Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Interpretation of scores

GD5 (just turned 5-1/2 & in K) was tested at age 4-8 at her private preschool by their school psychologist consultant. Pysc. said she wanted to do different testing, but since she scored from above avg - superior, school said no need to test more. GD hit a lot of developments early (except writing) and taught herself to read at age 3 and reads very fluently. She is also ahead in math and is very bored with K curriculum. No testing has been done yet in K.

Phys. said GD was "way up there" but I've looked back at her scores and not sure if they alone are "gifted" scores. Psyc. said other IQ tests would have been better and age, attention and cooperation were factors.

Is anyone familiar with the following tests and feel they can tell me if they would be considered indicators of any particular LOG? The Detroit IQ scores do not seem that high although the KTEA are much higher.

She administered the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude - Primary:Third Edition. Scores were as follows:

Std. Score(mean - 100)/Percentile/Descriptive/Age Equivalent

General Abil./ 126/ 96%/ Superior/ 6-0
Verbal-Enhanc/ 120/ 91%/ Above Aver./ 5-8
Verbal-Reduced/ 129/ 97%/ Superior/ 6-8
Attention-Enh/ 110/ 75%/ Average/ 5-8
Attention-Red/ 125/ 96%/ Superior/ 6-3
Motor-enhanced/ 121/ 92%/ Superior/ 5-10
Motor-reduced/ 122/ 93%/ Superior/ 5-11

Notation made that statistically significant differences exist between her composite score on the Attention-Enhanced tasks and General Ability Score (GA) suggesting a weakness in following a sequence of directions, repeating sentences just heard, repeating a umber sequence, and/or other tasks requiring concentration.

(Does the above weakness suggest anything specific to anyone?)

She was also given the KTEA-II (Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement-II) with the following results reported:

Standard Score/ Percentile
Letter-Word Identification 160/ >99.9
Math Concepts & Applications 125/ 95
Written Expression 160/ >99.9
Listening Comprehension 125/ 95
Oral Expression 111/ 77

Comprehensive Achievement Composite(CAC) 160/ >99.9


She was also given the Dolch Sight Word List and read most of the words including 36 out of 40 Third Grade words. Tester said she thought she could have read more but sometimes would say - oh, I don't know. Only additional reading assessment was that she appeared to be reading at up to the Third Grade Level (was not prepared to test higher).

"Analysis of the specified assessments, interviews, and observation indicates that she has Superior overall intellectual functioning and appears to be functioning up to the beginning of Second Grade instructional level".

If any of you testing knowledgeable members out there could tell me what this information indicates (if anything) about LOG, I would appreciate it. I know she learns very quickly and says and does things well beyond her years, but does it look like she is potentially more than MG? Looking at the Levels of Giftedness checklists, I would put her at L3 or possibly L4 (with the exception of writing/drawing). But if the Detroit IQ test scores/percentiles are accurate, maybe I'm mistaken.

Last year in Pre-K and this year in K she starts off excited about learning/school, but then realizes she already knows everything they are teaching and becomes bored/frustrated. I'm trying to figure out if it's worth the expense to have her privately tested again this year at 5-1/2 to see if her IQ will really require special education accommodations beyond what our PS will offer. If she was happy in the regular classroom or getting any accelerated work, I would probably wait and see till she was at least 6.

Any insights would be appreciated.






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My son took the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude-Primary when he was in Pre-School.

The director suggested and administered it. Based primarily on his lack of fit during his final year there and on the results from the DTLA-P, they let us out of our contract at mid-year to find a more suitable learning environment for him. The Detroit Test wasn�t presented to us as an IQ test though, only a screener similar to the CogAT or InView that he has since taken in school. DS scored between the 93rd -98th percentiles on the Detroit, which the director considered high. Before this test, some on the staff had already begun to introduce to me the probability that he is gifted.

He took the SB-4 a year later, earning what we would eventually learn were DYS qualifying scores.

delbows - Thanks for your reply. It was helpful to hear from someone else that was given this test. I think the tester did consider it just a screening test, not a true IQ test because she said she really wanted to do a different test, but was not given the Ok to do so by the school. With the exception of the Attention Enhanced 77% GD scores are not that much lower than your son's. That makes me think it's possible that she would score higher on a different test though probably not DYS qualifying.

I am still wondering if the Att. Enh. score (involving concentration), indicates any particular LD or just a 4 year old not paying attention/focusing at the time. Maybe someone out there has a though on that.

Again, you've given me better insight as to the possible reliability of the Detroit Test as a true IQ indicator.

Thanks for taking the time to respond, Dottie.

I suspect that the lower oral expression score of 111 may be a result of GD's having trouble with some sounds (especially at 4.8) which made her hard to understand at times. She also tends to talk fast and often looks down when she's talking. She has improved a lot but we still have to get her to look at us and some words are still hard to understand. She has a very large vocabulary and consistently uses words unusual for her age.

Listening Compression - Getting her to listen at all much less concentrate on what was said last year may make that score a bit off - but I don't know.
Written Expression - she practically refused to write or draw last year because her fine motor skills were not advanced and she could not get the letters/dwgs. to look right (perfectionist). She still does not like to write but is actually getting pretty good now and she draws a lot. So how they scored her at 160 is a mystery!

Math - She is far ahead of her classmates in math but she is not a math whiz like some in this forum. Of course, we've not really worked with her on math at home - 125 seems OK.

It would actually be easier to believe that she was only moderately gifted - she would probably have an easier in regular public school in the long run.

I guess we'll wait and see for awhile.