My daughter's CogAT scores were sky-high, so we never had to worry about this the first time around.

My DS8 (who has autism, in case that's relevant) tested for the gifted program (again) this year, and his CogAT scores are 127 Verbal, 151 Quantitative, 116 Nonverbal, 140 Composite. The district standard is "Two CogAT subtest scores at or above 132 SAS (Standard Age Score), one subtest score at or above 126, and the composite score at or above 132." This wording is a little ambiguous, at least to me - it's hard for me to tell whether it means that the standard is

• three subscores over 126, with two of those over 132, AND composite over 132
• (two subscores over 132) OR (one subscore over 126 AND composite over 132)

He would meet the second half of the latter, but not the former. His teacher and parents both think he would benefit from the program. We have to appeal by April 3 if we are going to.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

FWIW, it reads to me like all three criteria need to be met. Is there anything else to the standard? Would he clearly qualify for any other tier of highly capable supportive services? (Perhaps math.) Do you think the district would be open to the argument that the Nonverbal area score was adversely affected by some of the executive functioning (e.g., cognitive shift) deficits associated with ASD?

I think that the district might be open to that argument, but I would have to provide some kind of evidence that autism can cause that kind of deviation. Do you know of any?

There are other parts to the standard involving achievement testing, but he has met all of those. Which supports the idea that he really ought to be in the program.

These rigid cog-at cutoffs that districts impose drive me crazy. If a kid has a bad day or misses just one extra question then all of a sudden they don't qualify for any services. It's ridiculous that someone with a CogAT score of 132 could get in but a 140 is denied. If you look at the score profile it will probably say he has an "E" profile meaning there is a large discrepancy between scores, and according to the recommendations CogAT puts out the test should be regarded with caution because the child may be twice exceptional. This happened to my daughter. She is so slow and unfocused that she left two sections of the test (math and non-verbal) half blank due to it being strictly timed, so of course her composite score ended up only being 118 or something. When she was tested on the WISC her GAI was 150 and non-verbal was her highest score, whereas on the CogAt verbal was her highest score (by far) because that's the section she finished. if you can get his "profile" and the test recommedations (i.e. score warnings) that might help your case. Since there is such a large gap between scores they should give him a different test like the WISC.

This PLoS One article found that high-functioning ASD (then known as Asperger's) children had a characteristic profile on the WISC-III and WISC-IV that was high in verbal, and lower in nonverbal (performance IQ or perceptual reasoning, respectively), and much lower in working memory and processing speed. Check out figure 3. The whole article is available free:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4686055/

Thanks, aeh! You always come through.

My pleasure!

Bumping this thread to let you know that DS was accepted into the gifted program yesterday. Thank you again for the article, aeh - we submitted it with the argument that some of his scores were depressed below his actual functioning because of his autism. I have no idea what caused the decision to change, but I'm very glad that I took the time to submit the appeal and that I asked here for advice!

I just want to say at for my ds , his lowest scores are verbal and highest in quantitative on the WISC-V. We have a diagnosis of ASD level I

Nice to hear you had a good outcome!