I know you moderated this in your later post, Dottie, but I just wanted to sneak in to say that I think this is the reason to be very clear about your goals for a test AND to see a tester experienced with GT testing.

We informed our tester that we thought DS6 might be a Davidson candidate, so she knew to take him as far as he could go.

Of course, if he hadn't had the achievement test scores first, we wouldn't have known to ask for this...and if you're testing to find out where the child is, you CAN'T really ask for this...

There is a certain irony to it, I'll admit!

We do have some pretty impressive scores for freebie/cheapo testing, .

The university psych couldn't even get his mind around the DYS requirements. He strongly felt the test couldn't discern that high.

Our first round of testing for all three was at the mercy of the school. Talk about less than ideal conditions! You can roughly guesstimate what month your child might be tested, but it's extremely random from there. Your child could then be pulled from gym, favorite special, day after illness...

Yes, we were very fortunate all said and done. I know so many with less than fulfilling experiences. I'm just glad I'm done with all that ID stuff! I so would not want to pay the big $$$$$! It's up to the kids to prove what they can do from here on out.

I strongly agree with him!

...and we've come back around to the start of this thread!

<grin>

I wonder if the same thing will happen for the SB-5. My son had 4 of the 19s and one 18. Our tester did write in the report that my son had received higher raw scores than required for the 19 in two of the subtests and with a different test his scores might be higher.

OOOOOHHHHHHH WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I created a hot topic!!



Incog

Girl-FRIEND! You are a hot topic!

S'moking!

Regarding the possibility that testers don't expect to see 19, so quit before they get there - it's a time honored idea in science that the preconcieved notions of the observer will effect what is observed, even with the best of intentions. ((This Confirmation Bias applys to us also - sadly))

My son has had a few tests, and the problem I see is that it takes so long to get to the questions with the 17+ scores on them. I hear comments over and over about the process taking 3 times longer than they expected. And also the comment about he made more mistakes during the easy boring questions early on. I also got comments about him "not allowing" the tester to stop in what appeared to be an anxious way. Never thought that perhaps he was reading their social cues for him to stop, and reacting to keep them at it. Maybe 19s are for the stupporn and obnoxious? ((Sorry if you have compliant kids with 19, reader!))

Makes me wonder if they had read the previous reports before they dove in...and if kids like him are being discriminated against in that they have to sit for three times longer than their agemates...KWIM?

DD11's very inexperienced tester was most surprised that she got the easy ones wrong and the hard ones right, . Yeah, I'd love to know which raw score she made it to in each subtests, earlier mistakes aside.

I also read of something called "The Halo Effect", where a tester will be more likely to give say 2 point credit if they think/know the child is way ahead.

In the entire WISC-IV, DS9 only felt that a few vocabularly words, one Block Design and the entire Symbol Search subtest were "challenging". He had been so excited about the testing, and he was truly disappointed that so little was "hard".

Surely these shortcomings affected the norming sample as well though if you think about it. I can point to some clear underestimates in individual subtests, that surely brought down each total, but my girls are pretty much 14-17 kids, and my son is a 17/18 kid. Under ideal test conditions, we are all probably covered by the test ceiling, and our scores aren't a bad representation all said and done, given their limitations.

It sure if fun though to imagine what an ideal testing session might suggest! I think we (society) tend to put too much stock into one day's worth of numbers.