Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing privately

You mentioned that you weren't sure the effect ADHD may have on testing. My son had IQ testing before ADHD diagnosis and after ADHD treatment.

Without ADHD treatment his FSIQ was 108. With treatment it was 132.
Without ADHD treatment his GAI was 117. With treatment it was 141.

ADHD treatment took my son's testing from high average range to extremely gifted range.

I'd also like to share that my son's elementary school teacher did not note ADHD symptoms. The teacher filled out a report of classroom behavior as part of neuropsychology evaluation. I filled out the same survey. The teacher described his behavior as "typical" and only marked 1 symptoms of ADHD-inattentive behavior. I scored his behavior with many more ADHD traits. I was right, but it was 2 more years until that mess was sorted out. My point is that classroom teachers are NOT good at identifying ADHD or high intelligence - and particularly the combination.

In your daughter's case, you describe impulsive behavior in the writing section affecting her score. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that impulsive behavior could have affected other sections of the test as well.

If something seems wrong, definitely investigate. You know your daughter better than the classroom teacher. Don't let their professional experience override your gut. If you feel she's not thriving, well, she's probably not.

Edited to add:
I wasn't going to share this because it feels braggy. Changed my mind and came back to add it because I WISH someone had told me this stuff 3 years ago. I regret putting too much trust in the elementary school.

When my son was first tested and I was dealing with the school telling me he was "normal" and "typical", he was in 1st grade with some differentiation. I requested acceleration and they were going to give him 1 grade acceleration in 1 subject (even though he had already passed the end of year test for that subject/grade level.)

I enrolled him our district's virtual charter school that does continuous progress subject acceleration. He started flying. In math, where he was offered the 1 grade level subject acceleration, he started off with a 2 grade skip (into 4th), then after a couple month he skipped into 5th grade. He finished 5th grade in 2 months. The next school year he was placed in 6th grade math. He refused to participate after a couple months so his learning guide said to let him do whatever he was willing to do. He did algebra 1. He's at the end of his 4th grade year and doing algebra 2. I would never dreamed he would progress so quickly. As for other subjects, his progression has been similar. He got a 3-grade skip with the virtual school so he could take high school classes for credit.

It hasn't been easy or wonderful. The ADHD symptoms have been very difficult to work around and we're at a point where they cannot be worked around any further. I'm just sharing to show how WRONG elementary teachers can be about gifted plus ADHD. Like I said, I didn't have any idea that my son had ADHD or how strongly it was affecting him and I wish I knew this was a possibility years ago. Would have saved a lot of heartache.