Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Testing at a local University?

That's true, Dottie. Our DS took both, and it was amazing how much of an effect every subtest had on the total score. In effect, one low score knocked DS6 out of the DYS range. That seems excessive to me!

Just curious...how did his scores compare? I just find it interesting that gifted on the SB5 is 120+ but 130+ on the WISC, so I'm interested in specific cases of kids who took both.

Yes, I understand that the top 2.28 percent is 130+ on both, but why the argument for lowering to 120? I've been reading about the new tests and some proposed recommendations, but I don't understand what their reasons are. I agree with you. Percentages are percentages, regardless of the test. Unless someone can argue that the distribution is not normal or that the mean and sd are not as reported, then I don't think they have a case.

That's a plausible explanation for the lower scores. It will be very interesting to see what "research" on this will say over the next few years.

I agree with you! There's a big difference in a kid who is gifted in some areas versus a kid who is high average across the board.

Sorry to open up a can of worms here!

PP: I'm not going to be much help with the "how do they compare" question, I'm afraid, even though DS took both. He had a dismal test day with the SB5: lacking nearly 3 hours of sleep, getting the flu about 36 hours after the start of the test, and taking a Visual-Spatial test what turned out to be with a verbal kid. If we'd only neglected to feed the poor guy, it would have been about the worst-case possible for testing!

On the other hand, I think his WISC test day was a good one. If not ideal, it was pretty close. The shorter length of the WISC helped a lot, too. 3+ hours of testing is an awful lot for a 6yo! The SB5 seemed brutal in that regard!

Also, I don't have his write-up from the WISC yet, so I can't lay the scores out side-by-side yet. I do know that his PRI was 151 on the WISC, and that he seemed to be VS on the verbal test (after appearing to be verbal on the SB5!).

His Full Scale score for the SB5 was officially 134+, and I think the tester for the WISC said that it was over 140 for the WISC (though to be honest, I mostly stopped listening after I heard that he had the PRI score needed for DYS! LOL!).

However, the SB5 tester made quite a point of saying that he thought that test was not a valid indication of DS6's IQ. A more-or-less exact quote: "It looks like a borderline GT score, but he's *not* borderline. He's at least HG. It's just that we couldn't tell from this test today whether he's HG, EG or PG."

Since that was what we wanted to know--HG, EG or PG?--I was pretty disappointed with the SB5.

In general, my impression was that the SB5 was harder to score high on than the WISC, though if DS6 had been a VS kid who isn't at all GT verbally, then I might have a different take.

FWIW...which isn't much!

I'll be happy to share his complete scores next week when I have them in front of me, if you'd like. Just let me know. Since I'm pretty sure the SB5 told us nothing much, I'm not sure they'll tell you anything. But I'll share 'em if you want 'em!