Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC and KBIT discrepancy? 23 points!

We requested testing for ds who will be 7 in April and is first grade. School tried to talk us out of it and wait until third grade for testing and warned its next to impossible for first graders to qualify.

His composite KBIT was 142 so he qualified for further testing (verbal was137 and nonverbal 142 I seem to recall). I got a call today that his WISC was completed and he scored only 119 so he didn't qualify for the gifted program.

I've read that scores on the KBIT are usually higher than the WISC by 4-9 points, but this is a 23 point difference.

I don't have any subtest scores for the WISC but will request them before our meeting in a week. Has anyone had a similar experience or have any advice? I don't want to be "that pushy parent" as I am a teacher myself and don't want to get a negative relationship with the school starting already, but the spread in scores has me wondering.

Thanks for any advice or insight!

My kids have never taken the KBIT so I really don't know much about it or how it aligns with other IQ tests. I am wondering, though, whether his WISC score was a full scale IQ or general ability index. If speed or short term memory depressed his overall score, the publisher of the WISC supports calculating a GAI instead of a FSIQ. If you have the subtest scores before the meeting at least you can go into the meeting knowing whether you have good cause to request that they look at subtests over the composite number.

Well, the biggest difference between the KBIT and the WISC is the length of the test. The KBIT can be completed in like less than 20mins, where the WISC is typically 2 or more hours of testing.

If all the testing was done at school, that can have an impact as well - were children changing classes outside the room during the test? How many times did the bell ring? Did the tester split the test up across several days? If you can get a copy of the WISC scores that will help you see what happened...

If you are trying to advocate for acceleration, you might want to ask them to administer the K-TEA. It's the Kaufman achievement test, and is probably more informative for the school than the WISC or K-BIT tests, because it will show where he's actually at, right now, in terms of education.

ETA: The Kaufman tests seem much more slanted towards visual-spacial learners, as opposed to verbal kids. My son got a 145 on the K-ABC, but his FSIQ on the WISC was like 125 or something... his score on the PRI section of the WISC was 145, but the VCI was only 100... That's why the WISC is so valuable, you can really see where there are issues.

My son also had a huge discrepancy between K-BIT and WISC-IV, but in the opposite direction. 123 on K-BIT, 145 on WISC-IV. He is a very math-y, literal kid (not particularly verbal) and even though his K-BIT score was not a gifted-eligible score, our school recommended going forward with the WISC-IV because he maxed out on the TOMAG.

A M Tuba, I would look at the subtest scores on *both* tests - if you haven't requested the full set of scores for both, do so and request that you have them before the meeting. There are all sorts of reasons that one test may look lower than another. My kids haven't taken the KBIT, but since it is used as a first-round screener, I wonder if it contains as many subtests as the WISC - if it doesn't, that could be the first thing that's significantly different - it might not have tested the same range/type of abilities. How a child feels about the tester, whether or not he is feeling well or distracted etc might cause overall scores to be lower - so if you look at both sets of scores and see that they are relatively "even" for both tests but the test averages are different, I would wonder about the testing environment etc. Also talk to your ds about what he remembers - were the tests fun? Did he hear other things going on, distractions, etc? What was the person who was giving the test like?

The other possibility with the WISC is variability in scores could be lowering the score averages. Like Amy mentioned, I really value having the wide range of subtests on the WISC because it illustrates areas of strength and weakness. If you look at the subtest scores and find that PRI & VIQ are significantly higher than PSI and WM, you can request that the GAI be calculated in place of FSIQ.

Lastly, I would probably ask the school for more specifics on why they said it's harder to qualify for the gifted program in 1st than in 3rd? It is true that in most school districts (or at least in many) testing for gifted doesn't take place until 2nd and programs aren't offered until 3rd grade (and there is a parallel re testing and accommodating for LDs not really happening during K-1 either)... but that's logistics and planning. An intellectually gifted child is not going to happen overnight in 2nd grade... he/she will have been an intellectually gifted child when they are younger too! So why would it be harder to achieve a qualifying score on an IQ test? If anything, our schools always try to discount early scores that are high-IQ, feeling that the later scores are more reliable and indicative of a child's true ability... but that's not the same as saying it's harder to get a qualifying score before 3rd grade. So I'm just curious! Maybe you could ask for me

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks so much for the advice everyone! The psychologist intern (not the regular school psychologist) said they should send the test reports tomorrow so hopefully that will be enlightening. I'm assuming she's the one who administered the test because she was the one who has been in contact with me since then.

Ds said the testing was all in one sitting on Friday morning. When I asked him if he had any breaks, he said he got up to get a tissue but that was it. He said he missed gym class but was back with his class in time for lunch and he was glad it wasn't a library day or he would have missed getting new books! He had been out sick on Wednesday of that week and still had a low grade fever on Thursday so he might not have been feeling up-to-par yet on Friday. He says he felt rushed during the process. Now I know I need to take all this and remember this is all from the 6-year-old's point of view until I get the report. 😀

If I remember correctly, the school discouraged testing before third grade because they felt the younger students haven't had as much formal exposure to the things on the tests and had a better chance of scoring higher after more years of schooling. It was supposed to be due to inexperience.

Thanks again everyone. I'll be back in touch after I get the report.

My son took the K-Bit in K as a screening instrument to see if he could get further testing for gifted and missed the cut off for more testing by one question. In our district, the screening K-Bit is administered by the guidance counselor and not the psychologist (individually administered so it isn't a group thing). This particular guidance counselor said she really didn't think that it was particularly valid as a screen for K students because most kids who miss by one or two questions in K pass it with room to spare the next year. And my son as a K student was just as much gifted at 5 as he was a year later at 6.

Then he got the K-bit again at the end of 1st grade and did just fine on it, passed the screen and qualified for more testing. He finally got the full testing this year and his full IQ testing was much higher than the K-bit screen score.

I'll set aside my usual rant about making educational decisions based on a single test score. It's illegal to make educational decisions that way for disabled students, why do schools keep doing it for gifted programs?

Letting it go, letting it go...

Cognitive scores are notoriously unstable for kids under about 8 years old. That explains the school's reluctance to put much stock in it. It also may explain the discrepancy. The reality is that the different instruments measure different things. The KBIT would be a test you would give a much younger student, that does not weight verbal scores as heavily as one aimed for an older student. If the only cognitive score a school had was a KBIT, they would want to retest when the student was a little bit older. After that, they would probably use the same cognitive scores until the end of time.

Personally, I had an IQ in second grade that was about 24 points lower than the one that I had in sixth grade. A 24 point discrepancy between two tests for an older student would be outrageous, but a 24 point discrepancy for a seven year old is about par for the course.

BTW, an IQ of about 119 is just about ideal for future success. It is just about the perfect combination for being able to do grade level work well, actually having to develop some work habits and work at habits of mind, and not being so far removed from your peers that they think you are an alien (or a computer).

A student with an IQ of 119 will probably do well in school with or without gifted supports. A kid with an IQ of 137? Mmmmmaybe. The farther you get from the bulge in the middle of the bell curve, the more your success depends on having the right supports in place. And maybe the right personality. And family. And opportuni...you get the idea.

Update: still waiting on subtest scores. Psychologist said shed have them to us by Tuesday but still waiting. Hopefully tomorrow!