Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment FAST processing speed?

Adding to kcab's post, here's a link to GT-World (seems to be either a precursor to or concurrent project of Hoagies) that includes the quote about Weschler's comment, as well as links to source materials:
http://www.vcbconsulting.com/gtworld/gtwisc.htm

I've also seen this comment copied in various discussions of WISC: "Unfortunately, many psychologists also use the WISC to identify gifted children. This is unfortunate because the test was not designed for such use."

Both of these comments, however, are from the mid to late 1990s (at the latest), before the WISC-IV and certainly before the Extended Norms for the WISC. (And, hoo-boy, the Extended Norms are a whole different can of worms!)

Although I continue to see the quote from Weschler tossed about, I can't really square that up with the broader acceptance of the WISC in the GT-Community, or the high-profile GT specialists's use of the WISC in particular.

(And if it were not a useful test for the upper SDs, why would the DYS program utilize the results?)

Back to the initial conversation about processing speed, our son has a bit different profile from the "classic" GT profile.

His VCI, FSIQ & GAI were all >99.9 PR, yet his PSI was also up there at 99.8. (His PRI & WMI were both 99.)

Looking at his WJ Achievement test, he scored 99.8-99.9 PR on all subtests except for Writing Samples, which was a 97.

The kid is a speedy fella, but he's far from using this trait to his full advantage. His biggest problem in school right now is that he doesn't know how to throttle down when necessary. This is definitely a "grass-is-greener-over-yonder" situation, because whenever I read another parent lamenting his child's plodding, perfectionist tendencies, I secretly wish for a bit of that "problem."

I often compare our son's situation to Wile E. Coyote's experience with the ACME Jet-powered Sneakers. When the coyote first donned the shoes, he had no clue how to use them effectively and was bouncing & crashing off of everything. When he figured out how to control them, though -- yowsa.

It's interesting (maddening!!) to watch our son tackle new concepts, especially in math and music. His first attacks are invariably full-throttle, brute-force attempts and when those efforts don't succeed he gets very frustrated. He'll eventually slow himself down (sometimes) but not without putting up a fight first.

With piano in particular, when he's learning a new scale he prefers to tackle it at top speed, even though it takes him many more attempts before he gets it right. When I'm able to convince him to slow down, however, he'll nail it within just a few attempts.

But once he gets a concept (or song or scale) figured out... holy smokes... it is fun to see him fly.

This is not back to the original conversation but a thought that I've had periodically over the years. I do wonder how the test designers design questions to tease out that tail end. Sure, I can see knowledge tests or speed tests where you can look up the info or create something to be done faster than you, yourself, could do it, but I'm not sure how the designer creates an abstract reasoning problem, for instance, that tests a level of abstract reasoning beyond that which he, himself, possesses. Maybe we need the DYS kids as adults to be the ones to design IQ tests so they aren't designing a test to test greater intelligence than that which they possess.

I'm not suggesting that IQ test designers aren't very smart, just that I doubt that they are 99.9+ people. Maybe it's just a matter of testing stuff on enough 99.9+ people to ascertain what they can and can't answer. Maybe not.

You know, Davidson ought to be approached to inquire as to whether they'd be willing to ask their families about being involved in norming the WISC-V. I know that the GDC says that some of the kids they've tested are being used for the norming sample on the WISC-V, why not DYS too?

That's kind of what I was wondering. Why is the test so popular when the creator said it isn't to be used for this, and when it has all these subtests and measures that are not considered a good measure of g? (And how do we know that, anyway? From the norming sample?) Is it just the best available? Is it that it does provide a lot of data? I admit, sitting over here with my verrrry brief RIAS results, the WISC looks so much more meaty and interesting. Yet there seems to be general agreement that the RIAS is absolutely fine for ID purposes.

Someone asked "who scores high on processing?" I don't know anything about the masses, but oddly enough my gifted son scored low on processing, and my son who suffered crystal meth exposure in utero, is bi-polar, and has EXTREME ADHD, scored amazingly high on processing. To me, it is an example of how they approach life, my gifted son thinks, thinks, thinks and sees a million possibilities. My other son jumps right in and makes quick decisions based on what he sees is the obvious choice. -- Obviously, I am not saying that a high processing speed doesn't mean you aren't a deep thinker. I just think the situation is interesting in our family.

That's my dd12. I see deep in her b/c she makes connections that catch me off guard. But fast she is not. When she 10, her middle school told all of the 6th graders to find someone who worked in a field they were interested in to shadow for career day. The world smiled on us in that we found a manatee expert in the middle of the country where we live (he was doing his last few years of work for the Fish & Wildlife Service studying bats after having studies manatees in FL for much of his career).

I went with her given her age and her shadow person was showing us a bunch of old slides they had taken in FL. One of them involved a tag they had put on a manatee's tail that they found on dry land and were trying to figure out how it got there. It had some indentations in the sides and had, obviously, been pulled off the manatee's tail onto shore. Dd looked at it while I have all of these random thoughts racing through my head of bullet holes, etc. The first thing she said was right -- 'it was floating on the surface above the manatee and those look like tooth marks. I bet an alligator grabbed ahold of it thinking it was something to eat and pulled it off and onto the land.'

The meeting pretty much went along those lines the whole time. Dd didn't rush in with ideas, but the first thing she came up with was spot on every time.

Random piece of trivia? Did somebody call my name?

It's in the intro page of the WISC-IV Tech Report #7 on Extended Norms.

There's this juicy item in the first paragraph:

What do they tell the kids when they test them? Do they say to go as fast as possible on the subtests that focus on speed?

My DD is naturally fast, but if you said "Go as fast as you can! You're being timed!" I could see her getting anxious. Maybe that's why so many GT kids score lower on this, too--the anxiety factor?

I think how they emphasize it has a lot to do with the individual testers. I believe they all tell the kids that it is a timed portion of the test, but some seem to emphasize it more than others.

For example when DS9 was tested at 7yo, I believe the psych told him that this portion of the test was timed and he should work as quickly as possible. For DS7, I believe the tester (a different psych) told him that it was timed, but with less emphasis to him about working as quickly as possible.

Of course, that's from my not-always-reliable recollection.