Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment how does observed IQ correlate to age/grade?

Hi all,

I'm preparing to present my son's assessment results to the school. Based on previous meetings with them, I expect that some explaining will help as we start to get into sub-test scores and extended norms.

One thing that would help, I think, is if I could make a statement like "DS6's VCI is ___, and that corresponds to the verbal comprehension level of a typical __-year old or a __-grade student." Is there a reference anybody could point me to, that could help with this?

many thanks,
Sue

I think you want to look at above-level achievement testing to get an idea of where your son fits in with normal grade levels.

Thanks Dude. This is actually one of DS's huge challenges. His ability is wildly out of whack with his achievement. His assessment showed dyslexia and dysgraphia.

We're trying to get the school to help with some accommodation even though his reading/math (and achievement scores) are "at grade level." So I'm hoping to show that ability reflected by a GAI of 178, matched with achievement at grade level and dyslexia/dysgraphia is represents something that should qualify for help, both with academics and the huge level of frustration he has.

I like the "one in a thousand" sort of contrast as IQ has a some overlap with achievement, but is not a good indicator for an individual.

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/iqtable.aspx

Will let you translate an IQ score into a ratio. So you might say, one in ten million people score a 178, that means in a city like New York with a million kids in their public school system they may see a kid like mine once every five or ten years.

You could also use the standard deviation groupings for scale. Like "A kid with a greater than 160 IQ is as different from a typical gifted student as an average student is from a child with a 70 IQ."

Or talk about rates of progress, such as a gifted student could progress through regular material at a rate of 1.5 years per year of school, a highly gifted (above 145) one may progress 2 years each year, and a profoundly gifted student (above 160) could progress 3 or 4 years per year... given the opportunity.

Hi suevv,

I don't have any info on a table for the WISC, but wonder if you could ask for the info from the person that tested your ds? I did get that type of info with the WJ-III Cognitive Abilities test.

FWIW, arguing where our ds was at in terms of IQ/ability was never really very effective - teachers eyes just tended to glaze over. I think the difficulty with advocating re IQ is that it's not a test that the teachers see frequently, but they do (particularly in early elementary) hear from a lot of parents who perceive their child is able to work ahead of grade level or the class or whatever - and there actually are probably a good portion of the kids in any given elementary classroom who are capable of working ahead simply because it seems that most elementary classrooms these days (at least in my school district) are aiming solidly to the middle and attempting to pull up the lower end of achievers. SOooo…. for those reasons actual IQ scores weren't all that helpful. I did however, point out where scores fell on the Bell Curve, so the teachers could get some sense of how rare those scores are - and relate that to how many children were in ds' grade at the school.

What worked better for us in advocating was achievement scores and work samples - from both "e" perspectives. I totally understand what your ds' achievement scores on a test like the WJ-III etc probably look like - I'm guessing there's scatter and nothing that looks amazingly out-of-the-ball-park in terms of academic ability. They aren't going to be a good reflection of his intellectual ability, but if you separate out and group them by question type (oral vs reading) and response type (oral vs handwriting) and timed vs untimed, they may show a good data pattern that illustrates how his dyslexia/dysgraphia is impacting his ability to *show* his knowledge.

Once our ds had accommodations for testing (in the classroom and state/standardized testing), those achievement scores lined up nicely with what you'd expect given his IQ numbers. So you might not have achievement scores that are easy to advocate with for gifted services at the moment, but I'm guessing that you will have those in a few years after you've tackled remediation and accommodations.

Sorry I wandered off a bit from your question - good luck with your meeting!

polarbear

Hi polarbear and zen scanner,

Thanks for these great thoughts.

I should have been cleared about my objective. I totally agree that any IQ discussion is probably fruitless, maybe worse. But for DS, I want to focus on the things that help explain his frustration and suggest ways to help.

For IQ - it's not the high number I want them to focus on. It's the 94 point split between his VCI and PSI. I think if I don't give them the actual scores, they'll be irritated. But I don't want the scores themselves to be the focus of the conversation. More like - imagine the frustration of reasoning/comprehending like a __-year old, but only being able to process at the speed of a __-year old. Then pile dyslexia/dysgraphia on top of that, so you can't even output what you manage to process. Throw in some auditory processing and sensory issues. Hey - this data gives us lots of ideas for ways we could make life easier in the classroom (for him and the teacher)!!

So anyway - that's why I was thinking about the translation idea.

sue

I had another thought, which was (though functionally invalid by the way tests are normed) to compare raw scores across age groupings. You could see them here for extended norms:
http://images.pearsonclinical.com/images/assets/WISC-IV/WISCIV_TechReport_7.pdf

So, if you had say a 26 on similarities, you could get to saying that's more answered than over 99% of 18 year olds. By cross-referencing the raw score to higher ages, you can see score of 40 maps to 18 throughout later ages. Vocabulary looks trickier as that is more age impacted, a 25 at age 6 translates to 46, which following it through the years, hits 18 which could be more than 99% of 9 year olds.

Real rough, and not truly valid if people call you on it.

Soryr, just saw your update; not sure this could help or not.

Hey Zen Scanner -

Super idea. Even if I just pull one example together to illustrate the point (and illustrate a sub-test). It does fit in well with how I want to talk about this. E.g.:

"His Similarities score was higher than that of 99 percent of 18-year olds. The similarities sub-test indicates the ability to ... [have to look this up]. So he probably has some pretty cool ideas spinning around in his head. But if he tries to process those ideas, and then write about them - his PSI and dysgraphia will totally block him. It's the ultimate writer's block! That would make me crazy and really, really cranky. How about you, Ms. Teacher? Ms. Principal?

Thanks a million!

Sue

You all know my position on age-equivalents already, and I would really recommend the percentile approach for advocacy ("if you lined up a million six-year-olds based on their ability to perform on this test of verbal ability, he would be first in line, but if you lined up a million six-year-olds based on their paper-and-pencil processing speed, he would be 840,000th in line" (or wherever his actual percentile would place him))...but if you really want age- or grade-equivalents, I can get you the real ones for the WISC-IV, if you have the raw scores for the subtests. There is a table in the manual.

Hi aeh -

Actually, I didn't know your position on this. But I can tell I'd better do some searching! Thanks for weighing in.

Sue