Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Working out HG, EG or PG based on WPPSI

Hi, I'm wondering if there is any literature which provides a guide to how WPPSI scores(or others in the new generation of tests) may translate into the different levels of giftedness. I found a nice table on Hoagies but wasn't sure how widely those views are accepted.

The background is we had our DS 4.4 tested on the WPPSI recently. We decided to go with testing because of behavior issues - he was getting more aggressive and less and less like our little boy. His daycare which 6 months earlier had said he was such a lovely little boy were throwing up their hands saying they couldn't handle him - this had happened the year before as well. We suspected boredom, they thought maybe autism. With school a year away it was hard seeing him adapting and even harder seeing a school adapt to him. This spurred me to talked to our local gifted association who referred me to a wonderful tester.

DS started preschool a couple of months ago, as well as two different care programs and suddenly he's the apple of all his teachers and carers eyes again. Thriving on the diversity of experience.

Anyway his FSIQ, verbal and performance were all over the DYS cutoff on the WPPSI though PS was average for age. He hit ceilings on all his subtests with the exception of PS?

I'm amazed at his scores and would have been happy to leave it there (2 weeks ago I didn't even know there were levels of giftedness) but for the fact our State (we are not in the US) provides extra resources for those children assessed as EG and PG. But here's the killer - they use the old ratio IQ numbers to determine that so EG is 160 - 180, PG 180 and above. So I'm looking for anything that may assist in advocating for those extra resources for my DS and wondering if anyone else has had some resistance from schools that IQ scores just aren't as high as they once were.

Many thanks. I've learnt so much via your forums in the last couple of weeks.

Welcome, freya!

I know other much more qualified people are going to respond to you, but I wanted to suggest two things. First, could you talk to your tester and have them write a letter using words to describe your DS's scores? From the charts I've seen on Hoagies, your DS's scores are definitely considered EG or PG, and hopefully your tester could convey this fact in a letter that would allow your DS to receive state resources. Second, since your DS did hit so many ceilings on the WPPSI, perhaps you could see if extended scores could be calculated. I don't know much about the specifics, but hopefully someone here will chime in.

Welcome to the board -- I look forward to hearing more from you. It sounds like you have an amazing DS!

It might be worth contacting Davidson directly to see if they can provide you with any assistance. Your ds is too young to apply to DYS for a half a year or so, but once he is you should still be able to use those IQ scores if you can also get achievement scores to match. (aside: does anyone know if DYS takes non-US kids?)

I'd also check with your state to see what IQ tests they are using to get those types of numbers. Would they be willing to consider the WPPSI as proof that he might fall into the EG/PG category and pay for the further testing on the tests that might net those types of numbers? As far as I know, there isn't extended scoring on the WPPSI where you can get #s like that. There is extended scoring on the WISC-IV where they can derive higher #s for kids who hit ceilings.

This link from Hoagies may be of some help to you as well: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/highly_profoundly.htm

Yes - it doesn't :-(

I had my son tested a few months ago also using the WPPSI with similar scores, from the piece meal information I have gathered the WPPSI only scores up to 160 and does not have extended norms. I have been reading through Hoagies and the Gifted Development Center website for info
http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/, there they describe the different tests, some of them have extended norms, but it seems like they use the Stanford Binet LM, the old test, to be able to make the high level differentiations. From what I have read the tests are all slightly different and you can not really translate one test score to another test.
Good luck I know I've felt overwhelmed with this info and what to do with my son regarding schooling.