Mia: Back at you with those hugs!
This has been such a nice conversation. I even told my DH about it and how much better I felt because of it...even if I still don't know whether to do the WISC or the portfolio...
You're right that it's the not knowing that's awful! Absolutely dead on accurate there! Test results we could feel pretty confident about would be such a relief. His WJ scores were so much higher than I expected--like more than a standard deviation!--so I'd like to know if they're skewed high or if they were pretty accurate. The more time I spend with the kid in academic pursuits, the more accurate I think they might be, actually. (When I first saw them, I thought I was getting some other kids' scores! "What the...!?!" LOL!) I've come to realize that we (meaning us as parents and his school) just weren't challenging him at all, and he's so easygoing that he just went along. Now that he's being given work more commensurate with his abilities, I see how much he's capable of, and it blows my mind. I've come around to thinking that his WJ scores were right and I was wrong.
The SB5 was the wrench in the works. DS6 scored a 134+, but the tester (a nationally recognized leader in the field of gifted assessment, so I do trust him!) said that this score was problematic. His exact words were, if memory serves, "Please don't think that your son is borderline gifted. He's clearly at least HG, and perhaps EG or PG. This test just didn't give us what we needed to know for sure. The SB5 wasn't the test for him--as it often isn't for highly verbal kids--and he was obviously tired to boot." (From lack of sleep because of staying in a motel room. *sigh*)
(BTW, that was the one truly useful thing I did learn from the test: DS6 is not visual-spatial, as I had thought he might be because of his strength with puzzles and mazes. Good to know, but probably not worth $750 to find out!
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So we were out $750 and knew nothing new AND didn't get him into YSP. It was pretty frustrating, and explains why I'm hesitating to shell out again for the WISC. That and I hate the thought of score-chasing. To tell you the truth, if the expert hadn't said, "Try the WISC in the spring to get a truer read," we wouldn't even be considering applying. I'd take the 134+ and forget it. But it was a bad test day (too little sleep and a developing illness that manifested a day or so after the test) and the wrong test. So do we try again? Humph. Could we get a money-back guarantee this time?
I don't know for sure that it would cost us $750 for the WISC. If DS6 were a faster test-taker, it would probably be cheaper than that, since they generally charge by the hour. But sadly, from what I can tell, $750 is not outrageous.
Ah, the saga that is DS6's path!
Keep me updated about your saga, too, please. I'm pulling for you and your DS!
P.S. You're not the one raving, Mia. That's ALL me!
