Age versus Grade on Intelligence Tests
By Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q:
We waited a year to send our daughter to school because at the time we
thought she was a bit docile and she has a later birthday being July
21st (she was recently diagnosed with anxiety disorder which explains
her shyness). This makes her older for her grade. Teachers have always
made note that she never participates in class discussions, she always
finished everything last. Which made her a bit stealth (we now realize
this is due to her anxiety...not wanting to be noticed).
All her test scores have been in the A range never scoring out of the 90's. She also
was always in advanced groups for class in all subjects. Since she was a
baby she was advanced in learning and performance. I was advised by
people who knew her to have her tested for gifted, but wanted to wait.
In 3rd grade she took her first state assessment exam and scored
advanced. With that we decided to have her tested for gifted. On the
WISC-IV she scored
124 in Verbal Comprehension
115 in Perceptual Reasoning
122 in GA Index
on VC scaled she scored
15 on Similarities
13 on Vocab
14 on Comprehension
on Percep reasoning
13 on Block
14 on Pic Con
10 on Matrix
They said she also scored very high in creativity, to quote "off the
charts". I was told this peaked their interest so they tested her
further.
W/KTEA-II She scored
Letter and word 99
Read Comp 112
Reading 106
Math Concept and ap 113
Math computation 100
Math 109
Here's my concern. They compared her by birthday not grade. Children
with her birthday overwhelmingly would be a grade higher so this would
not be accurate. They said it usually have the same findings if comped
age or grade.
But of course they would since most students are in the appropriate
grade for their age. So it would stand to reason while she was in 4th
grade she was actually comped with 5th graders. I have found some data
which shows children who are older for their grade will score higher
when comped by grade rather than age. They did state they could comp
either by grade or age and wanted to comp by age and would not budge on
doing otherwise.
She is now in 6th grade, can I ask them to take the
test results from her gifted assessment from 2 yrs ago and comp them by
grade, so as not to have her retested? I should have insisted back then,
but I tend to be a go with the flow person. I am however seeing how our
daughter not being challenged in gifted classes is affecting her in
school. Her grades have slipped quite a bit and she says she's bored.
Thanks for your time.
A:
WISC-IV scores are normed by age and not grade; and I can see the reason
for concern here. This is a concern especially if the child is retained
a grade or so. It has been reported that with younger children, there
may be little statistical difference in the standard scores when scoring
by age or by grade in the case of retention and they do appear to meet
the discrepancy either way. However, it may be different with older
children. One way of doing this is perhaps to score the answers using
two age groups which would enable the tester to make very clear
judgments regarding what is instructionally related (learnt from formal
schooling) and what is learner related (innate abilities).
You may want to speak to someone at her school and get the raw scores
run against a lower age group to see how significant the discrepancies
may be. A good tester would be able to make out the differences and
interpret the results accordingly. For most tests, after 2 years a
reassessment may give better indication of scores. You would need to
find out the school policies here.
If she is feeling bored at school and her grades are slipping, immediate
attention is required. You mentioned that she has been diagnosed with
anxiety disorder; I think there is a bigger concern here rather than her
grades, boredom, test scores etc. She may need to deal with the
anxieties before focusing on other areas as it affects a child's well
being in most environments. Do see a professional for this; she may need
some counselling or perhaps medication depending on the severity of her
case.
I hope everything works out fine. All the best to you.
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