Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 68 points between PSI and GAI! Disability?

I agree, CFK. It's one of the reasons homeschooling is working better for us than public school was.

I had trouble convincing the 1st grade teacher that DS7 was really in need of more challenging work because he didn't finish the work he was given in the time allotted. But the more boring it was to him, the slower he did it.

School really just isn't set up to deal with his particular profile, though I suspect he is going to accomplish a lot in his adult life.

PSI and WMI have a lot more to do with how a kid fits into the system than the end result of their education, I think. But knowing those non-GAI scores did help me to realize that public school wasn't going to be a good fit in his particular case, and thus allowed me to serve his needs more effectively. FWIW...

There are lots of abilities and traits that predict school performance that have nothing to do with intelligence (i.e., g). Do they belong in an IQ test? I think it's reasonable to say they don't. I like the idea of preserving IQ scores as a more generalized measure of abilities not contaminated with more specific abilities. If you want the IQ test to be an even better predictor of school performance, why not add some measures of sustained attention, motivation, vision, hearing, mood, etc... There are just too many specific abilities you could include and there are other cognitive tests that are much better measures of these specific skills. But I know it's not going to change any time soon - just food for thought...

I see what you're saying, but I don't think IQ tests are really purposed for finding GTness. That's not why they exist. They are used that way, sure, but it's not by design.

I think they exist to find out how people will fit into the educational system, or perhaps a work environment for adults. I think they picked factors easy to test that related to that goal. Persistence is harder to test and doesn't seem like intelligence to the average person. But memory and speed do. So they picked those.

Do I like them as a measure of intelligence? Not so much, no. But I do think they were useful for me to see on my son's test, and they did factor into his issues at school.

<shrug> It's kind of a wash for me.

Yeah, persistence of the gt sort probably seems like obsession and bull-headedness to most folks. Could even come across as 'slowness', for sure. Certainly on a test it could.

I think that adding these tests that sort of seem like measures of intelligence but that don't measure any specific cognitive skill add to the overconfidence in the ability of the IQ tests alone to predict how a kid learns. The tests were designed decades ago to predict which groups of people would do well in school. But it just doesn't do a good job at that for an individual child. For a gt kid who has a relative weakness (but not impaired) in, say, speed, the IQ test may "make sense" in light of their weaknesses in school. But IQ tests are being used irresponsibly to diagnose learning disabilities and to make recommendations for intervention on the basis of subtest score scatter. That overconfidence is causing kids to slip through the cracks that may have a very specific learning issue (e.g., memory disorder). IQ tests do not test isolated cognitive functions and don't give a full (or even close) profile of strengths and weaknesses in learning. With kids who may be 2E, all it can do is raise red flags that should point to further evaluation. Including tests that are not related to 'g' just adds to that overconfidence. Why aren't the examiners making the limitations of the IQ test clear?

My question regarding FS vs GAI and WM/PSI is how low is low? On this board we're talking about differences between WM/PSI and VCI/PRI where VCI/PRI are very, very high. At one site I read, it was noted that the WM/PSI is really for indicating educational success at the lower end of the spectrum. For ex: a 20 pt difference w/ avg VCI/PRI and even lower PSI/WM affects a child greatly in the classroom. So would a >20pt difference putting PSI/WMI in the avg range and VCI/PRI in the 140s, have an adverse affect on an HG+ kid? The report I read suggested not. But if you do you have more info and more complex info in your head compared to age-mates, would an avg PSI/WMI have an affect on performance?

Jool, I agree completely, especially about overconfidence in IQ tests and using the test for diagnosing things beyond the scope of the test. Absolutely right! Yes!

Dazey, I think it depends upon what you mean by "adverse effect" there. A relatively big difference between FS vs. GAI *DOES* have an effect on performance. I say that anecdotally from watching my son, not from any study that I'm reading. But I do think it's just common sense. If you can't think through things as fast or you can't remember things as well, but you have more in your brain to think through and remember, it IS going to affect how you can do things. It has to, doesn't it?

But does that issue have an effect on performance that acts as an actual LD that puts a kid BEHIND in class? And not merely "not as far ahead as he could be if his speed and memory were as strong as his comprehension." (Which always seems to me to be floating into a useless "what if" land. As in the "impaired" vs. "relative weakness" that Jool described above.)

I guess I have trouble seeing "average" as necessarily bad.

Now, if it interferes with learning, obviously that's different. I see that potential for that problem with my son, and we do have to use some work arounds--less focus on mental math and more writing things down, more time to think through his work, etc. But these are not major adaptations for us as homeschoolers.

In a formal school setting, however, with a teacher who didn't get him, they *could* be major--and ungettable!

So "how low is low" is a good question, I think. It's certainly one to consider as we make decisions for our own kids, even if we're not overthrowing the IQ testing system!

My guess is that the kids with high scores on all the indices look different and learn different from kids who had high GAI and average WM/PSI scores. There's a relative weakness somewhere for the ones with the discrepancy. I would also guess that the HG+ kids with average WM/PSI are a very heterogenous bunch. Some just have a relative weakness but they are normal with no real impairments, just overlying strengths. Some have an underlying disability but use their intelligence to compensate. Some may have slower processing, some slower motorically, some more perfectionistic, some have working memory issues, some have attention issues, etc... I would say that if it just "makes sense" in terms of what you know about them by being their parent, and it's not causing problems in their environment, it's okay. But if a child is struggling, you need to delve deeper to get at the specific issue is that is causing the discrepancy. I guess what I'm saying is that an average score (or a disproportionately low score) doesn't necessarily rule out a problem. Intelligent people can compensate for learning disabilities, especially on IQ subtests where there are many skills to fall back on to get an adequate score.

Kriston, we crossposted but I think said basically the same thing using different words .

Let me preface this by saying that I find IQ tests painfully limited. I have had multiple tests done on multiple kids, but they were all for specific purposes and not because I was curious. I think I've gotten more questions than answers. I'm glad others have found tests more useful because it's nice if they help someone! In observing my own kids, I think personality trumps ability all day long, so that two kids with very similar scores appear drastically different in everyday life because of who they are. I almost wish I didn't know anything about their scores and how they get classified because the tests are just so restricted.

But with that caveat, on to the question above. I have one kid with average PSI and one kid with major strengths in PSI/WMI. In my observations of them, the speedy kid takes on information quite differently. He didn't learn to read, simply seemed to master it one day to the next. He spelled like an adult by K because he remembers any word he's seen once. He didn't *learn* multiplication tables but saw them once during a long car trip, and then he could multiply. He has a low tolerance for school because of the speed, more than the IQ. It's almost painful for him to go slowly. My kid with average PSI needs some repetition to learn and needs much more exposure to a topic for mastery. The abililty to think deeply about something isn't much different between them, but acquisition of new information is hugely different.

I think speed matters in early elementary school because of the constant repetition and how slow the curriculum advances. My kids need different environments partly based on the speed differences. I think it can matter as an adult in some areas that require digesting huge amounts of information - med school or law school - but much less so in fields where there's emphasis on creativity and production over time like most grad schools, not to mention art, engineering, etc.