Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment CoGat

It's a pretty complicated question - for kids closer to the mean, I think the answer is yes, but for kids closer to the mean, IQ score doesn't mean much, right?

The bigger question is - what questions would on be trying to answer with the information from an individual IQ test?

The typical questions that folks ask here are:

Are there other kids in the classroom with my child that share his readiness level?
Is the school program meeting my child's educational needs?
Does my child need a grade skip/ how much damage am I doing by dismissing the idea of a grade skip 'out of hand?'

For those sorts of questions, then no, CogAt isn't enough. One would want MAP testing - which I think you have, an individualized IQ score, some work samples, and some idea of the educational program that is being offered.
Plus information about a child's social development, sibling issues, 2e tendencies.

Hope that helps!
Grinity

For what it's worth, DD6 scored 139 on the CogAT, but only 120 on WISC-IV. I tend to think her IQ is somewhere in the middle, and the more I work with her, the more I believe she really is gifted.

I think that for her, the CogAT tested exactly what she's good at. Math is a real strong point of hers, and it's not tested at all on the WISC (at least not on the parts she took.) On the CogAT she got a perfect in Quantitative, and at home I see that she can take one mathematical concept (like time on a clock) and without any prompting apply it to another area (like fractions). This is in stark contrast to DD8, who despite learning how to round to the tens place and hundreds place, cannot fathom how that would help her round to the thousands place! DD6 is also a strong reader. We gave her the DORA and she maxed out many of the subtests (except spelling - there she is grade level), scoring an average of about the 6th grade level while in 1st grade.

On the other and, I think the free response on the WISC was a bad fit for DD6. She's a perfectionist with possible OCD, and she will not tell you an answer unless she's sure that it's right! Even with me she's reluctant to guess, so I can imagine it would be worse with a stranger since she's also terribly shy.

I'm sorry - I did not mean to write so much about my family! I don't think any test of IQ is perfect, and the CogAT doesn't even claim to be an IQ test. However, I think a good score on ANY test is good news! A lot of parents here tend to downplay the CogAT, because their gifted kids sometimes don't do as well on it, but in reality it might be a great measure of predicted school achievement.

First time here. Hello.
My dd7 is in the GT program. She was tested with Cogat and did very well.
Of course I do like Cogat and totally trust the results.

HA! I love this!

My DS has taken CoGat twice. He hit the ceiling both times. Personally, I think my dislike for CoGat is how the schools use it. Many schools attempt to use it as an IQ test, which it's publisher clear states it is not a IQ test. It has low ceilings which do not show the difference spectrum between LOG. My DS's GT teachers talk about how they have to "prep" him to take Cogat and other grade level tests. Given him an above grade level and he'll knock it out of the park. Many of these kids over think these test. They try to remind him a lot not to over think it before the test.
Her example was this...
Which one is different an apple, banana, carrot, or kiwi?
My son might say Kiwi because it has 4 letters and the others have 6. He might say banana because it has 3 syllables. Clearly, most kids would say a carrot because it is a veggie VS the others are fruit.

I think Cogat can be fine but not as a stand alone test for identification. Many schools try to use it as their Identifying test for GT programs. It should only be one piece of the puzzle to make decisions.

Our district uses CogAT as its only identifier as well.. and they dont use the quantitative section at all. They dont administer it!

Point in case! My exact hang up is that kind of use of it. If they are going to use it they ought to use the entire thing along with other test. The idea that any one test can define a child is short sighted! My DS does do well on all of them.
I know many kids that it is not the case and get put in or out based on one test...UGH!

This was the response from our district's GATE coordinator when I questioned why they dont use the quantitative portion.


As far as why we use the verbal and nonverbal portions of the test for our program qualification: each year we have an internal committee of administrators, gifted teachers and psychologists review the data from the students we screened to determine if our criteria is appropriate for our programs. Our goal is to not over test students thus having more students not qualify than qualify, but to target the students that will achieve the cognitive scores to enter our programs. In years past, the district used a combined quantitative/nonverbal score with the verbal score. When reviewing this data, the committee found that the combined score was causing an inflation, or heavier weighing, on the rubric in this one area. Also, with all children now taking the MAP starting in kindergarten, we were able to get nationally normed math scores across the district for the first time this year. Since the quantitative part of the test is based on number sense and number concepts, the committee felt the MAP test would provide us with good information on students who were strong in this academic area. Therefore, the decision was made to take out the quantitative portion of the test and use the nonverbal portion weighted equally with the verbal portion. By using the nonverbal only, it also provided more equity for second language learners since the quantitative has a heavy language component in grades 1 and 2. In August, our committee will meet to review this past year's data where we discuss MAP targets for screening as well as cognitive scores.

What's funny about that reasoning is my oldest DS would have qualified, but it would have been a horrible fit in our programs. He would have been overwhelmed by it. He is dyslexic and the pace would have killed him. I just wish they would look at whole pictures not the corner.
At least they seem to be looking at something for the math area.

I always feel grateful that our school will use Cogat, IBST, State testing plus any other special testing done for individual kids. Explore, SCAT, IQ, etc.
They also do reading and math level screening through the year by teachers.
The seem to have a reasonable handle on identifying the needs at this point and considering the child's personality. Not to say they haven't sometime struggled with it, I had a few battles but they are improving by the year.

I believe that our arguing with the district was what changed their policy about the CogAT being the one ability test they would take. Without it, that one district wouldn't id a child. The other district locally has always been much, much more liberal substituting things like parental scales for the ability scores. We were told by more than one person at dd10's prior school that her CogAT scores, which were high-ish, but not GT, proved that multiple IQ tests were wrong and due to good guessing. This district has now moved the way of the other one using all kinds of things, including IQ scores, as possible substitutes. It seems to be too much one way or the other though -- seriously strict gate keepers who think that the CogAT is a better identifier of giftedness than an IQ test or very liberal in the definition and taking everything from rating scales to signs of leadership as qualifying for a GT id.

I don't doubt that there are some very, very able children who test well on the CogAT. My dd's combo of ADD, anxiety, and out of the box thinking didn't play well into what it was testing. Like mentioned, she'd see the kiwi over the carrot for some reason that seems very valid when she explains it but which cannot be explained on a multiple choice test. I know that there are those here who disagree with me on this one, but I do still question whether it is testing intellectual or academic ability. Just b/c some gifted kids test as gifted on the CogAT doesn't mean that it is testing giftedness. It may just correlate well with the type of "g" some gifted kids have and not the areas of "g" possessed by others. I still hold to my belief that there are kids who are getting scores in the 90s on parts of the CogAT who would not test nearly so high on an IQ test and not b/c the IQ test is an underestimation.