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

DS8 (or will be in a week) sat the WISC IV last fall with a private psychologist and tested at FSIQ 131/ GAI 144. Psych also did the Woodcock Johnson tests of achievement in reading and math. Reading was superior range, math was between high average and very superior. The psych's recommendation was that DS be at least subject accelerated in reading and math. We referred him for acceleration about 5 weeks ago. Today the principal called and said that they administered the Woodcock Johnson Test for Cognitive Abilities and that DS had scored 114 so he was not eligible for acceleration.

Our questions are these:

1. What could cause such a drastic drop from the WISC IV in September 2014 to the Woodcock Johnson last week?

2. Does anyone out there know Ohio Gifted Education Policy? We checked on the state Department of Ed website and from what I can tell all districts must accept private testing, and that once a child is identified as gifted, they cannot be "un-identified".

Thanks for your input.

A few possibilities may be found in this old thread, How much error can there be in test scores?

Did the psychologist give you the numbers for the WJ test? I think superior is 120-129, very superior is 130+ and above average is 110 plus, so maybe the difference isn't that huge.

One of my kids had a discrepancy like that between the WISC and the WJ. His WJ cognitive scores were about 20 pts lower than his WISC scores. His WISC GAI was 143. I think that different tests suit different kids, and then there are other factors like tester rapport, how well they slept the night before, etc. I will say that this child is 2e with dyslexia, which I feel strongly also makes him an inconsistent performer.

Agreed. The wikipedia page on IQ classification shows many tables which relate various IQ ranges to descriptive terminology for each range.

The WJ numbers are as follows:
Broad Reading Skills - 131
Basic Reading Skills - 127
Reading Comprehension - 129

Math Comprehension Skills - 110
Mathematics Reasonsing - 134
Academic Fluency - 124

These numbers were from the private psychologist, not the school psychologist. I have requested all of the test scores from the school psychologist, but do not have them yet.

Does it make a difference in WJ if the child has a slower processing speed? DS definitely does.

This old post from a thread about IQ for acceleration? may be of interest. It shares a position from the Iowa Acceleration Scale (IAS) regarding IQ and acceleration.

I read this thread, thank you! One question I had....the WISC IV was conducted by a Masters level tester under the supervision of a Psy D. The Psy D scored the test. the WJ was conducted by a M Ed and Ed S degreed person. She typically works with kids on the other end of the IQ scale, so I don't think she has much experience working with GT. The tester for the WJ left the room at one point to obtain another test commenting that it wasn't a test that she used much. Does that make a difference in the results?

Are these the only numbers you have for the WJ-III testing that the school gave? If so, I think it's possible (maybe probable) that they didn't give your ds the full WJ-III Test of Cognitive Abilities, and if that's the case, then you don't have an apples-to-apples comparison with the FSIQ and GAI from his previous WISC.

Do you have any number on the report from the WJ-III called the "GIA"? That would be what you need to compare to the FSIQ. There isn't a corresponding # for the WISC GAI (taking out Processing Speed and Working Memory), however (fwiw), my ds, with a very low Processing Speed on the WISC has a WJ-III GIA that is almost identical to his WISC GAI.

My guess is that the school psych used a subset of the WJ-III Cognitive subtests combined with a subset (math and reading) of the WJ-III Achievement subtests to come up with the #s you have above. You can most likely google to find out which WJ-III subtests are combined for each category that you have listed. If this is the case, you really don't have anything you can compare, and it's likely that the differences in #s you're seeing are related (possibly) to whatever caused the need to calculate the GAI rather than FSIQ on the WISC.


As I mentioned above, my EG ds has a very slow processing speed on the WISC (due to fine motor issues), and has a corresponding slow subtest on the WJ-III Cognitive, but his WJ-III GIA # is almost identical to his WISC GAI. OTOH, you can definitely see the impact of his fine motor challenge on the WJ-III *Achievement* test scores (the subtests that are timed and require written output have much lower scores than would be predicted based on his overall IQ. So yes, it's possible that on the achievement subtests you'd see an impact. Also possible you might see an impact on GIA, but I'd expect it to fall in the range of at least his FSIQ.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Even though the verbage associated with each test (WISC vs WJ-III Cog) is different, I thought they both followed (in theory) a normal distribution centered on 100 with a standard deviation of 15, which means the WJ-III GIA should be comparable to the WISC FSIQ. I am hoping aeh will see this and let us know if there is in fact a difference in how the scores are distributed

polarbear

I'm sorry to hear about the school's results. Have you asked the school for subset scores? That way you can compare IQ data to IQ data since the numbers you posted above are achievement scores not ability scores. The achievement scores you posted also seem to be in line with the WISC and not with the high average WJ cognitive score they gave you.

Polarbear - the WJ scores given were from the WJ achievement tests done by the psych last September. All I know from the school's test is that he scored 114 on the WJ Cognitive Abilities. I have asked the tester for a copy of his scores.

I don't know if this is germane to the topic, or just me being a mama lion protecting her cub; but the psych who tested DS last fall was one from Hoagies' list. The psych at the school is relatively young and mentioned during the testing that one of the tests she used was one she doesn't do often. I know they did more than the WJ, I just don't know WHAT more they did yet. DH and I honestly trust the evaluation of the private psych more than the evaluation of the school psych as I am fairly sure she does not deal with the gifted testing all that often.

I would assume we can only compare the WISC IV to the WJ Cognitive Ability test for an apples to apples comparison.

I appreciate everyone's help. I know we are going to appeal this, but I want to be sure we have looked at EVERYTHING before we do. And I think I need to get a certain amount of emotion under control before appealing! (From Emotion to Advocacy, anyone!)

Me, too!

Another quick question,,,,he was only at the school for the testing for 90 minutes max....when the private psychologist tested him, he was there for nearly 6 hours one day, then they asked us to bring him back another day for another 90 minutes of testing. Does the length of time mean anything?

Sorry, I've been busy this weekend!

The WJ-III GIA is heavily influenced by processing speed, even more so, in my experience, than the WISC-IV. In addition, if the whole school eval only took 90 minutes, and the WJ was not the only test given, I would wonder if the whole WJ cog was administered, or if only the abbreviated version (BIA) was. That's a three-subtest form with one verbal, one fluid reasoning, and one processing speed subtest, that takes about 15 minutes. Obviously, processing speed has an even greater impact in that case. I do see that the Academic fluency cluster is good, so it's not clear how much of an impact processing or fine motor speed has.

This will be easier to discuss when you have precise test info, of course!

Bottom line, though, it is likely that the first eval is more accurate. It's certainly more consistent with the achievement data. His math computations aren't very high, though (relatively). Does he seem slower than expected with math facts?

Oh, and no, there is not a difference in the mean and standard deviation. They're both 100 and 15. The qualitative descriptions are somewhat different, though, and additionally differ by the clinician. We're probably best off comparing the standard score ranges.

aeh - thank you so much for the response!

As far as the math computations -- the original evaluation stated that the issue on the math computations was that his score decreased when a time factor was added.

I am hoping to get the precise test data this week, and will post what I get.

Thanks again!

My son had a drop in WJ IV scores. It was fairly dramatic- the neuropsych was testing for ADHD. He said that my son was very distracted during certain portions of the test. Because of the age norms, my DS had to go further on the test this time to achieve such high scores. The reading and writing and even some of the math pushed his ability to remain focused and careful.

Even a year made a difference on achievement tests. We saw a similar result on his school standardized test. DS was able to explain what was going on in the room during the test, but the test itself did not garner much attention.

Those results are for the WJ achievement not cognitive.

My kids took about 90 minutes to 2 hours to do the WJiii cognitive but it wouldn't take as long if they stopped at questions that gave a score of 114. Can you get the scores sheet so you can check the WM and PS results?

When you have more detailed assessment data, the next questions will be

1. WISC-IV (old): what was the PSI, especially Coding?
2. WJ-IIIACH (old): how did he do on reading fluency, math fluency, and writing fluency (the Academic Fluency cluster)?
3. WJ-IIICOG (new): how many subtests were actually administered? Was this a GIA-standard, GIA-extended, or BIA? Additional questions depending on these answers. Any commentary on test observations?
4. Other testing (new): what was given, and why? Other questions will depend on these answers.

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.

Yes. It may be important to note that last year his second grade teacher and a third grade teacher decided to "unofficially" accelerate him. I appreciate their trying to help DS, however the 3rd grade class wasn't much better for him than the 2nd. He was, once again, in the highest reading group and therefore most of the time he was in the third grade class he was left to his own devices and allowed to simply choose independent reading from the class stock. That does not help further his comprehension or reading skills and it give him too much idle time. He only read with the 3rd grade teacher and his group every two weeks or so. I now know that even though it was not official (with a WEP) that he should have taken the third grade reading proficiency test. Considering the fact that the WJ and their STAR assessments both show him reading and comprehending at 5th - 6th grade level, I doubt he would have had an issue! :-)


I was aware of the reporting, but I didn't know that was a change...I have learned A LOT about ODE rules for GT in the last few days...


I had emailed back and forth with the GT man there, he was a wonderful resource. He had even pointed out the procedure for filing an official complaint with the other issue. They have been most helpful!


Thanks!

You need to enlist the help of the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers from this year.

The 3rd grade teacher in particular should present work samples from this year, and the teacher should express concern as to how he will remain learning and engaged next year.

The district bar is the same "two standard deviations above the mean" just like the state.


The only thing that might be curriculum based would be the school's STAR assessments (I haven't delved into the world of curriculum based testing!) At Spring conferences they gave us the STAR reading and math asessments they did and he scored 631 on math (4.4 grade equivalent) and 684 on reading (6.2 grade equivalent) But I don't think STAR asessments count any longer for GT.


Originally we had DS tested because we wondered if he had ADD. We chose a psych specifically because they were well versed with ADD and the gifted (DH is gifted). Found out DS was gifted but has slow working memory / processing speed. Psych said exposing DS to higher level math may help. Also said that making sure he is challenged will help with the processing speed.

School does not challenge him. He only gets to read with teacher every two weeks, if that and when we asked, we were brushed off. We know how often he reads with the teacher because she sends home a new book with a sign off sheet for us. the sheets are not collected for weeks at a time. His math homework is very simple for him, it does not take him but 2-3 minutes to do all of his homework. He complains of the teacher repeating stuff over and over.

Third is that because he has so much free time on his hands when the teachers work with all the other groups, he amuses himself sometimes by singing, humming, or distracting other kids. Two teachers said he has maturity issues. He's not immature, he's bored. (Yes, I know the schools don't like that word, but guess what? I don't like you calling my child immature!) Also, there is not ONE faculty member in the district with a gifted credential, so I don't believe they know much about dealing with GT kids.

Our biggest concern is that he will begin to tune out if not challenged.

PSI 109 (Coding 9, Symbol Search 14)



Reading Fluency 140
Math Fluency 94
Writing Fluency 113


7 Subtests
GIA (Std)
No observations, she only provided the scores themselves to the principal and to me.


No other testing given.

Thanks again for looking at this!

The WISC results echo the concerns with the reasons for low processing speed scores that I mentioned above. He's had six measures that should reflect some aspect of processing speed: coding, symbol search, visual matching, reading fluency, math fluency, writing fluency. Performance has ranged from the border of Average and Below Average all the way up to Very Superior. That does not look like a true cognitive processing speed deficit to me. It looks more like there are other factors that interfere with consistent demonstration of his strong processing speed.

If we sort the tasks into fine-motor-heavy and fine-motor-light ones, we have, in the motor-heavy category: coding, math fluency, and writing fluency. Two of them were relatively low, in the lower half of the Average range, while writing fluency was High Average.

In the motor-light category: symbol search, visual matching, reading fluency. One was relatively low, in the bottom of the Average range, while the other two are stronger, in the High Average and Very Superior range.

Note that visual matching and symbol search are very similar tasks, involving visual scanning and discrimination. Strong performance on one, and weak performance on the other, suggests that the weaker subtest is not a complete representation of these skills. The primary differences between the two are that one uses symbols, while the other uses numbers, and that for SS, one knows what the search items are, whereas for VM, one must scan all of the items to find the matching pair.

Now let's organize these in another way. We can sort them into tasks with thinking, and those with little thinking. In the thinking category: reading fluency, writing fluency. A small amount of comprehension is required for the reading task. The writing task requires quickly formulating sentences using provided target words. His performance is quite strong when thinking is involved.

In the little thinking category: coding, symbol search, visual matching, math fluency (depending on one's grasp of mathematics; his very high reasoning scores and decent computation scores suggest that it is not the actual ability to do arithmetic that affects math fluency). The lowest scores are here, with the exception of symbol search. Coding and visual matching have in common the need for repeated re-scanning of the materials, with the potential for getting lost in the visual tracking. Symbol search has much more widely spaced lines, separated by visual frames, which makes it much easier to scan. Plus, there are specified target images, which reduces the number of scans one has to do. Coding and math fluency have in common the highest fine-motor demands. It would be good to check if his math fact automaticity is any faster when administered orally.

So my thought is, some of the areas that might benefit from further investigation may include fine-motor skills, visual tracking, and high stimulation needs (differential performance when cognitively engaged--has some relationship to ADHD and other executive functions). My suspicion is that more than one of these is involved. For example, let's say fine motor and cognitive challenge explain most of the differences. If his true cognitive processing speed is represented by reading fluency, it's in the Very Superior range. Add fine-motor constraints, and it drops 1.5 SD, to the High Average range (writing fluency). Take away the cognitive challenge, and it also drops 1.5 SD (symbol search). Do both, and it drops over 3 SD, to the downside of the Average range (coding, math fluency).

Wow aeh! That's a lot of great feedback. Thank you! We will check out the possibilities.

Update: I got an email from the assistant superintendent of the district. Since I pointed out that Ohio Administrative Code prohibits denying services based upon re-testing, they are going to go ahead with the assessment to determine if acceleration is the right thing for DS. She even listed the steps required, which agree with the state's policy. (In Ohio districts must adhere to the state acceleration policy or show an evidence based reason to deviate) I think the district administration learned something about gifted services, too. (no, that's not meant to be snarky!)

Oh,and geofizz, your comments about principals and testing was some very good insight. It helped DH and I see the principal in a little different light. Thanks!

I only hope some day I can learn enough to help someone else here....right now my learning curve is STEEP!

I have a LOT of homework to do this weekend! :-)