Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Wrong IQ Test Given...Any correlations

Hi again mom2two,

Well, your question is a good one. I'm not sure what your school offers, if anything, for a gifted program. Gifted programs are not mandated nationwide and numbers of them are dwindling due to lack of funds. As a result, you may not have an option of entering into one. If this is the case, you may want to research Montessori schools which are geared toward letting students work at their own place. I've toured a few and was VERY impressed.

In regards to your question about approaching the school with the scores, I don't see how it could hurt. Unfortunately, people who don't work for the school system have this idea that schools try to squirm out of their responsibilities to provide kids with the best education possible whenever they can. I have worked for a total of 11 schools during my career as a school psych and have never had an administrator take this approach. I can't see why bringing these achievement scores to their attention would be an issue. By the way, I noticed that no one answered your question about whether achivement scores can be higher than IQ. This is a definite possible and somewhat frequent occurrance. In this case, he would be regarded as an "overachiever" since he is workign above where his ability assessment predicts that he would. When you're talking this high of scores, however, it's really not as big of a difference as it seems. His IQ establishes that he is bright and that he will excel at many things and that is what he is doing in the acadmeic areas. The discrepancy between the two with scores in the high average range and higher is really an afterthought.

I want to stress, once again, that you shouldn't feel skittish about bringing the scores to the school. Any school worth their salt would already have some type of assessment to go off of anyway (Brigance, etc.) so I wouldn't think that it would be anything groundbreaking to them that he is bright. I'm just not sure that they will be able to accommodate him depending on what state you live in.

My other question for you is whether or not the person you are going to has provided you with valid scores in the achievement range. I admit, I have given a WISC when a WPPSI was called for because I did not notice the age, however, I quickly gave an alternate assessment when I discovered the error and threw the other score out. If your tester is adopting a "oh, huh, I wonder why I did that" attitude, I would be concerned about the validity of all scores. I must admit that a kindergartener with 5th grade skills is something I have not come across and is hard for me to fathom, especially if he is self-taught. If you don't mind me asking, what are the credentials of this individual?

Chris,

Thanks for the help. I think I will take the achievement scores to the school. Should I start with the teacher? Honestly, the teacher doesn't seem that interested.

The tester has her doctorate in child psychology. She said this is the first time she has made this mistake. She was honest and upfront about it and has decided to retest. (She called me tonight.) So, I do feel better from that standpoint.

I trust the validity of the reading scores, only because I've seen it. I often look at the reading level of books he reads, and it is anywhere from grade 3.x to 5.x. The comprehension is there too because he loves to tell us about what he is reading.

Thanks for all your help and perspective!

Well I'm glad that she was at least upfront about it. Sounds like you have a pretty bright boy on your hands too. Your school (at least the district) has a school psychologist. Even if it's a private school, they will likely have someeone from a local ISD or something similar who contracts with them. I would probably either show them or the school principal.

One other thing that I want to clear up with you too is that the grade levels that the test show are known as grade equivalents. I always try to explain this to the parents in my distrct becuase they can be misleading somewhat. For a child who tests at a 5th grade equivalent, what this is saying is that his raw score that he earned on the test was the average raw score earned by students at that grade level amongst the group of indiviudals who helped norm the test. It is not based on a 5th grade curriculum. Since most of my testing is for special education in my district, a lot of the kids will have grade equicalency scores that are significantly lower than their actual grade level. I try to ease the shock to parents by explaining to them that just because a 5th grader has a 2nd grade equivalency doesn't mean that he is unable to read any words that would be considered 5th grade veocabulary, it's just that his score on the test was consistent with that of the second grade sample used to develop the test.