Just curious as to why I don't see a lot of chatter about DAS II scores on this forum. Is the test not used very much, and if not..why?
My DD originally was tested with the WISC, but she wanted nothing to do with the testing or being gifted, and pretty much refused to finish all the testing. She still tested in the gifted range despite herself, but I suspected we had no idea of her true abilities. Fast forward a year and she was in a much better place emotionally and we retested with the DAS II and her scores were well into the PG range.
I've always wondered why that test is not discussed, or apparently administered, a lot.
Labmom, here is a thread where I asked for more info on the DASII.
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/215778/DASII_vs_WISC_IV_V.htmlNot sure if it answers your questions but folks shared some great information.
The DAS II is a good instrument--like all instruments, it has its strengths and weaknesses, some of which I detailed in the thread referenced above, but I have no blanket hesitation in using it. The main reason it isn't mentioned often on this or other fora is the market. The Stanford-Binet used to be overwhelmingly the dominant presence in the cognitive assessment market. The Wechsler series has since overtaken it (mainly because of marketing reasons, and partly because the SB was slow to release revisions, and then had two controversial revisions in a row, the latter of which, unfortunately for it, had a couple of big names in assessment distance themselves from it). Colin Elliott was a relative late-comer to the cognitive assessment market, and didn't initially have quite enough marketing muscle behind his product (which is a revision of the British Ability Scales). Pearson owns it now, but has chosen preferentially to back the Wechsler brand. Consequently, almost all psychs have access to the WISC. Most psychs can get their hands on an SB. But once a school system (or a private psych) has shelled out $1200 per test per examiner for a WISC and an SB, it/he/she is highly unlikely to spend another grand on a DAS II.
A similar story explains the relative low profile of the KABC-II, which was Alan Kaufman's attempt to break off on his own, out of the shadow of David Wechsler (and, possibly, that of his wife Nadeen Kaufman, who was the principal behind the revision of the McCarthy Scales, and believed by some to be the more significant mind in the husband-and-wife research team).
Thanks aeh! Interesting how things come down to marketing in so many areas of life :-)