Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Please tell me about COGAT

My son didn't test on the COGAT test the first time. He is in second grade and I am sure he is a very bright child. I am not one of "those" parents. I don't pressure my child. He is amazing! But his intelligence doesn't reflect his creativity? Last year, he didn't make the gifted program based on his test scores. This year I went to the school board and asked them to please look at my son as something more than a test score. Last year the gifted test was a group test. This year, they are testing him individually. But I am still concerned. I asked Damian if the gifted tester talked to him as I asked her too, and he said No, she said he had to be quiet and take the test. But his perception and insight and the things he says are where you see the gifted! He is truly an extraordinary child but socially and emotionally he is a mess. He doesn't make friends easily and tends to prefer older children, and he has an amazing memory, reciting events from 2 years old accurately and perceptively.

So, my question is: What can you tell me about COGAT? How accurate is it? What are it's strong points? Weak points? What are my rights?

No test is perfect. My one child who has taken the CogAT did significantly worse on it than on an individual IQ test given a few months prior (around 30 points lower -- bright but not gifted vs. over the 99th percentile). She, however, has also had wildly erratic scores on IQ tests, so I don't know that it was a fault of the CogAT per se.

The main thing that I'd take into consideration with the CogAT is that it is a tightly timed test for grades 3+ and requires the child to sit down with paper and pencil, read the questions himself, and fill it out. It is definitely not a test of creativity. Part of the reason that I suspect my youngest did so poorly on it is the timed aspect and that she is a very divergent thinker. On a test where you have multiple choice answers and only one is "right," there is no wiggle room for interpretation or asking the child to "tell me more" to see if he truly understands the concept like there can be on a verbally administered IQ test.

None the less, some gifted kids do well on the CogAT and it can give a reasonable estimation of ability for some. Even if they test him individually, the CogAT is still a group ability test and it still has the same strengths and faults that it has when administered in a group (save for group distractions).

You may want to take a look at some info on the test from the publisher: http://www.riverpub.com/products/cogAt/index.html

This is precisely why I am concerned.They do not ask the child to tell me more. Is it reasonable of me to say that it is in talking to Damian that you REALLY hear the gifted? Have you ever seen that in your own children? Do schools administer anything more than the COGAT test? How do I get him tested if they do not?

Sorry for the questions, but I just found this website and I am so excited to find a place that can answer my questions rather than referring me to a book or a teacher lol.

It really depends on the school as to what they will accept for a gifted identification. I would not retest my youngest on the CogAT b/c I just don't think that it is the test that shows her abilities best, personally.

You can, of course, go pay a private psychologist to give him an IQ test. That's what we wound up doing with dd#2 (twice to boot!). I'd make sure that the school will accept those scores before you spend the $, though. Many schools want a combo of ability and achievement scores. Does he have any achievement scores that would qualify him for gifted services in your district?

I doubt that a school is going to accept a child into a gifted program based upon subjective criterion like him seeming gifted when you speak with him. In terms of seeing that with our own kids, I can tell you my experience.

My oldest consistently tests as gifted 98-99th percentile on every test she is given whether ability or achievement. She comes across as extremely gifted when you speak with her as well. She was a shoo in to get into gifted programming b/c there was no question from anyone as to whether she was or not.

My younger dd is highly erratic. Like I said, her IQ scores were well higher than her CogAT scores. She was tested on IQ (WISC-IV) at the end of 2nd grade privately. Her GAI (which is an estimation of IQ) came out at the 99.9th percentile. On the CogAT, she was somewhere in the upper 80s (percentile). Her group achievement scores fluctuate from the 50s to the 90s (percentiles, again). We weren't sure that she was going to get into any GT programming as a result.

We went ahead and had her retested privately on IQ and achievement at the end of 3rd to try to figure out what was going on. Her IQ score on the same test dropped to the 97th percentile which is really quite a large drop (around 20 points from a year prior) and on two other IQ tests, the scores were all over the place. The psych said that she couldn't even get a composite score on one of them b/c the variations were so wide. The individually administered achievement scores were in the 98th and 99th percentile for everything, though, so she was placed in a gifted reading class this year.

Reading isn't really where she is gifted, though. What she needs is instruction that recognizes her divergent, creative thinking style. Honestly, we aren't going to get that in a public school no matter what gifted or accelerated classes she is placed in. We're thinking outside the box for that reason and trying to see if we can figure out a way for me to make some $ from home such that I can homeschool her for a while. We can't afford to lose my income right now.

What is it that you are hoping to get for him from a gifted identification? I think that is the most important question you can ask yourself.

Hmm, I am sorry but I have a two year old running around and it was getting hard to keep typing before.

He took the K-Bit II when he was 5. I asked the school system (we lived in PA at the time and are now in VA) to evaluate him for ADD/ADHD because I truly thought that was the problem. I was prepared to share the results of that test here but as it turns out, I forgot to get the copy from this school when I presented it to them so I am waiting for the copy of the report which I should get from the school tonight. Damian scored average last year on COGAT and I don't even know what the test results meant with the K-Bit because no one really explained it. What I DO know is that the evaluator did tell me that Damian was impressive but not ADD/ADHD. She said that professionally she could not use this label at 5 but he was exhibiting sure signs of high intelligence and extraordinary perception and creativity. When she wrote up the report, she came by personally with it and even showed me tactics for dealing with his high energy and lack of need for sleep, citing that many extraordinarily intelligent children have difficulty sleeping and often talk more than they listen. Her report expresses that any school Damian went to would need to accommodate the needs Damian had. At the time I was home schooling but she expressed a concern for his high intelligence, saying that home schooling him at such a young age would be troublesome later on if he failed to have adequate socialization.

When we moved here, about 4 months after the evaluation, I brought the report to the school along with the results of the test. His Kindergarten teacher was floored by Damian and did her best to get the school to look at him but they refused until 1st grade. In first grade they administered COGAT with average results. In first grade, his teacher was all but checked out. She expressed that Damian was a very curious, inquisitive child with amazing perception but didn't seem interested in backing me up at all.

He is now in second grade and his teacher says he is an inspiration to the whole class. He tutors one of the children in his class and when he started school in September, the teacher called me about Damian. Apparently he was finishing his morning work very quickly and when he was done, he requested to read the dictionary. The teacher said she was forced to get more dictionaries and when the other children are done with their work, they too now want to read the dictionary. Se was so impressed with Damian that she started keeping a portfolio of things Damian says and work he has done that make her believe he is gifted. She also invited the state gifted coordinator into the classroom to observe him, but she never accepted the invitation. She has accepted the portfolio. Damian is fixated on Dinosaurs and wants to be a paleontologist when he is big. He has been stuck on this for 4 years and his knowledge of dinosaurs impresses everyone. He ceilings on reading evals at school but the teacher explained that they are unable to test him beyond second grade for reading because they would not be able to administer the test in third grade due to the fact that it would be identical and could be memorized? Something like that. I am not the only one who sees this in him. And I think I have been lcky enough to get a teacher that truly cares enough this year to go to bat for him.

Other than this stuff, I have only what I see and what the teacher sees. I desperately believe my son needs the gifted program so that he can have a more flexible education. He certainly experiences times when he has trouble doing something but at this point, when those troubles arise, he gets extremely upset saying he is so stupid. It has always been easy for him to learn so when new things come up he either refuses to try if he doesn't think he can do it or flips out and says he is dumb when he doesn't get it right immediately. He needs peers that have something in common with him. His peers want to play Pokemon while he is trying to build robots out of recyclables or draw diagrams of how he thinks the dinosaurs died.

I guess the reason I want him in the gifted program is so that he can move ahead if he needs to, relate to his peers and have some flexibility in his education. Is that so terrible?

Thank you for the more detail . I hope that my prior replies didn't come across as critical. I am not assuming that you are reading too much into this or believing your child to be something that he isn't.

I am coming more from the perspective of a parent whose kids have been in a number of gifted or accelerated programs and realizing that they, too, are not a panacea for a gifted child.

For my oldest, b/c she conforms more to the idea of what a gifted child should be (focused, great at reading, high achieving, etc.), she has been served reasonably well by gifted programming. When it was just a small pull-out daily it wasn't enough, though. She skipped a grade the year before this one and is having her needs met fairly well with the accelerated math and reading classes in her new grade.

For my youngest, who sounds in some ways similar to your ds (more high energy, more divergent and creative), GT programming and a gifted id haven't really done it for her. She needs something that the school cannot provide.

What does the gifted program look like at his school and what grade does it start in?

I didn't think you were being critical :0)

The gifted program is Gifted Cluster but it will expose him to peers like him and allow him to move ahead in areas whee he excels. It will also allow him to participate in the Saturday Science Enrichment Program.

I know the program won't be a fix it solution but it will help. I just don't know what to do for him anymore but he isn't getting what he needs right now and while the teacher is happy to accommodate, the school system is pretty much hoping he doesn't test. I get the impression they don't actually WANT kids to test?

Oh and it starts in 2nd grade. It will also allow him to learn a second language and he REALLY wants to do that but I am kinda broke lol and cannot keep dishing out money I don't have for programs he can and should be allowed in school.

One approach is to write a formal written request for a gradeskip. This might lead to testing and a more careful look at your child. His teacher this year seems wonderful, but next year might be another story. You don't have to accept the gradeskip if they reccomend it, but it will get their 'creative juices' flowing in trying to figure out how to meet his educational needs.

You might check with the local university and see if there is a program where Graduate students administer IQ tests for practice with supervision? Those are often cheaper.

Thanks for posting - keep us up to date, ok?

Grinity

I will! Thank you for responding! Can't wait to see the results of this test!