Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Test discrepancy

Special ed director and director of district assessment.

blackcat - could another factor just be, I guess I would call it "social maturity" with the passage of 1.5 years? DS took the WISC at just-turned-8, and again two years later. He was highly resistant to reading when younger, and had only just begun reading for fun around the time of his first assessment. He also has a lot difficulty talking about emotions and how he feels about things. So we weren't much surprised when the first assessment showed "practical social reasoning" (comprehension) at 50th percentile, nor that two years of voracious reading later, it had increased to 91st. Overall, his VCI increased from 95th to 99.6th - suggesting he might have had the same results as your DS under similar circumstances (but blooming that much later!)

I see I lot of my DS in many of your posts, so I thought I'd pass this on. A lot seems to be able to change in a couple of years, especially if he was only 6 at the assessment.

Yes, I do think that he's a late bloomer in a lot of ways. Back when he was assessed in kindergarten on the WISC he was still very quiet most of the time, and I remember it was still difficult to understand him (both his speech artic. and language)--maybe because he was delayed in the first place and also because of the developmental coord. disorder.

His IEP manager is saying that he can probably take the CogAT untimed, which amazes me. The district refused to do this for DD a couple years ago, even though she has ADHD. So I had to pay for private testing.

My daughter scored >99th% for reading on the Iowa test in reading but even lower for verbal IQ on the CogAT (<100 IQ). She does not have a below average verbal IQ, period.

Based on my own experience as a child, I think that some verbal tests are poorly defined, and children can actually out-think / over-think them, to the point that they will miss questions by thinking, "I don't get it."

I know this because during my own training for standardized tests as an adult (I went back for a post-graduate degree in my thirties), I was told, "You are over-thinking this. The right answer is not exactly right. Just answer the way you think the average person would answer."

I moved from 85th% on every verbal standardized test I'd taken in my life to (I am not making this up--I could probably find the results if necessary) 99.99th%.

This is because the tests often try to determine whether you understand what others are trying to say, rather than what they actually managed to convey.

Your ability to fill in the gaps for others is a major part of some verbal IQ tests. I have no idea why this is, but it must work that way, because otherwise I could not have upped my scores so much. I also went back and took a different verbal IQ test online. It put me higher than I should have been, but still, I used to score much lower than in the math/logic area, and this put me higher.

If only I'd have known as a child that they wanted me to tell them what I thought my most average, boring teacher would say the answer is, rather than what I thought the answer really was, based on the information provided, I could have probably been a National Merit Scholar. Oh well--I got a great score for my GRE!

I looked at what is on the CogAT and if a child doesn't understand the format of the test questions, they could very well do poorly just because of that. For instance there is an analogy section with verbal items. If a child has never seen analogies, but they are expected to realize that the first two words are related, and the third and fourth words need to be related in the exact same way, they could screw up that entire section by always picking the "trick" answer. 5 minutes of practice and a child could go from scoring zero on that section to getting them all right. The CogAT website actually says that kids should be prepped and there is a study guide for teachers to use with students "to level the playing field". Ok, how does that level the playing field if only some teachers bother, and others don't? I am not sure how a WISC is formatted, but I'm guessing the same type of thing can happen, where a child doesn't really understand what is expected of them (for instance that they have to be specific in their answers). And I think also the brighter kids will over-think answers, esp. on tests like the CogAT, and get them wrong because of it. Because the "right" answer seems dumb or overly obvious to them so they try to rationalize why a different answer could be correct.

Of course, this could happen for any test, but on the WISC, a good examiner will teach the first few items, and query the rest. The CogAT, ERB, SAT/10, etc. pretty much all come with practice tests that are supposed to be used in the days to weeks before the real test--but, as you say, not everybody does as they should.

If you let your kid do a practice test of CogAT, will it invalidate your kid's assessment?

I too am so over cut scores and gifted programs. My 2E son absolutely kills the MAPs (@blackcat, my DS is also +7 years ahead and in the 99%+ on the math MAPs), both reading and math, and is accelerated 2+ years for math. So he is able to excel in the real world too, not just on standardized tests. But because his IQ tests are always wonky due to the ADHD and LD, they keep him out of the regular gifted track programs.

Best I can tell, many of these programs want the very even, quick, inside-the-box type learners. If you have a highly creative, visual-spatial and/or 2e kid, better be PG to qualify. What I have observed with some of my friends who have that type of kid, is that even though they qualified, the programs are not really set up for them. So the administrators are right about that.

I have found programs where teachers and admins are able to see my son's abilities and are willing to accelerate him as much as possible. And it has been ok. But I do get steamed that he is kept our of the gifted programs, even though he is functionally on a higher level than many of the kids actually IN the program.

So, so true. I've been through my share of gifted programs, as student and professional (I've kept my kids out of them, for various reasons), and they tend to be good for even-profile MG, but not much else.