Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment a bit surprised by scores-wppsi iv

I know that it is probably not helpful to have expectations or to compare siblings but of course it is hard not to do this.

DD 4.11 recently took the WPPSI IV. Her school needed it sometime this year and I thought it made more sense to do it now and then if we needed to do it again later then she could be tested on the WISC in a couple of years.

Based on my observations of my 2 children, I thought they would be similar but that DD 4 would be higher overall plus more evenly spread. DD 8 was tested at 6 on the WISC (IV I think) and was much higher on the verbal portions. I guess I thought DD 4 would be higher because she just seem to pick up everything a little faster and easier than DD 8. For example, DD 8 was an early talker and knew colors/letters etc very early and was reading by 3y with alot of interest in reading. DD4 was not as intensely curious about reading but spoke even earlier, had maybe 500 words at 18 months instead of around 200-300 and was reading with no obvious effort at all by 2y 4 months. DD4 seems to have stronger interest and ability in math and puzzles although DD8 was/in good as well.

Anyway, with only her sibling as a baseline I guess I made some assumptions about how DD 4 would score. Oh, I should also add that I have had a number of comments from people with alot of experience with gifted kids who warned me that she (DD4) was likely very very high.

Ok, so I wanted to know if that was true as it would impact our school decisions in the next 1-2 years so we had her do the test.

Her scores were :

I believe that a GAI is not needed in her situation although I am curious what it would be assuming it can be calculated for this test. I saw the tables to calculate it for the WISC but not for the WPPSI. If anyone knows how to do it please let me know.

I realize that X is a great number-still quite gifted but hopefully we won't be struggling to find a good fit through school. Also I realize that she is only 4 and she may test differently on a future test. I do think she was pretty cooperative although she has a tendency not to answer anything if she is not sure of the answer. DD8 has a GAI 8 points higher than her full scale score I guess I was used to thinking of her cognitive ability as her GAI score and so I thought DD4 would probably be just higher than that. Maybe I am nitpicking too much and trying to compare apples to oranges with these two tests or just expecting too much from 1-2 hours of testing in both my children's lives. Anyway, just curious of anyone's thoughts about this spread of the subtests, how to do the GAI and/or any observations regarding the WPPSI IV -newer test vs WISC IV-older test and about siblings and how their scores vary.

I think the numbers give a general idea of what is going on with a child but I wouldn't fall into the trap of thinking "Child A was 135 with X subtest and Child B was 130 so Child A must be more advanced in that skill." (or something along those lines). There is a margin of error plus it's a different test from the WISC. DS's WPPSI score (what was actually completed, at any rate) bore no resemblance to his WISC score a couple years later. His highest scores on both tests were in the perceptual reasoning category but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The two FSIQ scores were about 25 points apart.

DS strikes me as the one that is more "gifted", at least in terms of how he does with academics, and having stereotypical gifted traits and intense interests, but he his GAI was about 25 pts lower than DD's (he was tested at 6 years and she was tested at 8 years--not sure what difference that makes).

I don't want to use the word "nitpicking" but just to caution you to not make so much of the scores and the differences. It's interesting to think about and I have done it as well, but ultimately the scores are just a snapshot.

You have two very smart children. These tests are snapshots based on their day. Both are gifted.

I can't speak to the scores, but I can remind you that you have to think of the FSIQ to the FSIQ instead of the GAI to the FSIQ.

Both girls are within 10 points of each other, which tends to jive with what I've read about sibling IQ.

Also 4 is very young to be testing, it's supposed to be relatively unstable, you may find that she tests higher on the WISC.

Your thinking about caveats is all on point:

1. She's very young, and these scores are often unstable. Your older one was tested nearer a stable age, but still fairly young, so those scores may also shift somewhat if re-tested in the next year or three.

2. The WPPSI-IV has fairly new norms, while the WISC-IV was already late in (in the last year) its obsolescence cycle by the time your older one was tested. That alone is probably good for about 3-5 points, possibly more for children in the upper extreme.

3. Yes, siblings are usually within 10 points of each other, though of course there are many exceptions.

4. Finally, formal cognitive assessment does not capture everything (or even the most important things) about a child's learning potential, including such critical attributes as determination, creativity, and social reasoning. Many of the unmeasured (and unmeasurable) qualities have profound effects on the early presentation and long-term success (however you define that) in life of the individual.

Enjoy your darlings!

ETA: unfortunately, I don't have access to a WPPSI-IV manual, since I don't currently work with littles, so I can't help you with the GAI.

thanks everyone. I know logically all the limitations in testing and yet we went to the time and expense of testing and so I want to get all of the information out of it that I can. Its hard when you want to make decisions using the information but you are not sure how much to trust the results. I deleted the scores for privacy but if anyone knows how to do the GAI please let me know and I can put them back or send them PM