Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment recent testing

Curious if anyone can help. My child was recently tested with the DAS 2. She did not qualify for the gifted program because her GCA score was 126. When I looked at her scores I realized her verbal was 136, but her nonverbal reasoning was 113 and spatial was 114. Does anyone know if it is common to have such a significant difference between verbal and nonverbal scores? Also does anyone know what that means? I know that she is a bright girl and could use enrichment for language arts, but I am afraid she will receive any since she didn't qualify for the program due to her nonverbal and spatial scores.

This is the same test that my son just took. His spatial score was extremely low because of what the diagnostician called a high level of creativity. The test sections are timed and in his need to be creative, he ran out of time over and over. It could be the same issue for your daughter.

Talk to the diagnostician, find out if time was a factor. If it was, consider having her tested with the SB-5 which has no timed sections.

Are you serious? No timed sections on the SB-5??? My dd totally should have taken that. We knew nothing about anything when we had her tested. We were at a real low point in school and willing to try anything. The psych who administered the WISC told me time was a problem for her. I feel so bad having put her through that knowing now that there was another option. Oh well...I'm sure the results would not be that much different and I don't think we did any permanent damage to her :-)

Well, the SB-5 isn't supposed to be very friendly to highly verbal kids, so it might not be a good fit for that reason. You could certainly wait a few months and try the SB-5, but it is supposed to be better for kids who are visual-spatial learners.

The GT program won't accept the verbal score?

Thanks for the input. No, they will not qualify her into GT based on her verbal scores alone. I will have to talk to the psych who administered the test and see what her impression was. I will have to also ask the psych if she ran out of time during the testing.

Hi Sunmac,
I think that the idea is to met each child's needs, rather than label the kid. Perhaps even if she doesn't get to do the standard 'gifted program' that you could still pursue accomidation for her very gifted verbal side.
Best Wishes,
Grinity