Dottie, based on the time frame you are saying for your oldest, I think that my oldest took the WISC-IV somewhere around the same time or maybe a year later. She did have a 19 on the picture concepts, which would have gone up considerably had extended norms been applied, as well as a lot of other high numbers and wild variability overall. Conversations like this, although really irrelevant at this late date, do make me wonder what the "real" number is although, as comes up here, there probably is no "real" number to be had. I guess that I can just assume that it would have been higher had the test been older.
The quote that St. Pauli Girl posted in her first post as well as this one,
"The WPPSI-IV Technical Manual points out what many of us know, too, that achievement scores often have more to do with exposure and opportunity and don’t necessarily identify intellectually gifted children"
were the two parts that really stood out of this article to me. Like Dottie, I've seen a good number of kids who were ided as gifted using somewhat nebulous means (achievement scores, behavioral rating scales, group tests with low thresholds, and retests until they hit the right point) who really have not presented as gifted over the years. There are always ways to get the highest number you can by using an old test, prepping, etc., but like mentioned, if "gifted" wasn't a competition of something to "get in to" or a badge of pride, all of this would be less and less of an issue.
