Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WPPSI III How often is it inaccurate? dd is 4 1/2

Hi, I'm new here. I've got 4 children. My oldest 2 are highly to exceptionally gifted and in a GT magnet school. My third child is 4 1/2 and I decided to have her tested for early entrance to K.

She started easy readers at 3 1/2, add/subtracts, writing well. Very intense, curious, etc. She counted since about 2 3/4. Did 24 piece puzzles at 2 yrs old. etc. She has a great vocabulary. Anyway, she seems to display gifted tendencies like my oldest two children.

I had the school psychologist test her last week and I was shocked to see her score come back at only 114. Her highest subtest was block design at a 15. We had a busy week and night before her testing. I debated bringing her. The tested noted in her report that "dd appeared to be tired, yawning at times, laying her head down on desk"....etc. She said that it still seemed a fair representation of her abilities.

From what I've read most times siblings are usually no more than 10 - 15 pts apart on IQ. Her score puts her much lower than her two older siblings.

What's the chance this is deflated? We were going to have Dr. Ruf evaluate her next year but wondering if it's a waste of time? Has anyone had a huge jump in IQ from one test to another or one time to another?

Thanks in advance for your input.
k

If she was tired and not really engaged, yes, definitely there's a chance it was deflated.
Reading at 3 1/2 yrs, great number sense before 2, etc....I should think there's more there, not that 114 is anything to sniff at - a nice score, tons of potential!

Maybe someone more familiar with that test can comment, but I've definitely read that testing at 4.5 can be tricky/less reliable.

My DD tested at 5.5 on a brief test, through school, with around 112. Thankfully her teacher knew gifted enough to say that further testing needed to be done.
She took a full test about a year later...the school process takes forever, and her full scale was almost 30 points higher with the verbal difference even higher.
I think that the brief tests do tend to be less accurate, but also that she was alot more mature in grade 1 than in K. In K she said the test was hard, in grade 1 she said the test was fun!
I think that very few kids under 5-6 have the maturity to score their best.
Give her some time to develop more and her score may likely be higher.
Wish you well no matter it turns out.

I hadn't thought about being bored. That could be something to think about.

I'll test her again in a year or so. I guess I must have gotten it in my head that they all must be gifted after going through things with my first two kids. I know that isn't always the case so I may have to rethink some things.

114 is a good score but it's funny how your perspective changes when you have two 99%+ kids come along first.

my dd7 has been tested three times at age 3.5 , 5, and 7. His FSIQ went up 56 points total in that time period. (he started out in disabled range and ended up in gifted range). So i believe these tests are unstable at young ages, especially if there are any other factors involved such as speech delay or slow social development (because they won't feel compelled to please the tested).
irene

My DS has been tested twice, once on the WPPSI-III at 4.5 and once on the WISC-IV at 6.5. His scores were within 2 points of each other, and both were in the 99.9%ile. In his case, I think the scores are accurate and seem fairly stable.

I would say re-test. This same issue came up in one of my gifted parents meeting. The parents had the older child tested by a school psychologist or similar. The score came back bright but not gifted. For reasons I am not sure of a few years later the younger child was tested by a different psychologist that had done a lot of testing with gifted kids. The scores came back in the high gifted range. Based on the observations of the parents of their children at home they felt like the scores should have been closer so they had the older child retested. I think the scores ended up being very close. The general consensus of the group was that you should choose someone that specializes in testing gifted kids. The opinion expressed was that school psychologists generally are more used to testing for problems on the other end of the spectrum. I think as a parent if you question the scores then they very well may be off, especially since this is your youngest child and you have something to compare them to.

My son took the WPPSI when he was 5.5. As I recall there were three subtests. He scored 19 out of 20, 16 out of 20 and 9 out of 20.

The test he did poorly on was a "coding" test that required the use of a pencil. A 9 out of 20 was considered equivilent to an IQ of 107, and this section pulled his score down to 128 or 129. An "alternate" test was given, and he scored 14 out of 20 on this test, but it was not used to compute his score.

My point is, if your daughter had to use a pencil for part of the test, this would likely pull her score down given her young age.

My ds tested at 4.2 on the wppsi. He scored within the gifted range but the tester and I both believe it wasn't an accurate score for him. The tester said that he wouldn't do the easy problems but only the hard ones. She knew he knew the easy ones but couldn't give him the points for the easy ones b/c he needed to actually do them. So, b/c he didn't want to do them his score was much lower than what he should have been.

Testing always depends on the child. For some it works great when they are young and for other it doesn't. My ds just last weekend was re-tested using different test. He is now 7.9 years old. He understood he needed to do the hard ones and the easy ones. We don't have results yet but i'm hoping it will show his true numbers.

One thing you can do is have the raw scores faxed to Dr. Ruf, and ask her her opinion about retesting.