Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing/DYS

Hi everyone!
Let me start by saying how much I have enjoyed "lurking" on this board for the past few months. Your discussions and responses have been invaluable to me. And it is because of the kind nature of everyone on this board that I finally feel compelled to post.

My dd4 (she will be 5 at the end of May) took the WPPSI third edition in November of '07 at the age of 3 years, 5 months. We knew almost nothing about testing at that time (not sure I know much more now ) ... but did so as a part of her entry to a gifted preschool.


I do feel we are in a good educational place at the moment (although your posts have taught me not to get too comfortable for too long). I like the idea of DYS for help "down the road" if we were fortunate enough to qualify and be accepted. I realize you cannot apply until your child is 5 years old.

I would be willing to retest her at some point since she was so young when she tested in the first place (again, something we did for admission to school). Since the time of her test, I feel she has grown a lot, both in knowledge and maturity. If anyone has any advice about when might be a good time to test - and a recommendation of which test to take - I would appreciate any/all advice.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Welcome to the board and out of hiding

I certainly defer to our testing gurus but I'd say testing again after she is 6 would be good.

Welcome Irisheyes! It is wonderful to hear that your DD is in a good school situation. Is she in the gifted school that was the reason for your testing?

I don't really know a lot about the wppsi or testing under age 4. (We contacted our tester when our DS5 was 3 and she said that she didn't test kids until they were at least 4, and she used the SB-V.) There seem to be a couple of problems with testing earlier. One is that the kids may not cooperate very well. Another is that there are not many kids in the norming samples who tested very high, so the results might be skewed for early readers. (someone who knows something about testing please comment if i'm wrong!)

DYS also requires qualifying scores on an achievement test. Is the preschool your DD goes also part of an elementary school? Or do you have a kindergarten in mind for the fall? You might be able to get them to do achievement testing for you now. We went to the local public school this year and told them that we would be sending our DS there, and that his situation was a bit out of the ordinary. They ended up giving our DS achievement testing so they would know what he would need when he got to school in the fall, and they would be able to pick the best teacher ahead of time. (If you are lucky enough to get this, make sure you check to see if the school will use one of the tests accepted by DYS.)

If you get qualifying scores on achievement, you may be able to get by with using your WPPSI scores with a portfolio. I think I've heard of people with very close scores getting accepted with a portfolio. But since your DD's test was almost 2 years ago, i would guess they'd want a more recent qualifying IQ score. Maybe next year's school would do that too? I'm ever the optimist.

I'll see if I can track down a recent post comparing SB to WISC, and one discussing achievement tests. (All i know is that the SB does not have any timed components, which was good for my DS.)

I would love to hear more about your DD too. What are her interests?

Here's a link called "Best Tests"

Best Tests

Here's one on achievement testing:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....ch/true/Re_WIAT_or_WJ_III.html#Post37386

Oh - I should say - I have heard that probably age 6 or 7 is better for getting the best overall picture when testing. That said, we tested DS at age 4 on the SB-V because we were thinking of sending him to kindergarten a year early, and we needed the result. And then we go the WJ-III through the school when DS turned 5, so we have done things early here.

Thanks so much for your warm (and prompt) responses.

My daughter does attend the gifted school for which she had the testing. It goes up to 8th grade, so it is our plan for her to continue there.

I honestly have no idea what the school might do for achievement testing. I could certainly ask.

I guess I have been hesitant to ask too many questions at school because I am worried I will give off the vibe that I think my child is "too gifted for the gifted school." Obviously, all the kids there are gifted! However, dd's teacher last year (with whom she had a very special relationship) did tell me that in all her years at the school, she had only taught one other child like dd. And that girl required at least one grade skip ... even though the school is set up for the kids to work years ahead in curriculum while staying in the same grade.

I am a planner by nature. So I guess I am just trying to be prepared for this child that is always keeping me on my toes.

When faced with the challenges that these kids present, you have to plan. Change takes time, there's no getting around it. Just don't think too far ahead or you'll make yourself crazy!

I think everyone on this board suffers from playing "what if?" It's just the nature of the beast.

Good advice. I learned that the hard way when I did months worth of agonizing, hair-splitting, research into the preschools in our area only to have to pull dd out midway through the year when I realized the one I had chosen was a terrible fit. You know what they say about the best laid plans...

st pauli girl, you were kind enough to ask about dd4 and her interests. I know this is too general, but she is interested in life! She focuses on a particular topic (U.S. Geography, space, dinosaurs) and wants to learn everything about it. Then she abandons that topic altogether and moves on to the next one.

For most of her young life she has had an obsession with numbers. Just after she turned 2, we moved into a new neighborhood and without me even realizing it, she memorized everyone's address. I'd say, "Do you want to play with that girl we just met?" And she'd say, "The one in the 55 house?" To this day, I ask her for house numbers when I'm sending out the Christmas Cards. She's now very interested in manipulating the numbers (addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.)

DD loves to read - she taught herself how (no thanks to me) before her 3rd birthday. And not easy readers. More like, sneak up behind me while I'm typing an email, stare at the computer screen and say, "We're going to the museum on Thursday?" So she's always a tough one to keep one step ahead of!

That's probably too much information - and I hope none of it came across as bragging - but it does feel good to talk honestly about my child. Even at the "gifted" school, I often find myself downplaying her "gifts" to other parents.

Sometimes kids are too gifted for the gifted school. We learned this the hard way. My DS is in a private school for gifted and academically advanced children. They say they have children working one to three years above grade level from PK-12th grade. Yet his K teacher swears she has never had a K child come to school reading... including my DS (who reads at a 3rd grade level now). I could tell hours of horror stories about why we're moving on next year.

Frankly, what it comes down to is that there are many, many levels of giftedness. You wouldn't assume that a school that is for special education really understands everything from Autism to cerebral palsy to blindness... yet often gifted schools assume that they can do it all. Some do and do it well.

Ours? It's well designed for kids probably in the 115 to 130 range who are mildly gifted and also do not challenge the system.

That being said, if it's working well right now, don't worry too much about what comes next! You'll kill yourself with all the "what ifs" and "I wonder"!

Hello! I know very little about testing but have also read a lot on these boards recently--there seem to be lots of folks here with tremendous experience. My son, who just turned 5, was also tested with the WPPSI recently (just before his 5th bday) and did very well. Our psychologist put in the report that she felt like the scores were a low estimate of our son's ability, mostly because he is an extreme perfectionist and didn't guess. So we also were left feeling like, "wow, these are high scores, but is there something missing here that we should also know about our son." The psychologist recommended that IF we decided to retest we wait until 2nd grade, so around 7 or 8.

We went to visit a private gifted school last week for a "visit day". I'm not sure whether or not we'll be able to send our son there b/c of cost, but we figured we'd check it out. They do a visit day where they ask students to "try out" a classroom to see if they think the child would be a good fit for the program. During the visit, we were talking with the school counselor and some other parents. One of the couples was nervous about testing, which they had not done yet but which is required for entrance to kinder. The counselor admitted that she felt like the best age to test was between 6 and 8 but that their school did require testing for kinder so she knew that for some parents testing twice was not feasible. But, she said that she felt like a test score at 6-8 generally held true for a child up through their educational career. She also said that she was not crazy about the WPPSI because (in her experience) children almost always scored lower on the WPPSI than they did later on the WISC. I thought that was kind of interesting since it goes against what I've read here. But, she ended up telling these parents that their particular school will accept in place of testing a visit with a psychologist in our area who supposedly can give a "recommendation" to the school as to the level of giftedness of a child after just spending time and interviewing the child but doing no IQ testing. She told the family that if they would rather wait for testing they could look into that option. Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

So, from what I've heard so far, it sounds like 6-8 might be the best time!

Your daughter sounds like a very, very bright girl! I'm so glad you've found a school that is a good fit for her, for now, but I understand your concerns for the future!

Hi Irisheyes! Wow! That's a great score! You are really in a good spot with teacher admitting the extremety of your child's educational needs. I would sit back and enjoy this time and hope for the best.

You can always deal with whatever comes down the road, it's real hard to predict what difficulties you may encounter.

Three is awfully young to get accurate results. My oldest DD had a test at that age and scored in the 120's. At the time it didn't seem *quite* right, but what did I know?

At age 7 she obtained a DYS score on the WISC, later on an achievment test and then topped out the school's cognitive abilities test.

I don't know why she didn't score well when she was so little, but she definately has established a solid pattern of DYS scores over the last two years.

Even if DD doesn't ever score higher than her present scores, they are VERY high!

Hold on for the ride and don't forget to enjoy it...and laugh.....often!

Thanks, everyone, for your insights.

I think it all boils down to the fact that now -- in hindsight -- I realize 3.5 was really awfully young to test. So while I am not unhappy with the scores she received, my mom gut is telling me they may not 100% accurately reflect dd4. Or, I could be wrong .

But since we're in a good spot right now, I think we should have no problem waiting until the age 6-8 range to retest.

Perhaps a few of my questions will be answered this summer when the school screens the kids for kindergarten reading/math groups. I am interested to find out at what grade level the school thinks dd4 should be learning. I am just hoping that there will be others in her class who are working at her level or (even better) beyond.