Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment What do I do with these scores?

I'm so glad I found this forum. We had our son (4.3) tested this summer and got results that we know aren't accurate. He was recently diagnosed with a chronic disease and has been very sick. But, we went ahead with the testing because life goes on. His preschool teacher and I needed some guidance. With his health problems, we're trying especially hard to avoid school problems. What we got were inaccurate scores and no guidance from the child psychologist. Now what? What do we do with these scores? Any advise?

The child psych we went to said that the ceiling for the WPPSI-III is 130 and if we see anything higher on-line, not to compare. Also, he told us that it's a good thing that our son has this chronic disease because he can just concentrate on that and never have to worry about school. GRRRRRR!!!!! I don't think so! My son loves to learn and should be concentrating on that rather than growing up feeling sorry for himself because of his disease.

One last thing...the person giving the test told me that ds kept putting his head down because he was tired and even got on the floor at one point to lay down. After talking to the psychologist about it later, I wonder if ds was just bored with the whole thing.

Here are the scores:

WPPSI-III
Verbal 133
Performance 131
Processing Speed 94
Full-Scale 129

WJ-III
Letter-Word Ident. 172
Passage Comp. 148
Spelling 113 (This one is completely inaccurate. He's a spelling whiz! I would have expected this score to be as high as letter-word ident.)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

my take on the scores..i would say the scores are very good considering your DS4s circumstances. His lower processing speed is pretty common among the GT population, but could also be a result of fatigue..The 133 and 131 show a moderately gifted child...

as frustrating as it is, i would forget about the child pychologist and focus on the preschool teacher, as she is the one who will make impact on your son. He probably could use lots of enrichment within his classroom. Also, does he go full or half-day?? i found it very interesting on the kindergarden thread that so many of us like half-day school for their kids because they don't get too exhausted and there is still time for home enrichment. That might be ideal as your DS4 likely has stamina issues.

Also if he is interested in math and doing academics, you might want to look into one of the online programs such as EPGY which can deliver a lot of content in a very efficient/not time-consuming way. He might be too young yet though for that.

Also, are you familiar with montessori? my dd5 used to attend a montessori and the atmosphere was very relaxed and seemed less tiring for the kids than traditional preschool. For example, lying on the floor to do work was ok..

irene

Thank, Irene. Yes, ds only goes 1/2 time 4 days a week. His preschool teacher is wonderful and looks at it as a social experience for him. Because he has been reading for a year now, there isn't anything new that she will be teaching him this year. I wish the montessori school were an option for us, but the one close by requires that he attend full time 5 days a week. I'm not willing to give up that time with him.

What confuses me most about the testing was that the child psych. said that 130 was the ceiling for the testing he did. That makes no sense to me unless he didn't let ds even attempt more difficult questions. Does that make sense at all?

Maybe the psychologist was referring to the descriptive categories assigned to different score ranges:

100-114 Average
115-124 High Average
125-129 Superior
130+ Very Superior

I must say that the psychologist sounds completely insensitive!

His processing speed is average, while the other scores are high. The tester could calculate the FSIQ w/o coding and that will be similar to GAI index from teh WISC-IV. In our area, for example, gifted schools want to look at the scores w/o processing speed. They are also interested to see if a procesing speed is too low which could indicate potential problems.

My DD was tested at 4-10, and she also did not make a good connection with the tester. She seemed to rush through the process (my dd, and the tester did not motivate her to do more). She got similar WPPSI scores to your ds's. Just today we got her score, we had her retested with WISC-IV at 6-7, and her results were MUCH higher. This time she loved the experience!

I have heard of testers interrupting the test after a subsection if the child seems to tired or distracted. The fact that the tester did not do anything about it, makes me think that the results are probably an underestimation of your ds's true abilities.

Is your psychologist have experience with gifted kids? That can make a huge difference! So sorry that you had such a bad experience.

That's a good point. We did the testing on the recommendation of our pediatrician. He suggested it because James is reading and doing math at such a high level so young. Also, James decided he wanted to learn spanish (something I have no knowledge of) and is picking it up like I can't believe. Thank goodness for the internet and a spanish speaking teacher at the preschool (not his teacher; just someone I can relay his questions to).

I think we jumped into the testing not knowing enough about it and what we wanted out of it. Now that it's done, I wish we had done more research to find a better fit for him.

To answer other's questions, the child psychologist wasn't basing his comments concerning the IQ score on the standard scale. He told us that the test he used doesn't go higher than 130 and can't be compared to anything we see online that goes higher. That doesn't make sense to me at all. We'll just retest him with someone more qualified when he's a bit older.

"Also, he told us that it's a good thing that our son has this chronic disease because he can just concentrate on that and never have to worry about school. GRRRRRR!!!!! "

Wow, just wow. Not that it is an honor you want but you may win for the worst testing story ever. That's simply terrible. Sorry that happened to you.

I just don't get this. Tester gave you scores higher than 130 and yet says that the test doesn't go higher than 130? The WPPSI-III certainly goes higher than 130....

Exactly my point. We went into it knowing that the results would come out low considering how ill he has been. But, we didn't expect such strange feedback from the child psychologist. I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this is odd. Thanks, everyone for your comments.