Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing child with ADHD

My 7-year-old DD was tested for the gifted cluster last year in second grade using the CogAt. There was a very large gap between her verbal score and the quantitative and non-verbal scores. It listed her as having an ability profile 7-E. I looked this up on the website and it indicates a child with a possible learning disability because of huge gaps between scores. I also noticed that she finished the verbal section (and hence got a score of 130) but the other two sections she didn't come close to finishing. On the quantitative section she only answered half the questions! There is no way to get a high score if you leave half of the test blank.
DD has ADHD-combined type and has a history of being very unfocused and slow in class. Plus, if she comes to a question she doesn't know she will fixate on it until she understands it. Other kids might come to a question they don't know and guess and move on quickly. That is not DD. She did not understand the CogAt is tightly timed and she only had about 30 sec. to answer each question. Even if she did understand that, she's not mature enough to manage her time that way.

DD did qualify for the gifted cluster based on her 130 verbal plus her high achievement score in math (98th percentile). But she is not high enough to qualify for GATE which starts next year in 4th grade (special school for highly gifted). She is going to have to be re-tested. I strongly oppose her taking the CogAT again and talked to the school psych about her ADHD and not finishing the test, and she said she would give her the Weschler non-verbal ability test. I looked this up and these are the subtests in the full battery:

Matrices
Object Assembly
Coding
Recognition
Spatial Span
Picture Arrangement

It looks like some of these tests are tests of processing speed and working memory, correct? I'm guessing that DD would not do well on these due to her ADHD? Plus kids can qualify for GATE based on getting a high score on any one of the 3 subtests on the CogAT (verbal, non-verbal, OR quantitative), and this test only tests non-verbal ability. What if DD's verbal ability (or quantitative) went up just a bit and she could qualify based on that, but she's not even being tested for it again? So other kids have 3 possible ways to qualify and DD will only have 1 (a high non-verbal score)?
Anyone have any suggestions as to how i should proceed with this and what the school psych wants to do? I don't know if she's just trying to be cheap, or save time, or ????
I asked her if DD could take the WISC IV and if she needs a full scale score and there are gaps because of processing speed/working memory, just compute the GAI, and she said "no, the WISC wouldn't be appropriate because there are timed sections." But it looks like that is the case with the Weschler non-verbal ability test as well! I don't get it!
If I get outside testing, how much would that cost and how do I find someone?

Hi, Blackcat,

Oh boy. I don't think my ds did well on the Cogat. Not 99%+ anyway, and he's a recent DYS. The Cogat can miss a lot of giftedness and is a blunt instrument, but is often used because the WISC tests are very expensive. In some ways, you're describing my ds, though so far it seems to be perfectionism that holds him back from performing quickly.

I can't imagine why the pysch wants to only give a portion of the test. Perhaps it's a cost issue?

Our school administered it, so I don't know the cost, but it can be quite expensive or so I've read here.

Could she be talking about a different test such as the SB5?

For GATE they have to score in the 98th-99th percentile on BOTH reading and math achievement tests (similar to MAP) plus be in the 98th+ percentile on any one of the CogAt sections. DD was in the 97th percentile for verbal. If she had just answered 1-2 more questions correctly she would have been in the 98th and would have been fine for GATE. I believe her reading and math achievement scores are both now 98th+ percentile. It's just that stupid CogAt and being off by 1 percentile! Last spring I was going back and forth w/ school psych via email and she clearly said "weshchler non-verbal ability test" adding that it's very reliable. But how can it be very reliable in someone with ADHD if it has processing speed/working memory components?! I can't see DD doing well with coding, for instance. She does not do anything quickly if it involves handwriting. And the spatial span will depend entirely on how focused and well medicated she is at that moment. I almost feel like just risking it with the CogAt again and hoping that she can do just a little bit better on the verbal section. Ugh! I think DD's real strength is in non-verbal, though. She is the queen of puzzles/logic games. My DS who is 1 year younger took the WISC IV as part of a neuropsych eval (after a brain injury) recently and scored a 141 on the non verbal section, but I believe DD to actually be brighter than him.

This is when I wish there was some sort of compilation that shows how ineffective the Cogat is for these kinds of things, but I think there is only anecdotal evidence. And that is a high cutoff. So my ds would have been kept out of the GATE school and yet is a Davidson Young Scholar. Ridiculous.

Maybe you can convince them to consider other criteria.

They can also get a composite score of 139 on the CogAt in lieu of 98-99th percentile in math and reading, but I figured that's out of the question with DD's speed issues. I wonder how many kids get a composite score that high or what percentile that is? I feel like they must be missing so many kids who are truly gifted but don't do well on the CogAt for whatever reason.
We don't even have a district gifted coordinator anymore. I have no idea who I would even discuss these issues with who would have a clue what I'm talking about. Obviously the school pscyh doesn't get it. So frustrated.

That reminds me of DD's friend--she also did not do well on the CogAT (composite score 121 I think). She could do long division in first grade but scored in around the 75th percentile on the quantitative CogAT because she also did not finish. The questions she did answer were all correct. The father told her to be careful and check her work which is what I told DD (not knowing it was timed). Ridiculous!

ds's teacher last year told us and the group that had gathered to discuss the Iowa Acceleration Scale, that ds was not the fastest in the class at math, nor was he the slowest, but he was always right.

On his computation part of the Iowa Skills Test (different thing) he didn't finish (left almost half the questions undone) but what he did do was 100% accurate.

Slow does not mean not gifted.

blackcat, does your dd have 504 testing accommodations for her ADHD? I am not a fan of the CogAT - my EG ds is one of the kids who tests well on everything under the sun and tested nowhere near as highly on the CogAT thanks to his outside-the-box over-thinking of the questions on the CogAT.

Anyway, one thing we were able to do for our ds was to get him extended time on the CogAT, oral response and tester read the questions to him. He had the extended time and oral response accommodation because he was already receiving those accommodations routinely in the classroom and because they were specified on his IEP (if he hadn't had an IEP he would have had the same list of accommodations provided via a 504 plan due to his disability). This wouldn't have given him extended time on an IQ test like the WISC (where the point of the test is to quantify specific abilities), but they are valid accommodations for learned ability tests like the CogAT.

My advice would be to have your dd tested privately - this will give you several things - a full battery of scores (verbal+non-verbal), most likely a more reliable sense of where your dd's abilities are, a report you can use to advocate for appropriate classroom and testing accommodations, and material you can use to advocate for GATE placement.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I discussed a 504 plan with the school psych and she claims DD doesn't need one because she is clearly doing just fine in school (never mind the fact that she is incredibly SLOW if her meds are not just right) and the only issue with her is the CogAt which they are willing to work around without a 504. I just don't understand why she is pushing this Weschler non-verbal test which looks just as bad as the CogAT. I don't know whether to push the issue with her or just say "forget it" and get outside testing. How much does that cost, if I just got a WISC? And would a WISC be the best test to give a kid with ADHD?

Oh, also, the district gifted coodinator (who is gone now) told me last spring that DD can not take the CogAT untimed, but she CAN take another test, like a normal IQ test. But she said that she is not a psych or testing expert and would leave that to the school psych. She made a note in DD's file that she needs a different test than the CogAT.

blackcat, I don't think any of us here can tell you how much "just a WISC" would cost unless we knew we lived in your area. To be honest, with a child with ADHD, I'd rather have a comprehensive neuropsych eval for two reasons: first reason is that in advocating for accommodations for our ds, having that neuropsych eval report gave us the backbone we needed when advocating in a situation where the school staff told us our ds didn't need "official" accommodations. Second reason is you have a child who did have a large discrepancy in verbal vs non-verbal on the CogAT - what if you have the school test on just the Weschler non-verbal and it comes in much lower than you expect is should? Or what if she was given the full CogAT or some other full ability test from the school and you saw a large split again? Your understanding of how her ADHD might have impacted her scores makes good sense, but what if there is any type of doubt at all or any possibility that something else may have caused the split in scores? For those reasons, I'd want private testing - where you know you are going to be able to ask questions of the person who tests and where you feel comfortable with the test setting so you feel like your dd has a chance to show her true abilities.

If your medical insurance covered your ds' neuropsych, you might be able to get a neuropsych eval covered for your dd too - I would ask for a referral based on the ADHD diagnosis + split in previous verbal vs non-verbal testing.

polarbear