FS can be higher than any of the individual components. I see how the scores were added, but it looks to me like the difference is in the scaling. Is it just that since the scores are globally high that drives the FS higher than the components?

DD6 hit ceilings (19) on two subtests - Picture Concepts and Coding, with near across the board 16s on almost everything else. I've read the thread about Technical Report #7 and will check with the tester later this week to see if she stopped the test at the ceiling or if DD could have gone farther.

One of the reasons I wanted to test was to decide about pushing for acceleration. Based on the achievement test, I'm a little concerned about trying to move DD6 ahead if she is already missing exposure to concepts. Also a little concerned with whether we are starting down the underachievement path and how to offset that. Most of what I've seen from others on this board have seemed to have much better correlation between IQ and achievement scores. How big of a disconnect do you see between the results of these tests?

Any thoughts or recommendations? Thanks in advance for any perspectives or suggestions.

Thanks for the quick response, Dottie. I was hoping you'd weigh in here.

I guess I was expecting the acheivement scores to be more in line with the IQ scores, based on reviewing the DYS criteria. There is a full SD difference!

Other WJ-III scores (GEs)

Broad Reading - 117 (2.0)
Letter-Word ID - 122 (2.3)
Passage Comp - 118 (1.5)
Reading Fluency - 112 (2.0)
Broad Written - 127 (2.2)
Spelling - 123 (2.1)
Writing Samples - 126 (2.9)
Writing Fluency - 111 (1.8)
Broad Math - 130 (2.5)
Calculation - 128 (2.3)
Applied Problems - 129 (2.8)
Math Fluency - 115 (1.9)

Reading Comp is low relatively and Applied Math is on the high side. So the reading is of some concern, but it is something that she doesn't like to do - those pesty perfectionism issues crop up. One of the specific comments from the tester is that although DD sight reads, she doesn't decode unfamiliar words. I've seen this as well, she gets frustrated easily and gives up.

newbie question here, are these scores supposed to line up with what one would consider iq in each area? they seem to hang in that zone...
Also, I had read somewhere that the fs score would not include the ps and the wm... is that correct?

Lastly, these look like incredible scores to me!! Just thinking out loud here, but 'lack of exposure to some concepts' might be the result of a strong interest in areas that come very easy to her and a lack of 'interest' in areas where she has to work a bit - You mention a tendency to peter out on problems such as decoding unfamiliar words. Reading books about MATH (good ones!) might be a way to bridge that gap and get her rolling more on the verbal side. Think 'The Number Devil', 'Penrose the Mathematical Cat'. (also books on history, science, whatever gets her going...)
My son wasn't up to reading the Number Devil himself (6yo at the time), but we had fun reading this one together, learned a bunch about the FUN side of math and got some great vocab., grammar, exposure.
Also, on the question of underachievement, I like this article. I do tell my DS7 that he's smart BUT also do try to keep him focused on trying again if he doesn't get something the first time, and working to grow his brain even bigger!

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids

Maybe Chris is asking if VCI should be comparable to, say, the Broad Reading achievement score.