Can you share with me when and why you decided to have your child tested? What are the benefits? My son is 6 and we live close enough to Johns Hopkins that we could go there for testing, but the approximate $2000 price tag has me wondering if it's really necessary. All testing for the gifted and talented center in our school system is based on in-school assessments and recommendations I believe. I'd love to hear how having your child's scores helped you in any way.

Mom2R&R,

Our DS took the WISC when he was 6 as part of the admission process at a local gifted private school. It's proved to be far more helpful that just for that purpose, however, as it gave us a clue about his strengths and weaknesses (and also indicated to us his level of giftedness, which was much higher than we were expecting). That's helped us shape an education plan for him.

What kind of testing would be included in that price tag? I ask because that seems very steep to me, unless perhaps there is both ability and achievement administered.

Thank you George C, the website states, "DCC licensed psychologists administer tests of intelligence, achievement, personality, cognitive processing, and/or social and emotional development, which can be used to evaluate and/or diagnose:
cognitive strengths and weaknesses
specific learning disabilities
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Asperger's Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disability
Evaluations include:

a review of prior records
a written report with recommendations
a consultation session to discuss and interpret findings.
Fees for psycho-educational evaluation depend on the complexity of the assessment battery necessary, but can range from $1500 to $3,500. "

I was saying around $2,000 being conservative. Would I be better off looking elsewhere?

As an assessment professional, in general, I am a testing hawk (except, of course, when I am swamped at work ). I think it can only be helpful to understand your child (and for them to understand themselves) better in any way. Cognitive & achievement testing are one aspect of that understanding.

OTOH, we have not chosen to have any of our own children tested. It has not been a gatekeeper to accessing any services or resources that might have been of value to us or them, so far (but we homeschool, so formal GT programs have not been relevant). If it became evident that testing had practical value (say for documenting accommodations on high-stakes college entrance exams), then I think we would consider testing.

I am also, of course, in the low-incidence position of being able to informally assess my own children with some degree of confidence. I suspect I would take a different position on testing for our children if I were not.

Thank you aeh. As an assessment professional, do you have suggestions on which tests are of the most value?

With kid #1, he got tested as part of an evaluation for ADHD or asd because of problems at preschool. We really needed an outside observer to tell us if we were the obtuse ones or if the school(s) just didn't get him. getting testing helped us figure out what to do with him. As much as I'm curious about kid #2, I don't want to have her tested until we need to deal with early entry to kindergarten several years from now.

I tested because things didn't add up at the end of the first year of school. It cost me NZ$210 for just the WJiii cognitive though.

I am new to these forums and testing for GT programs. We have a DS8 and DS6/7, we have known our DS8 was gifted and did not feel a need to have him tested until the school system needed it for entrance to the Bridges program sponsored by the district.

DS8 was given the WISC-V paid for by the district, it was not a complete test only enough to get a FISQ and GAI score. Our thoughts when we found out they were going to have him tested for the Bridges program was about getting him more advanced resources and exposure to other kids at his level.

I am still learning about these test, (DS8's scores are posted in another thread.) and in just a few days have come to learn a great deal. DS8 has a little brother who will be 7 in Feb. DS7 shows sign of math aptitude but only in the last 3-4 months. he struggles with other area's. If we knew 3 years ago what we know now I would have paid to have DS8 tested at 5yo.
We are not a high income family but given what we are finding out now we would have figured it out.

having an official test turns us from typical "my kid is gifted" to having tools to better help our boys be happy and reach any goal they want.

DS - we tested back in grade one (he was 6.5) because the school told us to test for ADHD and basically thought he was a behaviour issue. We kind of figured he was gifted (although we were still kind of stunned with his scores) but he was also struggling with writing and we wanted to get more info to help with advocacy because school was not going well. (he is 2e)

DD - we tested her at 7 because we had tested DS and it was only fair. We only did the WISC with her because we didn't suspect any LD's and that was enough for our purposes at this point. We figured she was also gifted and it wouldn't hurt with advocacy although since she isn't 2e and has a completely different personality the school was already doing way more for her than they ever did for DS with his 2 full psych-ed assessments to back everything up.

We have spend a ridiculous amount on testing and don't regret it. We were also able to get a lot of it covered with our benefits so that might be something to look into. DS had to go through 2 rounds because he wasn't very cooperative and he was too young to label as LD when we tested the first time so we had to retest 2 years later. I'm very glad that we have tested because we had kind of assumed they were both MG and would have gone along with the flow. I have a much easier time challenging the educational experts that have no idea what to do with my kids now that I have psych reports to back me up. Realizing their scores has helped make choices and open doors. The screening that the school did missed DS (likely due to the 2e) so we kind of had to test privately to access gifted programming with him.

DYS would have been really nice to have access to but we aren't in the U.S.

Ditto.

Comprehensive testing provides a ton of valuable information and understanding. It also puts a very helpful barrier of objective data between you and kid. Even when we weren't told anything we didn't already know, we were able to step back and much more calmly deal with behaviours (whether gifted or slow processing/ writing) as the "can't" they are, and not the "won't" they so often feel like.

That said, I wouldn't rush into testing unless you have current need, or see current problems. We've had to do multiple rounds with our 2E kids because their additional exceptionalities were just too well compensated and masked when they were younger, so we weren't yet asking the right questions.

My kids (MG and HG, by the numbers anyway) have been tested, but for free by the school district, using a shorter test that I personally don't think is as good (the RIAS). They are not 2E in an educational sense and their scores admitted them to the gifted program, so that was "enough" for us. I admit to wishing I had a more comprehensive picture, but it's really more for my curiosity. What I'm trying to say is that if you don't suspect that something odd or unusual is afoot, you might consider waiting and having the school test. In your case, I see that they also assess for Aspergers, ADHD and NVLD? That could well be worth it if you have any concerns in those areas.

When does your district test? That's also a big factor. We test in K/1 here.

mom2R&R, $2000 for the comprehensive testing listed above is a reasonable price (it would cost quite a bit more here... far away from Johns Hopkins!)... however, it's a comprehensive type of testing that I'd only pursue if your child is experiencing challenges outside of just wondering if he/she is gifted. If you are only testing to determine if your child has gifted intellectual ability, I'd recommend finding someone who will administer either the WISC only (or other comparable ability test), or ability + achievement test, which should cost less (much less) than $2000.

If you have no pressing need to have the scores now, you could opt to wait until school will test - however, school system testing isn't always as thorough, might include learned ability and group testing vs individual IQ testing, and might include a screener that is very brief.

I agree that having the results of a WISC or other individual IQ test is very useful in understanding your child's strengths and needs, otoh, I also would caution - what happens if you were to test and your child *didn't* test gifted? You'd still want to respond to your child's academic needs and advocate for more challenge if they need it.

Best wishes,

polarbear

What Polarbear said in the last sentence is why my DH won't agree to have our son tested. He feels that we need to meet our son's education needs anyway. Knowing how smart he is should not change how we go about this. But if he somehow did not test to a certain number, there is a chance of us not trying as hard to meet his needs. I want to qualify this by saying that he has no obvious learning issues and behavior and emotional issues. If he does, we will spring for the Neuropsych no questions.

The comprehensive neuropsych testing is probably unnecessary if you don't suspect any deeper issues. A wisc-V only probably will cost 300-400 dollars.

mom2R&R, I had the same question two months ago - whether to test DS7 (6 years old at the time). I posted my question and concerns on the forum. Most of the responses suggested that we should test him for the reasons of knowing his strengths and weaknesses, more equipped to advocate in school and a chance to get in DYS (and the benefits after joining).

We finally decided to have him tested in December when he was at 6 year 10 mos, and we do not regret it a bit. We thought he was gifted but didn't think he was "DYS qualifited" gifted. We found out his very strong areas and his relatively moderate areas. We now have one more tool to advocate to the school instead of just saying he's advanced. Now we can also apply for the DYS :-).

My DS7 only took the WISC-V but did receive a full report from the psych and a brief interview with the psych for social and personality development review since we had concerns for his social skills. The cost was $525 for everything. So I would suggest you get something like what we did if you don't have concerns on 2e and other issues. Your cost would be much less than $2K.

Thank you all. I think we'll look into a WISC-V from someone with a background working with gifted kids. We do not have other concerns or behaviors at this point. Thanks!

Maybe I missed something along the way, but we've paid $30-50 or so for the EXPLORE and SCAT tests, $70 or so for SAT/ACT, and $500 (iirc) for a SB5 test when one child was denied admission to the gifted program. NWEA, OTIS, SB5 (for the other child), and others were all free through our public school.

There seem, to me, to be plenty of reasonable options. Don't get a full body MRI/NMR/etc. scan when a simple doctor visit will do, unless there are significant underlying issues/needs.

Cranberry- I started with the public school. I was told because we don't suspect a learning disability, they wouldn't do an intelligence test. I might be able to fight that, but the testing wouldn't be by someone with experience with gifted students, so I'm not sure it's worth fighting for.

That is what would happen here too. If the child wasn't failing they wouks see no reason to test anything.