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

I guess acquired knowledge tests can be unfair to kids who have not had the chance to acquire the knowledge. But, if a kid is exposed to stuff, and soaks it in to the point where one is > 145 on the WISC to me that is significant. Even if exposed to certain knowledge I don't see a NT kid soaking it up to that extent. (At least that is what I remember our tester telling us).

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Thanks, Peter! I think I have trained myself to ignore that stupid blinking envelope so have overlooked the my stuff button.

Well, remember the tester who administered the WISC must have either been a personal friend of mine who did me a favour because I am just so invested into having a gifted kid or for some reason of her own, possibly absolute incompetence, suggested the correct answers during testing. (He even demonstrated now one could do that by opening ones eyes at the correct answered wider and stuff...)

But - even scoring at the 98th percentile at the beginning of the academic year at an achievement test normed for the end of that academic year...yes, it s all exposure if you like, but take a just above average kid, without (as the school psych says) tolerance for routine, no wish to work at stuff he's not interested in, no focus, and who should actually be in second grade, muddling himself into said 98th percentile just because he is somehow soaking up what he's exposed to... And not in school, because he's just started third grade after all....he must really have thought someone's sitting down with him drilling fourth grade stuff every day.

I do not even want to talk to him any more, just the teacher. (Who never even expressed any doubt at his gifted ness, just mentioned it was routine in acceleration cases to call the psych in).

There is also an International board to post on, within the Gifted Issues Discussion forum.

Yes, but nobody ever posts!

I didn't know there was an international board I will post something there sometime.

OP. It sounds like you used an exceptionally experienced and skilled tested with no reason to inflate results and every reason not to. I would have trouble changing gears from rehearsal to testing without notice. What is your son like at transitions? That could have been one of the problems.

Keep us posted.

Got an update, of sorts...

After quetching and ranting to my husband and the one RL friend I can talk to about this (a neurologist who read the school psychs report and commented that quite disregarding the content, the report didn't meet any professional standard she'd ever been trained in), like a good wife I deferred to my husbands opinion which was "we've been promised the grand conference before Christmas, so you just ask for the date and we let them talk first - the guy has been trying to totally discredit whatever we have to say so everything we say first can only backfire".

However, I had to go into school this morning to help with some music stuff for the Christmas celebration so met the teacher who told me she'd read my email and was it okay to move the conference back, she'd only be able to speak to the school psychologist this coming Friday.
So I just couldn't help myself and told her that the first thing the man had done was insinuate that the previous testing we had handed in had been artificially inflated by a tester who was a personal friend of ours.
She expressed her shocked disbelief strongly enough that I felt emboldened to continue that what ever the man had had to say on the material subject, I felt that with this he'd definitely gone too far, and she completely agreed.
I assured her we'd had a civilized conversation after that - first because I hadn't even twigged right away what was going on and second because I had wanted to hear what he had to say about his own results, which in a nutshell was this: child is of average intelligence, all superior testing results he'd come up with must be due to the child's being taught or trained, and that the high scores on the previous testing had been manipulated.
So to please meet the man and talk to him by all means, but please understand that we could not accept him any more as a neutral and unbiased reporter in the process.
She exclaimed "that isn't what I see at all! I am totally with you!".

And that she'd love to have DS to to fourth grade for maths more often but had not been able to coordinate this well with the fourth grade teacher, who she felt definitely needed to be brought into the next meeting, together with the principal, to understand the urgency of DS' needs.

At which I told her that after hearing this, I'd be happy to postpone everything till after Christmas and I'd see her for the celebration.

Exhale. The teacher's on our side. I'd LOVE to be privy to what will be going down on Friday but I'll just have to trust her now.

Sounds like that was some well-done advocacy on your part. A teacher's advocacy for a child often accomplishes far more than a parent, and it allows you to reduce your involvement, and save your advocacy "chips" for another time.

Fingers crossed!