Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment CogAT results off from earlier private testing?

First a disclaimer that DS ended up in the highest scores category possible for our gifted program admission and so we're happy with the results in the sense that he will get access to the programs he needs, etc. This is more of a mix of curiosity and also double checking there's not something more here, as one of the results was wayyyyy off!

DS8 just received the following CogAT scores:

Verbal - 62 items/62 attempted/48 correct - SAS 118/APR 87
Quantitative - 52 items/51 attempted/51 correct - SAS 151/APR 99
Nonverbal - 56 items/53 attempted/46 correct - SAS 134/APR 98
Composite (VQN) - SAS 142/APR 99

I have two concerns looking at this:

1) My gifted kid can't bubble! yikes! According to him he answered every question on all 3 tests. Why does it say 4 questions between the two Quant and Nonverb weren't scored? We did nothing to prep him for these tests but for the Iowa testing next week we may practice bubbling. Does anyone else know why it would say he didn't attempt all the questions? He told me after the test he missed 1 in Quant so the score matches, but he said he answered all of them.

2) That verbal score is shocking to me. He's a math kid for sure -- that's his interest, but he also loves to read and has always read years above grade level. In private testing when he was 5 (I know, very young) his verbal scores lined up with this math scores pretty consistently. The only low he's had is processing speed which is in the low 30s if I remember. Everything else is consistently in that 97-99% range. This is a kid that hasn't tested 87th percentile in anything other than PS in his life. What's up with that?

If it's that he just doesn't understand the question format/style they were asking on this test I guess it doesn't REALLY matter... I'm wondering if I should even try to understand or if it's not really worth it?

He's also in a Language Immersion program so he spends all day in Spanish, but he reads and writes in English a lot at home (he inhales books, but mostly fantasy books, his reading diet isn't very diverse).

The write up said the following "Because verbal reasoning skills are so important to success in school, encourage XXXX to improve these skills. XXXX would benefit from a language curriculum with more opportunities for reading, writing, listening, and speaking."

Again, I'm kind of reading this in shock because this is the kid that is the top 1-2 in his class in reading and writing every year. I think it's just that his score was so off from his other score but this makes it sound like I need to do some sort of intervention and if so I'm not even sure what that might be.

DS8's private testing was as a very young 5 year old so I suppose those scores could be wrong (he's moderately gifted) but I think those scores match his academic performance (3 years advanced in math and years ahead reading, etc in his second language in the immersion program.)

Thoughts from testing Gurus?

WOW that was long. So anyway, I guess the question is -- as a family we're kind of shrugging the results off as inconsequential -- but wwyd?

Would you double check that he isn't falling behind in language?

Would you consider additional support as suggested in the test result flier?

My instinct is to do nothing as this is a kid with tons of enrichment, spending his days in a language focused elementary program.

So first, ignore the narrative from the CogAT report. That's boilerplate, generated automatically by the interpretive software, in response to the difference between verbal and nonverbal/quantitative. Even on this test, his verbal is well strong enough not to need supplementation.

Secondly, it's not impossible that this is a realistic verbal score. It's still in the top of the high average range, and compatible with being in the top 1-2 students in his class in reading/writing.

Thirdly, although he reads widely for pleasure in English, he probably spends much less time than a similar-ability child of his age does on informational text/academic reading in English, which may have mildly depressed his verbal score. (You report that he is reading almost solely literary text of a very specific genre.)

And on bubbling: so that's not necessarily a skill closely correlated to overall intelligence! Actually, it also makes a little bit of sense when you consider that historically, processing speed (which is typically assessed in ways that overlap significantly with fine motor speed) has been his area of personal weakness. It appears he overlooked some bubbles on his way through Q and N. I suppose it's also not impossible that his lower-than-you-expected V score involves getting off-track at some point in bubbling, but you'd need to have someone handscore his response booklet (I'm assuming this was paper, since you mention bubbling at all) with that specific type of error in mind, so they can see if there's a series of answers anywhere along the way that appears to be shifted.

In conclusion: not worried.

Thanks, aeh.

Just from my guess, fwiw, I don't believe he was off in bubbling -- I believe he would have known and been able to tell me if that happened. I think this is his actual score it just feels off to me!

Also on the bubbling -- yes, he's always had fine motor issues/handwriting issues. He's more or less on grade level now, but in the past it was a weakness he had to address.

Thanks again for the thoughts.