Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Woodcock-Johnson administration for 8-year old

Hello...I am new here and have a question. My 8-year old son was skipped to the 3rd grade, one month into the school year this year, upon recommendation of his school. About a month later, the GT coordinator for the district approached us about GT testing him (which they should have done before moving him, we think). We did not want to skip him up, but were told it was his best option. Anyway...he was tested a couple of days ago. I am wondering if anyone knows what is typical, in testing an 8-year old. He sat in a conference room with the tester for 3.5 hours. Consequently, he scored 97, but needed to score 98 to be considered 'gifted'. We were not looking for him to be labelled as such, however, his teacher noticed, as did we, that he said he "didn't know how to do" many things in the last hour of testing. Is it typical for such a young child to be tested for 3.5 hours straight? As his mom, I can imagine he wanted out of there, and onto the playground. Just curious.

There's a WJ test of cognitive abilities, and another for achievement. It would help to clarify which one (or both) he took. And if the achievement tests were administered, at what level? More granularity in his scores would also be helpful, rather than one overall score.

So, I'd say step one to satisfying your curiosity would be to go to the school and obtain a copy of his test results.

In a school-based setting, most examiners break up testing. I have tested adolescents for 3.5 hours straight, but, even for them, I usually try to break it up into 1.5 hour sessions. I don't think I've ever tested an 8-year-old for a session longer than 2 hours, some of which would have been relatively light activities, like an initial interview, or drawing tasks.

OTOH, it is not uncommon for clinic-based examiners to sit young children for 3.5 hour sessions, probably because they have less access to them.

The WJ is a very lengthy test, especially if you do the whole thing, and especially for high-functioning children. Typically, I give breaks, and monitor attention and effort closely, especially after the first hour.

So it's not an unheard of session length for an 8-year-old, but it's not optimal either, and many examiners would have split it into two or more sessions. Sometimes the examiner isn't someone who is building-based, though, and there is pressure to get the whole thing done in one day, to avoid a second site visit. Also, teachers usually hate having students pulled, which may influence the decision to split up testing. (Once you have the child out of the classroom, you want to make the best of it, in case you don't get another opportunity.) None of these realities justify creating a situation where the results are less than optimal performance, but they are part of the pragmatic details examiners deal with.

My ds had the WJ-III Cog + Achievement testing through school, and although I'm not sure how long it took, I know from what he told me that he missed the full morning of school, which would have probably been around 3 hours.

I would ask for the full report with subtest scores, and I would also ask what order the subtests were administered in - that way you can look for red flags such as noticeably lower scores on subtests toward the end - which might be an indication of your ds being tired or bored or hungry etc.

The other thing I'd consider - if the testing stretched out to 3.5 hours, it's possible that part of the reason was the tester gave your ds short breaks between subtests. When our kids have been through neuropsych testing they are tested for 3 hours morning + up to 3 hours in the afternoon on the same day, but they are given frequent breaks for water/snack/to get up and run around etc.

I am guessing the scores you refer to above are percentile scores (97 and 98)? A one-point percentile difference might be nothing more than standard error of measurement. Will not having the gift id hurt your ds in any way? Are there gifted programs he won't be able to get into? If it isn't a number that he "needs" for anything right now, I'd get the report, take a thorough look at it so that you understand it, and then move forward as you were before the gifted testing happened. If it *does* mean he won't get into a specific program or whatever, I would think that you most likely have a strong set of test scores and a circumstance (sub-optimal testing conditions, tired, etc) to at least appeal that he may very well be a 98th percentile kid. There are also different ability tests available that he could be tested with as an alternative if you are interested in seeing if he could score above a 98th percentile. Please know I'm not a testing-happy-fool lol! But if you do test under a circumstance where the tester isn't rushed, testing is often actually fun for a lot of gifted children.

Best wishes,

polarbear