Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should I Consider A New Tester?

I�ve been very impressed with the level of insight you parent testing experts have been able to glean from WISC and WJ results. (Thank you for your posts!)
I�m wondering about the expertise of a tester we used a few years ago. Despite having paid an additional charge for analysis/discussion of test results, I feel like our tester largely regurgitated our parental observations without adding many of her own. I had expected more subtest analysis, but perhaps my expectations were unrealistic.
I am also wondering if extended norms should have been used as my dd had two 19s in the her VCI composite.
My dd was 6 years, 3 months, at the time of testing. We were testing in part to confirm a coordination diagnosis, which our tester felt was confirmed by her block design result. She suggested her FSIQ might be better reflected by her VCI due to
coordination difficulties.

DD's WISC IV result were as follows

(VCI) 148
(PRI) 129
(WMI) 123
(PSI) 118
(FSIQ) 139

Block Design 10
Similarities 19
Digit Span 14
Picture Concepts 17
Coding 13
Vocabulary 19
Letter-Number Sequencng 14
Matrix Reasoning 17
Comprehension 16
Symbol Search 13


Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement IV
Cluster Percentile Standard Score
Broad Reading 99.9 164
Broad Math 99.9 144
Math Calculation 99.6 140
Academic Skills 99.9 150

Subtests
Letter-Word Identific 99.9 147
Reading Fluency 99.9 169
Calculation 99 138
Math Fluency 91 120
Spelling 99 137
Passage Comprehension 99.9 153
Applied Problems 99 135

Any insights you experts might have - on the results or the tester - would be tremendously appreciated. Thanks so much!

Good Morning! Welcome Meisje!
It sounds like maybe the tester didn't reveal anything 'new' because you already understood the situation very well to begin with? Your DD's story sounds fairly straight forward - wicked smart, and slow in the brain-hands connection.

The only thing I would add - in a fit of perfectionism - is to point out that your DD's working memory is 123 - which is really very strong. As far as I can tell, WM and PSI sort totally independently from VCI and PRI so to have a kid with gifted level VCI AND PRI and above standard deviation WM is a very strong base to work off of. In my innocent days, I might have worried that the WM was so far below the other scores, but experience has shown that 123 WM is a wonderful support for gifted level VCI and PRI. That's part of the reason that FSIQ is so high when PSI is rather low. And BTW, remeber that even with your daughter's challenge area, she is still stronger in PSI than over 80% of the population.

The PSI is still lower enough than the other scores that your DD might feel internally frustrated by it. If so, it might help to have a word for that situation. Here we've coined: 'Bottleneck' to mean "Yes, it's above average, and I'm grateful, but it's enough of a weakness compared to my other strengths to be frustrating to ME!"

Enjoy!
Grinity

Thank you, Dottie! If I can get half what I've gotten from these forums out of DYS, it would be worthwhile! Just need to find the time for the application...

As to our tester, the mentions of GAI/extended norms on these forums had made my wonder about her level of expertise, as she did not mention them in her discussion of the scores. Before I used her again or reccomended her to friends, I wanted to get a sense of her knowledge level.

As to the analysis, I had hoped for more discussion of how the WISC subscores related to each other - for example, the PSI of 118 seemed awfully low compared to the VCI score of 148.

There were also some "huh?" academic reccomendations in the tester's summary. My dd had just finished K5 at the time of the report and the WJ showed a 5th grade reading equivalency - but the reccomendation was that she be placed in the next grade for reading.

I don't know how many WISC reports you may have reviewed, but do you think the lack of a mention of GAI/extended norms is a cause for concern? Also, is there anything blatantly obvious to you about how the scores interelate? And finally, any resources you can reccomend for understanding & interpreting WISC results? (There might even be something here in the forums.) My take-away when I saw the WISC scores was "well, it looks like she's good at language arts." I suspect I could get more!

Thanks again!

I don't think I'd make a diagnosis of developmental coordination disorder on a BD of 10 when Coding was also 13 (in the context of a Symbol Search of 13 also, indicating that graphomotor was likely not slowing the kid down all that much. I'd have to know a *lot* more about the situation, of course.

I agree that the tester should have calculated the GAI, and should also definitely have explained about which of those differences are statistically significant and how common they are in the average and the high-IQ population. That's easy stuff and (other than the GAI, which is for free on the Harcourt website) is in the manual.

Grade equivalent scores, even on a continuously-normed test like the WJ, don't mean half of what you think they mean. I don't report them when I have the choice not to. What I report instead (given that the WJ provides them!) are Relative Proficiency Index scores, and Generalized Relative Proficiency Index scores, which are considerably more statistically defensible and let me make the same case. In terms of recommending specific academic placement, that has to be done on the basis of criterion-referenced information and comparisons to the actual curriculum.

I don't think you need a retest, though -- would be more useful and less expensive to either (1) get the original tester to do what you paid her to do (should cost you nothing) (2) have an expert get copies of the protocols from the original tester and do a second-opinion consultation for you.

Thanks for the insights, everyone! It's a rare day when I spend close to $800 for something and don't use it to the utmost - but's that exactly what I did with this one (must have been that 7th month of pregnancy I was in!) The evaluation has been gathering dust in a file cabinet for the last 5 years until I pulled it out, piqued by the comments on WISC results here.

To be fair, I think our tester was trying to be supportive and get us what we wanted (and probably saw many of the same things, as you said, Grinity). We had also well detailed our dd's coordination issues (it was like a working with a stroke victim at times & very scary), so that's likely why she jumped on the coordination diagnosis. That being said, it was disconcerting when she used some of our comments verbatim as reccomendations. Definitetly underminded a sense of "independent analysis."

I'd love to do a re-test simply to see if dd's made any progress on some of those sub-tests given her great strides in motor skills. However, "a nice to know" doesn't merit $800 in my budget these days! (If DYS doesn't take five year old results, however, $800 will likely be spent.)

Still ambivalent about reccomending this tester to others or using her with my sons, so I will check out the threads on reccomended testers.

Can't tell you how valuable I've found these forums (this thread marks my first participation ever in an online forum). So appreciate all of your time in replying! Hope to have some value to add myself at some point!

I wouldn't use the tester with your sons unless you get a very different read when you ask for more info on the previous scores. 7 months pregnant is a force to be reconned with.

the tester is likely fine for a 'mere mortal' and ok for friends with 'regular' gifted kids, but for 'unusally gifted' kids, I am a strong believer in visiting top notch 'top 20 in the country' kind of folks (Like Aimee)

So yes - not with your sons - it runs in families,

smiles,
Grinity

Grinity,

How would one go about finding a "top 20" tester? Do you have a list of testers around the country that you (or someone else) would recommend? What are the advantages that you see to using a "top 20" tester?

We did get DYS-level scores using a non-top-20 tester, but I didn't feel that the tester provided much insight into those scores, other than saying how much fun he has when he gets to see someone "run the test," as he put it. Would a tester who really sees a lot of DYS+ level kids generally provide more insight?

Here's a try for a link:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&a...f403bed&z=4

Grinity,

Thanks so much for giving me the tip on Aimee! She's not only a good contact for any future testing, but I loved discovering her blog. What a resource!

She is just so amazing!