DD is in a program for "highly gifted" where they require CogAT composite scores over the 98th percentile plus math or reading above-level achievement scores that are around the 98th percentile (preferably both math and reading above the 98th percentile). DD's class is made up of 2/3 boys (and it's a large class--we're not talking 15 kids, I think it's 25-30). I think that the other classes are like that as well. Can anyone think of why this would be? Do boys do better on the CogAT in 2nd-4th grade (when most of these kids took it)?
I would have expected it to be the other way around, with more girls being the high achievers at that age, since they require high achievement scores. It just seems strange, and not particularly fair. They want to now do away with the non-verbal section of the CogAT, or at least not put nearly as much weight on it as the other two sections, and I wonder if the gender imbalance has something to do with it.

Do they give the Cogat to all the students or just those recommended for the program by teachers or parents?

Our G&T program also uses the CogAT, as well as other testing. It also seems to be surprisingly boy-heavy. All students are given the grade-level CogAT, and it is used as part of a screener before a second level of testing. Our program also already gives, but doesn't use/puts less weight on the non-verbal section of the CogAT.

According to some old Auburn University study I saw boys do better than girls on the CogAT between 2nd and 4th and after 6th grade. Between 4th and 6th grade girls do better. it did also say boys do better on the non verbal section of the test.

Our program admission is cog + achievement. Our program used to be heavily girls when cog score came from the Test of Cognitive Skills. They changed to the InView a few years ago, and DS's class is now 11 boys and ONE girl. They know there are problems with the selection process (but no one will tell me what the current ratios are across the district).... and so are contemplating a switch to CogAT.

I'd love to know if there are data on gender difference in identifying the 95+ percentile range on the CogAT.

Is this the link to the Auburn study:
http://www.auburn.edu/~jml0035/index_files/Lohman_Lakin_BJEP09.pdf

Interesting details in that one especially looking at the upper and lower stanines. The following study also addresses the question of gender discrepancies in performance on the COGAT, again looking at the tails.

http://www.academia.edu/7561923/Sex...ve_reasoning_distribution_have_increased

In our district, the gifted program used to skew toward having many more males than females in the lower grades--using similar selection criteria (COGAT + achievement). The principal at the time attributed this gender bias to the idea that bored boys tend to be more disruptive than bored girls, which leads the parents of the disruptive boys to choose to enroll them in the gifted program. She also thought that parents were more comfortable busing their young sons to the other side of the city to enroll in the program. By 5th grade, the gender ratio in the program tended to be more balanced. The program now seems more equally split between males and females, but that might be due to the fact that it is now located at multiple sites in different areas of the city.

howdy, they give it to those who are at achievement scores of 91st percentile or above, although they want to move this percentile up to include fewer kids. They also will do testing if a parent or teacher recommends a child, since if they get a high enough score on JUST ability/IQ testing (well over the 99th percentile) they don't need achievement scores.
Basically they are giving the CogAT because they are getting money from the State for identification purposes, but they want to give it to as few kids as possible. Then they have rigid cut scores for entry into the highly gifted program.

I wonder if this non-verbal gender difference exists on the WISC too? I wasn't able to pull up the linked report. I think the quantitative section of the CogAT is really dumb and they are just going to identify kids who are fluent with their math facts.

I don't know how your program works but if it is something that kids/parents choose to attend I have a possible theory based on my experience with my DS and DD.

DS clearly doesn't fit well in an average classroom and when he doesn't have a good fit he doesn't hide it. We have had many, many discussions with teachers about his behavior over the years. I would move mountains to find a better fit for him and have him ride a bus across town, rearrange my work schedule and give up him going to school with the neighborhood kids (which is something that is pretty important to us).

Now I don't have scores for DD but we've had more comments about her being smart/gifted than we've ever had about DS. School is way too easy but she handles it in a completely different way. Knowing what I know about gifted education I would probably move her if I could but I don't have the same urgency that I have with DS. I could easily see many parents in the same boat not choosing to move their kid to a program if they are compliant teacher pleasers such as my DD.

Now I realize that not all boys are like my DS and not all girls are like my DD but I know quite a few others that would follow the same general pattern. Perhaps there are more girls that qualify but simply don't attend?

In my experience, if the parent has a choice, I see less parents of girls putting their children in the gifted programs than parents of boys. I have encouraged a parent to have their obviously bright girl tested, and they only had their son tested.

I agree that possibly boys have a more obvious problem in regular education and maybe this is the reason?

For us this was because DD achieved well in class and behaved herself, whereas DS exhibited behaviours that were disruptive and misinterpreted by the staff, which necessitated a search for answers. I've contemplated getting DD tested many times but haven't, due mostly to the cost. She and I have discussed it and I've suggested to her that she do what I did and get tested in her 20s.

Sometimes I feel like I've short changed DD, but there aren't really any programs in our area other than the school pull outs which she's been a part of already.

Anyway, I think a previous poster mentioned that bored boys act out and therefor get tested more, and that was the case for us.

I don't know--it would be fascinating to find out how many kids are offered a spot but turn it down. All I know is that there always ends up being a long waiting list and they don't even invite all the kids who are eligible, just those who are on the top half or so of their rank ordered chart. The gifted programming in the regular schools sucks so much that it would be hard for me to understand why people would opt to stay, unless their child is happy there with established friendships.

National public education statistics put the ratio at 51.2% girls as of 2006, the latest year available. Previous years show similar numbers.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d08/tables/dt08_053.asp

My DD's anecdata backs the official numbers, as she has always reported her GT classes to skew more heavily to girls. Her district uses a formula that combines RIAS, achievement scores (dunno which test), and teacher recommendations.

I was finally able to pull up that study and it looks like the quant reasoning section on the CogAT plays an even bigger role than the nonverbal section. So for the nonverbal section, if you look at the tail end of the distribution (the top 1 or 2 percent), there will be 1.2 or 1.3 boys for every girl but for the math section it's even higher with more like 2 or 3 boys for every girl. Since our district is very strict about wanting CogAT scores in the top 2 percent (even for gifted programming in the normal classrooms), I guess that explains all the boys in the program. I'm not sure what role the achievement testing plays and whether there is a gender difference.

Our 11-1 ratio is based on testing given to every child - the state mandates testing of every child at regular intervals. Next-to-no students request exemption from the tests. I'm confident in saying there's no selection bias in our case.

Thanks for those studies, ndw - I'll study them before my next discussion with the district.

I wonder if there are girls who test into the gifted program but whose parents decline the placement to keep them in class with friends.

DS's gifted class is all boys. Troubling.

This is what has happened with at least one of DD10's friends. I think it's a bit disturbing, having seen how easily DD has made new friends as she changes educational settings, but every parent gets to make their own choice.

But with a rate of selecting against being 10:1?

These are highly sought after spots in our schools.

I know of one boy in DD's class in this situation (not to keep him in his class with friends, but over concern with organization and work ethic). Last year's middle school principal wasn't so down with the whole FERPA thing, so she even named names. The elementary school principals have always been a bit better about student privacy, so there all I have to go on is the mommy rumor mill of dubious reliability.

I'd love to see data on this.

My dd's gifted class has about 7 girls and 15 boys. But I'm happy with that because last year only 3 of 16 were girls. This year, the GT office admitted to changing criteria to get more girls, and they also drew some from a nearby district.

My dd didn't have a great experience with so few girls last year, so I doubt I would have insisted she stay in that class if the ratio hadn't been changed. I suppose I would have looked at other schools or homeschooling. On the other hand, this is apparently an issue in our area-- the school itself is 2/3 boys, which does create an interesting dynamic all around.

I did some digging and found actual stats. The number of kids identified as gifted/talented throughout the district (not just the program that DD is in) is almost 2/3 boys. There are no significant differences between reading/math achievement scores and gender. I couldn't find stats on the CogAT but that has to be what is causing more boys to be identified. It's sad because the stats show that the girls are actually outperforming boys in terms of classroom grades.

I wish I'd have pushed for testing for my daughter. But nothing she did really wowed me. She aced standardized tests (even perfect scored many) and that never once triggered any of her teachers to either say something to us or have them push to get her tested.

We did with our son because the teacher who gave him their screener specifically told us to push for testing for him. So we pushed for both. Our DD outscored him in math by several points (normed for age, of course).

Girls can be very good at hiding it to want to fit in. But I also think many teachers don't know how to recognize giftedness or assume just because a kid is a whiz at math and isn't taking top scores in other subjects that they *can't* be gifted.

One mom of a girl in my son's class had to push to get her daughter tested at the school. The teacher insisted her child wasn't gifted. Her scores were also higher than my son's!

I won't pretend to have numbers at my fingertips, but I do know that, at the other end of exceptionality, there are many years of research finding that girls are underidentified with ADHD, LD, and intellectual impairment. I think that socio-behavioral expectations for girls, and their ability (as a group) to use those expectations to appear more normative (from both ends of the bell curve) are huge factors. It doesn't help that many of the diagnostic criteria for exceptionalities (like much of psychology) have been developed based on studies of males only or predominantly. I have known many female students whose best cognitive assessment was well under - 2 SD, but were perceived as being essentially normative in intelligence --if a little scatter-brained-- by both peers and teachers. But guess what, she's not lazy, overly social, or distracted--she literally cannot comprehend the material! Boys, on the other hand, (especially those of color) are overidentified as ADHD, intellectually impaired, and emotionally/behaviorally impaired.

I wonder if teachers are more surprised by boys excelling academically in the primary years, more likely to treat their verbal skills as exceptional (because they expect girls to be verbal, and boys not to be), as well as more likely to notice behavioral symptoms of instructional mismatch in boys.

I would agree with 2GK that many teachers have misconceptions about the signs of giftedness. Back when I was on the gifted screening team, teachers routinely referred bright average kids and overlooked truly gifted kids.

In my experience this is very true. Boys act up, girls conform. When it's up to the parents they act on behalf of their sons (in general), seeking out alternative options then when pressed to test the sister, discover they're in the same IQ range.

I think teachers would most likely see "behaviors" as indicative that the child would not do well in an advanced program and would be less likely to recommend them, while recommending the perfect high-achievers. I think what is happening here is that the achievement scores (which are about the same for boys and girls) trigger a CogAT permission form to be sent home, most parents agree to the testing, and more boys are identified as gifted because kids have to score 98th percentile on it. If they don't go to the highly gifted program, (or opt out) they are at least identified and put into a cluster.

I have been in DD's class and all I can say is WOW...these kids do NOT seem like perfect high achievers. I felt like I was in a second grade classroom (in terms of behaviors), not fourth. There are some very obvious 2e kids and a lot of the kids in general are very excitable or disorganized/unmotivated. After seeing that, no wonder none of the teachers seem too concerned about my 2e DD. So it seems like at least kids are not being excluded for not being "perfect" which is good. Kids do not really need teacher approval or good grades to get in, just the ability and achievement scores.

FWIW...

At the G&T program my DD attends for Maths the majority of kids are boys. Selection is based on correctly answering 3/5 challenging word problem on tests administered 3 times throughout the year ( do not have the name of the test right now. There is no aptitude test other than that and no teacher recommendations either.

At the state college G&T program she attends the majority of pupils are boys, too. Here IQ/Standardised aptitude testing provides the bar to entry. Most of the parents that i have conversed with are immigrants (like me) and many of the pupils come from families where more than one language is spoken at home too.
They come from countries where education and achievement are still valued ( China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Hungary, Columbia, Germany, Australia, UK etc) and either they have a preponderance of male children or they are self selecting the boys themselves.

This thread is making me wonder again if we should have my DD10 privately tested. DS6 was recommended for testing in K by his teacher and (to my surprise) came back with a >99% on WISC IV. I always thought he was bright but never seemed that much ahead of DD.

They gave DD's class the Otis-Lennon test in gr 4, and since she wasn't recommended for further testing we figured she didn't meet the screening cut-off. They don't tell you the scores, but I'm curious...

The thing is, she's happy at her French immersion school (mostly), even though several of her friends have been moved to a self-contained GT program at another school. This was hard on her - she misses them. But she's told us she wouldn't want to go to that program (she'd miss her new BF at current school). She also has anxiety, so putting her through a private test may be hard on her.

Can2K - Two (nicely contradictory) thoughts.... What, if anything, would you do differently based on the tests? If she's happy and seems a good fit with her current environment, is this information that would help you? Would you make different kinds of decisions? Is there any suggestion that her anxiety might hint that her current fit isn't as good as she might let on?

OTOH, I have one who screamingly (and I use that word in a most literal sense) fit the gifted profile from literally the moment he was born. He's always been noticeably out-of-sync with peers (too bad I had no clue why until he was 8 - oops). His younger sister, on the other hand, seems blissfully normal, and looks nothing like the "typical" descriptions. Nor did she seem anything but normal at school (until now, at 8. Turns out she has some verbal giftedness with a helping of LDs on the side.)

Note that I am NOT trying to suggest your DD might be 2E! Just that I have seen several posts ruefully noting, as I am, that a less flamboyantly-different sibling (especially those who aren't into doing crazy math tricks at a young age) may not "seem" gifted when we get used to a particular yardstick. And there's reams of info suggesting group screening can miss lots of kids for a whole variety of reasons. And her choice of peers is rather suggestive.

And final thought - I'm horrified to admit this, but I think I can already feel subtle changes in my expectations for DD. I suspect I've asked less, and fed her mind less. DS interests are math and science - easy to feed in this STEM-y household. DD likes "soft" stuff - traditional girly things (which I am not very good at!). I think I need to try a lot harder.

Have I muddied the waters enough yet? Good luck with your decision.

If it is not too much of a hardship, yes, I would get your DD tested. I had DS6 tested primarily because of the outcome of his older sister's test results, and a comment by the tester about siblings often having scores in the same range, and I am very, very glad that I did. They have completely different personalities, different subtest strengths and relative weaknesses, but very similar overall reasoning abilities/score ranges.

I've come to the conclusion that group ability tests almost always underestimate IQ scores. Although DD did very well on the CogAT, I think she was very lucky, and the score was still a pretty significant underestimate of what she would eventually score on an individual IQ test.

And I'll just add that I was that other sibling. My parents had no plan to have me assessed for GT until the evaluators asked if there were any other siblings, besides the two they had already tested. I think my parents' perceptions were quite skewed by the PG-ness of one of my siblings, and the eidetic memory and very strong personality of another. I was always happy and easy-going, and able to "pass" socially. I'm not 2e, but I simply didn't make as much noise, and I didn't look like their other GT kids.

I don't think not being tested then would have affected my development in language-related areas, which are better differentiated in general ed classrooms, anyway, or in science, because I grew up in a science-saturated household, but I think I probably would have coasted in math, as, at age 8, when I was identified, I was already internalizing the idea that I did not like/was not good at math because I found it not engaging (aka, boring). Children are amazingly quick at taking the blame for an instructional mismatch.

Curiously, I had previously been administered both the SB and the WPPSI as part of early entry to kindergarten, but my parents appear not to have had access to those results (other than, "yes, go ahead"), because they were surprised by the results of my testing.

Bottom line, though, I agree with Michelle. First, answer the question, "What would be the function of testing?"

I'd be surprised if that were true, since the companies that make group ability tests have psychometricians who know how to calibrate the scores on the group ability tests so that they are comparable to individuallly administered IQ tests.

I'm going to allow DS to take the CogAT and I'm hoping he does better on it than the WISC! There have to be some people who do better on an IQ test and some that do better on an ability test. We'll see how it goes. He needs a higher verbal score than what he got on the WISC and I'm hoping the multiple choice format will work to his advantage since he's not very expressive/articulate. He may very well be one of those boys that does super well on the quant and/or nonverbal sections. I detest the CogAT because it was a horrible test for DD and her score bore no resemblance to her WISC score, so my fingers are crossed.

Thanks for your thoughts. At this point, her anxiety doesn't seem school-related. She is enjoying school and it's mostly a good match. (She's not 'mathy', more language-oriented). I'm sure that she would enjoy some enrichment, but I doubt that even if identified this school would give her much (DS goes to the same school - IEP is a work in progress). We do enrich at home where possible, in her areas of interest.

So, not having a real academic purpose for testing at the moment is the main reason we've not gone there. We'll have to reconsider if that changes. That, plus (due to anxiety) I don't want to put additional pressure on her at the moment.

My curiosity will have to continue to be unsatisfied.

Bostonian, I would disagree on two grounds.

Group IQ tests are primarily devised for a different purpose. They are to screen numbers of individuals for ability to enter into a program. I believe the armed services were among the major users of such instruments.

An individual IQ test is a discrete measure and observance of one person's ability on one occasion. It's use is to provide information to guide that individual in a number of areas, including academic placement but also for neurological problems for example. The results should come with a comprehensive report noting, not just scores, but how the participant responded and what observations the tester made that can explain those responses if they are unusual. That information is as valuable as the numbers in guiding future educational decisions or if looking for discrepancies suggestive of either exceptionality which is not easily determined by the numbers.

The setting of administration can greatly influence the outcome of group tests in a negative way. The instructions may not be heard or clear to the participants. That should be picked up in an individual setting and prompt the administrator to ensure further instructions are clear and also have any impact noted in the report.

The noise, or even the simple presence, of other participants can distract an individual, especially if they are 2e, and that will not be accounted for in a group test.

Fine motor performance, difficulty managing a pencil to fill in the answer will not be detected by group administrators. Visual disturbances leading to the wrong answer bubble being selected, missing a bubble and skewing all further answers because they are out by one, fatiguability and therefore failing to finish.....these are all traps in group administered tests that can impact on the final score and mean it is not an accurate picture.

Boys have higher variability on most tests of cognitive ability. They have thicker tails on both the right and the left. The curve for girls tends to be narrower. May be something about sex-linked genes.

Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that nearly every major cognitive instrument has been first-authored by a man. (Although some would say that Nadeen Kaufman had as much or more to do with the KABC and KTEA family of assessments as her husband did. And, of course, there is the venerable McCarthy Scales--Nadeen Kaufman was in on that one, too.)

Quick thought experiment: What if the tests have the same average?