Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Please explain differences in tests!

My daughter was tested last year, in 1st grade, and scored in the 99th percentile on the Naglieri Non Verbal Ability Test. Can those of you who have more experience and expertise in testing please enlighten me? Should we pursue further testing or be happy with what has already been conducted? We are at a loss and both of our children are in a school that has to focus more on the ESL children than the gifted unfortunately. We do not have a lot of money to spend on testing but want to do whatever we can to ensure she continues to enjoy learning and is not hindered due to our misunderstanding of these tests. Thank you!!

You have a smart kid, and your school is using an IQ test that's designed to identify gifted kids who aren't necessarily proficient in English. (Given what you've said about the school population, that's a good thing!)

There's also a discussion from 2007 here: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/3614/interpreting_NNAT_scores.html

For me, I choose not to test unless test results would change something. Depending on your daughter and your school, you might find that more test results are needed to get any changes you want, that you can get any changes you want without testing, or that you don't currently want any changes.

I have a child that scored way up there on the NNAT as well. We chose not to do additional IQ testing. Because we homeschool, we've had the opportunity to do open ended achievement testing for a much more reasonable amount of money. That has been very worth while over the last several years (found out he was GT at 6, he is now 9). As your child gets older, talent search tests are also interesting and can provide valuable data for not too much money.

I think that is a personal question. I think it's FINE not to do further testing. Even if you have more IQ data, schools might not always care or accept it. Chances are, if they aren't jumping over your daughter's NNAT scores, they aren't going to jump at a similar score on another IQ test. Teachers used to comment on my son's NNAT score - it was a standout in a group of many MG kids. One teacher even told us we should find another school or homeschool based on it. No teacher offered us additional accommodations because of it!

However, if you have open questions or seeing some inconsistencies across your child's abilities, further testing may be valuable to you. Good luck!

Thank you for your inputs! We will refrain from further testing at this point. Her new teacher is unaware of the testing and score. We are waiting for at least a week before informing her just to see how she handles the different situations DD may put her in- i.e. Questioning constantly, bothering other students when she is done with her work, reading all of the classroom books within a week (actually, I made her take a couple chapter books today). Once we get a feel for how the teacher handles anything that comes up we can figure out what the best approach will be in working together with the teacher. I don't want to go in there and sound like I am bragging and expecting special treatment for DD but know we have to say something or she will not be challenged.

Sorry for the rambling thoughts, it helps to get it out sometimes. I worry we are not doing enough for our children but also worry what actions we take might negatively affect them.

Hi Tinkerweed,

Great scores! It sounds like you have a smart little one!

This is slightly off-topic, but I just wanted to suggest that you try to volunteer in the classroom, if possible. I have found that it's beneficial for many reasons. First, there is no better way to see how your child compares to the rest of the class -- in behavior, academics, size, maturity -- than to spend time in the classroom. Second, it's a great way to see how the teacher interacts with your child as well as all the other children. Third, the teacher will get to know you as a parent and as a person, which could mean that she sees you as a caring, involved, sane parent rather than, perhaps, a helicopter parent or a pushy parent. Fourth, the teachers almost always need help, either with differentiating with the kids (they might need you to help with small groups of kids) or with more mundane tasks like copying. which will free up some of their time to work more closely with individual students. And fifth, if you are in the classroom there are sometime brief snippits of time when the kids are out of the room that you can have casual conversations with the teacher about your child. I don't know what your situation is, or if volunteering in the classroom is a possibility, but anytime you can offer to help the teacher with anything (even cutting projects in the evenings if you can't make it into the classroom during the day) it can only help.

I hope your DD's teacher does become aware that your daughter did so well on the NNVAT (because, otherwise, what's the point of the testing?) and that she works happily with you to challenge your DD, and that it happens sooner rather than later! If after time and discussions with the teacher, both casual and more formal, you see that your DD is still not getting what she needs, that might be the time to request further testing (perhaps achievement to round out the picture a bit) or to seek it out privately.

My DD's first grade teacher suggested exactly this, when I expressed my worry that whichever teacher she got following a grade skip might be someone who had a philosophical objection to skips.

We have relatively large class sizes (my DD's first grade class started out with 24 kids), and I found that it took longer than a week for the teacher to be able to assess each kid's individual skill level. Unless your DD is having problems in the classroom for whatever reason, waiting a little longer might give the teacher time to figure your DD out on her own.

My 7 year old took the NNAT test this past school year and scored a 149/99th percentile. This score qualified her for the G&T program at our school. I was relieved to have her qualify for services without having to spend the money for the private testing but seeing her score so close to the test ceiling has made me curious about how must more we might learn about her if we did have her privately tested.

I guess as long as she seems happy and content with the programming she is receiving at school, we will not pursue further testing.

FWIW, the NNAT is largely similar to the Matrix Reasoning task of the WISC-IV or the Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning task of the SB-5 or the various Raven's tests.

So, would you consider the Raven or NNAT to be an IQ test if they are only testing what would be one piece of one subtest on the WISC or SB? Can you assume that a child who tests in the 99th percentile on the NNAT or Raven is going to have a gifted IQ or that a child who tests more poorly on one of these tests isn't gifted (assuming accurate measurement, of course)?

One of the major criticisms of any of the "nonverbal" tests (which by the way aren't quite as nonverbal as you think: the presentation is nonverbal, the response is nonverbal, but the most effective strategies for most kids on matrix reasoning tasks are highly, highly verbal) is just that: If we think of "IQ" (whatever that means) as a sample of a wide range of behaviors, then we would think of a test which only sampled a small range of behaviors as less comprehensive and more likely to identify only those kids who best matched that particular test.

Basically, Raven's and NNAT are not designed to give you the kind of comprehensive information a broad-based IQ test is designed to give. But no pair of tests is going to be perfectly correlated.