Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment TalentIgniter (Dr. Ruf)

This is me, for the most part. I remember in particular that my mother-in-law, who often took care of DD when I was at work, would tell me these wild tales of all these things DD had said...and I never believed a word of it. I had a strict rule that until she said a word clearly and in context 3 times, without hearing someone say it earlier in the conversation, I wouldn't count it as a word. I do think that sold her short a bit, but if I'd counted everything she said that sounded like a word or a sentence with meaning, I'd have seemed (and felt) insane. I still don't know whether she was just good at making a variety of sounds and combining them in a variety of ways earlier than other babies (which certainly was true) or whether she was really trying to talk. At the time I really did not believe that babies could talk, but I've come to accept that it is possible.



LOL. But this is me too. Not with the exaggeration thing, but with the memory. I just have a lousy memory. People have caught me changing my story and I just say, "Well, the way I told it first must be the truth." I don't lie, but my memories fade rapidly.

If I thought that was true of Ruf's work, I wouldn't like it either. I agree completely that intelligence isn't fixed. Frankly, I can't really imagine anyone would say that it is these days. Maybe 100 years ago, but not today, with all the scientific evidence to the contrary.

But I never took Ruf's work as claiming that intelligence is fixed. I think of her as a detective looking for clues. Some of the clues pop up early. Some don't. I think her book focuses more than it should on the early stuff that most people didn't notice. But I don't think she's saying that nothing ever changes when it comes to intelligence or that late-bloomers don't ever occur.

I think perhaps you're taking things further than Ruf intended. Certainly I wouldn't sign on to what you're describing.

I would be curious to hear everyone's reaction to this part of the FAQ:

"Sometimes the Ruf Estimates indicate a lower result than previous testing indicated. There are three possible explanations for this:

* The parent couldn�t fill in enough of the questions on the Ruf Estimates form to make it possible to estimate the child�s relative intelligence, strengths and weaknesses. Remember, it is important to have good records or a reasonably good memory of your child�s early interests, behaviors and milestones in order to make the Ruf Estimates effective for you.
* On very rare occasion an assessment professional will score children too high. In my experience, you will find a surprising number of parents who report exceptionally high scores for their children and it will trace back to a particular assessment professional. This is very rare but it does occasionally occur.
* Most test companies, such as Riverside Publishing and Counseling Psychology Press, recommend waiting at least six months between testing sessions for the same child so as to rule out "practice effects." Very bright children should wait at least one year, however, because their memories are so good. Finally, some gifted children remember too much even when more than a year has passed, and the resulting higher score will not indicate a more valid assessment for that child."

Yeah, I think that Ruf feels that her levels are essentially infallible. Not so cool.

I also thought this was funny:

I should be so lucky!

I think I'm missing the joke. Why is this funny?

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds like what we say here all the time--that IQ is not really one number but a range. And the part about the profile seems very much in line with the "if it looks PG and sounds PG and acts PG (over time), it's probably PG"--or in this specific example, MG--philosophy that so many of us espouse.

What am I not getting?

Oh, I now get it thanks to Dottie.

I still think the notion of a range is better, since so many parents--especially newbies to testing--get locked on that one number. I don't think that's a bad idea at all. But obviously the quickie evaluation isn't better than the full one-on-one kind.

I think taking the marketing too seriously is probably not a good idea. They *are* trying to sell something, after all. As with anything, caveat emptor, for sure!

Wow!! That is REALLY interesting, essentially she is saying that her computerized assessment is more precise than a tester who actually saw and interacted with the child one on one.

Yes, certainly some testers test higher than others, but I don't think that would account for most of the discrepancies. As PP have said, there are some kids that fit the Ruf mold very well and others that do not. I know many gifted children who were early in physical milestones and many that were not.

I am pretty sure that the assessment would not provide me with a close estimate of where my DYS is. While she is certainly not PG (other than by the DITD definition) she is HG+. Her current achievement levels (both formally tested and simply observed by the type of things she is doing, would not be predicted by the LOG she would probably get from the assessment. She misses many of the level 4 marks from her lists in the parts of earlier development, but checks most from when she was 5. The things that stood out with her were items that are not found in Ruf's list like imagination, pretend play, problem solving, etc.

Oh, well, the funny thing for me is that of course an IQ number does signify a range. So the idea that knowing a LOG, and extrapolating from that a range of possible IQ scores, could be more helpful than knowing a single IQ score, and extrapolating from that a LOG, is just silly to me. And again it illustrates a sense of superiority that I don't believe is warranted.



But if I'd done that, I'd never have gotten to read your thoughts on testing accuracy, and I thought they were pretty interesting.

Superiority not warranted. But for a newbie with no real understanding of testing, the range idea is going to be a new concept. It's silly to *you* because you've been around the block, but I don't think this site is for you. Or me. It's step one in the journey and we're on step 12 (or whatever).

That doesn't mean that I think it's worth the money. I don't generally like online tests like this myself, and I don't think I'd have used this even when I was a newbie. But I feel like judging it from where we are now isn't really fair.