Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment SB5 test results - great or not so???

I have searched the whole 26 page report and can't find anything on LOG in the terms I'm used to reading online. I can see 'Very Superior' for most of the elements, and that he hit at or near the ceiling for 4 out of the 5 cognitive functioning scores. I'll go back to the gifted specialist and just ask that question.
mamaknits - I know we used the same organisation to test - did your report have a LOG section?

Fastcar, in the summary section, in the last sentence of the first paragraph, he said that my son is "exceptionally gifted" so maybe look in the summary section?

If you look at page 9 of that pdf doc that was linked above, you will see SB5 uses different terms. When I look at that I can see that his score lines up with "very gifted/highly advanced" which is on the same line as "exceptionally gifted". From that chart (eventhough there are no exact direct equivalences), I gather that 139 on SB5 is gifted or very advanced, which in the SB-LM terms would be considered highly gifted. Why don't you check with the tester? I found him to be very approachable and helpful. I have heard the same about the other tester in the practice.

I'm not sure the Hoagies table is completely accurate. The translation of my son's score seemed over the top, so I sourced the Sattler book referred to (am occationally a little OC) but couldn't find the information in there. Until I see otherwise, I'll assume the percentiles given by the test publishers are the most accurate.

FWIW, our experience with the school psych was not good - an experiment in a new area for her, with poor results that were avidly siezed on by those in the school who were anti GT. And then our private psych results were pretty much dismissed.

I'd definitely recommend staying private, with a psychologist who has both experience and a good degree of empathy with GT children.

Hi again fastcar. I believe the SBV doesn't use those kinds of definitions (exceptionally gifted etc) and therefore your report might not show them (we, like you, only have reference to highly advanced etc). If you look at page 7 of the link I referenced in my previous post in this thread it compares the current test to the old and would put 139 in the highly gifted range on that basis (in so far as they can be compared). The report was done in 2003, when the SBV was released and Ruf mentions in the report there are kids who scored 180 on the old SB L-M who scored around 130 on the SBV, but then so did kids who scored 130 on the old test... Kid's scored on the old tests and new aren't really comparable it would appear.

From memory (it's a long time since I read it all) stated in the document that there needed to be more research done in to the percentiles as time went by and the SBV was more widely used, but I don't know if that research has been done - certainly last time I looked Rivereside Publishing was not referencing it online. At the moment, if you're wanting an 'official' comparison between old and new scores (and something to base a LOG on), this document probably your best bet (other than speaking to the tester of course!)

Thanks all. I asked the tester the LOG question and he gave an excellent response, essentially:
While the SB5 and WISC-IV differ slightly, they are both standardised tests with the same mean (100) and standard deviation (15). There is considerable overlap in what the tests measure (e.g., verbal skills, visual processing skills, abstract reasoning, general knowledge, working memory, etc), with the main differences being that the SB5 also measures
mathematical ability and the WISC-IV also measures processing speed. In xx's case, I believe you can be confident that his overall level of ability (99.5th percentile) as measured by the SB5 would be similar to that obtained using other tests the school is familiar with (one might even argue that he would have scored higher on the WISC-IV considering QR was his weakest factor).

In terms of "levels of giftedness", many of the terms used (e.g., moderately, highly, exceptionally) are defined quite arbitrarily and are out-dated. It is much better to focus on percentile ranks and confidence intervals (and this is recommended by the Australian Psychological Society) because it doesn't matter what "label" you give xx's level of intellectual ability, the fact remains that he was performing overall better than 99% of age peers in four out of the five cognitive factors -he is intellectually gifted by any definition and needs intervention by way of enrichment, extension and possibly acceleration.

I am so glad you went back and got such a useful answer from your tester!