When reading about the young scholars program, it says that a child needs to have a score of 145+ in one area or be 2-3 grades ahead, which suggests that profoundly gifted plus kids that scored 145+ are also usually 2-3 or more grades ahead. Is this a real world correlation?
I'm just curious if it's common for a child to be 2-3 grades ahead and not get a score of 145 or more in at least one subject?
I remember a mom posted awhile back about a child who read at 2, was 3 grades ahead and his score were MG. My first reaction is that this child's scores don't make sense.

I believe that you need to have both IQ >= 145 and achievement globally at an equivalently high level (which may or may not be +2-3 years, and being ahead in one area isn't sufficient), not one or the other. My personal guess is that there are a large number of kids who have one but not the other, for one reason or another.

I'm curious how you concluded that +3 was the achievement cutoff. The DYS cuts for 7th graders are well above the 50th percentile for 11-12th graders, which would be +4-5.

2-3 years ahead is actually what is mentioned as part of the criteria for a DYS portfolio.

It's trivial to be 2-3 grades ahead in reading, but unusual to be 2-3 grades ahead in math. Tons of K or 1st grade kids can read Droon or Rainbow fairy books, which are grade 3/4. I suspect the kids who are 2-3 grades ahead in math are significantly more than the PG cutoff, while kids reading a couple of grades ahead are much closer to the mean.

Here is one example of a simple chart commonly referenced: http://vcbconsulting.com/gtworld/iqgrade.html

Knowing an IQ score can allow prediction of achievement. However the corollary is not considered to be true; Knowing achievement is not said to be predictive of an IQ score.

If I recall, there was a fabulous Working Memory, fueling the high achievement?

ETA: Here's a previous thread on Working Memory, hat tip to squishys for sharing great articles.

DD6 has a FSIQ of 138 on the WISC IV which makes her MG, I think? She's been formally assessed as two years ahead at maths but got everything in that test right and her teacher said that within each maths subtopic she could easily comprehend and answer questions correctly 3-4 years ahead. She has a fantastic working memory (141).

However there's no way she's 2-3 years ahead in English. She does read at that level - her preferred fiction is marketed at 9 year old level and her non fiction books on Space are at 12 year old level. Her spelling, grammar and punctuation are great but her creative writing is very like that of a 6 year old. Her inferential comprehension is also probably age appropriate, in my opinion. She still got an 'A' for English in her school report which means that she's well above national standards but I don't think that gifted 'sparkiness' is there for her in this subject.

While it is true that the DYS Qualifications page mentions "working two to three grade levels above age peers", it also mentions "at least two to three grade levels above age peers", and the Qualifications page itself is referred to as "minimum Qualification criteria" on the How To Apply page and the FAQ page.

I agree - these are only minimum qualifications for DYS, and I merely referenced them to answer the question of where this comes from.

The WISC/WIAT charts used for discrepancy analysis provide an idea of what is "expected" achievement-wise at different I.Q. levels. Still, these tests don't claim to measure other factors, such as motivation or exposure to material, which also play into achievement scores.

This was an observation I had from looking at the WJiii test. For the same normal score the grade level equivalent was two years lower in reading compared to math and writing. So looks like the bell curve for reading migh be a little flater

This is exactly what I am curious about, this is not logical to me, trying to figure out what makes this possible. A child who teaches themself or is extremely motivated to learn to read at age 2 is an outlier anecdotally, so how could that not be shown in the numbers?

A two year old's brain that can read is not the same as an average or even above average two year old, right?

I do see how reading is different than math, though, great points, that makes sense.

My son will be tested next month, I am not applying for the DYS anytime soon if he does quailify in numbers (he's 4 in Feb.), I was just trying to wrap my head around how some children can perform 2-3 grade levels ahead and it not reflect in the I.Q. scores.

But with other factors, like motivation, the education culture of the home, access to materials/education/exposure, I guess I can see how a child can perform that far ahead but still be within the average or slightly above average range of I.Q.

I just thought it was curious how the DYS stated the 2-3 grade levels ahead in the criteria.

Also, I didn't read that they needed to be globally performing 2-3 levels ahead. I think it's great that they recognize that a child who performs at level in most subjects but is gifted in one subject, that child still needs the support and opportunity to grow in that subject.

I'm a former Special Education Teacher and I would administer the academic achievement tests, it's been a few years and now that I have my sons, I reflect on my experience and knowledge. When I performed these tests, I really did not completely understand them, I know that now, researching these topics. In general, many of my students had a higher I.Q. and low performing scores, so I am trying to wrap my head around the opposite.

Makes sense.

In these instances, while the overall IQ may not indicate giftedness, most likely there is at least one high subtest score.

Yes, many families sacrifice greatly to provide more opportunity for their children, than what the parents had themselves in their youth. Additionally I'm familiar with several autodidacts who frequented the public library and learned, unguided, in their areas of greatest interest and passion. Talk about motivation!

On the downside, there is hothousing and tiger-parenting.

There are myriad sources for parents to tap into for information and self-education in supporting their gifted children. DYS is for the extreme outliers.

Definitely IQ above the specified level for the test used AND 2+ years ahead.

Let me just remind everyone that grade levels ahead based on being able to do work from actual courses, and grade levels ahead based on grade equivalents from a standardized achievement test are two very different propositions, only one of which has significant validity--and it's not the one from the NRT.

And yes, the developmental arc for reading is very different from that for mathematics, and less dependent on access to direct instruction. (One of the reasons not to lean too heavily on grade equivalent scores is the early plateau in reading decoding raw scores.) The change in slope across the lifespan for academic growth also means that 2-3 years ahead at one point in time has a very different meaning from 2-3 years at another point.

Plus, in mathematics, pretty much the whole continent of North America is about 1-2 years behind the rest of the industrialized world, which I don't think is due to the population being a standard deviation lower than the rest of the world in intelligence (though there are moments when that seems rather plausible!).

Not to hijack the thread too much but having recently looked at the SCAT I wonder how predictive it really is. With so few questions in such a narrow format it didnt really seem very interesting assessment wise beyond the CTY application.

That chart is way way off. That's the problem with ratio IQs.

IMO, they spend all that time on memorising coin names (US coins have no denomination printed on them, and much of the first three years mathematics is spent identifying them by sight), faffing about with inches and pounds and such, and spending waaay too much time on fractions due to the aforementioned medieval measuring system.

I have never seen evidence showing that adjusting for race, children in the U.S. are much behind those in other industrialized countries. See for example
Graph of 2012 PISA scores for 65 countries/economies

Ha! Ain't that the truth! We are basically skipping most of 2nd grade math, moving straight on to multiplication and division.

Thanks for the link, Bostonian. I'll have to look it over.

My comment was based on what I know of instructional levels in other industrialized nations (not comprehensive, by any means), not so much the achievement outcomes of said instruction. (Though that has its own twists.) Since the question has to do with grade-levels-ahead, I wanted to introduce into the discussion the scope and sequence of math instruction in specific communities, and their alignment with grade levels. I could have rephrased it as, elementary and secondary math instruction in most of North America appears to be about 1-2 years behind instruction in much of the rest of the first and second world, therefore, our concept of grade-levels-ahead may be accordingly shifted.

In my kids, IQ and grade level equivalents have no relationship, while the scaled scores of index scores correlate with one another, at least within a standard deviation or so. Grade level equivalents appear to be produced by a random number generator.

Attempting to make correlations with grade level equivalents in our family's case of high IQ and achievement are a fruitless endeavor, as they seem to be the poster children for "asynchronous development," paired with variable rates of average development in different skills.

I hear all the time that PG kids are underserved in most schools and that parents need to advocate aggressively to get the most basic of accommodations - and those are the parents who know how to navigate the system. There are also parents who have no awareness nor the ability to advocate due to various reasons.
So, if a kid with IQ of 150+ does not get any acceleration or differentiation and has never seen advanced topics in math, how would that child work 2-3 grade levels ahead in that subject? Intuitive understanding due to high intellect can not take that child too far. I believe that the correlation between high IQ and working at a higher grade level is not a given. It is mostly due to the learning opportunities available to the child.

Not a random number generator. Regression & curve smoothing. But still with little relationship to real-world instructional levels. Which is why the APA and NASP specifically dis-recommend the use of grade equivalents in assessment reporting and interpretation.

Agreed that giftedness + opportunity = achievement. I believe it is important not to conflate giftedness and opportunity.

That said, there is much credit to be given to what another person recently termed on another thread, "a child-driven educational thirst".

Some may say the number of opportunities available to a child are dependent, in part, on the age of the child, and the number of questions the child may ask of parents, teachers, and other adults the child comes in contact with (pediatrician, dentist, eye doctor, grocery store clerk, hardware store employee, neighbors, relatives, librarian, etc). Some kids may read wrappers, labels, boxes, prices, road signs, car speedometer, billboards, making connections and formulating questions. A family which lets these everyday opportunities go by may also not make best use of formalized learning opportunities such as courses, tutors, or acceleration.

While some courses and tutors may be costly, there are many stimulating resources freely available and readily accessible for a child/family seeking every opportunity for positive mental stimulation and intellectual growth.

The take-away idea may be to strive for one's personal best, maximizing the opportunities which one may have or be able to create.

I know this. I should have maybe worded it "as if generated..." The GE does not correlate well across subtests, nor does the same scaled score equate the same number of grades ahead for a given subtests across the years (so a 130 in kindergarten is very different than in 4th). DS has identical scaled scores on different subtests, yet the GE is wildly different. Looking at his GE's on the latest round of WJ (which, granted, will qualify him for special ed), range from -2 to +14 of his current grade level, which the SS's range from low end of average to +78 points above the lowest score.

OK, geeked out on DS' WJ scores.

Grade 4.4 norm: GE is broadly linear over 78 SS point variation with a decent quality of fit. Residuals between ±1.5 GE (furthest above the fit line is Applied Problems; furthest below is writing fluency)

Grade K.6 norm: GE also broadly linear over 50 SS point range. Residuals +1.1/-0.6 (Picture Vocabulary and Spelling).

Note that DS is about to come out with a dyslexia diagnosis.

All of this, of course, says nothing of his IQ, which does not have nearly the point spread as the achievement, none of which would quantitatively predict either the highs or lows of achievement.

Clear now.

The scaled/standard/all z-score-derived scores correlate with each other because all the psychometric work goes into making sure they do. That grade equivalent tables exist at all is an unfortunate concession to age/grade-locked teacher-thinking, which is an outgrowth of our warehoused approach to formal education.

One of the few times I find some utility in age/grade equivalents is when attempting to describe the cognitive development of extremely low functioning students (e.g., teens with skills at an infant level). Mainly because most people have no sense what that many negative SDs means. And because the number isn't nearly as important as what they can and can't do to interact with their environment. But just as with the other tail of the curve, there are so many developmental asynchronies and gap/splinter skills that an equivalent still doesn't provide a particularly accurate picture.

It's odd that we ever expect equivalents to be legit, when you consider that there -may- be one or two items at each grade level (whatever that might be) on a NRT like the WJ. Obviously, there is no way they can be comprehensive.

On the geek theme--a little light reading on norm construction, re-weighting, curve smoothing, with an example of a section of the age equivalent curve for one subtest:
http://www.riverpub.com/products/wjIIIComplete/pdf/WJIII_ASB9.pdf

Technical data on standardization; look on p. 17 for smoothed curves for major clusters, by age:
http://www.riverpub.com/products/wjIIIComplete/pdf/WJIII_ASB2.pdf
Not much detail, but it gives you an idea.

I think grade equivalent scales and mental ages are as important as z-scores. Suppose the distribution of intelligence were much more compressed than it actually is, so that only 1% of 10-year-olds were as smart as the average 11-year-old. You could still create IQ scores with mean 100 and standard deviation of 15, but the need to make special accommodations for children with IQ of 130 would not be so urgent, because they would not be that much smarter than the average child their age. When, in reality, 10yo children with IQ of 130 are about as smart as average 13-year-olds, this suggests the need for accommodations.

aeh, from the actual PISA report there is support for your statement although the comparison is to the top performing country being two years ahead in Maths than the top performing US state.

Key findings
• Among the 34 OECD countries, the United States performed below average in mathematics in 2012 and is ranked 27th (this is the best estimate, although the rank could be between 23 and 29 due to sampling and measurement error). Performance in reading and science are both close to the OECD average. The United States ranks 17 in reading, (range of ranks: 14 to 20) and 20 in science (range of ranks: 17 to 25). There has been no significant change in these performances over time.

• Mathematics scores for the top-performer, Shanghai-China, indicate a performance that is the equivalent of over two years of formal schooling ahead of those observed in Massachusetts, itself a strong-performing U.S.

• Just over one in four U.S. students do not reach the PISA baseline Level 2 of mathematics proficiency – a higher-than-OECD average proportion and one that hasn’t changed since 2003. At the opposite end of the proficiency scale, the U.S. has a below-average share of top performers.

These results should not be taken at face value:

So how overblown were No. 1 Shanghai’s PISA results?
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post
March 20, 2014

Furthermore, we know that Chinese-Americans outperform academically, especially in math. If the Chinese are beating us in math, to what extent is it due to differences in curriculum, teacher training, or innate ability?

... and/or family/cultural support/pressure?

I encourage you to read the actual report on PISA results for the US. It is not just China but a number of Asian and European countries who outperform the State's on average score but also having a larger number of high performing students and a smaller number of low performing students.

Just over one-quarter (26%) of 15-year-olds in the United States do not reach the PISA baseline Level 2 of mathematics proficiency, at which level students begin to demonstrate the skills that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life. This percentage is higher than the OECD average of 23% and has remained unchanged since 2003. By contrast, in Hong Kong- China, Korea, Shanghai-China and Singapore, 10% of students or fewer are poor performers in mathematics.

There is a lot of interesting detail in the report related to how results are impacted by immigration (accounts for 4 % of the variance) and other factors including motivation and advantage.

All samples have flaws but this is still interesting reading.

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf

Just an observation: I was checking out some of the top math kids in the US and there is a huge group from Bellevue WA. I checked out the schools in the area and the Asian population has spiked in the last few years, some schools are almost 50% Asian and the Math Programs in these schools always finish at the top in National and World Competitions.

Hmmm. I have issues with the WISC-IV. My son didn't score as gifted and the psychologist couldn't even calculate his IQ, yet he was ahead in a few areas as well. We haven't done a SB for him (I'm kind of disenchanted by the testing process for kids, to be honest. I wasn't tested until adulthood, and frankly I think there's more accuracy then). Also I've heard that the WISC is only good to about IQ 130 and anything higher is better served with the SB.

Enh. I think they each have their strengths and flaws. I do prefer the structure of the WISC-IV to the SBV, though, as it has a more coherent theoretical basis. From the sound of it, I'm guessing that your son may have had a highly skewed profile, which means that the FSIQ would not have been the best representation of his ability (probably the VCI or PRI would have been better), which would likely be why the psych didn't calculate an FSIQ. This does not mean that the instrument does not provide good information on giftedness; with a 2e or other low-incidence profile, there probably isn't an instrument out there that would really capture the full potential.

For HG+ individuals without 2e, testing in middle-to-late childhood is actually best (8-12 yo), as there is still enough range in the tests to be able to use extended norms. Scores may be more stable in adulthood, but ceiling effects become more problematic for the highest-scoring individuals. (Not an issue if we're looking at <145.)

No. When a six year old ceilings out on a subtest, the result puts them at 16 yo equivalent (from memory, paperwork is in sleeping child's room). And that's just not correct.

That's because the WISC age norms only go up to 16 yo. Therefore the highest possible age equivalent cannot top 16-11.

Obtaining the same score as does not equal functioning at the same level as.

And to the previous point: 10 yo children with IQ 130 scored at the same level as the median 13 yo under the old mental age/quotient IQ. (Note that this is not the same as saying that they are "as smart as" average 13 yos.) No contemporary IQ tests use the quotient IQ, nor have they since the 1972 re-norming of the SBLM. Although efforts were made to scale deviation IQs so they would have some resemblance to the numbers generated by quotient IQs, they really are not the same measurement system.

Perhaps what would make more sense (though it's not as readily accessible even when the data exists) is to look at Rasch scalings, which figure item difficulty in. (This is the basis of the W score and associated RPI on the WJIII.) E.g., those with an RPI in a certain range are expected to be receiving instruction in their ZPD. Those below need remediation, and those above need challenge. Unfortunately, the RPI doesn't spread the upper end of the curve at all well, since it was designed for spreading the lower end.

What a great idea from the perspective of understanding educational "fit" and appropriate level of instruction, though, aeh! If only it did work on the upper tail.

Question: *could* it be designed to work for the upper end as well. In theory, if someone took an interest in actually designing an instrument to determine appropriate educational fit? Could an exceptionally competent school psychologist do it as a research project on the side or would it need a full research unit at a university? Just wondering...

Do we need new instruments?

We already have the SAT and the ACT, and I think young students who score like college-ready high school students are ready for the same college-level classes if they have the same background in the subject. So my prediction is that conditional on the SAT M+V score and the score on the relevant SAT subject test, performance in AP class and exam has little dependence on age. So a 10yo with a 700 SAT verbal score and a 600 score on the SAT U.S. History subject test will do as well on the AP U.S. History exam after taking a course as a 16yo with the same scores will. I'd like to see a test of this theory. When I read Julian Stanley's accounts of fast-paced science and calculus courses, taken by young students screened by SAT scores, it appeared that younger students often did the best.

If a 10yo can do academically what a 16yo can do, I'd argue that makes the 10yo "as smart as" the 16yo.

While the 10 year old may be as smart as the 16 year old, AP tests require writing essays, while SAT CR and SAT II US History do not. The 10 year old might struggle with the writing component of an AP class. Even my middle kid, who was an excellent writer at 10, would not have been able to produce essays worthy of a 5 on an AP exam at age 10.

I think you're probably right when it comes to the 2e aspect, and I think that's what has influenced my opinion. I'm HG (153) w/o a diagnosed LD but could be ADHD like my son, and I feel like the time of my testing (via the SB, at 27 yrs) was the best in terms of stability (I think I would have tested more like my son as a kid - although my high scores would have been higher than his but I would have had behaviour related variability). As an adult, however, I'd kind of settled into my levels and was definitely more stable.

I don't know... there are pros and cons to each testing tool, like you say. Not only am I not sure that the WISC was right for my son, I also wonder about the suitability of the psychologist - she was very, very competent and experienced, but much too gentle. She was more suited to the anxiety-ridden kids as opposed to my hurricane kid... lol

A new article on that topic:

Inside a Chinese Test-Prep Factory
By BROOK LARMER
New York Times
December 31, 2014

I just read that article, and it was almost scary. Heartbreaking, actually, to see how far the students and parents went for the students' futures. I've heard about that test, but that was still surprising. Also-
Sound eerily familiar?
However, this reminds me of an article I read that said many Chinese and Asian immigrant parents hothouse their children at higher rates than others because they don't fully realize their kids can have a good life without an Ivy League college - no one told them how the system works, or else the mentality, understandably, is still there. Obviously not the only reason, but a compelling one.

Having worked with Asian-educated peers in entry-level IT, I can confirm that "can't think for themselves" is a literal truth, not hyperbole. People who had been doing my job for decades couldn't think of the obvious first steps to take when a fault occurred, nor could they understand why a much younger, American-educated individual like myself couldn't recite the Gettysburg Address from memory. This was MY history, after all, not theirs. What had I done all those years in school, then?

Meanwhile, the gaokao brain-eating virus is spreading to Harvard and Yale, from which we inexplicably continue to draw our national leaders in the political and corporate spheres.

WINNING!

According to this commonly referenced chart from Hoagies Gifted Education Page, a score of 138 on the WISC-IV is on the cusp or cutoff between moderately gifted and highly gifted. With your daughter's young age, it is quite possible that future IQ tests may yield a higher score.

The GAI may also be a helpful measure here? (especially if the processing speed/performance scores were the lower than the others indices?).