Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Achievement testing in a pre-K child

Hi,
I continue to be frustrated by my own inability to understand these tests and what they mean. Dottie, you are really the resident expert in this forum.

Reading about scores of the other children, I went and pulled out our WJIII for some comparison and I have more questions than answers. I would appreciate some clarification related to our own personal numbers from Dottie or anyone one else who actually gets it, since I clearly don't. :-)

Our son took the test when he was 4.4 years old. We were told we couldn't get scaled scores for anything but Oral Language - the scaled score was 141 but his AE was 8.3 and his GE was 2.7. It says the percentile rank for this is 99.7%. If I understood the thread correctly, if my son was younger than someone else with the same AE and GE, his scaled score should be higher with all other things being equal. Is that correct?
We only have AE and GE for everything else.
TAch - 7.3 and 1.9
Broad Reading - 7.6 and 2.2
Broad Math - 7.2 and 1.8
Broad WL - 6-10 and 1.4

Is there anyway to draw comparisons from AE and GE with children of different ages, and how will Davidson interpret this if they are looking for composite scores?
Thanks in advance.

Hi Dottie,
We did do WIAT when he was 4.10. (These were both done for entry into a gifted school). We were not able to get composite scores for that either (except for Word Reading and the Oral Language section). We have AE and GE for most all. I will provide here in case you can offer something by way of what the scaled scores would be if he was older. The psychologist mentioned in her report she gave him subtests that are not traditionally given at his age.

In Reading:
Word Reading: - 160 - 9.0 and 3.6
Reading Comprehension - 9.8 and 4.4
Pseudoword Decoding - 13.4 and 4.6

In Math:
Numerical Operation - 8.0 and 3.0
Math Reasoning - 8.4 and 2.9

In Writing:
Spelling - 7.9 and 2.2
Written Expression 6.4 and 1.5

In Oral Language we did get a composite of 137
Listening comprehension was 139 6.0 and 3.5
Oral Expression was 119 - 9.0 and 1.7 (This seems off-base to me)
The Psychologist wrote that "his Oral Expression and Writing, while above the level expected for his age, could cause him difficulty in an accelerated program. These areas of lower functioning appear to reflect his age appropriate motor skills and brain development rather than areas of learning deficit and are likely to be as well developed as his other skills as his brain continues to mature and he is exposed to more experience
and information."

Thanks

Thanks Dottie,
I am only really making myself crazy over this because of the wait from DYSP. It appears that they letters were mailed Friday so I should know something today. If my son is not accepted, hopefully they will offer some insight as to why and I can stop trying to read too much into the tests and the scores.

Well said Dottie! So true! I think that since there is no accepted breakdown of LOG, that everyone has to come up with their own mental scale, that suits their own needs.

Here's mine, FWIW,

1-2 Standard Deviations above the mean - Bright. Keep an eye out for areas of giftedness that need extra nurturing, or, actual 2E.

2 to 2.5 SD above the mean - MG. Has special learning needs, but often can tolerate them being addressed 'part-time.' Because this is the bulk of gifted children, and they can be expected to enjoy pull outs and most gifted programs with agemates. They will score around the mean of Talent Search tests. Keep an eye out for areas of extreme giftedness for extra nurturing, or 2E. Stay on the look out for afterschool/summer activites or in school situations if possible,where child gets a chance to 'learn to struggle.'

2.5 to 3 SD - HG. Has special learning needs, full time. Depending on personality these children may enjoy or be very unhappy in regualar classrooms or programs aimed at MG if placed with agemates. Probably need modifications, such as subject acceleration, grade skips, as well as out of school intellectual experinces.

above 3SD - PG, too high to measure. Has special learning needs, full time. There is considerable variation inside this group, and overlap with stratagies used with HG. May be 2E, or have a 'bottleneck' area. Can be 'mild' or 'wild.' Personality matters. Ability to self direct their own learning varies. Ability to blend in varies.

Well, there it is! I'm guessing each of us needs our own mental model of the flavors in the box.

Smiles,
Grinity

I just wanted to update to let you know that my tester was using old norms. Calculation with the new norms seem more realistic and we still have qualifying Broad Math scores---just not as ridiculously high (157). She didn't given me the new AEs for the scores yet though. I will get that in the report later this week.

Now to begin filling out the application. Fun, fun.

Thanks for the update. That explains the discrepancy. I was getting worried that my son's scores might have been off. Not a good thought since we sent the application to DYS last week.

Good luck with the application.

My tester actually sent me that today.

She was surprised that while the norming sample had a decrease of -1 to -5 on various subtests from th 5 years old age group, my son had some that were -30. She plans to add some of the statistical stuff to the report.

I betray my ignorance, but wha-huh?

crisc, Dottie, anyone else: Care to teach clueless ol' English-y me some stats? You'd have my gratitude!

Happy Hump Day!

It just means that while the norm sample may have dropped 1 to 5 points (ex 130 to a 127, 157-154, etc) when they calculate the standard score from the raw score, one of my sons score dropped from the 180's to the 150's with the new scoring norms.

In very basic English, as I understand, it seems that every few years the population changes and tests must be re-normed to provide better accuracy. It can however affect the scores of certain populations.

Hopefully someone else may have a better explanation.

Thanks for the link Dottie. It's interesting how they change the weights of different categories based on the census.


The thing is that -5 is an average difference. -5 is actually a huge % difference if applied to score of 100. Going from 100 to 95 means going from 50% to 36.9%. The changes around 100 are probably smaller, I just wanted to show the difference.

When you start looking at the other end of the curve, 5 points won't take you too far. 182 to 177 is 99.9999977% to 99.999986% that's a negligible difference not to mention that it cannot be measured anyway. It's not that surprising that the difference is much higher there.

Even though the jump from 182 to 157 sounds enormous but the difference is in 0.001 (from 99.99999 to 99.99276). Nobody can measure even that. Normal distribution is a nice model and it works really well for huge majority of the people, but it falls apart on both ends of the curve simply because the testing samples can be only that big.

Earlier quote:

Looking at score changes in crisc's son's test, I would think that 200 scores will be quite rare now. When you see one, it may be worth asking when the test was performed and if the updated tables were used. On the other hand I could see how it was possible to get close to 200 with the old norms at the age 3 to 5. Looking at the changes my guess would be that 3-4 got hit even harder than 5.