One of my sons scored unexpectedly low on the screening test used in my district to identify gifted children. They didn't tell me the name of the test. His verbal score was 99.9% and he only scored 45% on the non-verbal. He was in kindergarten, and was 6.1 years old.
He didn't make the official cut-off for IQ testing, but they elected to give him the WISC anyway because of his high score on the verbal section. He scored in the HG range on the WISC. The WISC tester even noted to us that she didn't understand his low scores on the screening test because he didn't seem to have any issues on the WISC.
My opinion on that is he probably just decided he was "done" with it and stopped trying. Also, the tester said that in one particular section of the WISC where he had a lower score he didn't seem to really be paying attention, but seemed more interested (and performed better) when she moved on to what she considered to be a "more difficult" section. Honestly, it makes me wonder if his WISC score is accurate...
I wonder if it were the OLSAT. That is the screening they use at my son's school. DS scored unexpectedly lower on the verbal (not low-low but, surprisingly to me, alot lower than the non-verbal section, which he did score relatively high on) and not high enough overall to qualify for wisc testing by the school. However, I know exactly what went "wrong" - my understanding is that the ability to listen closely and remember oral information affects the verbal portion of the OLSDAT more significantly than the non-verbal portion of that test and that the child must be paying complete attention to each word for every verbal item in order to answer it correctly. THe tester will NOT under any circumstances repeat the oral instruction more than once. DS needs things repeated - at least he did at that age... In the wisc they will repeat instructions and questions as much as he wanted.
