Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ III Cog results...not what expected.

Hi there everyone. So I posted a while back about my frustrations with DS difficulties in 2nd grade. Actually, ongoing difficulties since Kindergarten He tends to be "in his own head" a lot and also has a habit of fidgeting and humming which doesn't go over well with his teachers. One teacher felt it was tied to him possibly being gifted. He took the NNAT and scored in the 99th percentile. So we've been operating under the assumption that he's probably moderately/highly gifted.

Then today I got his WJ III Cog. results and I'm really surprised. He got a GIA of 123. Verbal Ability 107, Thinking Ability 129, and Cognitive Efficiency of 114. O.K. scores but definitely not as high as I was expecting. I guess I'm just surprised at the difference between the 99th percentile on the previous test and the 94th percentile on this one. Don't get me wrong, I understand they're totally different tests. I just figured there'd be more correlation between his scores. Strange to think that with the NNAT he easily got accepted into the GATE program and with this one, he doesn't even come close.

I have one child who has erratic scores like that. We are still waiting to hear if she will get a formal gifted id b/c she tests better on individual tests than group tests and the school views individual IQ and achievement tests as "alternative data."

Like your dc, mine never comes out average, but she does appear on some tests to be bright but not gifted. On others she appears to be highly gifted+.

I'd just assume that the the NNAT played more toward his strengths than the WJ Cog. or that it was an off day for him.

Like Dottie said on the EXPLORE thread, this site tends to draw parents of fairly evidentally gifted kids and a lot of HG+ kids. While I'm not really sure that mine fall into the HG+ area, they are certainly obviously gifted (at least to me). I have seen other boards and real life situations where people seem to interpret any performance on anything that is above avg, psychic children, all sensitive children, and on and on as gifted. I don't think that tends to be the case in this forum and we are splitting hairs with our kiddos here. Your little guy may be MG; he may be HG. A score on one ability test in the 94th percentile would not rule out gifted to me by any means, though. I'm rambling...

My dd5 has done the same thing with the NNAT. She took the SB5 and scored much lower than I thought. She did get 99% on the block design (so she's a visual spatial type kid) but otherwise she was more "bright" than gifted on her SBV. Scoring 119.

On the NNAT she scored 99% and I'm guessing that test plays at her strength, the VS stuff....

The GT school she is going to attend next year for K accepts the NNAT. The school I would like to place her in for second (where my elder children are), I'm not so sure. I think they might expect more than this NNAT test. I'm not sure how widely accepted it is for GT identification. I think I've read it's just a preliminary screener.

I'm hopefuly that the SB5 score was low due to her immaturity but who knows.

Thanks for your thoughts and encouraging words. Like Cricket said, I do really believe DS (and probably his brothers too) is gifted. I started doing a lot of research and so much of what I read really seems to fit him. This 94% just threw me for a loop and had me second guessing a bit. Then of course the guilt kicks in and I feel bad for looking at a 94 percentile as if it's somehow a failure.

In our last school district (which is very highly regarded) they automatically test all the first graders using the NNAT. Not sure what the cutoff is, but at 99% DS made it into the GATE program easily. Now at his new school district, entrance into the GATE program starts by referral either from the parents or teacher. Based on those opinions/scores they then would move onto OLSAT testing. After a conversation with the GATE coordinator I don't really think his NNAT score will carry much weight. So you're right Spirited Mama, I think it's thought of more as a preliminary screener. Hopefully he'll still make it. The tester did say that in her opinion his fidgeting is probably due to boredom and some more challenging work may be in order.