Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Evidence for unreliable scores from young kids

You are making some excellent points. You are highlighting the difference between native intelligence versus academic achievement.
I remember a psychology study I read in college. The scientists went to the teacher and said, "these 3 children have had their IQ tested and they are on a verge of a big intellectual break-through." Then they said, "these 3 kids were tested and they are of average IQ."
Actually, all the kids had the exact same IQ.
They followed the kids and retested them a year later. The kids who were supposedly gifted (but really weren't) scored much higher on the subsequent IQ test; the "average" kids, who were actually the same, scored much lower.
They had placed TV cameras in the classrooms and they found that, unwittingly, the teachers spent more time, praised more, etc. the kids who they thought were gifted than those they thought weren't. When they interviewed the teachers, the teachers said they spent the exact same amount of time with each kid, although they actually were not.

So what we might take from all of this is the child who is tested young, by a gifted specialist, because they seem gifted (but have not been coached) is more likely to come up with a stable-ish number than a child tested randomly by a general tester or a child tested after much early coaching.

So when people with gifted seeming kids are asking whether to take their child for testing, what sort of test (SB5, WPPSI, wait for the WISC), with who... the reasonable answer is?

Hunter has a strict IQ cut off for K entrance but they make all kids test again for 7th grade because IQ can drop or increase dramatically between 4 and 11. And they have been doing this for more than 30 years.

Ren

That's really interesting Wren. So do children get shown the door based on IQ even if they are performing well against their peers academically?

Edited to add: I don't know US schools at all, would this be a school where children are coached aggressively, as described above, in order to qualify as 4yr olds? Would that be part of why they see shifts?

RE: Hunter. They use a modified SBV for entry and a list of psychologists qualified to give the test. So can you coach for SBV? That is what this post is discussing.

But over years, they have seen a shift from what a 4 year old demostrates against peers and about grade 7. And yes, they can get cut from Hunter if they don't score in the top for entry into the high school, which starts grade 7. It is just score based, just like Styvescant, which starts grade 9.

I have posted before that a psychologist that we are friendly with socially, and he spoke abou this trend but it hits a raw nerve on this forum. And the reverse happens. A kid that shows up as 130, can go to 150 by grade 7. Wasn't there a great post by a father who said their son was not an early reader or anything and by grade 1 showed signs of rapid acceleration. All of sudden he just took off? I cannot remember exactly and I am paraphrasing.

Ren

I find this whole thing quite fascinating.

Tomorrow we are going to sit down with the school principle and try to get DD moved from preschool to reception (K in the US I think). For me this particular discussion has certainly fed my denial and questioning - what if she's not gifted? What if we should let her spend another term in preschool and then 6 terms in reception due to her unfortunate birth date? Maybe she will benefit from all that extra time and being one of the oldest in her class? She misses her friends who went on without her, she is bored and not being challenged, but neither is she out there blazing a trail academically. What if her WPPSI result was a fluke? preschool think she's just like all the other "quite bright" kids in her cohort...

On the other hand, given we were testing for giftedness as per our occupational therapists recommendation, and she is not a reader (or rather she wasn't a month ago when she was tested), and she's basically experienced the complete opposite of coaching academically, chances are that her score is what it is and is more likely to go up than down.

Reading aside, looking at the Ruf estimates for example, her behavior lines up with her IQ... As Dottie says, time will tell and it will be an interesting ride.

I don't think that anyone here is saying that a child couldn't possibly be known to be gifted as a preschooler. In your situation, I'd look at what seems to be a fit for your dd right now. As mycupoftea said, even kids who aren't gifted but are above average can achieve very highly and be accelerated. Playing Devil's Advocate, if you turned out to be totally off in your judgement of your dd, she's got to be at least bright, no? Especially if she would be one of the older kids without acceleration, I'd lean toward moving her ahead myself.

I think that the overall point I get from this type of discussion is twofold:

* IQ isn't set in stone and a person's relative ranking in relation to age peers may change over time. Some people are early out of the gate and others are slower starters, so it may be unwise to assume that early milestones or IQ numbers tell us a permanent ranking of a person in relation to others; and
* IQ tests are imperfect especially when dealing with people who aren't average. My dd10, whom I mentioned earlier with the MG-HG+ IQ scores a mere year apart, is a perfect example. Twice exceptionalities can mess with the total #, wild asynchronous development can as well (mine still had some really high -- 17-19 -- scores even on her lower testing), periods of jumps in development and periods of slow downs can also make #s fluctuate... Overall, the further you get from the mean, the harder it is to know that what you are getting is a fairly accurate picture.

I'd be pretty careful about making this assumption. I really can't imagine how one would know such a thing. I have known some friends' kids since birth and I still wouldn't hazard a guess as to their IQs.

Also, in my experience, reading "by 4" is pretty unusual. My daughter read as a late 4 and we knew absolutely no one else locally whose child was reading at that age. We run in highly educated circles (most of our friends have master's degrees or doctorates), though not wealthy, super-achiever ones. I think there are lots of things you can hothouse, but I don't believe fluent reading before 4 to be one of them.

That said, I think it's certainly possible for parents to mildly improve IQ through enrichment. I have also read that any reading at all will cause a child to score highly on some of the IQ tests given to preschoolers. I can see how this might give a false impression. My DD was given an oral test requiring no reading (the RIAS) when tested at 6.

Thanks for the supportive thoughts Dottie and cricket. I have, of course, not taken this thread at all as an assessment of my own DD in any way. I just can't help adding it to the swirling mix of my thoughts when we are so in throws of figuring out what to do for our own preschooler.

And off to school we go this morning to see what will happen!

To throw another anecdote into the fray, my other dd has not fluctuated in her relative position with peers unless it is to pull further away. There are HG - HG+ kids who test HG early on and continue to test that way throughout their school careers. Your dd could certainly be one of those too.

That's why I always say that the best advice we were given when skipping dd a grade was the look at what met her needs right now and not try to have a crystal ball about what her needs might be in the future. We haven't regretted moving her ahead. It was the right choice.