Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment validity of young test results (like WPPSI)

I think this is hard to pin as well. I have a 3rd grade son that probably wouldn't have shown his true colors achievement wise pre-kindergarten, but had overtaken some other kids that started reading at 3 by the end of that school year. And again, this kind of testing doesn't show EVERYTHING a kid knows. A kid might know a lot about geology or plumbing or star wars characters, etc and that isn't going to show up on a typical academic achievement test. My son was high with the math ability early though.

Achievement can change quite rapidly in HG-PG little ones. My DD5 is showing a similar pattern of learning as my son. A year ago, I considered her my ND kid. It's a combination of LOG, exposure, and the child's particular interest in mastery at a particular moment in time. I think over time it likely becomes a more and more accurate comparison.

I know my ideas about ND, and HG+ are just generally messed up!

Just one other thought: Just b/c IQ scores may not be as stable or reliable in a young child, some of the kids who are getting these really high scores will turn out to be HG or PG. HG+ kids are HG+ kids even when they are little kids, so I wouldn't automatically assume that preschool IQ scores are wrong. I'd just take them as a ballpark estimate and see how things develop over time to ascertain if you want to retest later (if the earlier scores seem off in either direction).

Cricket2, based on your last comment. What about a preschool child that scores in the 115-120range on WPPSI and SB5 (one subtest >99%) and LOG at least level 3 or 4??

Is it possible the IQ score will grow with the child? I am stumped that my dd (just turned 5) is reading so well and asking deep deep questions, math etc. and she only scores 116FSIQ on SB5.

My other two kids are 25pts higher than her (which I get can be possible.) She just seems so much higher than them in many ways.

We see alot about scores being "inflated" but how often are they "deflated."
thanks

I, honestly, suspect that my older dd's scores were "deflated," to put it that way. She had a horrible first grade year with a teacher who yelled at her and everyone else constantly and made them do unbelievable amounts of rote memorization and repetition. We finally pulled her out and homeschooled the end part of the year when I approached the teacher with dd in tow to request that she stop keeping dd in for every recess to finish work & she got down in dd's face and yelled at her, "you're just lazy! That's you're problem!"

Coming off that year and how slowly she was working, we assumed that she just wasn't very bright and was going to be a C student whose teachers needed to stop expecting so much of her. After having someone suggest to me that she was gifted, I did some reading on giftedness & it was like someone had sat down to write an essay on dd. So, we had her tested part of the way through 2nd grade coming off that bad year.

She flat out refused to complete the block design test on the PRI index & got an 8 (25th percentile) on that part. The other two tests in PRI were a 19 (99.9) & somewhere in the mid to upper teens (also in the 90s). She also froze up on the PSI index and came out at the 42nd percentile. I don't think that she is particularly fast so much as deep, but I also think that any pressure to work fast shut her down.

Her FSIQ was in the upper 120s and her GAI was 132/98th percentile. Across the board, dd performs higher than that in terms of achievement. Her Explore scores in 4th grade were close to the cut-off for DYS. Her SRI lexile (reading score) was near 1500 at age 10 (18+grade level), her MAPS scores are in the 97th-99th percentile (the 97th is in math -- her weaker area), etc. She skipped a grade last year &, with already being younger with a fall bd, started 6th grade before her 10th bd. She still tested advanced on all of the CSAP (state NCLB tests), and in the upper 90s on tests like SRI & MAPS.

She seems to be a late bloomer of sorts & becomes more obviously gifted as she gets older. She didn't particularly stand out as amazing to me in preschool & her preschool teacher never said anything to me about her being unusual. She did start reading at 4, talking at 6 months, and some things in hindsight that were probably a bit advanced, but I never would have thought "gifted." At this point, though, she seems much more gifted than 132.

Thanks Cricket that helps.

I guess the more I look at my other two children they are more late bloomers as well. My older son's achievement is also much higher than his FSIQ and it just really jumped this year in a FT GT 3rd grade.

dd5 is severely asynchronous and her emotional/social skills are very very low. She's in therapy for mood deregulation right now. She even got a stomach just from completely the Beery VMI with the psych. So the pieces are starting to fall together for me I suppose.

I guess I just hope that the GT program will accept her without a 120 FSIQ as long as achievement is ahead. I really don't care about the IQ number as long as she is in the appropriate programming at school. She will start K as an almost 6 yr old because of her bday. So that plus her less than accommodating personality has me ready for a rough year (I hope I'm surprised.)

spiritedmama,

Here's another late bloomer to add to the list.
My DS9 scored 78 on the Bayley Scales Of Infant Development IQ test when he was 2.9. (He was completely non-verbal back then. He started talking when he was around 4.) At 5.1, his FSIQ on WPPSI was 124. (Verbal IQ 106/ Performance IQ 131) Then at 8.6, his scores on both IQ (WISC-IV) and achievement(WJ III) were >99.9. He was accepted into DYS program recently.

He was also qualified for the Award Ceremonies (CTY Talent Search) for both 2nd and 3rd grade years, and for 3rd grade, earned "Top In the Country Award" for his Math by scoring 100%.
At school, he skipped 1st grade, and this year in 4th grade, he is taking Algebra class with some advanced 7th/8th graders.

So, you never know.

My son was moved up a grade this year. He has definite signs of giftedness. He is very emotional, he learned things early, he continued to get A+'s throughout K-2nd grades, etc. etc. He took the OLSAT and did very well(99 percentile). He just took the WISC-IV and his qualitive description is only high average. Is this test always "true" to the children's intelligence? I know there are a lot of factors and variables but in his case it doesn't seem to add up or make sense.

Brandy,

I don't think anyone online can give you a definitive answer since we don't know your son. It may indeed be that he just had a bad day while taking the WISC IV. Or it may be that he is better at the cognitive functions that are tested on OLSAT than those tested on WISC, after all each test assesses slightly different functions. Also keep in mind that WISC is purposefully very comprehensive and assesses many different functions so while your son may have done well in some subtests on WISC, he may had done more poorly on other subtests which summed up to a high average composite score.