Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment now or later???

Argh.

So, my plan has been to wait until DD (newly 5) is 6 to get her tested so that they could use the WISC. And also because she's still somewhat reluctant to talk to strangers and if we don't get a tester she likes she may refuse to participate altogether. She's also sort of slow to answer if she's not sure of something, or if she's feeling shy, and I worry that the tester might not be patient enough. But that may not change by the time she's 6, or 7, or 10.

But DD has been confounding me lately, probably mostly because I've been really sick and it's been hard to keep up with her. And since we are now in the same area as our preferred tester, I spoke with them and got their recommendations. They said that they usually recommend waiting, but that since we plan to homeschool and she'll be technically a Kindergartner in the fall it might make sense to get some more information now. They put her on their waitlist, and I just got a call saying that they've got a spot in a few weeks if we want it.

And I am torn. It's a lot of money for our family. And I'm not sure what specific, tangible benefits it might provide. On the other hand, I am intensely curious, and while I don't need to know exactly where she is at any given moment, it would really help (I think) to have some sort of measure of her relative strengths and weaknesses.

Sooo...thoughts?

I guess for me it would depend on what you want out of the testing. At age 5, she'll have less "head room" on the WPPSI, so if you think that she might be eligible for DYS, this could be a consideration. If you just want information for your use now, then this might be less of an issue.

Our experience with the WPPSI with a 5-year-old (also newly five) was that DS hit some ceilings without getting 19s. In other words, the test ran out of questions in some areas before he reached the termination criteria for them. This led to him getting 99.8 and 99.5 in verbal and performance, but was only in the high average range for processing speed. The large discrepancy in scores meant that the WPPSI gave him a full-scale IQ at a percentile in the mid-99s (99.5). We really needed help from DYS, so these scores didn't work for that, though seeing the processing speed score was really eye-opening.

When we retested on the WISC-IV, DS easily cleared the 99.9 barrier in several areas, which did give us DYS-level scores. In our case, the WPPSI ended up providing information (processing speed discrepancy) but was not that helpful because of the ceiling scores. We felt like we got more information from the WISC, where DS still got some ceiling scores, but where there was enough head room for him to show a bit more fully what he could do.

As for your concerns about being slow to answer and so on, I'd recommend mentioning those to whatever tester you do end up using. I'd also suggest looking for a tester who will talk to you about how he or she tries to establish rapport and elicit cooperation and answers from shy children.

Thanks, Nan.

Yes, we do think that DYS is a possibility, but of course we don't know that for sure. Honestly, I go through periods of thinking that she's definitely at that level and periods of thinking that there's just no way. Like I said, she's been confounding me.

The tester we will be using will probably be a student under supervision of an expert wrt testing gifted kids. It costs much less that way (and we genuinely cannot afford said expert's regular fee). I don't know if we'd really get to talk to the student ahead of time. I guess I do need to make a list of questions to ask.

I wonder if anyone would recommend the WJ for a 5-year-old. I'll admit that I'm biased against it, probably for no good reason. But it does seem like she'd have more of a ceiling.

Since you are homeschooling, I see no reason in the world to test if they don't have the capasity to do the SB-IV. In other words, there is no point in having her do the WPPSI as it won't give you the info you need. If they can't do a SB-IV, I would make the appointment for the week after her 6th birthday.

So how ARE you going to homeschool her without knowing her readiness levels? It isn't easy, but I would choose a Math and Spelling that you like and start giving 'end of year' tests. For reading she is most likely already choosing books at her own level, and you can use them as a jumping off point for teaching writing using the '6+1 traits' curriculum. For Science and History I'd get Middle School level text books anyway and just travel at the speed and depth that feels comfortable.

The only test that I know that gives any reasonable help in answering the question 'what should I be teaching this child' is NWEA's MAP, which I think is availible to homeschoolers through a Florida co-op.

Perhaps
http://www.acces-inc.com/files/Registration%20Homeschoolers.pdf

Anyway, good luck, I'm sorry to hear that you've been sick, remember that this will all feel less overwhelming soon, after you feel better!

Grinity

Ultimately, only you can answer this question. I'll share my experience in case it goes you insight.

We sent Snoopy to kindergarten knowing he was at least highly gifted and knowing that his teacher didn't get it. Halfway through the year, he was behaving weird, depressed, not himself. We had him tested and found he was PG. The tester did an initial evaluation and concluded that PG was a definite possibility, so he used WISC even though Snoopy wasn't quite 6. Snoopy still hit ceilings on several test parts. It was critical that we have that testing done then and it worked well for us.

DD, however, thrilled to playing dumb. When she was 5, we still couldn't figure out whether she was as smart as brother - or smarter (just trickier) - or just a normal kid. We had to have her tested. Cost big bucks and all we got from it was "yes, she is smarter than the average bear" - but were told the number was nonsense because of the lack of cooperation.

We had her tested again at 8 and she still didn't cooperate fully. The psychologist said that he would have sworn that she was doing her best, but when he reviewed the notes of the prior tester, he noted that she got things right 2 years earlier than she got wrong with him. Hence, she was still faking it.

So, what did we learn? Test when you have to test, but don't expect your child to act like someone else during the test. From what you say, there is a good chance you may not get an accurate reading from the test scores.

Think about this - what would you do differently if you got an IQ score of 140? 150? 160? Granted, with the right tester, you get a lot more than a score.... but what will you do differently? Would individual achievement tests be a more valuable tool at this point? Knowing where to start with the homeschooling? It may even be easier to get DD to cooperate with that kind of test, depending on her personality.

You might try asking homeschoolers whether they have found this type of testing useful to them.

Good luck
Mary

If it's that big of an issue, find a tester who does SB-IV.

Or try this - if you are feeling 'lost at sea'
www.talentigniter.com/
cheaper than an IQ test
Best Wishes,
Grinity

I can't imagine what you would get from testing that would help you currently. Testing kids that young is somewhat unreliable, so even a huge number or a weak one has to be considered suspect. If you don't need testing, I'd suggest waiting until she's older. She might still be shy and reticent at 7 or 10, but she will likely be much more able to interact regardless of how she's feeling and able to perform closer to her capabilities.

Grinity -- I think you mean SB-V? The 4th edition has been replaced. I think even the SB-V would be suspect at this age just because kids are often quirky and less engaged at young ages which shakes up the relative performance.

Homeschooling will allow you to adjust for her strengths and weaknesses. I imagine those are more obvious to you on a daily basis than any info a test will provide.

no5no5
We did WPPSI at 4.5 for DS 5 and SB V at 4.9. We did the first to grapple with our understanding and to decide if we should put him through the testing for gifted programs. The WPPSI is a problem if your kid has speed or fine motor issues - we did not know this prior to testing - so for us the WPPSI test results were really useful to determine that yes his verbal skills are are crazy high as we thought - and differential with the performance category led us to focus on improving his fine motor which we wouldn't have done without the pysch pointing out how frustrated this was making him. But for sheer knowledge of him its hard to tell based on WPPSI as he did ceiling in several of the verbal categories and he was so dang slow in the ones he did badly in. Unfortunately we can't really compare to the SB V because he got an ear infection and fever essentially right in the middle of it. The pysch was so frustrated as he would get really really tough ones right and then bail on easy ones, there was no rhyme or reason to his answers due to illness. Although the bias of verbal over block design was still there but since he was so sick the data isn't very valuable.

I don't think the test results will necessarily help with homeschooling, if you want numbers or comparative data I would think that achievement type tests would help better. I plan to get DS tested in WISC and WJ once 6 but that would be entirely for DYS.

So short answer I did get "objective" confirmation from doing WPPSI which made me feel better and that it wasn't all my perception, but the most significant or useful thing it revealed was that we needed to stop letting him avoid doing things he wasn't good at! And the data made me comfortable enough to post here the first time, without it, I lurked, unsure if we really belonged! But that's about me, not him.

DeHe

Thanks Kaibab! it's all receeding - yippee!

If you just want some placement information for homeschooling purposes, you could DIY this one using above grade level general achievement tests.

Many homeschoolers use them as a means of gauging academic progress, (and also because in some states, they are mandatory in order to be in compliance with homeschooling law):

F.L.O. has CAT5 tests for several grade levels. This is the only real information that we had for our then six-year old when we approached the school about an advanced placement for her. Her scores were fresh, but clearly at the ceiling, even testing out-of-level (2nd grade). In hindsight, we probably should have gone to the effort/trouble of repeating the exercise with higher grade level tools until we got away from the ceiling.

I undertstand your reservations about spending the time and energy on an expert assessment when it seems that there is little to be gained, nor is is necessarily likely to be very accurate. We had those same concerns regarding our daughter's response to an unfamiliar evaluator or strange surroundings.