Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment To test or not to test?

Hi, I'm looking for anecdotes and advice about testing. A BTDT kind of thing.

We're on the fence about testing DD. I'd love to hear stories from both sides. Specifically:

1. Was testing beneficial? How did it help?
2. Did test scores help or hurt your advocacy?
3. Why did you choose to test or not test?

Some quick background on our situation (sorry for the redundancy for those of you who read our story on another thread).

*DD-just-turned-9-today has never been challenged at school. In past years, I talked to teachers about the issue, they agreed and said they'd challenge her, but classroom enrichment has never been enough. This went on for K, 1st, and 2nd without me advocating much (wish I could have a re-do!). Nobody acted like DD9 was exceptionally gifted, and I incorrectly thought the education experts knew better than me. So I didn't push the matter much.

*But by this year, 3rd grade, DD9 is starting to have problems. Her grades are slipping, and she's developed a lazy attitude toward trying. If something even looks hard, she skims the problem and then guesses. Or if truly faced with something hard, she gets upset and wants to quit. This is especially evident in math.

*Long story short, she stayed in 3rd grade versus being skipped due to concerns she would not have enough time to learn the 4th grade material and qualify for the honors math program the following year. If we had not considered honors math and stuck strictly to the IAS, I believe she would have qualified for a skip.

*We've receieved a lot of kickback from her homeroom teacher and the district math curriculum leader. They don't appear to believe us when we say she learns super quick, she's not being challenged, she's mentally bored, and that she needs to learn how to exercise her brain regularly.

*She's being re-evaluated in a couple of months to see if she'll pass the honors math test. At that time, we plan to discuss options about subject- versus whole grade accceleration.


DD9 has had no individual testing. She took the CogAT when we moved here 3 years ago right before she started 1st grade, and was identified gifted in both reading and math. I believe she tested 2.5 standard deviations from the norm. I've asked to have more detailed results sent to me as well as which level of test was given (assuming it was for 1st graders and not above-grade level). Still waiting for that.

I'm considering testing. Just not sure the cost, time, and energy are worth it, though.

I'd love to hear your stories to help me decide.

TIA

We've paid (luckily with help from insurance) for 3 full psych-ed assessments for 2 kids. It has been expensive but worth every single penny for us.

Round 1 - DS age 6.5. The school told us to test him for ADHD because of his behaviour at school. We disagreed on the ADHD, assumed he was gifted and bored but also agreed that something else was going on that was worth digging into. He was not very cooperative in testing, tested gifted and probable LD. He was too young to be sure on the LD side, come back in a couple years.

The school were kind of stunned at the gifted part, did some stuff for the LD. Neither DH or I had any clue about LD's so that part was very helpful. On the gifted side, the most important thing was that it gave ME the confidence and objectivity to advocate for more challenging work in an attempt to help with his behaviour.

Round 2 - DS age 8.75. Retested to get an official LD label and access to AT. By this point, I had read a LOT on gifted and felt that his first scores were a bit of an underestimate. He came out officially LD and more gifted. There might have been a slight panic attack on my part when I saw the scores because this time I knew a lot more about what they actually meant. Once again, a huge wake-up call that we were dealing with a bigger outlier than we had thought.

Round 3 - DD age 7. DD made it to grade 2 before school became disastrous for her and after DS's second set of scores we figured we might be underestimating her as well. The odd part is that for two kids who behave VERY differently at school they actually had surprisingly similar scores (but she isn't LD).

I personally felt much more comfortable advocating with pages of psych reports to back up my requests. Even with the pages and pages of psych reports we often had great resistance from the schools so I can't imagine how dismissive they would have been without. Both kids are now in programs that require WISC scores as entrance and are much happier so that has been worth a lot as well.

Good luck in your journey.

I'll just get out of the way the detail that this is what I do professionally, and then give you my general thoughts, and our personal anecdote.

If you have a referral question(s) (something specific that you need to understand about your child), then formal evaluation can be extremely helpful, particularly (perhaps only) if you have a skilled and nuanced clinician. If you need it for access to supports, again, it can open many doors. Otherwise, I tend to be conservative about testing just to have a number (without interpretation and specific recommendations).

For our family, we have not pursued formal testing for our children, but then, we homeschool, and I'm an assessment professional--so that might be as much of an argument for as against testing in general. We don't need it for advocacy or access purposes, and I trust my own clinical skills enough not to need someone else's confirmatory scores.

BTW, the CogAT is usually scored using age norms, so it shouldn't make much difference which form was administered. But based on it being before the start of first grade, it was probably the CogAT7 form 5/6.

My first round of testing was when my son was 6. I did not get an adequate interpretation, so I am nodding when I read aeh's comments above. There actually was something very significant in the testing, but the evaluator didn't mention anything except "the most extreme discrepancy I've ever seen". I didn't know what that meant and didn't know it was reason to pursue. First round of testing didn't open any doors. I felt it was wasted.

It hurt his chances at getting academic match in school. The school did a child study, and decided they could offer subject acceleration in math, but a full grade level below where their testing placed him.

However, later he was diagnosed with ADHD -- which was pretty obvious from the first testing, had the evaluator bothered to interpret the results.

Two years later, a second round of testing was fruitful. It demonstrated the therapeutic effect of his ADHD treatment, and opened doors.

Because my son falls into the 2e group, his testing was extremely beneficial. The first test shows the degree of impairment while the second test shows his intelligence after his ADHD is treated.

However, this hurt his chance of academic match in the public school setting because he was WAY beyond what they are able to accelerate/differentiate in the elementary school. Homeschool fixes that problem.

"*We've receieved a lot of kickback from her homeroom teacher and the district math curriculum leader. They don't appear to believe us when we say she learns super quick, she's not being challenged, she's mentally bored, and that she needs to learn how to exercise her brain regularly. "

The data points they are going by are actual performance in school. Your data point is...what?

I don't see how factual evidence from a widely accepted testing process can be anything but beneficial, assuming you're trying to get to the correct answer and accurate facts.

The cost time and effort were certainly worth it to me - a few hours, a few hundred dollars to get my child into the right educational path for the next decade of her life? Seemed like a pretty small investment to me.

We ended up testing but not because we thought our kids were gifted (12y twin girls). The school was complaining about inattention, blurting out answers, rushing through worksheets. etc. especially with one of our daughters. They were our only kids so we never picked up on signs our kids might be gifted. My husband is profoundly gifted and that should have a clue but I just assumed every kid could read chapter books by 3. (Apparently I should have read some parenting books ). We ended up testing to determine if our daughter had adhd and to appease the school. We ended up with a completely different dx. It was amazingly helpful because we learned that both of them were PG but they had dyslexia. Again, I didn't realize that you could have dyslexia but still read ok. Anyway, the testing was very helpful. I would suggest that if you believe that there could be any issues like adhd, dyslexia, etc. that you make sure you find a neuropsych or assessor who is familiar with gifted kids with learning challanges (2e). Best wishes!

Quick update. I received some testing info I requested from the school. DD9 took some group ability testing to screen for giftedness when we moved to the district. I understand these are NOT comparable to individual IQ assessments.

In the summer of 2014 as an incoming 1st grader, NNAT: 148

I've asked for additional info on the NNAT but awaiting a reply from the school. No idea where that's at with percentile.

Half-way through 1st grade at 6-yrs-old, CogAT (form 7, level 8 if that matters):

Non-verbal - 142
Quantitative - 125
Verbal - 125
Total - 135

We were starting to see problems in school by the time she took the CogAT: unwillingness to try challenges and a belief she couldn't read chapter books anymore. Her 1st grade teacher told her to stop reading chapter books so she could just be a kid, and DD9 took that to heart greatly. It took me many MONTHS and a multitude of library trips later to get DD9 to read chapter books again.

Anyway, not sure if anybody has experience with these tests?

And since I'm considering further evaluation, do these scores warrant additional testing in light of our struggles?

Until aeh may have an opportunity to respond, this online article, "How to Interpret the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test Score", by Kristen Bailey may be of interest; It indicates 148 would fall in the 99th percentile. Based on the CogAT results, the NNAT seems to be testing in her area of strength.

indigo is correct: the NNAT (presumably the 2nd edition, at that time) is most similar to the nonverbal portion of the CogAT. Interesting that they chose to give a six-year-old first grader level 8, which is generally intended for eight-year-olds in second or third grade. They must have been expecting a high score. The NNAT standard scores are on the same percentile scaling as other commonly-used cognitive instruments (mean of 100, SD of 15). So yes, 99th %ile.

Grieved that she had the misfortune to encounter a teacher who would tell a child not to read.

With the caveat that both instruments are better regarded as screeners than as comprehensive measures, I will say that your DD does appear to have very strong cognitive gifts, but in an area which is not always fully appreciated by teachers, as it is less frequently tapped for academic learning. In the more school-related areas (quantitative, verbal), those scores would usually be described as optimally gifted. Conceptual/pattern learners like your child sometimes don't have a venue to display their true gifts until later in school or life, when creative problem-solving, abstraction, and integration become much more important than basic skills, knowledge collection, and efficient output.

If there is a specific problem that requires a solution, then it is worth further evaluation. I wouldn't go into an evaluation as either a fishing expedition, or with a specific answer in mind, but if something is interfering with her success and joy in school or in life, then a good evaluation may provide some insight and possible solutions.

Thanks for your insight, aeh. I appreciate it very much.

Maybe this explains why we're having issues and why the teacher doesn't "see" it. DH has tested in the 99.9%tile in spacial intelligence, so perhaps DD9 is taking after him. Definitely not my forte!

You've given me a lot to think about in regards to further testing.

Thanks again!!