Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Questions about results

My DS, was tested at 3 years, 11 months with the DAS-II
I was in the room and watched. The first day the test went on for about 3 hours with plenty of breaks. The second day it was about 2 hours with smaller breaks. The first day, he was very responsive, but the second, he woke up in a bad mood and said he was anxious to go back (that was sad). He started just not answering and you could see that he just didn't want to continue but we completed it.
I only have his overall score at the moment because I asked the school psychologist when we spoke. She said the overall was 138/99.8%ile.
Questions:
How accurate are scores at this age? I thought I read that are inflated?
I watched and I saw him stop responding when I know he knew the answers, can I consider his scores accurate? Are they compared to other children age doing the actual test and likely acting the same way?

I'm so curious what the breakdown of the scores will be.
So far, I am really glad we tested and feel that the pscyhologist understood my concerns and very much wants to help.

Thank you!

Generally speaking, scores at age 3 are not exactly inflated, but rather unstable, meaning that the likelihood that a re-test five or six years later will result in the same score is not as high as if the child were tested at age 8 and 13. They could go either way.

Yes, the test was standardized on children his age, and his norm-referenced scores will be derived from the performance of the age-matched comparison group, which likely had the same low level of tolerance.

However, did the entire evaluation consist of the DAS-II, or were there other assessments? Because 5 hours, even with breaks, is a really long time to complete the DAS, especially at age 3, and even in a suspected gifted kid. A more typical testing time for the DAS alone is about an hour, or less. Maybe an additional half hour, if you do all the non-core subtests. I'm guessing she did something in addition to the DAS-II, like achievement testing, or maybe some out-of-level testing, which may or may not generate standard/T scores.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your insight because, when you see that they are not "performing" as you know they do at home, you wonder if it captured an accurate score. But knowing that it is compared to scores of children of the same age/patience threshold, I will accept these scores for what they are now.

It is strange, how as a parent, I hoped for either MG scores or just enough for DYS because I feel like we are drowning here and will need support. When she told me it was 99.8%ile, it did take my breath away. But we weren't surprised.

I think it was more like 4 hours, bathroom breaks, snacks and Lego breaks. There was a copying test at the end, but I'm certain it was the DAS-ii only.

I forgot to mention, she did not use the preschool version, she used the one for ages 2.6-17. There were no manipulatives. Could this be why it took so long?

The form for age 3.11 is normed up through age 8.11. The form that is normed through age 17.11 begins with age 5.0 norms. They are both the same edition. I would have thought that she did give the form designed for his age group, but since it has items for nearly nine-year-olds, and he would have started from the first item, it could still take longer than usual, if she had to give every item.

OTOH, no manipulatives? There should have been colored blocks or foam pieces, for one subtest, and various small toys or colored chips, for another subtest. (The colored blocks would apply to either the early years or school-age form. Unless she skipped the spatial cluster altogether, as being the least correlated with giftedness.) If you really didn't have any manipulatives, I would suspect that she administered the school-age form, which really only has norms down to age 5.0. In that case, the GCA is a low estimate, as your child is over a year younger than the lowest age norm group.

Zero manipulatives, except a pencil for the matching numbers portion. On the section where there are symbols/shapes and the tester says something like, "listen" then points to each symbol and says a word like a color or "the" and then on the next page, he has to read the symbol sentence-she looked over at some point and she said, "this is where I start my high schoolers". That portion went on for a long time. He took a long bathroom break, came back and picked up where we left off.
So this makes me think it was the 17.1 version.

So that means she is using some kind of altered norms or estimated standard scores, because that form of the test only goes down to age 5.0.

Ok great to know. After you told me this, I read the same online. I'll sink my teeth in the full report soon and see what yit says.
I hope that one of those scores are 145 so that we can apply for DYS if we decide and we don't have to test again for awhile.

Appreciate your help tremendously. I read your replies about testing, you are very good at explaining and I'm really starting to understand it. It's been a long time since I have taken a course on the subject and it's embarrassing to say, but when I administered the academic achievement tests, I didn't understand the scoring as I should have.

I just looked back over your previous post, and I think there may have been subtests from other tests involved, because the symbol-sentence task you describe three posts back sounds like the visual-auditory learning subtest from the WJIIICOG. There is not a similar task on the DAS-II (although the new WISC-V has a related task among the complementary subtests).

I think the training special ed teachers get in assessment is not as comprehensive as that provided to school/clinical/neuro psychs. Then there seems to be this expectation that special ed teachers will just learn the rest of it on the job, which is really not a reasonable demand to place on people.

Sad and true.