Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Woodcock Johnson (help me interpret)

Child 1- 2nd grader (7 years 10 months)

In Bold I've highlighted things that have fallen in the below 60% range.

Cognitive Abilities:

GIA- 130
Verbal Ability- 116
Thinking Ability- 140
Cognitive Efficiency- 112
Comprehension Knowledge-116
Long-Term Retrieval-101
Visual-Spatial Thinking-120
Auditory Possessing- 149
Fluid Reasoning- 138
Processing Speed- 102
Short-Term Memory- 114
Cognitive Fluency- 96

Verbal Comprehension- 105
Visual-Auditory Learning- 101
Spatial Relations- 106
Sound Blending- 151
Concept Formation- 127
Visual Matching- 104
Numbers Reversed- 109
General Information- 126
Retrieval Fluency- 100
Picture Recognition- 124
Auditory Attention- 110
Analysis-Synthesis- 140
Decision Speed- 99
Memory for Words- 113
Rapid Picture Naming- 94

Ability/achievement discrepancy:

Broad reading- 111
Broad math- 125
Math calc skill- 126
Broad written Lang- 130
Written expression- 152
brief reading- 110
Brief math- 126
Brief writing- 101

Test of Achievement:

Broad Reading- 111
Broad Math- 125
Broad Written- 104
Total Achievement- 114

Letter-word indent- 113
Reading fluency- 115
Calculation- 130
Math fluency- 107
Spelling- 99
Writing fluency- 111
Passage comprehension- 104
Applied problems- 116
Writing samples- 104

Child 2- Kindergartner (6 years 1 months)

Cognitive Abilities:

GIA- 138
Verbal Ability- 129
Thinking Ability- 158
Cognitive Efficiency- 110
Comprehension Knowledge- 129
Long-Term Retrieval- 145
Visual-Spatial Thinking- 130
Auditory Possessing-160
Fluid Reasoning- 144
Processing Speed- 118
Short-Term Memory- 104
Cognitive Fluency- 103

Verbal Comprehension-123
Visual-Auditory Learning- 153
Spatial Relations- 120
Sound Blending- 164
Concept Formation- 135
Visual Matching- 119
Numbers Reversed- 110
General Information- 134
Retrieval Fluency- 108
Picture Recognition- 126
Auditory Attention- 129
Analysis-Synthesis- 141
Decision Speed- 114
Memory for Words- 97
Rapid Picture Naming- 92

Test of achievement:

Broad Reading - 135
Broad Math- 142
Broad Written- 140
Total Achievement Standard- 139

Letter-word ident- 156
Reading fluency- 126
Calculation- 143
Math fluency- 136
Spelling- 142
Writing fluency- 128
Passage comprehension- 127
Applied problems- 133
Writing samples- 131

Keeping in mind that scores do not tell the whole story, I'll see what I can offer as hypotheses, based on what you've reported.

On the 7 yo:

There is a substantial difference between verbal and abstract thinking, which appears to be borne out in the achievement testing, with the two language-related areas average/high average versus superior for mathematics (which is more in the neighborhood of the fluid reasoning & thinking ability scores). Reading comprehension is more closely related to language comprehension (in fact, they line up quite nicely here). Supporting this as a genuine pattern is the difference between concept formation, which is both a fluid reasoning task and associated with verbal conceptual thinking, and analysis-synthesis, which is the other fluid reasoning test, but much more perceptual in nature. While both are strong, analysis-synthesis is exceptional.

The next pattern of difference that I'm seeing has to do with timed/speeded tasks. Every timed task reported is in the Average range, quite a bit below the GIA. Hence the lower cluster scores in cognitive efficiency, long-term retrieval (because of the retrieval fluency score), processing speed, and cognitive fluency. Working memory looks like it might be a little sketchy, too, as numbers reversed is only okay.

You know your son best, so you will be in a better position to say what might be behind this pattern, or how much it reflects daily experience, but in summary, his score profile suggests strengths in nonverbal/perceptual reasoning and auditory processing, and relative weaknesses in language reasoning, speed, and working memory. Academic implications would be strengths in mathematical thinking and problem solving, and relative weaknesses in reading comprehension, and possibly fluency/automaticity areas (reading fluency, math fact fluency, writing fluency).

I'll get to the other child a little later.

Is it the cognitive, the achievement or both? Just my son's only have 10 subtests. Ds5' long term memory was a lot lower than short term probably because it was the last test an he was over it.

Nothing to add to the interpretation, but having not seen the Woodcock Johnson details before it is nice to see a test that includes long term retrieval as that has always seemed a gaping omission in other tests.

I just have to say I was extremely bummed to see my 7 year old score so low. That week of testing was awful for him. He had missed 3 days of school from high fever then they yard to squeeze in all the testing to finish up before their deadline. I can't help but wonder if this had affected te scores. He has always been praised with high reading and writing abilities. His cogat and GrAde test scores were all in the 7-8-9 staine. His Map test scores showed the Same 98 % ranges.

I also do not understand the RPI detail. (75/90-96/90)= age appropriate.

Most of them are listed at 98/90-100/90

I went ahead and added the discrepancy report for my second grader, none of which registered significant.

Your son probably only had the standard cognitive battery; there is also an extended battery, which is about twice as long (actually a little more, if you do every single subtest possible). It's always tough assessing little ones, as so much depends on how they are feeling at that moment.

Yes, I expect it did affect him; hard to say how much. In future, it may help to know that the deadlines for them to finish testing are usually there to protect your parental rights on behalf of your child. Therefore, if you choose to give them more time (in writing) to complete the evaluation, you can do so. Unless this is an issue of making the deadline for gifted program selection, in which case they would also have to agree to bend those.

Just have to mention that a stanine of 7 is the 79th - 88th %ile, which is equivalent to a standard score of 112-118, and a stanine of 8 is the 90 - 96th %ile, which is a standard score of 119-126, so it is possible that his group achievement testing is actually consistent with his WJIII achievement, depending on which scores were in which stanine.