Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Terra Nova vs. WASI

My daughter took the Terra Nova (a several day test) at the end of second grade and when third grade just started this year, they told my husband and I that her scores from the test were in the 95% or above which qualified her to test for the gifted program in our school district. Then, she just took the WASI test for entrance into that program and scored 90% in the verbal (119 IQ), 32% in the peformance (93 IQ) and 68% in the full scale (107 IQ). We were pretty disappointed in this test of course because they told us that she needed a 125 or higher in the full scale to be accepted. Is it typical to score so well on one test and not very well on the other? She is the type of kid who would definitely have performance anxiety when someone is sitting there looking at her but do better on a more independent test where she is left alone to complete her work. She said she rushed through the WASI test and wanted to change her answer a few times but they obviously wouldn't let her (the peformance section in particular). They won't test her again for at least two years they said. I haven't seen the results from the Terra Nova - I don't know if she was right at 95% or higher than that. Do you think with scores of at least 95% she should be in the gifted program? I think their gifted program is really more of an accelerated program where about an average of 2 kids per class (of around 20 or so) participate so it's not like its for kids that are way off the charts (genius level). They actually have something separate for them as well. Should we have her privately retested based on her Terra Nova scores or are they really as good as they seem? Any advice would be appreciated. We obviously want to maximize her academic success. Thank you!

The Terra Nova is an achievement test, so measures how well your daughter has learned what she's been taught. The WASI measures specific abilities, but not specific information, if that makes sense.

So there's no reason that a high score on one would necessarily mean a high score on another. I personally would interpret those scores as "bright kid who works really hard."

125 is a bit higher than 90th percentile on most IQ tests, so consistent with the levels of participation you're seeing in the school program.

As far as having her privately retested, you might want to consider whether the school would do anything differently if she retested high enough to meet the cutoff. (I don't believe that the district I'm in would - their test is the only one that counts.) If not, is there anything you as parents would do differently if she retested high enough to meet the cutoff?

They actually would accept an outside test. We would need to find out which one(s). I wonder if repeating the test with a different tester or having a similar but different test they would accept would make a difference? She has always displayed certain traits (like putting together 50 piece puzzles when she was 2, writing and creating her own chapter books last year, creative thinking etc...) that we thought were "special" but we never pushed to have her tested until we received these results. Now we were thinking we should have asked her to be tested earlier. We are wondering if she would have taken a WASI type test when she was younger if she would have been in the program all along. Also, does anyone know if the WASI and similar tests are aged based (i.e. do the consider how old the child is when choosing questions or just their grade or even that?). It seems like several of the kids I know in the gifted program that are in her grade are almost a full year older than her chronologically.

Yes, they're age based (if administered correctly). One of the test gurus will come along with the details, I'm sure, but all IQ tests compare kids against others in their same age range (with the number of months in a range changing with age).

A reputable tester would not retest her with the same instrument - the results wouldn't have any validity. So she'd be tested with something other than the WASI. (It's possible all of the Wechsler tests would be off-limits due to item overlap.)

As to the gifted-identified kids being older, I suspect that's because they're using an achievement test as a screener, and using a relatively high cutoff on that screener. So you have to have both a high IQ and a high achievement level to get into the program, whereas an underachiever with a high IQ or a high-performing kid who can't demonstrate high IQ would be excluded. The achievement test will tend to select for older / more mature kids, IMHO.

If your school did achievement testing in earlier grades, it's possible your daughter didn't meet the achievement test cutoff earlier, so wasn't considered for further testing.

Thanks for the replies so far. We may pursue outside testing. They said she'd need to get a 95 or higher on the Stanfort-Binet test. If anything, we would have expected the tests to be the reverse - her achievement scores to be less than the IQ because she is such a creative child and is very "out of the box" as someone put it and usually rushes through tests. And, for her scores in the performance area which I think are the visual/spatial stuff (I think) to be below average seemed really strange to us since we have always thought her abilities in that to far outreach verbal given her ability with puzzles and putting things together. If she is in the upper 90s on the TerraNova and not right at 95%, that may point to further testing too. Does anyone recommend purchasing materials and studying for the Stanford-Binet test or does that really help?

Also, one other question, would mild dyseidetic dyslexia affect the performance portion of the WASI test? I think it would as that is the one with more visual work?

Thanks,

Noooooo. IQ tests aren't really the kind of thing you can prep / study for, and even if you could somehow get materials, all you would do is invalidate the test results.

There's some good information about preparing for testing here: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/test_prep.htm

You might want a more-comprehensive assessment than "just" an IQ test, which might give you more information about how a learning disability might impact test results. This page has more information, although I think it's not talking about exactly what I mean: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/assessing_gifted.htm