Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Psych test says gifted, school retest says no

That's the point. The private psychologist did WJ tests of achievement and the WISC IV. The school psychologist did some form of the WJ Cognitive Abililities. The school psych test scored a lot lower than the WISC IV.


I have requested the full scores from the school psychologist. I only received the one score of 114 in a VERY short phone call from the principal. My cell phone was about to die and I asked him to call me back on my work phone, he said his call would just take a minute and dropped his little bombshell that DS score did not make him eligible for acceleration. :-(

Thanks! I plan to get a LOT of answers this week.

I received the scores from the school psychologist today:

Woodcock Johnson II Normative Update Tests of Cognitive Abilities:

GIA 114

Verbal Ability 126
Thinking Ability 121
Cog Efficiency 87


Verbal Comp 126
Visual Auditory Learning 108
Spatial Relations 111
Sound Blending 121
Concept Formation 118
Visual Matching 89
Numbers Reversed 88

Another note - this test is not accepted in Ohio as an instrument for assessment for Subject Acceleration. I don't understand why she did this particular test. Need to go back to her to find out her reasoning....

I also found in Ohio law that a school is not allowed to deny services based upon a re-test, as re-testing is not necessary once a child has been identified as gifted.

I think I have some serious issues with the school's application of gifted policy.

Be that as it may, I still would like to understand why such a large difference between the WISC IV and the WJIII.

If we compare the WJIII Verbal and Thinking clusters to the WISC-IV GAI, the difference is notable, but not as shocking. Cognitive Efficiency, however is substantially lower than the others; this cluster contains the equivalent of the WMI (Numbers Reversed, similar to Digit Span) and PSI (Visual Matching--closest to Symbol Search) scores, with both subtests comparable to about an 8 on the WISC-IV.

Verbal Ability is more-or-less equivalent to the WISC-IV VCI, with the component tasks most like WISC vocabulary and similarities.

Thinking includes the WISC PRI-type tasks (Spatial Relations--closest to a motor-free version of Block Design--or the Visual Puzzles on WISC-V, and Concept Formation--fluid reasoning task, though not much like Matrix Reasoning), and some others (long-term memory, auditory processing). Because it's such a mixed measure, with skills not covered by the WISC, our ability to compare to any specific portion of the WISC is limited. And we would need the extended version of the test (twice as many subtests) to have meaningful cluster information that separates these skills.

The reason she administered this test is quite simple, actually: he had the WISC-IV last fall, and the minimum re-test interval is 24 months. Therefore she had no choice but to give something other than the WISC, and this is what she had available. Can't speak to the part about being not an acceptable instrument under state policy! Of course, what would have made more sense would have been to accept the WISC results for purposes of SSA determination, and skip the re-test altogether.

I notice you have a few OH acceleration questions. You are exactly right on the "once gifted, always gifted," and that they should accept the prior WISC IV FSIQ. There is an issue in the state where the state sets the bar for cog gifted for state purposes, but each district has the right to set the bar elsewhere. Do you know he's above the district bar? They don't have to accept GAI unless there's a disability associated with the GAI vs FSIQ difference.

ODE is really great when outlining the process for a whole-grade acceleration, but offers little guidance on single-subject acceleration. Between my family and a few others I know, I know of nearly a dozen subject accelerations, each one has been handled differently with a different level of scrutiny.

That being said, gifted IQ is *not* a requirement for SSA, so this IQ discussion might be a bit off target. Do you have out of level, curriculum based assessment in reading and math showing where he places relative to kids at the end of the next grade level? When asking for both a reading and math acceleration, that's most of the instructional day for a 2nd grader, so it's going to look like a whole-grade acceleration to the school, which does require the IQ for the IAS.

What are you seeing in your child? I see where you stated that this is what the outside psychologist recommended, but what are you seeing in your child that motivates this? What does the teacher see? What's happening (or not happening) in the classroom?

Did he really take the WJ II? The state approves the WJ III NU & IV.

geofizz, there's no such thing as a WJII NU, so that has to have been a typo. (The second edition was called the WJ-R.)

Well, the state accepts the WJ III cog NU and the WJ IV cog. (But this is besides the point, as cog isn't necessary for SSA in OH)

OP, also, if your son is nearly 8, I'm assuming he's now finishing 2nd grade, and you're talking about accelerating to 4th grade reading and math next year?

It's important to understand that school principals are *freaking out* over state testing requirements. They are forced to be really conservative for fear of putting him into a testing situation in which he won't succeed. 3rd grade is a year to be terrified of the dreaded gaps if you're a school administrator. This year and next year in particular, the testing is not clear, nor are the standards for passing yet defined. This doesn't make it right, but it is what it is.

I went to go get you the table of approved instruments, and found that they have changed the rule as to how they count test scores in value added for a SSA kid:
EMIS Reporting Guidance
So assuming he's formally accelerated and scores proficient (note, of course, that what proficient is hasn't been defined), accelerating him will *help* the school's VA score. This should never drive a principal's decision, but it does help mitigate worries about how the child will affect the receiving teacher of the school's score. This is a great change, and I'm glad to see it.

Call the ODE and ask to talk to someone in the gifted office. They answer the phone and answer questions.

Here's the chart of what the state requires the districts accept:

These are just a few random thoughts thrown out from the advocacy experience of a parent who doesn't live in the same state you do, so take them for what they are worth We found that in our school district, the district prefers to have in-district testing as proof of eligibility for gifted program over private testing. While this may sound controversial here, what I was told happens sometimes (and to be honest, I think it did happen where I live), was that a few of the private psychologists who test for giftedness will inflate results for children who are semi-close but otherwise wouldn't have qualifying scores in order to make the parents happy and get the children into our gifted program. If there is a similar bias on the part of the school where you are (distrust of outside scores), and the previous WISC was through an outside provider, then you may be bumping up against that bias. If so, this is my suggestion re how to approach advocating through the bias:

1) Always present your information matter-of-factly, without emotion, just stating the facts and a few simple questions.

2) Restate that your ds had qualifying scores for the program when he was tested with the WISC in the fall. Address that the scores show some similar trends in the school testing, but other scores don't match up between the WJ-III Cog and WISC. If you have some thoughts re why they might not match, mention those, but don't suggest that it was an issue of how the test was administered by the school or a factor of an invalid test etc - don't put judgements on any of it. Simply note that there's a discrepancy. Then note that it's not impossible to score lower than your ability on an ability test, but highly unlikely to score higher than your ability, hence you have doubts about the WJ-III Cog results.

3) If the school questions the validity of the WISC scores, state simply "Are you questioning the results of testing through a board-certified (or whatever) psychologist who is respected in our community?"

4) If all of this gets you nowhere, summarize the meeting in writing and send the summary back to each of the participants who were present asking if they have any input to add. Once that is complete, send your summary and your appeal to the next higher level supervisor (director of district gifted program?).

5) Re the retesting not being necessary once a child is id'd as gifted - was he officially id'd as gifted? If he was (by the school district, not by a private psychologist), then I'd be sure to mention this in your communications with the school.

My last thought - aside from qualifying for the gifted program - the discrepancy shown on the WISC and on the WJ-III Cog is fairly large - do you see anything in your ds' academic work or daily life at this point that indicates he might be having any issues with processing speed or working memory? It's possible it's just a profile that is meaningless and he's doing fine, but there are also quite a few of us on the forum who have children with similar discrepancies who've struggled quite a bit, but are able to "fly" once their struggles are addressed. It's not easy to see or know when a child is not quite working up to ability in early elementary, especially for highly gifted students, because early elementary work is so danged early elementary. If you have any thoughts at all that the gap might have some meaning, I'd look into it further.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Yes. WJIII Cog NU = Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities, Normative Update.

There was also a non-NU WJIII, which consisted of all of the same test materials, but with different norm tables. Instead of publishing a whole new edition, they updated the standardization data.