Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Recommend Psychologists/Tester

My DC attends a private gifted school. He is 4.5 years old and about to enter kindergarten in the fall. The school wrote in his report card that he is "exceptionally gifted". We want to have his WISC-IV performed this next year and want to find testers who are used to dealing with highly gifted children. Is there a list of psychologists that have more experience with these types of kids? Thanks!

Good luck with kindergarten for your DS4.5
Hopefully the school will be a good match. Does the school want to modify their program in anyway to meet your son's academic needs?

WISC-IV minimum age is 6 and zero months.

The best link for names of psychologists is
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/psychologists.htm

I guess one way you could go about finding a tester who get's gifted is to call and ask if they do WISC-IV, and ask how many times in the past 3 years they have needed to use the extended scoring. I'll bet you get a lot of puzzled pauses on the other end of the phone.

Asking if the tester is experienced with testing gifted kids doesn't help, because of the problem of those that don't know and don't know that they don't know.

I would check with the school and ask them who the other parents with kids like your kid seem to like.

Also contact your state gifted association and attend some in person get-togethers and make a few local friends. You will probably feel the most comfortable with the parents who have children similar to yours - ask them who they had good experiences with.

If you feel comfortable to do so - state what part of the country are potential places to get tested, and we'll make suggestion.

Love and more Love,
Grinity

Thanks Grinty!

I think that kindergarten will be ok because he will be attending the same school as he is now. It is a private school for the gifted and since they are labelling him as such, I think that they will challenge him appropriately. He has loved school and has just been thriving.

Thanks for the minimum age information about the WISC-IV. I did not realize that. But hmmmmm.....The private gifted school requires IQ testing for admission to 1st grade. They will do their own testing for $250, but only give you a result of "yes" they can move on to 1st grade or "no" they cannot.

Since we found the WISC-IV extremely helpful in understanding my oldest, I thought we would skip the school's $250 test and go to a psychologist and get some real testing done. He will not be 6 until June of his kindergarten year. We would need to know whether or not to enroll him for 1st grade before he turns 6 in June. Ahh!

By the way, we are in Fairfax, Virginia - a suburb of Washington, DC. I am considering the JHU CTY center right now as that maybe my best bet.

Considering that you need the results before age 6, and the cost of a full WISC plus achievement will be about 10 times what the school is offering to do it for, I would take the schools test for now, and wait for the WISC at age 6. I think that the WPPSI is only worth abuot $250 and you won't get much more info than the Yes/No.

There are other tests, such as SB-V, that you could do now - will the school accept those?

BTW - My sense of things is that this is a bit of a leap of logic. I would ask for examples of what they have done in similar situations. Exceptionally gifted kids are rare (although maybe not so much in Fairfax) and it's rare to find schools that are 'full of good ideas' about how to percieve these kid's readiness levels and accomidate them.

But you are happy with the school so far, that is wonderful!
Grinity

It's really that much? Our local gifted school's referral list estimates $250 for the WISC.

AlexsMom - I think that the difference between your referral list and what Grinity is talking about is achievement tests. Your local school probably only requires the WISC-IV and not the corresponding achievement tests. The going rate around here for just the WISC-IV is about $400, cheaper if you go to a local university and have grad students adminsiter.

Yeah, that's the component I was surprised at the price of - I was asking whether the achievement tests were 9x the price of the WISC. (Or even the 4x you'd get assuming a $400 WISC.) $2,500 just seemed like a huge amount to add on the achievement testing.

I'm puzzled, but we've always had testing done in the context of a Psychologist trying to figure out 'what is up with this child?' - so I'm sure it includes more than just the tests themselves. Plus my corner of the world is very expensive!

Sorry to cast confusion but glad that some of you can bail me out!

Grinity