Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment bit freaked out, what to ask Ed Psych in follow up

Hi there,
Have just received results from my daughters' SBVs. I wondered if I could prevail upon your kind test analysis expertise....

DD3 is nearly 4 and in preschool. We do Feb to Dec school years and she is due to start school in Feb 2014 at 5y8m. The test was done to assess for early entry as she is reading a bit and showing signs of boredom in preschool. SHe talks non stop. If she entered early she would enter at 4y 8m.

FSIQ 145* 99.9th

Fluid reasoning 153*
Knowledge 131
Quant reasoning 136*
VS processing 143*
working memory 132

Nonverbal 141* 99.7th
verbal 145* 99.9th
FSIQ 145* 99.9th

Nonverbal tests (1-19) * means at or near ceiling for her age
Fluid reasoning 19*
Knowledge 13
Qreasoning 16
VS processing 17*
Working memory 17*

Verbal (1-19)
fluid reasoning 19*
knowledge 18*
Q reasoning 17*
VS processing 18*
Wmemory 14

Quoting from report..... DD3 presented as a very imaginative child who liked to go off on verbal tangents. It was difficult to believe that she was not quite four as she conversed and reasoned more like a five-six year old.
At the age of 3 years, 11 months DD3’s achievement overall on this assessment indicated overall ability seen in 1 in 1000 age peers. Her scores beyond and at the 99.9th percentile suggest exceptional potential in subjects that rely on fluid reasoning and visual spatial processing.

Two questions, the first should be easy, but what level of giftedness is this? I have read contradictory things - HG, EG?
The recommendation is going to be for school 2013 not 2014.
What questions should I ask the ed psych when she calls?

thanks!!
I might post my other daughter's scores too as they were not as uniformly high
______________________________________
DD2 gifted composite 139 (99.5th)
8y 11m

Fluid reasoning 144*
Knowledge 140*
Quant reasoning 125
VS processing 120
working memory 112

Nonverbal 131 98th
verbal 131 98th
FSIQ 132 98th
gifted composite 139* 99.5th

Nonverbal tests (1-19) * means near ceiling
Fluid reasoning 16
Knowledge 17*
Qreasoning 16
VS processing 13
Working memory 12

Verbal (1-19)
fluid reasoning 19*
knowledge 17*
Q reasoning 13
VS processing 14
Wmemory 12

DD2’s profile on this assessment indicates overall ability at the 99.5th percentile, in the top 0.5% of age peers. However, her profile is skewed with significant strength (in the Highly Gifted range) in the Fluid Reasoning and Knowledge factors and relatively less skill in the Quantitative Reasoning and Visual Spatial Processing factors (although still in the top 10% of age peers). Her significantly lower score for Working Memory has necessitated the use of the GCS

Same questions.... LOG and what questions to ask tester.

thanks again!

LOG is a nearly useless concept. It's defined in many different ways, without consistency. "Knowing" your children's LOG will not aid you even a tiny bit in understanding or providing for them, nor in advocacy. In addition you've only given some scores; there's a lot of non-score info that should go into a determination of how best to provide for your children.

Questions to ask the tester might simply include recommendations for the future, academically and socially. I think the tester would have already tipped you off as to any concerns, and in my layperson's view none of the scores seem to indicate learning disabilities.

I would pursue early entry. She'll be getting towards five anyway, and one grade advancement may not even be enough for her in the long run.

Thanks Lucouno. I didn't know that about LOG, as an amateur I have found it to be a useful classification, this kid is MG, that kid is HG. But what you say makes sense it that there is clearly much inconsistency in how they are defined.

Yes early entry is the plan at this stage. There are lots of hoops to jump through. My older daughter is pretty fine at school, she is in a state school that has a lot of gifted kids and she is working a couple of grades above, but in grade 3 where she should be at her age.

It's just my opinion, of course. But the problems I've seen include:
* LOGs involve arbitrary and artificial stratification of scores on a continuum
* LOGs are useless in advocacy, since educators will generally get a blank look if you try to discuss a LOG, whereas they will comprehend (to varying degrees) and be able to discuss actual scores
* There's score-based inconsistency between different classification methods; Ruf's Levels are worse by virtue of internal inconsistency and dependence on very fuzzy milestones
* Giftedness depends on mindset and creativity too, not just scores on an academic test
* Defining someone by a LOG may be limiting, just as defining a person by a score may be limiting. I like to remember that Richard Feynman scored a 125 on an IQ test (in the old days, so this was probably squarely in non-gifted territory)
* They seem to be used for bragging rights at least as much as useful shorthand

I guess it can be useful to have a shorthand system for a very rough description of a child's giftedness, but I don't think LOGs fit the bill for accuracy at all. There seems to be a lot of eagerness especially on the part of parents new to thinking about giftedness to slap on labels, obsess over milestones, etc., but I think individual gifted kids are far more unique than a LOG label, even if accurate, could possibly show.

For what it's worth, plenty of people slap on the PG label for children scoring like your daughter. This seems to be based on the DYS program description and the fact that 145+ is the cutoff score for most of the tests. So if you're ever in a discussion with a person describing her daughter as HG, you can go her one or two better.

Ninjanoodle - the NV knowledge and V WM are the only two scores not fully in the gifted range. The scores are otherwise uniformly high and even. I would ask the tester if there are any reasons she might suggest that these scores were not up there with the rest and would the tester expect them to change on another day or over time?

At such a young age is it possible that she didn't fully grasp who the verbal WM test worked? Does the tester believe that the NV WM is more accurate or that her V WM is truly weaker? Is this an area that may improve with maturity (ie with the ability to listen to someone else rather than talking non stop?).

Is there a reason for the NV Knowledge being weaker?

"DD3 presented as a very imaginative child who liked to go off on verbal tangents."

We like to call our son the "10-year-old Verbal Tangent."

-- -- --

When we first started exploring the world of Gifties, I remember liking Ruf's LOG scale for its simplicity. It was very helpful when we needed ANY label to put on our child.

I still have the checklists and recall the discussions with my wife about the different levels and what they could mean. By my checklist, I had him pegged at a Level 3, almost 4 and my wife leaned toward a solid Level 4. I recall thinking, "Oh boy, he's gonna be a handful -- but, hey, at least he's NOT a Level 5!"

Well... after all the formal testing, and discussions of what all THAT meant, we essentially through Ruf's LOG into the corner and forgot about it. (DS scored @ 99.9% for both IQ & Achievement... so, yes, we had one of THOSE kids after all!) The LOG was definitely an over-simplification for our child and helpful only to the extent that it gave us a basic introduction to the incredible range of children out there.

(I definitely agree with Lucounu's suggestion about not using the LOG with school people... unless they happen to bring it up first.)

-- -- --

I can't think of any intelligent questions for the testing psych other than, "What on earth are we to do?"

We weren't armed with any of the formal evaluations until the summer before 4th grade, so we were really flying by the seats of our pants when he was 3yo and in preschool.

It was at the suggestion of his teachers that he started 1st at age 4y11m, skipping K altogether. After all the testing, we then skipped him again from 4th to 5th shortly after the start of the school year.

You are definitely on the right track, though, by getting your first set of "data points" and beginning your research. While our "Seat of the Pants" approach worked out fine, I think I would have been less anxious during those first tumultuous years.

My son took the SB5 at age 5, and in one part of the report his tester wrote, "In this examiner's experience in using the SB5, almost every young bright child has shown a significantly lower score on this nonverbal subtest than on any other subtest of the SB5; this was substantiated by personal correspondence from Deborah Ruf".

I think your advice is fine and as valid as anything I have to offer, but I wouldn't personally worry about the working memory either. I see a lot of highly gifted scores reported with a lower working memory and/or processing speed. Here the verbal working memory raw score of 14 doesn't seem that far out of whack anyway. It's a pretty well-rounded set of scores.

Thanks everyone!
My nearly 9 year old is pretty OK at school. She has a couple of kids who are very highly gifted in her class, eg. doing high school maths already and very very smart. She will only ever be the third student in her class. It's an amazing cohort! I will go in and talk to her teacher. I guess the main thing I want to say is that often if DD2 gets the moderately easy stuff wrong, it's OK to try giving her high level stuff and see how she goes.

I have an interview with the school principal to discuss early entry for DD3 which I am feeling good about. Because they have had DD3's other two siblings there, they are actually happy to have her next year. There are administrative hoops but I am confident they can be jumped through OK.

I have emailed DD3's preschool a few days ago and have received an Ominous Silence in reply. Wonder what that means?

That's great! But speaking as the mother of an 8yo doing high school(+) maths, please don't call them freaky gifted around them or their parents. They aren't freaks, as you know, and it might make someone's day fractionally easier if they don't have to cope with that word.
Hopefully just that someone's not on top of their email... never attribute to malice what can be explained by mere incompetence, and all that.... Good luck!

That is why its called Hyperbole!