Here's one for you to ponder...a noted gifted specialist tested my son (4+8 at the time) last month and due to his specific circumstances (long story), she decided to give him the WISC, and I agreed, even though we knew it wasn't actually normed to his age. The day after testing, she said that she didn't think it told us much since he scored average to above average for a 6+0YO (they ran his scores at the lowest normed age). I don't know the exact score, but I'm assuming it was 100-105ish (and I have no idea at all of subtest breakdowns, etc.). At first, I took this to mean "He's cognitively at the level of a kid who is 6 years old." But, now that I think of it with my somewhat mathematical brain, I don't think that's the case at all - because wouldn't that assume that the score curve is a 45 degree line, while in fact, I imagine at the age we're talking about, it's more of a hockey stick shape? I know it's really only an exercise in imagination because if the test was intended for his age, it would be normed that way, but I thought some of you might enjoy pondering the question as well (and maybe some of you have had similar experiences?).

She did do other testing, so I'll have plenty of answers when the report comes in, but until then, does anyone have any thoughts on this (as I drive myself crazy thinking about it!)?

I'm not a test guru, but I do know something about means and norms and statistics, so I'll try. I think that you can conclude that your son's FSIQ isn't any lower than what he obtained from the test. But I bet that won't help you much . . . .

I think regarding the shape of the line . . . we don't really know what shape it follows. Maybe it drops precipitously, so scoring as a 6 yo at 5.9 indicates extreme giftedness. Maybe is completely flattens out from 4 yo to 6 yo, so scoring at 4.8 and 6.0 are identical. While you can probably safely assume neither is true, the fact is we don't know, because there aren't any numbers on that group of kids.

It's my belief that we also know nothing on the group of kids scoring in the 150 range (for the actual ages normed on the test) because there weren't in kids over 150 in the original norming sample either. I don't think the tests are particularly accurate at the extremes, nor accurate out of the age range.

Hope that helps and you get some other good info!

J

Keep in mind too that "average" is technically 90-109, and "high average" is 110-119, so his "meaningless" scores could be a bit higher than the 100-105.

My son was tested at 5:11, and I wish they'd done the WISC-IV on him, but it is a strange area to enter if you start going outside the test's design, even in that supposedly normed range that J talks about.

I'm pretty sure that scoring "average to above" for a 6 year old is pretty impressive for a 4:8 though, so best wishes with the more accurate testing!