Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment High WISC-IV but low CogAT?

We have been considering moving and DH called around to talk to gifted coordinators at several schools. This is what we heard from one:

"We never accept outside testing. Parents can buy what ever score they want."

Wow, if I were the testing psychologist I would sue for slander and defamation. That is truly a horrible and ridiculous attitude.

And that kind of craziness is why I've always waited to talk to teachers/administration until after the first 6 weeks of school. Get to know him a bit, then when I come in and ask "how are you going to challenge him??" you'll know exactly what I'm talking about, even though you might not have an answer for me.

Hi all,

Thanks so much for your feedback! I posted a long reply, but apparently it must wait for approval. Sorry for the delay - it seems to take a very long time for my posts to show up.

-Tricia

My son's GAI places him in the HG+ range and his (invalid) FSIQ is well into the MG range. At the beginning of 4th grade, he was not identified as gifted in math by our district because of a low CogAT score. This is despite the fact that he scored at the 99th percentile on the ITBS they gave him, >99th percentile on the MAP test (he scored the same as the average 8th grader in our district), and he was working very successfully 3-4 years ahead in math at home.

I think the CogAT can be accurate, but that schools shouldn't make high stakes decisions based on CogAT scores alone.

We had a 32 point standard score difference between Cogat verbal and WISC-IV verbal. I am not a fan of Cogat. Ds scored high enough for GT but a huge underestimate of his strengths.



We seemed to get this attitude. We just allowed the school to retest my dd on a different test to move beyond that attitude. 1 point for the parents- her scores came back exactly the name! I did hold my smirk inside during our meeting