Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WASI testing for gifted?

Hi all,
This seems to be a great site to go to for details. I've been really impressed by what I've read so far!

Here's my story:

My daughter is 6 and in 1st grade. She's the youngest in her class (probably grade) because she missed the public school birthday deadline by 10 days, but we sent her to a private school for K at age 5 anyway by the recommendation of her preschool teacher (the preschool was a public school too). Then we moved her back to the public school for first grade.

Her reading and vocabulary have always been way above average, and I was told by her pediatrician at her 3 year check-up to look into gifted programs. Every where I went people commented at how grown up she sounded, from the way she said the words to the words that she used to the elaborate sentences she came up with to the quick witted answers she gave. She is currently reading 3 to 4 level books in her Accelerated Reading group, and chooses her own spelling words for tests. While the majority of the class has "clock" on their spelling test, she has "because" and "receive" as well as 3 syllable words.

I don't think she's genius level by any means, but I figured getting into a gifted program would be simple enough.

She passed the first level - the Terra Nova Basic with a 99 overal - 99 in language, 98 in reading (maybe it was vice versa) and an 87 in math.

She took the WASI this morning, and I was called and given her test results this afternoon.

The teacher said there are three sections to the WASI and gave me her score for each:

Verbal - 66th percentile - 106
Performance - 88th percentile - 118
Full Scale - 81st percentile - 113

She needed a 125 to get accepted into the program so obviously she didn't, and when I mentioned to the teacher that my daughter would be quite upset when she got the news, I got an interesting response. The teacher said, "well, I don't know how she knows what (the program) is." If felt like it had attitude behind it, and made me feel like she was insinuating that I was "that pushy mom".

My main question is... if my daughter's strength has always been her verbal abilities, why was that her lowest score? Is that normal?

My other question is... I did a very little amount of research, but what I did see talked about 4 sections to the WASI, not 3. My daughter mentioned that the hardest part of the test was when she had to make the blocks look like the picture.. I saw that there is a block design section of the WASI during my research, so is that the performance section?

Wow, sorry for the novel.. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any advice, comments you can give!

Pearson, the publisher of the WASI and WISC, has some information about the WASI on their website. The part your daughter described as difficult is the block design subtest which is part of the performance IQ section on the WASI and the perceptual reasoning subtest on the WISC.

Essentially, the WASI is an abbreviated version of the WISC IQ test. I couldn't say why her verbal score came out as her lowest section, but someone here might be able to give some more useful input if the school would be willing to give you all of the scaled scores or percentiles for the tests that she took (vocab & similarities -- Verbal, matrix reasoning & block design -- Performance). The WISC adds another test into Verbal (comprehension) and another test into the perceptual reasoning/performance area (picture concepts). It also has two other subtests: processing speed and working memory. I suspect that the reason those two aren't included in the WASI is that they are less salient to intelligence than the capacity to show that intelligence in an academic setting.

Thanks for the info! I just got the letter from school, but it doesn't give any scaled scores, unfortunately.

I'm just so confused about the verbal score being the lowest score. It doesn't seem logical to me given where her talents seem to lie.

Do you think it would be pushy to call the school to see if they have the scaled scores?

When the teacher called me I asked her if she thought it was weird that her verbal was lower, but the teacher just said something about maybe she's not wanting to show all of her talents right now given the unusual situation at home. We are living in a rental house because our house was hit by a tornado on New Year's Eve. I don't buy that though because she's doing great at eveything else.

That's a good point, Dottie. She's always been super outgoing and talkative.. and for the most part still is. Though this year she has developed stage fright (which I'm not sure isn't just an act)... but like many kids I know, trying to get her to talk about something she doesn't care about is like pulling teeth. I figured that since she knows it's a test, she'd be willing to explain her answers without needing to be prodded, but... Maybe not. I wish I could have been there to see how she responded. She's not interested in discussing the test anymore, especially since she just found out her best friend passed the test, and I don't want to push it and make it seem like a big deal.

We used the situation as a way to help her understand that no one is perfect and no one gets what they want all the time, even if they try their hardest. That it helps her in the long run to not be afraid to lose.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Nicole

I'm sorry . That's really too bad if the school is putting it that way as well since there is no "passing" an IQ test. One of my kiddos has had some wildly changing scores on all kinds of tests including IQ which has led me to wonder how much one can rely on one test for making big decisions. Plus mine keeps coming out seriously high on the verbal part of IQ which really doesn't seem like a strength for her to me .

I hope that they give your dd another chance later and that this experience hasn't left her feeling too bad about herself.

Just an idea - what is her performance "range"? If it covers 125, then I would push for further testing. Especially because the WASI is often used as a screener for further testing.

Ask for the range of scores.

So.... update.

I finally got my daughter retested through a private tester, and these scores made SO much more sense. This time she took the WISC-IV.

Verbal - 138
Perceptual - 108
Working Memory - 107
Processing - 115
GAI - 127
FS - 123

Her perceptual score went down, and her working memory is pretty different from her verbal, but none of that surprises me with how she acts on a daily basis. Fortunately, the GAI was high enough so she just made it into the gifted program.

My son, who is in kindergarten, took the WPPSI-IV through school and got:

FS - 117
GAI - 113.

I truly thought he'd have a higher score than she because his verbal ability is very good (not quite as good as hers), but his ability to analyze and figure things out is WAY better. He puts together legos from the instructions faster than she does... and probably faster than I could.

They only gave me his raw scores. He turned 6 on August 5th.

Block - 26
Info - 22
Matrix - 22
Bug search - 40
Picture - 23
Similarities - 28

Does anyone know which of those raw scores are higher vs lower? I assume each subtest is not out of 40... that they have different highest scores..?

She told me he did REALLY well in some areas and not as well in others but didn't elaborate. It was like pulling teeth just to get the raw scores.