Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment How much difference...

How much difference does six months make on an IQ test? For example, my DS scored in the mid 140's on a verbal section of a test (I did not ask which one) that he was technically six months too young to be taking (he is 4.5). How much does a score adjust in approx 6 months? Can I estimate what the real score would be? I am assuming that it would be higher than the mid 140's if it could have been scored for his age - right?

Hopefully I am making some sense!

You are making sense, but there is no answer to this question. If the company could have given a sensible answer to this question then they would have made norming groups and would sell the test as 'good for 4.5 and above.' It's really quite complicated stuff.

Let's see if I can help with the question behind the question -
Why do you ask dear?
Is there a special program that you are checking to see if he fits in?
Are you trying to compare him to a family member and get some frame of reference?
Are you hoping it's just a fluke, as in - most 4 year olds can't read, so the reading scores just aren't very reliable yet?
Are you thinking of retesting to try for YSP?

Say more, and maybe we can help answer the question behind the question, ok?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks for the response. We are currently in the process of having testing done to help us determine the best path for kindergarten. We are considering a gifted kindergarten (which is about 10 miles from our house) or the neighborhood school. If we go with the neighborhood school, I am thinking that DS may need some acceleration in reading and maybe math. The testing is needed for support to the full time gifted program and also for support for getting into the gifted program at the neighborhood school (which is really just extra activities in the normal classroom in K).

The psychologist was just doing some initial assessments last week to determine roughly where my DS was at (primarily in reading, I believe). He said he would include the scores in his report as part of our overall support even though he was technically too young for the specific test. I asked him how much difference 6 months could make and he indicated that it could be significant. So I guess I was looking for some info on what "significant" could mean.

Clearly, I should also ask which test it was! I was so overwhelmed at the meeting that I did not ask very many questions.

He is going to be tested on the DAS-II (I believe) in a few days, which will hopefully give us some better information. Overall, I am just trying to piece together the puzzle so that when we meet with the school I know what I am talking about!

I would ask the psychologist -point blank- how often s/he has seen scores like this, as I'm not at all impressed so far.

You could ask 'nicely' like this: 'Golly, most folks in my family are gifted and it's not such a big deal, but I'm starting to wonder if my son is 'out-there' gifted and I should be taking this seriously! How many kids have you seen with preliminary scores like his?'

If you wanna read up on the tests try
http://www.davidsongifted.org/young...holars___Qualification_Criteria_384.aspx
and
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/

Peace Out,
Grinity

The tester is a known name in the gifted world, so I do not have any major concerns about his credentials to be testing a potentially gifted child. I also personally know two different people that have used this same person with their PG children. Although, I completely agree that it seems odd to give a test that can't technically count because the child is too young - right? It appears that there are many tests available to 4 year olds.

Is there ever a situation that you would give a test that a kid is too young for? Just curious.

Hm. It's not that the test can't technically count because it was given out of level, it's just that you are limited in the conclusions you can draw. If a 4yo is tested and scored on 5yo norms, and scores above average, you can say that this is a lower bound on the score he would have gotten had there been norms for his age. You can't know how *much* higher the score would have been -- it might not have been higher at all. If a 4yo is tested and scores average or below on 5yo norms, you can't make any claims at all based on the data.

In terms of IQ tests, there are options for 4yo that do have continuous norms (most notably SB-5), but it's not shocking to consider using a 5yo test out of level. Some of the tests even offer "out-of-level" testing such that there *are* norms for younger kids on some subtests but it's assumed that most kids that age wouldn't take those subtests. K-ABC-II does that, although my recollection is that 4yo don't have huge options in that realm. DAS-II gives the tester considerable leeway. WISC does not (norms don't start until age 6, the one-year-overlap with the WPPSI is for age 6-0 to 6-11 and is really designed for out-of-level *low* testing for 6yo suspected of intellectual disability).

Personally, for the core IQ test, I would try to choose a test that has norms, even out-of-level ones, for the kid's age. I do a lot of interpretation, comparing performance on different subtests, and that really becomes much harder to do when the numbers are fuzzy. But I can see other professionals making other reasonable choices.

I'll typically only use a test with no norms for the kid's age when I'm trying to document a very specific strength or weakness and I'm pretty darned sure that the scores are all going to go in the interpretable direction (examples: 11yo who couldn't decode three-letter short-vowel words, documented this on diagnostic reading tests that don't have norms for kids that old; kid who ceilinged out the long-term memory subtests on the K-ABC but was too young for the delayed recall subtests, gave them anyway).