Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Group ability test question

This is related, but not exactly on topic...please bear with me.
I've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to do the IQ test and apply for DYS. This thread is interesting, in that you say the COGAT isn't really a reliable indicator of giftedness.

My daughter scored 99th percentile on it (all subgroups/comp) 2 years ago, and this year qualifies for DYS as far as her ACT scores go.
I guess my questions are:
Do you think it's worth it to get the IQ test on her (at 12 years old) AND
Should I have any expectations of where her score on said IQ test would be?

We homeschool, but I would love to have someone to talk to about the decisions we need to make for her about early college, etc. That is why DYS appeals to me. I feel like I'm flailing about now, while I felt pretty confident about what we were doing with/ for her throughout the elementary/junior high years. Thanks for any input! -J

We are in a school district that uses similar criteria for GT programming (95th percentile on any one of the sections of the test). Our school probably has 30% of the population that has been identified as gifted but not all are in GT classrooms. I believe that CoGat does over-identify especially at the lower grades. Once these kids get into the program, they seem to stay whether or not the placement is appropriate b/c the school doesn't want them to repeat curriculum, esp math. It sounds like your DD's class may have some of these kids.

That said, DD is in the 99.9th percentile based on various measures. I also think that many kids in her class are fairly high too. Since our school does service MG kids pretty well in the regular classrooms, I think that the GT classrooms end up catering to higher level kids. I think that this is particularly true for kids that move into the program in the later grades. For the older kids, I think the move seems to be based on a less than ideal experiences in the regular classroom. Fewer kids test at the later grades but I'm guessing that a higher percentage of those who test qualify (no data, just anecdotal observations).

Even though we have experienced benefits from early identification for our kids, I sometimes wish that the identification process were implemented later/differently.

In my limited experience, I do think there is quite a wide range of kids with different abilities / capabilities towards the upper end of these tests, this is because the tests can not really differentiate well at the high end.

re: Tests, I look at my dd who isnt a super mathy kid, she took the SB 5 and did do very well on the verbal section of the SB 5. Do I think she would do any better on the WISC, probably not, as she doesnt like being timed. Could she score better using a WISC GAI than her current numbers on SB 5, my guess is probably so.

Really, these tests arent necessarily telling us the full picture and arent factoring things like personality, interests, intellectual drive etc. I am glad that my dd's school isnt just using cut offs to determine placement, but instead looking at each individual child and using tools like portfolios as well as interviews.

Personally, I am looking forward to DD doing Explore next year, because I hope that is going to give us a more accurate assessment of her abilities, than what we presently have.

In your instance, I would absolutely go for more testing if you can afford it. Your dd has a lot of strong indicators of giftedness especially the DYS level scores on the ACT. I would have to imagine that a child who scores in the 99th percentile across the board on the CogAT is likely to be gifted. There would likely be a difference btwn that and one 95th percentile score on one of the subtests of the same test. That coupled with the achievement scores certainly looks like a gifted child.

I don't know that the CogAT is worthless. I can't imagine that it would be used if it was. I have one child whose IQ scores are in the 99th+ on the verbal subtest of the WISC, for instance, & whose verbal CogAT wasn't anywhere near her verbal WISC, so there obviously isn't an exact correlation. I can accept that. What I am unsure of is whether the opposite can occur - the CogAT overpredicting ability. It sounds like it is a possibility, but it doesn't sound like a likelihood in your instance.

Weeeeell...

We get no services whatsoever in our public schools until 4th grade. Nothing. Not even pull-outs.

4th grade is too late for my kids--we will have pulled both of them out next year for other educational options. So I guess I don't recommend wishing for later identification. It just leads to later services.

If you're getting HG-ish classrooms, you're very lucky! Even if that means the gifted IDing is watered down.

Our schools place all children with GT identifications into GT classes and, like yours, once you are identified you are in those classes throught 12th grade unless your parents agree to have you in a non-GT class.

My oldest is an anomoly in that she had a "general intellectual ability" id by 2nd grade but she clearly stood out by that time and we had private IQ scores, WJ-III scores, plus she had SRI Lexile and MAPS scores from school in the 99th percentile. Most of the kids in our district are identified btwn 3rd to 5th grade. I don't see any difference in the kids ided in 5th grade vs. earlier in terms of whether they actually appear to be gifted. On the other hand, the 5th graders who get a GT id are often kids whose parents have been pushing for years for that id and who haven't qualified up to that point, but have been tested repeatedly until a qualifying score was found. Perhaps it is test practice by that time.

Vocabulary is still 1/3 of your VCI score on the WISC, though, so the creators of that IQ test do, obviously, believe it to be a component of verbal intelligence. None of these kids come from poverty circumstances. Most of the ones I can think of have higher income homes than ours and plenty of access to books, libraries, etc.

To get into GT reading or math here, you would be at around the 95th percentile on, yes, a grade level achievement test and the verbal or quantitative part of the CogAT, which was why I asked about the CogAT or other group ability tests. I, like you, totally understand a motivated child who likes to read scoring in the 95th percentile on a grade level reading achievement test, for instance. What I do not understand is how s/he would also score in the 95th percentile on the verbal part of the CogAT to continue my verbal child example if said child is clearly not too bright. I'm wondering whether these group ability tests are actually measuring ability vs. something else: achievement, practice...