Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I'm an impostor, get me out of here!

Edited to add: WE'RE IN EUROPE! I haven't figured yet how to add locations...

Seriously, it's not funny.

Sorry for the novel!

We had DS8 tested in July, with the most reputable tester in the area, who came up with a full scale iq of 154 with a local version of the WISC and recommended further acceleration into fourth and entry in to the congregated gifted program in fifth.

Because DS was leery of changing classrooms we compromised on ssa in maths and this worked fine for a couple weeks until the school decided they needed further testing by the school psychologist. So that one did another three tests, two ability, one achievement, and observed DS in the classroom. All of this happening the week and the week after DS had to prepare a presentation with the class bully with untreated ADHD and presumed dyslexia which had him melt down every morning because of the stress and I happened to be 8 hours away in hospital with our youngest who needed emergency brain surgery. So, no making sure DS had a good nights sleep and good breakfast and stuff, we were just glad every one was mostly where they should be on time. Or it was the testing situation, like all the kids who were supposed to play in the upcoming Christmas celebration assembled for rehearsal in the resource room and DS just arranging his violin music on the stand when the tester comes in and throws everyone out so he can continue testing DS.

What the tester thought it was was revealed inadvertently when he asked me right at the beg in whether I knew the previous tester personally. Sure, I said in confusion, I dropped DS off for testing after all. No, he meant as a friend. Nope, just heard she was the most experienced in the area. Well because 154 is very high.Which was when it dawned on me where this was going and asked what he'd come up with.

Turned out he'd come up with 115 on the CFT, with a motivated but somewhat rushed and distractible DS, which prompted him to try out another ability test more geared towards verbal kids, the name of which I forget but which is norms for 4 to 6 graders and came up with 117 if DS were a fourth grader and 107 if he were a fifth grader, so rough estimate for a third grader 127. (I forgot to mention at this point DS was entered early and should have been in second.)

Then he did a third grade achievement test and came up with the 98th percentile, which he noted was normed for the end of the school year, so rather an underestimate. How would he reconcile all these varying results, I asked him.

Well, he couldn't speak as to how the previous tester had come up with her results though the test she used was vulnerable to suggestions but of course the CFT was about fluid intelligence and the other tests majorly skewed towards aquired knowledge - so rather smart but not gifted but with extremely well practiced knowledge. So who was practicing with my kid, I asked him, I assure you I do not have the time, I can barely make sure he does his homework. Oh, doing it all on his own steam, of course. Ah. Not that I ever noticed, but well, he's got there results so it must be true.

So he started talking about how being gifted was about being gifted according to the daily requirements at which I informed him that if he was talking about putting his socks on in the morning and making sure he finished a meal as opposed to running of after a few bites to do something more interesting my child was severely developmentally delayed. Well, he was talking about his not bringing a pencil for testing for two days in a row. I said yes thats my kid and I assure you we are working on it, but what has that to do with the level of work he gets in class? That we should focus on his getting a grip on his stuff and his social skills, and that he recommended DS could be occupied with tutoring others in order to be more popular.
Well, you just told me you notice other kids switch off when he starts explaining things in class, you really think enforcing this would make him more popular? Well, of course only if a kid asked for it. I was in school too, I said, I assure you they won't start asking before 9th grade. Altogether focus on doing his stuff well before letting him move further away from the class in academics which might damage his social standing even more...

My disbelief is growing as I write this. DS has seriously and credibly announced he does not want to skip at this point, and we do not need this tester if we want him to skip into 5th, but I am SO confused now. A discrepancy of 40 points - and the only explanation he could come up with, apart from DS being occasionally rushed or distracted, was that the tester who was 30 tears of experience and a reputation to lose, might have wanted to do me a favor or have no idea how to do her job - WTF?

"30 tears of experience" what a great Freudian slip - I am going to have to remember that!

Seriously, though, so the WISC is not a reliable test and is prone to suggestion?

If that is the case then there are a lot of impostors (including me) on this forum. Something doesn't seem right about this to me.

If the tester was using tables to do the scoring (and not the software), it *is* possible that she used the wrong ones and came up with an inflated score even if she did the test correctly. I'd ask her for the raw scores and then have someone else convert them.

So, the second tester was a school-paid tester? Just wondering, because it does seem like there are discrepancies sometimes between private and school. You could go all directions with that observations, of course.

But that's a huge gap. What does your DS say about the testing? I'm assuming your gut is that the second test is wrong? I do think it would be quite interesting to have the two testers talk to each other.

I honestly wonder what we would see if all our kids were retested at least once. A friend recently had her child retested and he came out not gifted after testing over 130 in K. Another friend retested and the child who came out as not gifted in 1st or maybe second now tests as gifted. In both cases, it was not the same test or tester, but a "legit" test and tester. However, I think we are talking about a 15-20 point gap, so not as extreme as what you got.

ETA: Just remembered ANOTHER friend who retested and got gifted results after "not gifted" the first time--in that case, first test was a private psych and second test was a school psych. That child is obviously gifted. I have no doubt. I don't know what happened the first time.

Do we even know precisely what tests the school tester used? Do those tests even give the same score ranges as the WISC? Do they have lower ceilings? How experienced is the school tester with gifted children?

Do you trust your original tester? Are they one of the testers listed on Hoagies?

I wouldn't doubt the original testing based on anything that was said by the school tester until I considered some of these issues.

It sounds like you have several data sets on your DS:

1) Parental observations.
2) Professional psychologist testing and evaluation.
3) Teacher observations.
4) School psychologist testing and evaluation.
5) School psychologist observations.

And if I'm reading this correctly, all of the data sets say "gifted," except #4. So if that's the outlier, then that's the data set that needs to be questioned.

Also, this is VERY concerning, because it basically indicates that the school psychologist is unaware that cognitive ability and executive function are different things:


And the psych tips his hand that he recognizes your DS is beyond the other kids cognitively with his next statement about your DS tutoring the other kids... hence item #5.

As for next steps, I think it would be entirely reasonable to point out that the school testing is an outlier, that it does not match what you see, what the teachers see, and what the outside tester saw. At the very least, I'd say the two conflicting tests justify a third round of testing, at the school's expense, with someone who has not been briefed on the previous results, in order to resolve the conflict.

What is a local version of the WISC?

Some may say that learning the reason(s) why the school decided to retest may be key.

Some additional thoughts -
1. Scores vary between tests as noted on this Hoagies' page
2. Kids can perform differently on different days, this is why any test is considered a "snapshot".
3. Might a mistaken belief that "everyone evens out by 3rd grade" be coming into play?

I was also wondering what you meant by "local" version of the WISC? Are you outside the US?

And what were the credentials of the "most reputable tester" Please know I'm not questioning that he/she is the most reputable, just asking what the credentials are because I would want to use them in responding to the school psych's comments. We have had school staff scoff at and question outside testing results, but a calm, firm, brief reply asking "So you are questioning the opinion of a board-certified (fill-in-the-blank)?" is usually all it takes to end the school's question and let the conversation move forward.


Who was involved in the decision to go with SSA in math vs a full grade skip? I am guessing there had to be a team meeting - was the school psych there? Teachers? Who else? And then... what was the reason the school gave you for deciding to do more testing? Was there an issue with the SSA?



What test is the CFT?


Do you know the name of this test? I would request the results normed for age rather than grade, if that's possible.


Did he say the WISC was vulnerable to suggestions? I can see that it might be *if* used in a way that's not legit... which really points more at the tester than the test. When you said the tester had the best reputation in your area - where did you learn about the tester and the reputation? The reason I ask this is - it's clear your school psych has some doubts - they could be just horribly cynical unfounded doubts... or they could be doubts based on what the school psych has seen or heard from this tester with other students. That's probably *not* the case, but it's something worth considering just to be aware that it might be out there - and we were warned about this in our school district when our ds was going into K and we were looking into private testing. What we were told was that there were some psychs who would give inflated scores, and the school district gave less weight to results from those psychs, so the school district, while not telling us who we shouldn't see, told us very clearly that there were psychs in our town who they did not trust to give a credible score. Soooo... it might be worth thinking through... where did you hear about the psych's reputation etc. just so you can anticipate whether or not that's at the root of the school psych's skepticism.


When you look at all the data you have put together, if you have a high score on the WISC combined with several high scores on achievement tests, the outlier would be the lower score on the CFT, right? Sooooo... I would question the outlier rather than the preponderance of data. It's clear your ds was having a challenging week when tested, so you've got reason to suspect distraction plus "outlier" data point.. therefore don't let the school psych focus on that score.

I also think it might be helpful to focus on achievement in the classroom and the things your ds is asking for there when talking to the school. If he had average ability scores across the board but was achieving two years ahead in math and begging for more, would the lower ability scores be a legitimate reason to *not* offer him the challenge that he wants in math? NO (at least that's my opinion lol). When advocating, I've found there is less questioning brought to the table by the school when we focus on actual achievement in terms of where the child is at vs curriculum etc and achievement on standardized tests. Bringing in the data point of IQ more often than not either results in glazed-over looks from school staff who are more interested in achievement and don't necessarily agree that high ability leads to high need for different/etc work.


I think those are two potentially reasonable explanations, with distraction being the most likely reason. I wouldn't expect the school psych to come up with any more or other reasons.. but I would try to do everything I could as a parent to understand the results - get full copies of the testing report, look at subtest scores, research what the test is and how the subtests are administered etc. That might shed a bit more light... otoh... even if it does seem to show something, unless it obviously correlates to something you've seen in real life, this will probably always be a test set that you won't trust because your ds *was* distracted (at least in general) that week. Plus I think, from what you've written, the school psych acknowledged that your ds was distracted during the testing.

What is the school suggesting now as a result of the testing? Are they trying to move him out of the SSA or denying that he needs a grade skip? In either case, I'd summarize the conversation with the school psych, add your thoughts re the testing (nothing subjective, just what happened - distraction, what the tests measure etc. I think you should be able to word this all positively with a note re the distraction as the most likely cause of the outlier ability test. Include recent examples of your ds' academic achievement. Then send all of this in to the school principal and cc the school "team" via email or letter. The things I outlined above would be your supportive data - start the email with a request that whatever it you'd like to se happen... happens. Then review all the test resuls and work evidence.

Best wishes,

polarbear

This is what I think too. It is very concerning that this psychologist is confusing executive functioning and cognitive ability. Input from an unbiased tester is needed here.

WE'RE IN EUROPE. Sorry. I should start off with that, every time I guess. Someone please tell me how to add a location!
So, hoagies is no help here.
The first tester is the one that has been doing the testing for the state's gifted program ever since its inception (about a decade), has been affiliated with a prestigious university and and had then founded a private testing institute, has over thirty publications in the field and her parenting handbook is one of the go to's in the country. On the country's gifted boards, she is always the one recommended.
The result does sound high, at the time I was floored myself. The tester told me at the time that tests are incomplete snapshots at best and if the result made me uncomfortable, to take ten points off, might be just as accurate. That the test had just been renormed with extended norms, and she had scored it twice, once with the old norms and once with the extended norms, and with the old norms he'd ceilinged at 147.
Honestly, anything around the 145 mark would sound just okay to me. I am not invested in calling my child PG, but I am pretty sure that 115 is ridiculous, and so is talking about all that "practice" that the school psych freely admitted he thought his parents were pushing on him. Well not me, I said, I promise you I don't have the time, sometimes I barely remember to ask whether he did his homework.
I did phone the first tester, got her voicemail and asked her to call me back but she hasn't yet.

I know the precise tests, the CFT (Culture Fair Test) the only one being international, the other tests are local so few here would be familiar with them. Anyway, I have no quibbles with the achievement test that said that at the beginning of third grade, he scored at the 98% percentile at an end of year test. Sounds about right to me, that's what I see, academically he should be in fourth, period.
I didn't jump at the time (though I probably should have) at his being all taken aback when I mentioned he was entered early "but that means one should be extra careful about a second acceleration!"
Should have mentioned that if he wanted to treat DS as the second grader he should be, he should have scored that grade normed ability test test that he scored in the 95th percentile on as a hypothetical fourth grader for second grade, not for third, because then that would have come out above the 99th percentile. I felt it would sound like whining "but I want him to be above the gifted line!" at the time, because it's after all only a few weeks. I realize now that it is completely unprofessional of him not to notice that he was too young for grade even so.

I have no idea how much experience that tester has with gifties. The usual, I expect, few and far between, it's certainly not his specialty, I am sure he mostly deals with the other end of the spectrum.

Yes, all the data but that one say "gifted", if maybe not highly gifted.
Forgot to mention that he did come up with yet another reason: the Culture Fair Test being language free and thus showing "basal intelligence", the other tests being language heavy and thus very much skewed towards "acquired knowledge" and practice.
He did admit that 115 fit none of his other observations either, that he'd personally veer closer towards 130 in his estimate, clearly bright, but that this showed how he needed to work on his routine jobs and his focus and blah blah blah. Wonder how he thought this kid with no tolerance for practice and no focus could hothouse himself into achievement scores above the 98th percentile for the end of the year he was accelerated in. Let alone above the 99th percentile on the WISC derivation (called adaptive intelligence diagnosticum, developed by the university of Vienna, exists in a number of European languages, and uses the subtests of the WISC, but moves faster towards the harder questions to avoid testing fatigue with presumably highly intelligent kids). Ah, I forget, that one was the incompetent and/or unethical tester.

Yes, and that babbling about how gifted might be defined as what a test measured, but might also be defined as how well you cope with the requirements your environment, school or workplace, demands of you...odd.

But frankly, the part that weirded me out most was the recommendations. Have him tutor others to gain social acceptance. Have him try to emulate the two oldest girls in class who are pulling down the perfect As by striving to write as well as them. Have him work on task initiation, on organizing his stuff. He started telling me how in the workplace, sometimes you need to do the routine jobs as well not just the interesting ones...he went on so that I had to interrupt him and tell him that I had a job as well and knew about the requirements of the workplace, and knew exactly what he'd struggle with, I am his mom you know, I'm not that different, and it was actually all we were working on, executive function morning and night. And why he needed to work on that with academics he'd obviously, per his achievement test results, surpassed long ago. "Because you should not push him any further,he will just move further away from his classmates, which will make social acceptance harder!"

He did proceed, at a later point, to talk again, how I knew as a housewife that routine jobs have to be done.

I sometimes felt as if we were on two different sides of a wall, talking at the bricks.