Has anyone used the WISC-IV Extended Norms for children who have hit the ceiling on the test? What are your thoughts? Do you think it is a valid method of pinpointing higher IQ ranges? Thank you for your help!

They used them for my dd. I think they give some extra information, but they have to be taken with a grain of salt. I think, for example that it is useful to better discern areas of relative weakness/strength. The extended norms were an "after thought" so they really don't have the same validation that the regular norms do.

I think they are a good thing and it is important to note the scores with and without the use of extended norms to gain more clarity.

Thank Mam! We are about a year out from when our DS took the WISC and at the time, I thought "wow, that is a high score" without really giving it much thought. We already knew he was smart kid, so we just tucked away those scores and went on our merry way. Now that we have become more involved in advocating for him at school, we have started to educated ourselves about gifted issues to try to figure out what these tests really mean.

I guess I should say is that we are trying to see if we can tease out any more information from this one test and if it will be helpful.

Do you have his raw scores? Do you know when the extended norms are applicable? He needs to have 2 scores of 18 or 19 in the subtests. To calculate them you need to have the raw scores.

I think you can. I know it was useful in my dd's case.

We ended up going back to the psychologist who did the WISC, and she is figuring out the extended norms out from his raw scores. He hit the ceiling (18-19) on several sub-tests (8 out of 12), which we didn't fully understand a year ago. Because he hit the ceiling on so many of them, we started to question what his "real IQ" actually is and whether or not it really matters.

Did you find with your dd that her extended scores were quite different from her original scores?

I did have the extended norms done after the fact for my dd. Her FSIQ went up 14 points, but I already figured the FSIQ was an underestimation (she hit 7 out of 10 ceilings) so I'm not sure I gained much insight on that point. What did become clear to me was that she was not just a 'mathy' kid and that getting only math accommodations at school was not going to be enough for her. Her PR went up 4 points but her VC went up 14. Her VC score is 11 points higher than her PR score. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

Of course it also raised some questions. Her WM is actually her highest score (by 2 points), so why can't she remember to come downstairs in the morning wearing socks and why does she never remember where she left her homework?

Ruby that is awesome! It looks like the extended norms was worth doing for your dd. I feel like I've met more than few people in my life with high WM, who can't seem to ever find their car keys!

For us, the extended norms didn't change things too much, except dd's GAI went up 10 points.