Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Non-gifted sibling

Apologies, OP, I didn't mean to offend. I was simply wondering why you cared about that one snapshot in time, rather than taking the everyday picture she presents to you as more representative. Are you and/or OH likely gifted? If so, I might indeed want to test, but otherwise, I'd assume your eldest may just be an outlier, and keep an eye out for possible learning disabilities in your younger daughter, just in case.

The school never told me the name of the screening test administered to my twins when they were kindergarteners, but is was something like the OLSAT or CoGAT.

FWIW, my HG DS did not "pass" the screening. His scores on the visual-spatial side were below average, thus causing his total score to fall below the percentage usually required before the school will administer the WISC. However, they tested him anyway, as his verbal scores were extremely high, and he is one of those kids that is obviously "different."

His WISC score was very different than one might have expected given his screening test results. The psych mentioned that she had no idea what might have happened during the screening test for his scores to be so low. So yes, it is possible for the test results to be wrong.

Does the OLSAT have subtests? It might be possible that she scored really badly in one section, pulling down her overall score.

My DS scored very well on the SB5 HG.

He scored 122 on the OSLAT in 2nd grade. The school said these scores are not that high and they were suspicious of the score so they gave him the OSLAT again in 4th. He did even worse. He left half the question unanswered and said it was a stupid test. This is after a battery of testing that agreed with the SB5. He also was consistently way into the 99% on MAPS and scored above Davidson benchmarks on the EXPLORE. They just shrugged and said that is interesting.

I went to a school meetings with numerous reports suspecting the OSLAT might not be a good test in his situation.

They did put the SB5 in his records but wanted us to have him take the WISC IV for his records. I said we are through testing right now.

I think that the problem with this approach, particularly if the child is an obedient, rule-following, teacher-pleasing girl, is that the child may not act out despite lack of challenge, may not articulate it, and may begin to hide abilities to blend in, learn to do minimum, etc. etc. I believe it is worthwhile to pay for private testing to find out what is going on.

Because it is, IMO, a bad test, because it is possible that the child is not being adequately challenged, and because private testing can yield useful information. I have always heard test one (sibling), (with the right test) test them all. Being underchallenged in elementary school is not without consequences.

I find it amazing how people read into or don't read a post.

Nutmeg did start with a simple question.

He did later shake it up with
"Starting to wonder whether she has a learning disability of some sort."
I took that as tongue in cheek myself. maybe I'm off base here.

just my take...

I didn't take it as tongue in cheek, and given the very real struggles with LDs many kids on this forum face it wouldn't be an appropriate thing to joke about regardless.

I agree. My post was not directed at you deacongirl.

Guess I'll throw out my thoughts/experiences -

First I should say, I know nothing about the OLSAT (both DD7 & DD9 were given the KABC-II and Kaufman Achievement tests)and I don't know if you can really compare the OLSAT with the WISC when it comes to your daughters and their scores. I don't think I'd accept those scores and would want to see how she scored on the WISC just to have apples to apples. Believe me the ones who seem "normal" can surprise you, as we have recently found out.

Our older DD had issues in 1st grade with her behaviors at school - long story short - we had her tested to rule some things out and were surprised to find out she was gifted. We knew she was smart, but didn't realize just how smart. Now this DD of ours is not a people pleaser and marches to her own tune. She doesn't really care about grades or tests and likes to give silly answers to see if anyone will catch it. We warned the tester of this and I know she at least answered some questions with off the wall answers because she told us about it, so it is quite possible her IQ is actually higher than her test results indicate.

Then there is our younger DD. We recently had her tested and received her testing results. Just like your younger child - she seems more "normal" to us than DD9. We debated whether to test or not, but she was showing some signs of dysgraphia or dyslexia and we wanted to make sure we were doing what we needed to do for her. We also felt it wasn't fair to not have her tested since her sister was tested, but that was just our feelings on the matter.

I will honestly tell you that we were just hoping for at least an IQ high enough so she could qualify for the gifted program at school and we wouldn't have to deal with "how come sister gets to do this and I don't". I have read about sibling IQ's typically being within 10 points, so if she happened to be 10 points below DD9 she might be cutting it close. My DH and I talked about all the "what ifs" - what if she does have dysgraphia/dyslexia? What if she misses the cut off for the gifted program, then what will we do and how will that affect her? She is so different from our older DD, that I really didn't know if she would qualify. She is a total pleaser at school and her behavior at school is great (at home, eh, not so much). She is much more social than DD9 and has a lot of friends. Well, guess what - her IQ is about 20 points higher than DD9's and she hit ceilings on some subtests, so we don't really know how high she could have gone. They did not think she has either dysgraphia or dyslexia (I still think there is something, but not sure exactly what it is). I literally broke down in the tester's office because I was so shocked. I had so many things going through my head wondering how I could not have known after all the research and reading I've done since DD9 was tested 3 years ago. I just kept thinking - but she is so social, how can that be? Now I just assume one of her greatest areas of giftedness is socialization.

It wouldn't do any harm to have your DD7 tested using the WISC, other than maybe the cost to have her tested. She might surprise you!

Hi... not offended, just was a bit frustrated!

FWIW and since you asked, I was never identified as "gifted" but I grew up overseas and there were no gifted programs... although I did go to a magnet high school (admission test to get in) and attended an Ivy League institution her in the US. My husband was in the gifted program in elementary school, and we met at college. Both his parents graduated from same college as we did.

Why I started to worry about possible LD is that my older brother had a lot of academic issues when he was young... he probably had undiagnosed ADHD. He was late to read, had a hard time focusing.... was unremarkable through high school. Although at one point at high school some sort of IQ test was administered on him and he scored over 140 (to everyone's surprise). Long story short, he he ended up getting a PhD, and is a successful academician...

My younger dd is super social child with a lot of friends, and also has a hard time focusing when it comes to school related activities.. Like my brother, she also did not take to reading easily, but has managed to pick up in the last few months, and is now reading at slightly above grade level. Like I said in my original post, I don't believe she is gifted (I guess as I compare her to her older sister) but she does seem like a bright little girl (or maybe I am totally off-base as to what I would consider "average"). Thus my surprise with aforementioned OLSAT results...