Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment [Post removed]

[Post removed]

There does not seem to me to be any disconnect between IQ and achievement scores. Both are perfectly OK scores. You seem to be worried about hitting a ' magic number '. Since the testing did not seem to indicate a problem, what really would be the point of retesting her? Is she having a specific issue that you are trying to address ? WHY do you want to skip the JRK? You could just keep her home another year and teach anything you like. Please do not worry about test-prepping a four year old!

Hi Fobstar and welcome, hopefully you'll find a lot of useful info here on this board and the related site.

Just a few things, I'm not sure why you were wanting the gifted label. If DD is not yet at school why are you seeing a definite need to advocate for her to skip a year? I could understand if you were trying to get her into a program, however kids with your daughters iq range are exactly the ones who traditionally excel at school. You may find after she starts that the class is a great fit, or you can advocate based on what her academic ability is.

I'm not equipped to answer your first question, however there is currently another thread devoted to that very subject. As for the other 2, perhaps our resident expert can weigh in.

I'm having horror visions of a 4 year old child being exam prepped to gain a higher IQ - hopefully this is not the case. The tests are designed to test potential rather than ability so no amount of prep will make a huge difference. For eg with the object assembly - my DD scored very high on this. I think we did a couple of puzzles that week (altogether as a family - 60 p ones) prior to that she rarely played with puzzles.

My point is - let your daughter be, she may very well have underperformed if she felt there was too much pressure! I don't think you will get much in the way of tips here on how to improve as most of us a looking at tips on how to cope.

Three is very young to test, and the scores are not considered to be very reliable. I agree with what the previous poster said. I wouldn't get too focused on this now. If school isn't a good fit, you could test her again when she is in early elementary.

There is a fairly large spread of scores among the subtests, which isn't shocking in a three year old. In particular, the two subtests that comprise the VSI are 2 standard deviations apart. The two VCI subtests are closer, but still 1.3 SD apart. The main piece of perspective I would offer is that IQ scores are not all that stable before the age of 8 or 9, which means that they may go up, or even down (especially with children who were a bit hot-housed, or just come from an enriched environment, at the time of the first testing).

It is early yet to be concerned about her educational placement. Even if she is academically capable of skipping jk, one should also consider whether this would be developmentally-appropriate, socially, emotionally, and with regard to work skills. There are numerous discussions around the forum weighing these factors.

To your specific question about confidence intervals: it's about +/- six points for the FSIQ, which would indeed include the 98th %ile.

Can someone point me to the thread re: WPPSI-IV scores? I tried searching and couldn't find it.

She is actually already doing JK at a private preschool. Our school board has a calendar year cut-off and she just missed the cut-off this year having an early January birthday. I would hate for her to have to repeat JK and then do THREE years of kindergarten.\, hence the reason for hoping for acceleration. Plus, her current peers will all be in the grade above her once they go back to school board.

DS had some developmental delays and was tested at 3.5. He wasn't particularly cooperative, so that is a factor to be weighed in, but his score was like 106. Fast forward to age 6 and he had a severe head injury prompting a visit to a neuropsych. His general ability index was around 133. Now he is 7 1/2 and was tested using the CogAt and the composite was in the mid 130's, so fairly close to the WISC IV score when he was 6., although the CogAT in general seems to be a silly test, esp when it is timed. But I thought it was interesting his score was close to his WISC score. So the score he had at 3 1/2 ended up being pretty meaningless. There is a bunch of research on this (see the book Nurture Shock or google "gifted and Nurture Shock"). The scores that preschoolers earn can change a lot just a few years later, unless they are at the extreme high or low end, because kids develop unevenly and a lot has to do with the environment at that age. For instance puzzles. Some kids do them, and would therefore do well on object assembly, because they have practice. Kids who live in an enriched environment with well educated parents and books will do better with vocabulary or naming pictures. If your child learns to read practically on her own before kindergarten starts, that would be a more definite sign of giftedness, IMO. Both of mine started reading shortly after they turned 4 and were fluent readers by the time K started. I gave them a little help though, so there are some kids who are gifted who don't start to read early.

DD was close to the cut-off making her one of the oldest kids in K, and we should have started her in K early, but I didn't want to be one of "those" parents who made all kinds of false assumptions about their child. So there is something to be said for thinking of this now, in case it does end up being a good idea to accelerate, but I wouldn't put too much weight on an IQ test at this point (unless, like I said, the score is extreme which in this case it isn't). Maybe re-test right before you need to make a decision, or just start her at the age when she should go, and accelerate later if it's not a good fit.

Can she read? I don't know enough about the WJ to know if her scores mean she can. If she can, perhaps that is why you are concerned? Why did you test at this age?

ETA: FWIW, I believe one of my children would have tested higher than true ability at this age and the other, lower. Even now, at ages 10 and 6, I don't feel I have a true grasp on their full abilities!

Fobstar, I am in a very similar situation with my son's scores. I really hear what blackcat is saying about not wanting to be one of "those" parents who has false understanding about their child's abilities. It's hard when the scores are kind of borderline like this! In my case, we're trying to decide between a fully TAG school and the regular neighborhood school (assuming it has adequate math programming, since our son scored very well there).

I find myself driving myself crazy with stress about making school choices, but here's the thing--these are the kids who are frankly going to do well no matter where they go, especially with involved parents.

I saw your reply and wonder what country you are from? I can't see a scenario where a child would do 3 years of kinder.

Maybe a little more information about your area, your child's abilities (one person asked if she can read yet) and other school options would help people give you better suggestions.

However, I agree that you may just have to wait and get a more reliable score later on.