Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I'm new...where do I find a test??

Hi,
I am new. My son is 6 & we knew from about the time he was 1 that he was gifted. Now that he is in kindergarten, we want to have him tested. He took SATs at school this year & scored 99th percentile in reading, and very close to that in all other subjects.

Ok, where do I go to find a testing location? Where should I start? What steps do I take to point him & us in the right direction???

Any info is greatly appreciated. This is my 1st attempt to find info about this.

Jennifer

Welcome!

I'd recommend having the school test your DS if you can go that route. Often they'll only accept their testing for GT programs and acceleration anyway, so any outside testing you get won't be of much use to you in terms of advocacy. Plus if you can have the school test, it will save you some money.

School systems don't always make it easy to figure out how to request testing--a lot of times "no" just means that you're asking the wrong person--but if you can figure out the system, it's worth the time and trouble to figure it out. It pays to ask more than one place if you get a "no, we don't test kids that age" if you can do so without making a nuisance of yourself.

If the school really will not test or if you are unhappy with the type of testing offered by the school, then I'd recommend checking out the Hoagies' webpage on testing. All the psychologists on their list are skilled in working with GT kids, and that's important if you want to see what your child is capable of. Here's the link:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/psychologists.htm#susa

It looks like there are 3 testers recommended in FL.

BTW, if anyone has a tester to recommend whom is NOT on the list, Carolyn K. is happy to add to the list. I suggested the tester we used and got a very nice e-mail message back from Carolyn thanking me. I see that our tester is now on the Hoagies' list.

It's a good system!

I would try to connect w/ someone else who has walked the road you're about to be on. Getting insider info is a must. The mom I spoke to said absolutely do NOT let the school psych do the testing. He tested her son, he came out not gifted, the psych denied an IEP for other issues etc said he was just barely bright. Well outside tested shows him to be PG+, is now accelerated 4yrs+ in math etc. I think finding someone who is skilled/trained in testing gifted kids is a must. Now of course if your school will only accept their own testing, you have to go with it. Or the school might have a list of psychs they will accept outside scores from.

Dazey

Wow, Dazey! I'd complain pretty loudly about the obvious incompetence of that tester! Was the child cooperating? What's the story there?

Still, if the school accepts outside testing if their own psychologist's testing doesn't show GTness, what's the harm in giving the school testing a try? (Except that if she muffs the test, you can't have that same test readministered for a year...) It's free, and I don't really see any significant risk there.

<shrug> For our part, I had known all along that DS7 was GT, figured he was MG...and then I saw his school-tested WJ-III scores and realized that we were in a whole different league! I didn't even request that the school do the testing: his K teacher recommended him for it.

After we saw the scores, we did pay for IQ testing for DYS admission, since the school only gave him the CogAT and not an individual IQ test. But the WJ achievement test was free and was what brought me to this forum and DYS in the first place.

I'm just saying that it's hard to beat free if there's no significant downside, provided you realize that any test is just one score on one day under a very specific set of circumstances, and that any child is more than just a number.

Of course, if there's a significant potential downside to school testing, then that would be a different story...

Yes the downside to letting the school do it first is you can't take that test again 1-2yrs.

I thought it was 1 year, but I'm certainly no expert. Dottie? Any other testing experts?

I'm pretty sure there is a hard-and-fast rule though, with no wiggle room...

Huh. That shows what I know!

I've always heard people say "wait a year and retest" and I assumed that was a real rule. Perhaps not so much...

When DS was given a speech eval, they also gave him the SBIV. He was 3.5yrs old at the time. The next year he was re-evaluated and they did part of the SBIV again. She commented on how quickly he was answering and that perhaps he had remembered the questions/answers from last time. She verified that it had been at least 11months since he had been last tested, which it had, so the results were valid. In actuality, I think it was because he was reading the pages ahead of her reading them to him.

WOW. Thank you all for your advice. Next...what is DS, MG, and all the other abbreviations??

I am glad to have found this group. We always knew he was gifted, but also thought maybe he had OCD or something else going on. Most of the OCD has faded, but he is very emotional & sensetive. I just heard on TV that gifted kids are "special needs" kids & I am wondering if there are any good books that could direct me in how we communicate & discipline him. Maybe he (& we!) would benefit if we found the best way to handle him. He is a wonderful child, but can be dramatic at times. Maybe this could be that I am treating him like a 6 yr old, but maybe shouldn't???

There's a sticky at the top of the "Parenting and Advocacy" list of threads that details abbreviations or where to find them. You're not the first who has been confused! (said one who was as well!)