Hello,

Our son who is not quite 5 will undergo gifted testing this summer, as it is standard for our school district to test all incoming kindergarteners. Additionally, my son has pretty debilitating anxiety and we are setting up a formal evaluation with a psychologist and starting play therapy this summer. The school tests for giftedness using CogAT and the Iowa assessment. The psych evaluation involves an entirely different battery of WPPSI, Woodcock-Johnson, and VMI testing. I’m a newbie, and this is all Greek to me. However, I have read on this site before about problems with too many exams or competing exams... in this case the test are for different purposes and they are not the same exams, but from what I understand some are quite similar. Is this potentially problematic? Should I talk to the school to see if the private testing could be used to evaluate his eligibility for the program so as not to put him through too many exams? All advice is welcome!

There are two principal questions here: overtesting and retest validity effects.

As to retest/validity concerns: this should not be a problem. The group-administered tests (CogAT & Iowa's--not clear if this is ITBS or IAS) are quite different from the individualized assessments, and would not be expected to affect validity either way.

Overtesting: your child is quite young, so this is a very real consideration. OTOH, he may well enjoy some of the testing, especially the individual assessments. The timing will also make a difference, as you have described a fairly large window. If he's not undergoing all the tests within the same week or two, he likely will not be overwhelmed by the process, as long as it is consistently and effectively communicated to him that the extensive testing is not some kind of sign that he is irredeemably broken; it's for two different purposes. One is just what the school does with every new student. I would probably leave it at that for the district testing. If he has more to ask, you could briefly indicate that it helps teachers know their brand-new students better. The second is to help him and his family understand the way he learns and experiences the world around him, so that the whole family system can learn better/new skills.

On another note, the school probably will, as a matter of policy, not accept private testing in lieu of district testing for eligibility, as that creates equity problems.

Hi AEH,

Thanks you for your response. You addressed my concerns exactly. I think you’re right about the school not accepting private testing... that makes sense. I think I was most concerned about validity of the tests, but you’ve made me feel better about this. We are hoping to space the tests to a month apart. And you’re right. He probably will enjoy aspects of the tests. I just seemed like so much to deal with all at once as we just found out about both rounds of testing in that last week.

Thanks again!! I’m feeling much better about this.