Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Bilingualism and Testing

So, we had a very interesting meeting over the weekend with a prominent author, educator, and evaluator of gifted kids. We had been thinking about pursuing an assessment for DS4.5 to help us understand his strengths and weaknesses, to get some sense for where he is on the continuum, and to make decisions about his schooling. In the back of our mind was the DYS option if it became relevant.

Her recommendation was that we wait until DS is 6.5 or 7 to do the testing. Not surprisingly, that seems like an eternity to us. Still, her reason was interesting. DS has been enrolled in an immersion French school since he was 3, and she felt strongly that although being bilingual will eventually increase his performance on the various tests, at this stage it is likely to decrease it. The idea is that he's spending a lot of his mental energy learning the second language, and that gets in the way of his development in other areas.

It makes sense. I have often wondered about the disparity between DS's math skills and his reading skills, and thought that perhaps learning a second language was taking up some of the reading part of his brain. (DS does math at something like an 8 or even 9 year old level, but reads only at something like a 6 or 7 year old level.) I'm certain that unless we have big problems in school we'll plan to follow her advice. But I do wonder whether anyone has had any experience with this kind of issue themselves. In other words, has anyone found interaction effects between bilingual education and IQ or Achievement testing? Especially differential effects depending upon how far into the second language the child is?

One clarification: although he speaks it rather fluently now, French is definitely a second language for DS. We lived in France for 3 or 4 months when he was an infant, but neither DW nor I is a native French speaker, and the primary language of the home is English.

Any thoughts or experience greatly appreciated.

BB

Hi BBDad - I cannot speak directly to the bilingualism aspect, but I have a couple of comments.

Our DS5(tomorrow!) has only known English, but his verbal is much stronger than his math. I would bet that most gifted kids have a stronger area, even if they do well across the board. So it's possible that your son will always be stronger in math.

And I think DYS accepts results other than full scale (verbal or nonverbal or FSIQ; reading, math, or total for achievement).

We had our DS tested on SB-V at age 4.1, and it has helped us in planning and advocacy to have this information. I know that after thinking about getting him tested, it would have been impossible for me to wait 2 years! Ask your gut, I guess. If you think it would be useful to have the information now, go for it. If you have loads of extra money, have him tested now, then again in 2 years and you can see for yourself if the second language was a barrier.

DS6 and DS4 are both bilingual from birth. I speak one language and DH speaks English to them. Neither Dh nor I are native English speakers. BTW I hope that excuses all my spelling and grammar errors on this board

DS6 was tested when he was 5.3 and the psychologist told us that his VIQ was lower than it really is. She recommended to retest him when he is 7. She even wrote it in his report. He still got gifted VIQ score but it was significantly lower than his PIQ. To be honest he is a math kid and I would still expect his PIQ being higher than VIQ. I also think that his younger brother will do better on the verbal test than he did. I do believe though that DS6 score was highly influenced by him being bilingual.

As for achievement testing his vocabulary is clearly his weakest point which isn't surprising. He still scored 2 years ahead though. He didn't do as well on the reading portion as I expected. I am not sure why. He is a good reader. He read Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl right before he turned 5 and Alice in Wonderland around the time of testing. It's the only part of the test where I saw lower numbers than expected. He excelled in spelling.

PM if you want more details.

It would be fascinating to have both sets of results, though I'm a bit wary of making DS feel like he's a guinea pig. Ah, who am I kidding? Of course he's a guinea pig - he's our first kid!

Seriously, though, although we're comfortable I wouldn't describe us as having "loads of extra money", and two sets of tests would certainly come at the expense of something. In fact, financial considerations played some role in our reaction to the meeting, since one of the things that most impressed DW about the evaluator was her enthusiasm in suggesting that we wait. Of course it's her job to say what she thinks is best, but in this case that amounted to suggesting that she not take a lot of money from us. At the very least it was quite professional.

LMom: thanks for your comments. I'm sending a PM to you right now.

BB