Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment How to interpret test scores

Hi all, I have a son who is 7 and we recently administered the Stanford Binet because he was complaining of boredom at school (and he had previously been tested at 4 for local gifted school placement with a very high result, but didn't get lottery admission to the school). He is now in the 2nd grade at a strong public school, but in a heterogeneous classroom.

I'm just trying to understand his results better, because although they suggest he is very highly gifted, we do not necessarily see this in him. We can tell he is advanced, and he is a truly gifted artist and creator (his sketches are well beyond what most adults can do- he can construct the most amazing things with legos and blocks). So I'm just trying to understand whether a giftedness in a particular area (artistic, spacial) can still show such high results in the IQ test, or whether the artistic giftedness is simply the only way where we can see signs of his giftedness right now. He is not a terribly advanced reader (again, ahead of most of the class but not reading complicated materials or anything). His math understanding seems advanced (understands algebra concepts, etc.) but at the same time, he makes many common computational, careless mistakes.

I write this because I am meeting with the school/teacher next week to discuss how best to address his needs, but I don't want to overstate or understate them. I'd love some guidance/input based on what all of you already know about interpreting these results.

His SB5 FSIQ is 152. The factor index scores are as follows:
Fluid Reasoning (FR) - 99% (age equiv. 28 year old)
Knowledge (KN) - 96% (11yr,3mo)
Quantitative REasoning (QR) - 93 (10yr, 2mo)
Visual Spacial (VS) - 99.6% (16yr, 10mo)
Working Memory (WM) - 96 (10yr, 9mo)

I'd really love your 2 cents about these results and what they mean.

Thanks so much!

Bump

Welcome, M&M!

Obviously, those are strong test scores. The one correction I would make is that his FSIQ is unlikely to be correct, as that would be substantially higher than suggested by his index scores. A glance at my manual indicates that his factor scores would result in an FSIQ of 134, which corresponds to a sum of scaled scores of 152, which is probably where you saw that number.

My second comment is that the age-equivalents are not the best measure to go by, and are actually specifically discouraged by the APA and NASP (the two professional organizations which accredit assessors of cognition). The discussion below is based on percentiles and standard deviations, not age-equivalents.

That being said, he is still clearly a highly capable child, with a particular strength in the visual-spatial area (this lines up with his artistic giftedness very well). His fluid reasoning is comparable to his visual-spatial gifts, though insignificantly lower. The remaining three areas are around a standard deviation lower, falling just above and below the beginning of the moderately gifted range. I would say he is most accurately described as highly gifted in visual-spatial areas (and possibly fluid reasoning), and moderately gifted in the other areas.

This suggests that the academic profile you see at the moment does reflect his cognitive profile, with the exception of careless errors affecting his on-demand mathematical performance. I would not be surprised if the careless errors were simply developmental in nature, or possibly from lack of cognitive engagement with the tasks, due to insufficient challenge. What you report of his reading ability is consistent with where his knowledge index falls, as the best available estimate of reading-related ability (since we don't know his verbal and nonverbal indices, it's not clear if there is a broader verbal/nonverbal profile). The data do not suggest that he is underperforming in reading, though he may be in math.

Has he been more thoroughly evaluated in terms of academic achievement? It can be helpful in advocacy to have objective data on academic skills.

Welcome to the boards, M&M. aeh explained the SB scores to you - my advice is more in terms of how to approach the conversation. We found in early elementary that talking to teachers about IQ/ability scores didn't get us much of anywhere - especially in early elementary, where there are often quite a few parents advocating for their children have more challenge in school. What helped more was to have examples and/or testing showing achievement. For your meeting next week, I'd try to collect and take in examples of the math work your ds is capable of doing - if he doesn't have something comparable from school, take work he's done at home. If the school hesitates to give him the differentiation you're hoping for, request that the school do achievement testing to determine what level he's performing at (end of year curriculum tests are one way to do this).

I am also wondering - was the gifted lottery school he tested for a public school in your district or a private school? If it was public, even if he didn't get in, he most likely has a "gifted" id attached to his school record (he would have in our district). If anyone from the school where he is now questions or poo-poohs his IQ testing results, point out that he's already been identified as gifted by your school district.

I'll also add something about the art skills, which is most likely neither here nor there for now - but I have a highly visual-spatial child too When he was your ds' age he was much like your ds - his drawings were *amazing* and he loved loved loved to build things with Legos etc. I always thought he'd continue to develop as an artist (drawing was his preferred medium) because his skills were so far out there at that age. Instead.. what looked like amazing artistic skills was really amazing visual spatial thinking. He's in high school now and he is still really talented at drawing a representation of what he sees - but he's not all that interested in art and he didn't really evolve into what I consider to be a talented artist. He's just really really good at copying on paper what he sees in real life. I hope that makes sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thank you for the responses! Polarbear- that is interesting about the VS thinking. My son also is great at copying on paper what he sees in real life. What else do VS advanced capacities translate to?

aeh- that is interesting- thank you for taking the time to respond. What is strange is that his report says "FSIQ" and shows the number 152. Do you think this psychologist is incorrect? Also, how did you calculate the 134 for FSIQ? I'd love to see a guide on this to help me interpret these details more thoroughly.

Thanks again!

Polarbear- he was in a public school district when testing for the program. He did get a seat in another G&T school- just not the one we were hoping for, for him. But we moved after a year and he ended up in heterogeneous environment, but also one where any profile info probably didn't carry over. However, I will ask the school about it- it might still be there.

Great idea about achievement testing. I am hopeful they will create some differentiation for him though. Fingers crossed.

M&M, sorry I didn't notice you asked me a question until now!

I calculated the FSIQ based on the manuals for the SBV, which I happen to administer and interpret professionally. (Not something that is readily accessible to most parents.) I suspect that the psychologist is not exactly incorrect, but might have a typo in the report, or have a formatting issue with columns not lining up, which resulted in the sum of scaled scores ending up in the IQ column.