Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Levels of giftedness

Thanks Dottie and delbows for clarifying. And thanks for being kind in responding to my first attempt at " I think I know what I'm talking about"!

If I remember correctly concerning the Harcourt Study(thanks, I'm great at pulling data out of the air and not remembering where I got it from), the kids chosen had previously scored 130+ on the previous WISC.
Does anyone have the link, I could probably find it if needed.

Is that what you meant by not sure how the children were chosen?
Also, Dottie, I really am pretty new to this and it was explained to me "all the children who took the test".
Could you explain the term norming sample. Remember, I'm not the math/statistics person and someone told me there are no stupid questions..........right????
Please don't say only stupid people

Thanks,
Incog

True. The 99.9 percentile for AE may be 26 or 27.

I've thought a lot about this study since I have a kid who has been tested on the SB5 and has a score that is PG by the Ruf/Hoagies scales but is below a 145. I really wanted this study to prove that he "should" have been over a 145 *if* we had the "right" test!

But I don't think it does. There are a lot of factors that go into this score difference.
1) The SB5 was designed to give a score that is about 3-4 points lower than previous tests to compensate for the Flynn effect (the observation that IQ test scores increase over time). I think one of the things that is contraversial is that this effect has not been shown to exist at the tails of the curve.
2)The tests are measuring different kinds of intelligence, different skill, knowledge, processing etc, so a child with the skills to do well on one test might lack the skills to do well on the other. This does not mean that one is more or less smart, just differently smart.
3) Regression to the mean. The statistical principle whereby outlyers on a test tend to get scores closer to the mean when the test is repeated and
4) the kids got older between test 1 and test 2. They may have hit fewer test ceilings on the first test and more ceilings on the second because as they got older they were working at the higher levels of the test.

What we need to really prove the difference (to go along with this study) is the opposite study--the one that tests kids first on the SB5 and then retests the highest scorers on the WISC3. You might confirm that the SB5 consistently gives lower scores. But one might find that the kids that do well on the SB5 don't do as well on the WISC. You just don't know until that study has been done.

I do know that when I discussed all my ideas about why DS's score showed he was PG with the DITD counselor after we had not been accepted, she just said, "well, we have plenty of kids who do score over 145 on the SB5." For those of you applying, though, with an IQ score below the cutoff, keep in mind that we had invalid AT scores (we had thought they were accepted subtests but they weren't). For kids with high enough AT scores, they might look more closely at those close, but not quite, IQ scores.

I have a very good friend who is a child psychologist. He doesn't routinely do IQ testing, but he is trained in this area and does it from time to time to keep in practice with it. He called me the other day and asked if my girls would be willing to be guinea pigs for him by letting him give them the SB. My kids jumped at the chance because they love him. He's great with kids, and my girls know him from church and feel comfortable with him. He won't write up a formal report because he's doing it for practice and because he's such a good friend. However, he says it will give us an idea of their abilities.

This is great for us because DD9 has never been formally tested at school. She was only given a screener (NNAT) and was denied further testing because of her score. However, she's very verbal and not good at visual-spatial stuff. DD6 is going to be screened by the school soon.

I wonder how these well-known tests (WISC IV and SB5) compare to the RIAS (Reynolds) that our school district uses.

acs said in 1) that intelligence increases over time...based on my DS 13 and his teenage sluggishness and failure to listen or understand these days, I'm not so sure.

I wonder if a more useful number wouldn't be the 'mental age' of the child, so you know your child is 4 but his/her mind operates like one of 4+X years old.

This way you know if s/he can work with abstract concepts and to which level and then adapt the teaching style accordingly.

Aha Kcab, I think you are on to something. I do not think an IQ test can determine the ability to be creative and/or unconventional. Yet, these two traits are what are responsible for turning a man's name into a definition for unmatched, unmeasureable brilliance.
Einstein

Hmmm...Very thought-provoking post, J.

I, too, like the more global approach that CFK and Isa suggest, but am having a wee bit of trouble with the straight "What can they show us?" of this age/grade level scale idea.

The info GT kids choose to pursue does seem relevant to the discussion and gets left out of the "What grade level are they operating at?" approach. The intensity of the interest also matters, and I think that intense but untraditional interests get left out altogether when looking at age/grade level alone.

For example, liking cars is one thing, and may even be age-appropriate for a 2yo. But at at age 2, knowing EVERYTHING about cars--how they work, the makes and models of every car on the road, etc.--is not age-appropriate (!) and it does indicate a depth of interest and ability that wouldn't show itself in testing or in this above-age-level strategy. I'm solidly into middle-age, and I haven't learned these things about cars yet, but my DS did well before his 3rd birthday! I used to joke that if we needed to ID a getaway car, I'd have to turn to my toddler and say, "What kind of car was it, honey?" How'd that be for a witness!?

I don't mean to be just a wet blanket here... I'm afraid I have no helpful suggestions about how to catch these kids whose interests are so far off the beaten path. *sigh* I suspect that if there were an easy, straightforward way to ID these kids, someone smarter than me would have found a way to do it long ago!

Hey Gratified,
I wasn't implying that Einstein would not test well. My point is there had been and will continue to be scientists that are estimated or have been identified as having IQ's equal or greater that Einstein's.
He was creative and unconventional, which allowed him to totally reject the "current day thinking" in the physics world. Had he gone along with the crowd, one assumes he may not have developed his yet unmtatched theories.
See where I'm comming from? These are qualities you cannot test for. From what I understand there is a test that measures creativity, however, I'm not sure anyone can tangibly measure it.


Incog

But, see, I worry that because I thought DS6 was just MG before he started school, I missed opportunities with him--and that seems to be a common thread here! Many of us fear that we should have done more to nurture our kids' gifts earlier.

As of late K, DS6 wasn't achieving as much in math as he was in reading (only 1-2 grades above level for a 144 Broad Math score on the WJ). Well, I'm an English-y person, so I tended to pay more attention to his verbal skills. Did I hamper his development because I didn't see just how capable he was? I think I probably did.

He seems to be catching up, but that doesn't mean I didn't get in his way. Early ID is best for these kids. It just is, even if there's no formal schooling to advocate for yet. Informal schooling at home matters, too.

What's more, I should probably have been advocating with the schools much more strongly for my son from the beginning of preschool, certainly by K. But if a kid isn't IDd before school starts, how can a parent do that? DS6 was really languishing, but because he's not a troublemaker by nature, rather is a go-along kid, he got the short straw.

And just because my example was with a preschooler, that doesn't mean only preschoolers have "weird," not-strictly-academic interests. What about the 1st grader obsessed with philosophy? That's not taught in any school I knew of before college. How do you rate that kid in terms of grade-level? He's not thinking at a college-level yet, but he is thinking ABOUT something college-level, how do you rate that?

Or the kid who can do crazy calculations in his head, calculations that no one is going to ask him to do...ever! Not in any grade! I know a kid like this. I'd guess he's at least HG in math, but he had a hard time even being IDd for the GT program at school. Offbeat stuff like that is just not on anybody's radar, at least not around here.

Again, I'm not trying to be obnoxious or difficult. And maybe I'm asking for more than is possible. I know that. I just think the issue is a lot more complicated than we're making it seem here...