Dottie (or anyone with experience) can you help me with this one.

ould a child have a high average IQ have high achievement scores. (He is self taught too, he isn't hot housed!!)

I had the testing done because he is intensely frustrated at school. I thought the testing would help.

Even the tester wasn't sure where to go with this. She was consulting with other people.

The tester is going to retest, but it could be a while. I'm just wondering if I should expect the younger IQ test to be much different.

Test him again. My kids have each been tested three times and one time one of them scored WAY below the other scores.

It happens. That said, is it *that* unusual for a child who is almost 6 to read at a 4th - 5th grade level? I'm sure others know more and will contribute, but 120 is a solid score.

Also - I think there are two red flags with this tester:

1 - she gave the wrong test
2 - She wasn't confident in the result and felt the need to consult with other people. I would think that an experienced tester would be VERY proficient at explaining to anxious parents that their child is only very bright!

And even if it wasn't the tester, your son could have had a bad day. There are so many wildcards at that age.

So I'd take 120 as a minimum, given your reservations about the score, and that's pretty good!

I didn't leave with the results. I didn't get copies of anything.

I was just told that he was given the test for older kids by accident. I saw the results, but I don't remember them all. I know Block Design was in the 95%. But his ranges varied from 25% to 95% with the majority of categories being in the 75-90%. Other than that, I really just don't remember the information.

I do know that the category in the 25% was probably a very difficult category for his age range. It had to do with "common sense" questions as she reported to me. She said the questions were a bit "experience related." So she thought that could have "hit" his total hard.

His achievement testing was good, most everything between the 2-5 grade level w/ the exception of writing. It was in mid-first grade. He is in Kindy.

Ugh, I feel frustrated. I've been anxiously waiting for results. Now I don't know if I know them or don't know them.

You are right. I do remember the 8 and 15.

I only remember block design because she pointed it out as a likely reason for his "reading ability." She also pointed out the 8, which was probably "inaccurate" due to his age.

Well, I guess this means that I'm back in wait mode. I wish I knew about the correlations for the two tests.

The one he was supposed to take is for kids 2-6.3 and the one he took is for ages 6-17. He is 5.7. With him being "close" to the cutoff, I wonder what difference it will make.

Should I take his achievement scores to the school (at least I know that they are accurate) to see if the school will do anything for him? In Kindy, they won't teach past the end of 1st grade level. So, he has been stuck in a reading group that he deems "easy" all year. My concern isn't as much for this year as next year.

It could end up taking months to go through all this again. Should I move forward with the school or wait. I feel lost. Does he need accommodation or am I just a biased mom?

The school pushes back saying his writing needs work so they will just keep working on his writing.

How did the tester propose to handle this? Did he/she take your money or bill your insurance? Is there a date set to retest on SBV?

I like that the tester is at least being upfront about
a) he/she made a mistake.
b) he/she might be able to salvage if with the help of a more experienced person (but we know that isn't possible)

Your son still is having a poor fit at school, you have the same problem you started with. What would you do if you were in the tester's shoes? Probably refund the money or offer an immediate free retest.

The problem is going to be that taking the WISC probably means that taking the WIPSSI right now is a bad idea. This isn't a big deal unless the tester isn't certified to administer SBV. It's harder to get certified to take SBV than the WISC family of tests. Then the tester should (in my opinion) give you back your fee and call a friend who does do SBV and get you to the front of the line to have your son tested. This whole thing is hard enough without these kind of mistakes - but we are all human and mistakes happen - the key is what happens next!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

from hoagies

Is this referring to me? I don't see how it could be, but I can't figure out what it does refer to. The wrong test being administered?

I probably sound silly, but I don't go to any great lengths to conceal my identify and I'm uncomfortable with this.

Sorry Dottie. I started thinking, "maybe she thinks I took the kids to 3 different testers in a week?"

Thanks for the response. I appreciate it.

I am waiting to hear from a program that is geared towards kids with around 145 on the SB-V. Since my kids are borderline I am really on edge.

Hi mon2two,
My name's Chris and I'm a school psychologist. I wish I did more testing for giftedness, but unfortunately I don't get that chance often. I do give both the WPPSI and the WISC on a fairly regular basis. The benefit to your child taking the WPPSI is that, because the test has such a small age range and is geared toward younger students, there are more questions that test what they are supposed to know. For the WISC, commonly a student at the beginning of the age range allowed by the test will receive a high score based on his ability to answer 2 or 3 questions on a subtest rather than 6 or 7 focusing on more age appropriate topics on the WPPSI. This causes scores to fluctuate fairly wildly based on one or two incorrect or correct answers and is somewhat unstable in my opinion.

It is also fairly common for a student who is only 5 years old to have an unstable IQ score becuase of a lack of maturity and understanding that he or she must do their best throughout the course of testing. Kids that age don't see it as a problem to take one or two questions off and just give answers of "I don't know" rather than rask their brain and try to come up with something if it doesn't immediately come to them. This may be a reason for the drastic differences in IQ scores that Jane mentioned for her kids.

One of the issues with testing and quickly re-testing is that the student deveops a familiarity with the items. Even if the examiner decides to now administer the WPPSI, it's still a Wechsler test and the subtests are quite familiar in design, even if the questions are different. On tests like the block design, having some familiarity with the blcoks and how they can come together to form a certain design, for instance, may result in higher scores than when taken previously. In regards to the Stanford-Binet, if the psych is uncomfortable with that, maybe she is familiar with the Woodcock-Johnson 3: Test of Cognitive Abilities.

By the way, if his lowest score is at the 25th percentile, this is hardly "really bad".

Chris,

Thank you so much for your input. He helps a lot!

BTW, since you are a school psychologist do you think I should approach the school with the achievement tests that I have now or wait for the "redo" on the IQ test.

In your position would you do something "different" for a child who reads four to five years above grade level? I'm not sure if I should be asking, if the school should provide it, or if I should just not worry.

Thanks for any advice. I REALLY appreciate your insight into the differences between the tests.

Hi again mom2two,

Well, your question is a good one. I'm not sure what your school offers, if anything, for a gifted program. Gifted programs are not mandated nationwide and numbers of them are dwindling due to lack of funds. As a result, you may not have an option of entering into one. If this is the case, you may want to research Montessori schools which are geared toward letting students work at their own place. I've toured a few and was VERY impressed.

In regards to your question about approaching the school with the scores, I don't see how it could hurt. Unfortunately, people who don't work for the school system have this idea that schools try to squirm out of their responsibilities to provide kids with the best education possible whenever they can. I have worked for a total of 11 schools during my career as a school psych and have never had an administrator take this approach. I can't see why bringing these achievement scores to their attention would be an issue. By the way, I noticed that no one answered your question about whether achivement scores can be higher than IQ. This is a definite possible and somewhat frequent occurrance. In this case, he would be regarded as an "overachiever" since he is workign above where his ability assessment predicts that he would. When you're talking this high of scores, however, it's really not as big of a difference as it seems. His IQ establishes that he is bright and that he will excel at many things and that is what he is doing in the acadmeic areas. The discrepancy between the two with scores in the high average range and higher is really an afterthought.

I want to stress, once again, that you shouldn't feel skittish about bringing the scores to the school. Any school worth their salt would already have some type of assessment to go off of anyway (Brigance, etc.) so I wouldn't think that it would be anything groundbreaking to them that he is bright. I'm just not sure that they will be able to accommodate him depending on what state you live in.

My other question for you is whether or not the person you are going to has provided you with valid scores in the achievement range. I admit, I have given a WISC when a WPPSI was called for because I did not notice the age, however, I quickly gave an alternate assessment when I discovered the error and threw the other score out. If your tester is adopting a "oh, huh, I wonder why I did that" attitude, I would be concerned about the validity of all scores. I must admit that a kindergartener with 5th grade skills is something I have not come across and is hard for me to fathom, especially if he is self-taught. If you don't mind me asking, what are the credentials of this individual?

Chris,

Thanks for the help. I think I will take the achievement scores to the school. Should I start with the teacher? Honestly, the teacher doesn't seem that interested.

The tester has her doctorate in child psychology. She said this is the first time she has made this mistake. She was honest and upfront about it and has decided to retest. (She called me tonight.) So, I do feel better from that standpoint.

I trust the validity of the reading scores, only because I've seen it. I often look at the reading level of books he reads, and it is anywhere from grade 3.x to 5.x. The comprehension is there too because he loves to tell us about what he is reading.

Thanks for all your help and perspective!

Well I'm glad that she was at least upfront about it. Sounds like you have a pretty bright boy on your hands too. Your school (at least the district) has a school psychologist. Even if it's a private school, they will likely have someeone from a local ISD or something similar who contracts with them. I would probably either show them or the school principal.

One other thing that I want to clear up with you too is that the grade levels that the test show are known as grade equivalents. I always try to explain this to the parents in my distrct becuase they can be misleading somewhat. For a child who tests at a 5th grade equivalent, what this is saying is that his raw score that he earned on the test was the average raw score earned by students at that grade level amongst the group of indiviudals who helped norm the test. It is not based on a 5th grade curriculum. Since most of my testing is for special education in my district, a lot of the kids will have grade equicalency scores that are significantly lower than their actual grade level. I try to ease the shock to parents by explaining to them that just because a 5th grader has a 2nd grade equivalency doesn't mean that he is unable to read any words that would be considered 5th grade veocabulary, it's just that his score on the test was consistent with that of the second grade sample used to develop the test.