Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment should I just accept this as my dd's accurate IQ??

Hi, I

She's very very intense and sensitive to environment (loud noises, smells, etc.) She's currently on an IEP for PreK for EBD, although hasn't had issues in class. I always figured her "EBD" like qualities were more a product of giftedness. Just a note, her oldest brother has ADHD and both oldest have anxiety as well. She had horrible tantrums until about a year ago and even now is very difficult to get to follow rules. She is very perceptive and really watches people and their reactions. Very very "spirited." When she's in a group or room of people most often she is just watching and observing all the kids and it's so apparent that she's trying to figure them all out.

She is more a loner than my other kids and seems to be more of a "deep" thinker. She really isn't into being a "pleaser." She's a bit the same as the boy you mention Dottie. She is somewhat limited in what she says. The tester noted that there were times during the test that she would make these big leaps and get difficult questions correct. Then other times when the tester couldn't figure out how/why she missed an easy one.....

Dottie, do you know if there is any research on this one way or another? The folks at the Gifted Development Center assured me that they have never found a family where some kids are gifted and some are not and that, when they've found large differences (10+ pts) that is was where one or more siblings were PG and one or more were MG. They said that they had never found one or more to be MG and one or more to be not gifted.

However, this was the same person at the same location who told me some other things that really irked me and which I was not too sure on, so I'm not taking her word as gospel.

This is on the GDC What we've learned page

"Brothers and sisters are usually within five or ten points in measured ability. Parents' IQ scores are often within 10 points of their children's; even grandparents' IQ scores may be within 10 points of their grandchildren's. We studied 148 sets of siblings and found that over 1/3 were within five points of each other, over 3/5 were within 10 points, and nearly 3/4 were within 13 points. When one child in the family is identified as gifted, the chances are great that all members of the family are gifted."

Hmmm...I've heard the 10-point thing cited often, and there's sense in it to me as a *general* rule. But I think the person is overstating the case.

Notice this in the citation:

That means that over 1/4 were more than 13 points different! So it's not likely that one sibling is GT and the other isn't, but it is definitely possible.

The big point I'd make, though, is that if the IQ score doesn't reflect what you see, then I'd be suspicious of it. Testing is one tool in your parenting arsenal, but it should never replace your critically considered mom-gut. As long as you're skeptical and not the sort to think that your child can do no wrong, then if the score seems wrong, I'd bet it probably is.

Just not because of some 10-point rule that forbids it.

The weird part to me is that we're dealing with someone who presumably understands testing scatter, since she works with testing. Yet here she is stating a hard-and-fast rule about something that simply cannot be hard-and-fast.

I really think she just overstated/misunderstood those results that samson11 cited.

Yeah, we didn't have the GDC test my younger dd, just review other tests she had taken and give us her opinion as to what was going on (a consult). It wasn't superbly expensive, but I also found it to be unhelpful and the woman with whom we consulted was rude to me and rather condesending. As I said, I wasn't too impressed with her and didn't walk away believing all of what she said (and this wasn't due to her think that dd was not gifted, she pretty clearly stated that she thought that dd was quite gifted).

I asked about the sibling spread info from their webpage that samson11 quoted above. She said that those instances where they found large spreads (the 1/4 with greater than 13 pt differences as quoted above), were where one sibling had a PG IQ and another had a MG IQ -- that they hadn't found any 130/115 siblings for instance, but they had found 150/132 siblings.

That seems to make a bit more sense. I guess that's what I would have expected in my daughter's case. I figured she would at least hit 125 or so. Who knows. My husbad is PG so there is some family history for higher scores. My husband is very objective (much more than me, in most cases) and he is pretty convinced these scores for dd are too low.

Dottie - As far as waiting this out. Do you think that it could be a maturity issue. Aside from getting her into K early we don't "need" a test score. The gifted school starts in 2nd so we would have several years for development to run it's course.

My gut reaction would be to question whether your dd has any learning issues that could cause her to score lower than her "true" score (especially since you have indicated that she does better with VS parts than with other parts). From your description of her development, she certainly sounds gifted. Plus, if the scores were really accurate, that would be like a 30-point difference between siblings, right? 2 SD between siblings? that sounds awfully large.

I thought the SB5 was geared toward VSLs. I'd ask the resident gurus here more specifically about the subtest scores, on the off chance something was missed. It sounds like something, somewhere, is not quite right in this situation. Since that's what your intuition seems to be telling you, I would not give up just yet. Even more important than getting into the gifted school would be discovering an undetected learning issue. (I can't recall - is the WISC better for detecting LDs than the SB5?)

That said, I do have one kiddo who made huge developmental leaps in the K timeframe. He was tested by the school psych for his IEP (speech and OT issues), and on that testing his achievement scores significantly exceeded his supposed IQ scores. She had no answer for how that was possible. I suspect part of the answer lies in the test itself and part of the answer lies in the fact that it was a period of very rapid development for my very asynchronous ds.

p.s. I like the idea of waiting it out for a year or so, till you really need that test score to apply to the school, and testing again, perhaps with a different test.

I didn't get the impression that her child was tested at the GDC, just that they were the source of the info re sibling IQ spread.

FWIW, they did test our older dd and we were generally happy with that, just not with the consult re our younger dd a few years later.

Would you mind PMing me the name/contact info of the Denver psych who is much less expensive than the GDC, though, in case we need or want to do any further testing in the future? Thanks!