Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion WPPSI vs. SB-V

I jumped into somebody else's thread this morning, and I feel bad about it. Apologies to rachibaby. So let me try to start the issue anew here.

Question: What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of the WPPSI vs. the SB-V for a child approaching 5 years old?

One issue seems to be the lower ceiling for the WPPSI. I gather from another thread that it is normed only to 7:2 or 7:3, whereas the SB-V goes higher. I also seem to recall that the SB-V has the reputation of being better for VS kids (though Kriston's son was an exception to this?), and also that the SB-V is reputed to be better for mathy kids (relevant in our case). Have I got these issues right? Are there other obvious ones to consider?

The question has come into focus for us because a school we are considering requires WPPSI scores for admission. They might be open to a substitution if there were a good argument for it, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

Any help from the wise among you greatly appreciated.

BB

Oops. I notice that I put this in the wrong forum. Argh!

BB

Yes, a lot of the decision comes down to why you're testing.

If you just need that 130 (or lower) for admission, I'd go with the WPPSI. Ceiling issues probably don't matter so much for that.

If you're looking for DYS admission or wanting to get a truer, fuller idea of just where your child is really operating, I might suggest waiting and taking the WISC. The SB-V just seems...finicky. JBDad's son had the same sort of issues my son had. Both tested GT on it, certainly, but even the experts felt that our kids' true potential just wasn't being shown. And both our kids seem mathy (or at least pattern-y) AND verbal--like yours in that regard, G3.

OTOH (A third hand?), if you need a fuller score right now for the purposes of major educational choices, I'd probably go with the SB-V, but with the expectation that you may be testing again on the WISC in a year or two if the results are as unclear for you as they were for JBDad and I.

It may just be that a certain kind of visual-spatial kid is not cut out for the SB-V. JBDad's son and mine really do seem to be cut from the same pattern-crazy, science-heavy cloth, so I was not at all surprised that his son scored much as mine did on the SB-V. I also expect him to kick behind on the WISC's PRI when he takes that, just as my DS7 did.

What does that mean for you, BBDad? I have no idea, given that I just told you that under certain circumstances, you might want him to take any one of the three tests! (And you only asked about two!) :p

I didn't know that the visual spatial will score higher on the WISC compared to the SBV. Thanks for the info.

Ren

What Kriston said.

SB-V on one hand kicked my butt over the GT-denial part. On the other hand it opened up a lot of questions. I have talked with one of the so-called GT testing experts recommended by hoagies and the impression that he gave me was that children will definitely score differently on either test depending on their abilities. Our psychologist put in the report that even though DS scored high, his true abilities weren't being tested by the SB-V.

If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have gone to someone who was more specialized with GT kids. According to the pysch, he had probably only seen one other child in the same ballpark as our DS (and our DS didn't score extraordinally high on the SB-V test, although his achievement tests were very high). But we had time and other constraints.

JB

That's what they say--Dr. Amend and other psychs have said it is so, so apparently it is. But it sure didn't play out with my son.

He tested as a verbal kid does on the SB-V and he tested as off-the-charts visual-spatial on the WISC. Dr. A said, "He does not test like a visual kid. Not at all." The psych who gave the WISC said, "Well, he's OBVIOUSLY incredibly visual-spatial!" Same kid, different tests...

That still makes me shake my head and cross my eyes. How can he be verbal on the VS test and VS on the verbal test? But JBDad's son seems headed down the same path, so it seems to be the way kids like them test, for some reason.

I guess I'm saying that the experts say so...so take it with a grain of salt.

Depends too on why you are testing. For us, we need to get some evidence in place for skipping K. Since I knew that the school might do the WPPSI, we choose the SB-V. (Then I learned that they would take our test scores, and so there wasn't the concern of test overlap). We were concerned about ceilings on the WPPSI too.

Now for us taking the WISC this summer is to see if DS's LOG is near DYS. One of his achievement scores suggests this (although early readers are skewed).

JB

Thanks to all for the advice! I can see that it's a frought issue, so I feel better about being confused.

The main reason for doing the testing is to get a sense for what kind of learner DS is, what his strengths and weaknesses are, and on the basis of that to make decisions about his education. To be honest the gifted school in question isn't really a determining factor: although it looks like it could be very interesting, it is almost certainly too far away to take seriously. We're going to visit next week, but unless we're completely blown away by it I have a hard time imagining we will choose to drive an hour each way for kindergarten. Especially when he seems to be enjoying the French school across the street from our house. In any case, the WPPSI cutoff for the gifted school is 120, so it doesn't seem like that by itself would dictate one decision or another.

A possible final reason for taking the test would be to see about DYS eligibility. It's so hard to judge whether that will be an issue, though. DW and I would have made the cutoffs easily, and when I read the Ruf book DS seems to fit comfortably in level 4 with some level 5 thrown in. So that suggests the possibility. (I should add that, although DW and I would have easily made the official cut, it's not clear that either of us would have naturally been classed as a Ruf Level 4 or 5 at DS's age. I have no idea, for instance, when I started to read.) Another consideration is that we live among a pretty skewed population, and although there are a few kids a bit older than DS who seem similar to him, in general it seems to me that he stands out pretty clearly. Still, it feels presumptuous to think of DYS as a reason for doing the testing.

I think one of the reasons it feels presumptuous is that it's very hard to judge about my own kid what his abilities are. When I see him struggling with something that it seems to me he *ought* to be able to do, it always makes me wonder whether I've mis-classified him. For example, he goes to a math circle where they play lots of number games. There are two other kids, both just 5, who sometimes seem a bit ahead of him. They had been figuring the areas of rectangles and triangles, and then the teacher drew a cuboid. DS clearly had trouble understanding how to extrapolate from what he already knew to figure the answer. With some help, one of the others managed more or less to figure it out. I recognize this is probably not a standard thing for four and a half year olds, or even five year olds, to be doing. But still, it's so hard to put yourself in the position of not being able to see that connection. It makes me feel helpless to help him, and it also makes me wonder whether I've got an inflated idea of his abilities.

I am a proud papa, but I want to be realistic too. I know he is smart, but just how smart I have no idea. I guess that's really the main reason for testing. Perhaps that means SB-V or wait for the WISC?



BB

I only have advice on the SB-5 since my DS6 took that at 4 years 9 months old. Funny enough--we had some ceiling issues as well on this test but at the time we needed something to convince me that he was GT and needed to go to new school. I'm pretty sure we would have had ceiling issues on the WPPSI despite the fact that he was still less than 5 years old. My son is also considered more verbal and mathy and that was what his test results showed.

I don't regret using the SB-5 and actually our tester told us that she preferred the SB-5 over the WPPSI despite the usually lower scores. She actually warned us that his scores on the SB-5 might be lower than expected but would still give us a good idea of his IQ.

If we need testing again in the future for DS6 I think we would choose the WISC.

ETA: We posted at the same time and I just want to add that you should not feel bad about testing for DYS. The only reason we did achievement testing on DS6 at the age of 5 years 1 month was to get qualifying scores. I doubt I EVER would have subjected him to that type of test if we didn't need that score to apply. I don't think it told me much except that he was academically ahead, could read, and could do basic math. I knew that without the test.

DS6 took WPPSI at 5:3. There are two disadvantages the way I see it - ceiling issues and the fact that you have to score higher on WPPSI than SB-V to get to DYS. We needed the results at that point and didn't want to wait for another 9 months for WISC. To our big surprise he made the DYS cutoff.

We will most likely use the same test for DS4 once he turns 5. If it doesn't work (bad day, not co-operating, wrong test for him) we can always try WISC a year later.