Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) - Highly Gifted Child
By Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q: I have 8 year old triplets born
06/09/2004. They are in 3rd grade. My one son Joey has always been an
advanced learner. He was reading in preschool and has been doing Math in
his head as long as I can remember.
He has an exceptional ability to
remember facts. While in second grade the school administered the CogAT
test. His results were as follows:
| |
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|
|
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Age
Scores |
|
|
Grade
Scores |
|
| Tests |
#of items |
No. att |
Raw Score |
USS |
SAS |
PR |
S |
PR |
S |
| Verbal |
54 |
54 |
48 |
212 |
127 |
95 |
8 |
94 |
8 |
| Quantitative |
50 |
50 |
49 |
254 |
143 |
99 |
9 |
99 |
9 |
| Non Verbal |
52 |
51 |
45 |
220 |
127 |
95 |
8 |
94 |
8 |
| Composite VQN |
|
|
|
229 |
140 |
99 |
9 |
99 |
9 |
His profile is 8B (Q+)
I have looked up the results on the CogAt website but am curious as to
your analysis on his scores. I have been told by the school psychologist
that 109 SAS age score is average for a 2nd grader. My other 2 children
scored a 112 and a 114 SAS age score, which is considered above average.
Joey scored a 140. I asked the psychologist where this fell on the
graph. He told me that the chart ended at 130 and that was considered
superior. So where does Joey fit in?
This son of mine confuses me with his intelligence. I am not sure what
avenues to pursue with him. He was moved up to 4th grade math 5 weeks
into this school year and is excelling in the class. The school has no
gifted and talented program until 5th grade. I find Joey to be
disorganized and distracted in his classes. (except for his 4th grade
math) He tends to amuse himself with things that are not so amusing to
the teachers.
I am hoping that you may be able to shed some light or point me in a
direction to keep my son academically challenged. Thank you for your
time.
A:
From his scores alone, it is clear that Joey is in the highly gifted
range. Briefly, The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is a test
administered to K-12 students to assess their abilities in three areas;
verbal reasoning, nonverbal reasoning and quantitative reasoning. This
test is most commonly used by schools to determine placement for gifted
and talented programs. CogAT scores are reported in terms of percentiles
and stanines rather than IQ, which compares students to their peers. The
score report lists four percentiles (one for each section, and one for
all three combined), ranging from 1 to 100, as well as four stanines,
which are a normalized standard score scale, ranging from 1 to 9, with 5
being the average. The areas tested here is considered important in
determining future academic success. This is seen in the scores that you
presented.
His percentiles indicates very high scores in the high 90s range, with
statines between 8 and 9 (9 being the maximum). A stanine of 9
corresponds to a percentile range of 96 to 99 and a stanine of 8
corresponds to a percentile range of 89 to 95. A score of 100 is average
and his score is 140 which is more than 2 standard deviation away from
the norms. The fact that his school has a gifted and talented programme,
they would have teachers trained to do exactly what is required so I
would not worry. Unless there is a cause of concern in terms of this
behaviour or performance, he appears to be given the right stimulation.
He surely needs to be challenged based on his performance. The following
may be suitable for him – though meant for teachers, I believe you could
read and do similar activities at home. Please go through the following
site by the publishers itself for a very comprehensive view on the test:
http://www.riversidepublishing.com/products/cogAt/pdf/cogATshort.pdf
I believe that would help you understand his needs better. Good luck!
[Note: Click here to find
Online CogAT Practice Tests!]
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