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Joined: Oct 2008
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Saw this on another site about testing with a private psychlogist vs. a school psychologist. Forgive the long post, but this is an issue near and dear to my heart. I am a private psychologist and part of my practice is conducting evaluations of children to see if they qualify for gifted education. My posting is just to offer a word of caution for parents based on my own personal experience with having my child tested by a school psychologist for gifted education. Here's the story: My oldest daughter was referred for gifted testing in 1st grade. At the time, I saw no problem with having the school psychologist conduct the testing. After all, as you say in the article, it was free. However, I would not do it again. The school psychologist kept my then 6 year old in the testing room doing testing for two hours without a break. I knew from experience that it was too long; children that young, even though they may be very bright, don't have the attention span or concentration to focus for two hours of testing without a break. The proper procedure with young children, since gifted children take longer to get through each test than average children, is to take a break or schedule the testing over two days. So I knew it was too long for them to be in there, but I didn't want to knock on the door because many of the tests are timed and I didn't want to "spoil" the results. When the psychologist and my daughter finally came out of the testing room, my daughter looked wiped out (as would be expected) and the psychologist, seemingly clueless, was smiling. She announced, "Your daughter sort of gave up on the last couple of tests, gave me a lot of "I don't know"s, but she did so well on the other tests that her overall score is high enough to get into the gifted program." Gave up? I thought. How about you messed up! She needed a break! I took the psychologist to the side and asked why she didn't give her a break or break the testing up into two days when it was obvious she was losing her attention on the last three or four tests. Her answer was that she had too many students to test to do that. End result - my daughter was placed into the gifted program, but I had her tested again a year later by a private psychologist to see what her true IQ was and the score was 24 points higher than the school psychologist's score. Bottom line - had my daughter's true IQ not been in the high 150 range (which is very rare - most gifted children's IQs are in the 130s), she would not have survived the school psychologists' ignorance or incompetence - I'm not sure which it was - and she would not have been placed in a gifted program - not because she wasn't gifted, but because the testing wasn't done properly. I am confident not all psychologists who work for the school system are like the one I encountered, but my cautionary statement is - be careful. Do your homework. Know what the proper procedures are for testing gifted children and make sure as much as you can that those procedures are followed. My second child was recommended for gifted testing in 2nd grade and I declined having her tested through the school, I went with private testing. The piece of mind that the testing was being done properly was well worth the money..Posted By: sbcarter on Jan 12 2010 - 11:01:00 AM
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If you can afford it, get your own -- reputable, recommended by others who have already gone to them, experienced with, and understands gifted children and their issues -- psychologist. You are then also more free to ask important questions which you can decide if you want to tell the school or not. Or be able to frame it in the way you want. With the school psychologist, not so much. 
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Joined: Dec 2005
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My son has had testing both privately, and then 2 years later at the school. The scores were essentially equal. The school psychologist tested him 30 minutes at a time over 2 weeks. Of course, our district doesn't have a GT program, so there is less pressure to see 'the next one.'
Neither the private nor the school psychologist seemed to have the slightest inkling of Levels of Giftedness, or how the rather rarer forms of giftedness need accommodation.
This is a tricky one.
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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My experience was that the school psychologist was not as skilled (or schooled?) in analyzing scores anywhere close to as much detail as the private psychologist. But, as the private psych said, my kids are "complicated."
I should add that my experience with a few school psychs was in the context of special needs rather than for giftedness. They really didn't do anything close to the level of detail of the private psych's analysis, subtest vs. subtest, and, as it turns out, didn't really come up with anything useful. One had no answer at all when I asked why his achievement scores were so much higher than his IQ scores. In contrast, the private psych took great pains to figure it out. The private psych was expensive, but she earned her fee in our kids' cases. Both times we did private testing we walked away with a lot of information we hadn't had before. Both times we did testing through the school (albeit through the special needs department), we didn't learn anything that we hadn't already known.
Accordingly, it seems to me that if your child has any 2E issues or may be borderline, it may make sense to test privately.
Last edited by snowgirl; 04/09/10 01:11 PM.
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Joined: Dec 2005
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Question:
For all the folks who got better quality from the private tester, was this a tester who was reccomended specifically for 2E/gifted kids? Do you live in a large metropolitan area? Did you pick the tester randomly out of the phonebook or insurance list? Were they reccomended by a source that was trusted but 'non-GT-sentivive.'
Just Curious...
Grinity
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We had a fair experience and excellent ones from private psychologists. Yes, we do live in a metropolitan area with a few gifted schools. This means that there are several psychologists who make extra money by testing for school admissions. They are all familiar with GT kids, but not necessarily with LOG.
The schools do not recommend testers but they do list testers used by families in the past.
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Question:
For all the folks who got better quality from the private tester, was this a tester who was reccomended specifically for 2E/gifted kids? Do you live in a large metropolitan area? Did you pick the tester randomly out of the phonebook or insurance list? Were they reccomended by a source that was trusted but 'non-GT-sentivive.'
Just Curious...
Grinity Yes, specifically for gifted/2E. Our first private testing experience was with the GDC (which I discovered randomly on the internet) and our second private tester was recommended by a friend (who in turn was referred to this tester by a friend; in both cases they needed testing for admission to the local gifted school; the tester is on the school's list). Googling showed that the tester had a couple decades of experience and is associated with a gifted education program at a local university.
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Joined: Dec 2005
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I think that this is really key - getting a good experience from a private psychologist picked out of the phone book at random, is a smaller city is possible, but didn't happen in our particular case, and I would guess that our experience is typical.
Thanks Mam - I'm going to add that step to my informal rubric - the presence of gifted schools, plural, is a sure tip off that you are living in an area that will have experienced tester. To my knowledge, our whole state has 3 gifted school at the elementary school level. Admittedly, I live in a rather small state!
Grinity
Coaching available, at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com
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I asked around for a private tester and one was recommended. She is good, but pretty clueless after the 130 mark. She hadn't heard of Ruf's levels or had experience with children who tested really high. She did give DD breaks and a reward at the end, which made for a happy day.
Our county/public tester was wonderful. I was pretty clueless at the time, so I got lucky. She called first to speak with me, find out about what time of day was good for my DD, etc., and then called me when it was over to tell me that it went well.
If I had to do it again, I would ask around even more to see what people's experiences have been. I would think that in a city without a big gifted school situation, a call to the local gifted organization (state organization) or ask Mensa participants would be helpful, yes?
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I can't compare because I tried to get the testing done through the public schools but was unsuccessful. After seeing bad norms substituted for the MAP testing I realized I wouldn't have much confidence in their test results. I eventually decided it was worth paying out of pocket for a highly regarded psychologist to administer the tests. It was a good experience and helped me get somewhere with the school. What's the magic password for school IQ testing? 
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