Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Why test?

Can you share with me when and why you decided to have your child tested? What are the benefits? My son is 6 and we live close enough to Johns Hopkins that we could go there for testing, but the approximate $2000 price tag has me wondering if it's really necessary. All testing for the gifted and talented center in our school system is based on in-school assessments and recommendations I believe. I'd love to hear how having your child's scores helped you in any way.

Mom2R&R,

Our DS took the WISC when he was 6 as part of the admission process at a local gifted private school. It's proved to be far more helpful that just for that purpose, however, as it gave us a clue about his strengths and weaknesses (and also indicated to us his level of giftedness, which was much higher than we were expecting). That's helped us shape an education plan for him.

What kind of testing would be included in that price tag? I ask because that seems very steep to me, unless perhaps there is both ability and achievement administered.

Thank you George C, the website states, "DCC licensed psychologists administer tests of intelligence, achievement, personality, cognitive processing, and/or social and emotional development, which can be used to evaluate and/or diagnose:
cognitive strengths and weaknesses
specific learning disabilities
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Asperger's Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disability
Evaluations include:

a review of prior records
a written report with recommendations
a consultation session to discuss and interpret findings.
Fees for psycho-educational evaluation depend on the complexity of the assessment battery necessary, but can range from $1500 to $3,500. "

I was saying around $2,000 being conservative. Would I be better off looking elsewhere?

As an assessment professional, in general, I am a testing hawk (except, of course, when I am swamped at work ). I think it can only be helpful to understand your child (and for them to understand themselves) better in any way. Cognitive & achievement testing are one aspect of that understanding.

OTOH, we have not chosen to have any of our own children tested. It has not been a gatekeeper to accessing any services or resources that might have been of value to us or them, so far (but we homeschool, so formal GT programs have not been relevant). If it became evident that testing had practical value (say for documenting accommodations on high-stakes college entrance exams), then I think we would consider testing.

I am also, of course, in the low-incidence position of being able to informally assess my own children with some degree of confidence. I suspect I would take a different position on testing for our children if I were not.

Thank you aeh. As an assessment professional, do you have suggestions on which tests are of the most value?

With kid #1, he got tested as part of an evaluation for ADHD or asd because of problems at preschool. We really needed an outside observer to tell us if we were the obtuse ones or if the school(s) just didn't get him. getting testing helped us figure out what to do with him. As much as I'm curious about kid #2, I don't want to have her tested until we need to deal with early entry to kindergarten several years from now.

I tested because things didn't add up at the end of the first year of school. It cost me NZ$210 for just the WJiii cognitive though.

I am new to these forums and testing for GT programs. We have a DS8 and DS6/7, we have known our DS8 was gifted and did not feel a need to have him tested until the school system needed it for entrance to the Bridges program sponsored by the district.

DS8 was given the WISC-V paid for by the district, it was not a complete test only enough to get a FISQ and GAI score. Our thoughts when we found out they were going to have him tested for the Bridges program was about getting him more advanced resources and exposure to other kids at his level.

I am still learning about these test, (DS8's scores are posted in another thread.) and in just a few days have come to learn a great deal. DS8 has a little brother who will be 7 in Feb. DS7 shows sign of math aptitude but only in the last 3-4 months. he struggles with other area's. If we knew 3 years ago what we know now I would have paid to have DS8 tested at 5yo.
We are not a high income family but given what we are finding out now we would have figured it out.

having an official test turns us from typical "my kid is gifted" to having tools to better help our boys be happy and reach any goal they want.

DS - we tested back in grade one (he was 6.5) because the school told us to test for ADHD and basically thought he was a behaviour issue. We kind of figured he was gifted (although we were still kind of stunned with his scores) but he was also struggling with writing and we wanted to get more info to help with advocacy because school was not going well. (he is 2e)

DD - we tested her at 7 because we had tested DS and it was only fair. We only did the WISC with her because we didn't suspect any LD's and that was enough for our purposes at this point. We figured she was also gifted and it wouldn't hurt with advocacy although since she isn't 2e and has a completely different personality the school was already doing way more for her than they ever did for DS with his 2 full psych-ed assessments to back everything up.

We have spend a ridiculous amount on testing and don't regret it. We were also able to get a lot of it covered with our benefits so that might be something to look into. DS had to go through 2 rounds because he wasn't very cooperative and he was too young to label as LD when we tested the first time so we had to retest 2 years later. I'm very glad that we have tested because we had kind of assumed they were both MG and would have gone along with the flow. I have a much easier time challenging the educational experts that have no idea what to do with my kids now that I have psych reports to back me up. Realizing their scores has helped make choices and open doors. The screening that the school did missed DS (likely due to the 2e) so we kind of had to test privately to access gifted programming with him.

DYS would have been really nice to have access to but we aren't in the U.S.

Ditto.

Comprehensive testing provides a ton of valuable information and understanding. It also puts a very helpful barrier of objective data between you and kid. Even when we weren't told anything we didn't already know, we were able to step back and much more calmly deal with behaviours (whether gifted or slow processing/ writing) as the "can't" they are, and not the "won't" they so often feel like.

That said, I wouldn't rush into testing unless you have current need, or see current problems. We've had to do multiple rounds with our 2E kids because their additional exceptionalities were just too well compensated and masked when they were younger, so we weren't yet asking the right questions.