This is my first post. Basically, we are considering a private school that specializes in gifted children. It is expensive and while our two children currently attend parochial school, the cost of one student at this gifted school is more than a middle-class family like ours can handle without financial aid.

My question: The school requires an IQ test. I've checked into testing and I'm being told it will cost $1,500. Does anyone know if this can somehow be covered by insurance? Or, are there any low-cost alternatives?

We had our ds tested 2 weeks ago. Our insurance did cover both the IQ and achievement testing. Check with your insurance. We paid for only our co pay

Our ds had free testing through the school district before he entered kindergarten. We have pulled him and he's attending a private school now, but if we were considering re-enrolling him we could request that the district consider him for the gifted program and they would test him again. I think it might be worth checking to see if you could get your testing that way.

I also wonder if you can't find a less expensive resource for the test - $1500 seems like a lot of money for only an IQ test, but that might depend on where you live.

Good luck!

polarbear

Usually a WISC is $500-1000. At our local community college, they test with the WISC etc for only $75. You don't get to choose the test and it is with a psychology graduate student. Still... that could be cheaper.
On the other hand, sometimes you get what you pay for. For some of these expensive testing sessions, you may get a very kind professional who knows how to test gifted kids or deal with the child's idiosyncracies. They will usually let your child have breaks if they need it.

Our testing for one child was done initially by the school system because he was having trouble with writing. He was tested again privately because he was having other difficulties a few years later, and the psychologist did it as part of a battery of tests.

The next child was privately because I suspected learning disabilities.

In both cases, the private testing was covered by insurance but they may have covered it because there were problems.

Our insurance at the time covered it because we suspected a developmental disorder along with a high IQ. His fee to our insurance was well over $5000, but we only paid our $10 copayment (oh, how I miss that insurance plan!).

The last two rounds of testing have been covered by the public school. The quality has been lower, but it was free.

Also consult with your local university's educational psychology department. Be persistent and call and call. Do not be surprised if the tester asks how you managed to find them. Our daughters had extensive free WJ-III testing done, plus school visits and home visits, all for free, by doctoral students under supervision of an educational psychology professor. Just pick up the phone and start dialing. There was a short wait in our case.

YMMV, though. Our first tester was a graduate student who was not very good. Our second tester was a graduate student who was fantastic, better than many full fledged psychologists. Both girls were tested later and had insurance pay most of the cost.

Still, the results on the tests by the graduate students on the WJ-III cognitive were very similar to the results by a trained neuropsychologist adminstering the WISC-IV (obviously, the actual tests were different, but the subtest scores were similar for similar tests, and the FSIQ was close).

We have now used a local school district psychologist who works on the side doing gifted testing to make extra money. She's very qualified and knows what she's doing and how to write up a report that schools will listen to and understand. We found her by calling local school districts and asking if anyone did private testing.

If you go the university route, please make sure you have the opportunity to talk to the student psychologist and that s/he is familiar with gifted issues. Our unfortunate experience was that it was the worst $75 I've ever spent.

The tester was completely unfamiliar with gifted kids. My DS, who was 5 at the time, was confused about the giant mirror in her office and asked her about it during the testing. The tester told him that there were people back there watching him. He freaked and refused to answer most of her questions.

My now DYS kid ended up with a testing report that said that he was definitely not gifted, had severe learning challenges and would possibly need full-time support in the classroom to function. I can look back and laugh at it now but it was horribly traumatizing for all of us!

Ask questions first :-)