Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Test 4yo early or late?

Hello, I am new here but have enjoyed reading all of the information posted. Thank you so much for all of your insight!

We are very fortunate to live in an area that has a Charter school for gifted kids (145+). Our son will be in kindergarten next year, so this is our year to have him tested. I have already chosen a psychologist and have spoken with her. She said that he will be evaluated against children at his exact age (e.g. 4y, 3mo today) but that kids who are a little older typically have more maturity when they test (e.g. can sit still longer, etc.) so she recommends waiting until they are 4.5+ (the application deadline is not until January). I think he would be just fine sitting with a tester for an hour and is likely to really enjoy it, and as such, I wonder if he might score "ahead" more now than a few months from now when some of his peers may "catch up." Any thoughts/advice? Thanks in advance!

Good Luck NTT,
I would hope that a system that is so excellent for the 145+ would also have good options for the 140-145 kids as well.
I'm glad you have found us!
Trinity

Which test will the psychologist use?

I would recommend the SB-5 over the WPPSI-III. Many educators, who accept SB or WISC scores, don�t trust other cognitive measures, including the WPPSI-III, and consider their scores inflated. I believe the scores may also be artificially lowered for highly gifted children who are closer to the age limit of six.

My impression regarding the WPPSI-R that my son took at 5.0 years was that it was PAINFULLY easy. I sat in an adjoining room where I could watch and hear the assessment. DS was not the least bit challenged by the questions and so decided to alternate two and three somersaults before giving an answer each time.

He still tested in the gifted range, but I had wondered how high he would have scored had he been asked these same questions 2 � years prior at which age they would have seemed appropriately challenging for him. So, I understand your logic, but think it might apply better to a more interesting and complex test rather than one that was created to assess average ability pre-schoolers.

Hello!

I will share with you our experience over the past 6 months in testing our son and maybe you can use some of what we learned as you begin your journey.

He was 4.5 years old when we tested him for entrance to a gifted school. He was tested on the WPPSI-III for IQ and the Woodcock Johnson for achievement. A few weeks ago, at 4.10 years old we did a different achievement, the WIAT II to see how his achievement scores might differ over the almost 6 months.

Our experience with the testing was that he did not complete the tests in the hour or so they were promised to take. Each test took about 3- 3.5 hours. The psychologist was very sensitive to the fact that we were testing a 4 year old and made sure to take lots of breaks for playtime. This slowed things down a bit. The other big factor was that the more they know, the longer they go, and in some cases they can go for a very long time. In fact, we actually came back extra days to make sure he wasn't burned out. I think this worked extremely well. I am very confident that she got the best from my son. I would be very surprised, since you already suspect he is gifted, (and parents are the best at identifying) if your tests were limited to the one hour.

As far as the tests themselves go, as mentioned above, I am not sure you can get good testing in the higher ranges for 4 year olds. For the WPPSI-III - our son hit the "ceiling" in 5 of the subsets - telling us that we really don't know his real IQ. It could be that the "ceiling" just happens to be at his actual level, or it could mean if he had the opportunity, he could have gone higher. Then there are those, including Davidson YS program that say that WPSSI-III scores tend to be inflated in some young children. They actually require a 150 because of this while most all other IQ tests they accept are at 145.

Another thing to consider when deciding to wait longer is that research shows that the Processing Speed IQ Score tends to follow actual developmental milestones regardless of levels of giftedness. So a younger child who scores very high in their VIQ and their PIQ may find their PSIQ significantly lower. Waiting may help close that gap a bit so it doesn't negatively affect the score.

And the achievement tests are even harder to apply to 4 year olds. Our first test, the WJ, only norms for grades at Kindergarten level and above. That is why we chose the WIAT II the second time around. That test you can norm at Pre-K but only for a handful of the areas. Neither test was able to give us age-scaled composite scores because certain areas don't have testing materials for their age including spelling, numerical operations, broad reading and math to name a few. In fact, the psychologist who gave us the WIAT II said she had to given him subtests that are not traditionally given to a child his age and that it wasn't the "proper" way, but she had no choice given that his age material would barely delve into his reading and math skills.

We were able to get age and grade equivalents which we are told are not all that reliable but did help frame our argument for radical grade skipping which turned out to be a futile.

Another factor to consider if you are doing achievement tests is that writing and oral expression skills might be somewhat lower than the other scores since they "seem to reflect age appropriate motor skills and brain development rather than areas of decreased achievement." (Taken right from the tester's report)
I would not recommend doing these so young unless they are required for admission or you plan on using them to advocate for special accommodations based on academic achievement.

We, like you, are very new at this but the past 6 months we have learned so much.
Best of luck to you.

Thanks Dottie.
Could you explain to me what you mean by a "depressed 160 score" and how the ceilings work on achievement tests if you know?
I would really appreciate it.

Wow! Thank you all for your thoughts! I do think that I have a choice of tests, but this is the one the psychologist suggested (and she was suggested by the school). When I called her, she asked me first "if this is for private school or for (the Charter School)." I'm thinking it is a GOOD thing to have someone who does a lot of evaluations of gifted kids? Any reason I should want someone who normally just does testing for normal private schools?

Keep the thoughts coming! We are learning so much!

You are a wealth of information. I love this forum!!

I was asking about the depressed score as it related to our own situation. We were told that our son answered most every question available to him that is why the test took hours.
We were only able to get scores for 4 subtests, no composites because of his age. I never asked the psychologist for the raw scores, maybe I should have. She has no gifted experience and in hindsight, I wonder if we should have taken him somewhere else. But he really liked her and she took her time with him so I know he gave it his all. Whether she knows how to interpret that is another story.

We found Ruf�s levels quite helpful, and when coupled with these scores, even if they are not the truest indicators of how high his achievement levels might be or even his IQ score, we know he is a level 4. So regardless of the numbers, we have enough information to know that we have such a huge responsibility on our shoulders to continue to nurture his love of learning, and continue to seek out ways to do that while keeping him grounded and challenged all the same.

This forum continues to be my lifeline to all of this. I find I just can�t talk to anyone about this in my �real� world. We are anxious to get our application in to DYS in October and hopefully our son will get accepted. From everything I�ve read, it is all that this forum provides and so much more.

Dottie,
Oh no, he's not off to high school yet, not even close.
While age equivalents went into double digits, most all the grade equivalents were 3rd and 4th grade. She did all 9 subtests but the only one with age standard scores are the ones you listed. I'm not sure how you get an age 13:4 but a grade of 4:6 in the same subtest? She said she had to massage the numbers to fit his age and I think used a higher grade as his own grade in those instances -which she said may have negated the norms to some degree. She was really only concerned with whether or not he was ready for second grade placement so I think gleaning information beyond that was not that important to her.

I think I will take your advice and "squeeze her" for some more info. She remarked after each test that his scores are the highest she has ever seen (not all that comforting), and she didn't know the test ceiling was 160, so not sure what happened in there. The WIAT II took close to 4 hours!

Thanks Dottie!!!

I wouldn't worry about other kids catching up if your son is HG+. A few months at age four will not radically change the testing norms. On the other hand, if you feel that your child is ready and willing to undergo testing, then there's no reason to wait. The sooner you have information in your hands, the sooner you can start making choices, right?

I have one child who shut down completely when she was tested at age 4.5. She cooperated for about 45 minutes and then just stopped answering. The test administrator was very professional, and she tried several different subtests to get her going again, as well as a snack break. Unfortunately, my daughter can be very stubborn, and when she decided she was finished with testing, that was that. We had PG results on the two subtests she completed, but that was it. When she went for assessment at age 6.5, she was mature enough to complete the assessment, and she qualified for DYS.

You know your child best, and I encourage you to follow your gut. In hindsight, I should have known that my introverted little girl wasn't going to be a willing participant at age four!

take care-