SO confused... Maybe someone can help me decipher IQ?

amother

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 8:37 pm

Ok, please don't flame me. I am just trying to figure out what this all means...

4.5yo ds had an evaluation done but despite the psychologists explanations, I am still very confused...

He got a 102 on the regular WPPSI-III (regular IQ test) but scored an average of 114 on the WJ-III for cognitive ability (with scores ranging from 91 to 136 in different areas)

Finally, in the WJ-III test of achievement he tested in the 90s percentile (between 115 and 165, meaning his academic performance is on par with a 5.9-6.3 yo.

Honestly, I never paid attention to whether he was smart or not it until his teachers had a meeting with us to tell us he is performing at a very high level and they thought he was gifted. (he had an eval for a different reason) Then I started to notice the way his mind works and realized he really is smart. Not just regular smart. He has a photographic visual and auditory memory. He asks crazy questions. He builds incredibly intricate castles with turrets, elevators, stables, carports, airports, docks, rooms, bathrooms, etc. out of his legos or magnet tiles. He needs constant academic stimulation in school or he loses it. So when he had an IQ test, I was sure it would be on the higher side of average at least...

I'm guessing given the nature of this forum, a few of you must have some experience with some of these tests. Can anyone help?

So what's the difference between IQ and cognitive ability? and why are his scores all over the place? And as far as I know, 102 on an IQ is pretty average... How can you score so high in academic achievement and so average in IQ? It's not like he studies for tests and gives it his all. He knows how to read because someone taught him the alphabet and he just figured it out. It just doesn't make any sense. t mean I scored 115 on mine 25 years ago, but I think ds is smarter then I am.. He makes deductions and questions I would never think of...

seeker

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:10 pm

The cognitive ability part of the WJ is called that to distinguish it from the achievement part. IQ is kind of a conglomerate of both types of information, but you generally expect the cognitive ability part of the WJ to be a little more reflective of a child's ability since achievement can be heavily influenced by environment and exposure. Neither test measures certain areas of intelligence such as creativity, which seems to be a strength in your DS.

Tests aren't everything. Given his very high scores on the WJ, combined with the observation that he needs a lot of academic stimulation in school, he would probably be a great candidate for a gifted program. You probably wouldn't be able to get a formal gifted classification with an IQ score of 102, though, even though everyone knows tests can be fickle.

Oh, and it's extremely normal to have a range of scores on different categories within the WJ, if that's what you meant by asking about his scores being "all over the place." One or two areas of weakness can pull down the average score, that's why you want to talk with someone who will puzzle over the details with you instead of throwing the numbers out.

marina

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:10 pm

IQ is the same as cognitive ability, it is a score reflecting cognitive ability.

At this age, cognitive ability fluctuates wildly and is famously inconsistent.

I am not sure why you had two different cognitive tests done (WPPSI & WJ). Were they at two different times?

It seems like your son is still developing his skills in many areas and he scores better on some subtests than others. This is totally normal. He may have done fantastically well on verbal and visual sections but had more trouble with sections that needed writing or attention span/ memory.

A child can score very high academically (achievement) because at the age of 4, the tests require very very little in terms of academics, so if your child reads, he will already be way ahead of the normal range.

As he grows older, his IQ will become more stable and his peers will catch up academically. Then a more complete picture will be available. Usually, I tell parents not to consider IQ stable until 3rd-4th grade.

If you want to message me the subtest score breakdown in the WPPSI and WJ, I might be able to be more informative. However, I am thinking that you should have received a report along with this, how useful was the report?

michal817

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:27 pm

Seeker and Marina basically said it all. In general, I wouldn't trust an IQ score as the be-all and end-all for a 4.5 year old. There are so many factors that can affect IQ scores, including even the time of day the assessment was given (for example, children tend to perform better in the morning, as by the afternoon they are already fatigued).

I'm also curious as to what the subtest scores breakdown was, and if the psychologist's written report was helpful or not. I'm a school psychology graduate student, so this is the kind of thing I'm learning about now.

Also, rain, 114 is actually just short of above average - the average range is 85-115.

rain

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:31 pm

also, there is not alot required of a 4 yr old in terms of academics. I believe even for a 5 year old, they score full points on the writing section of the WJ if they correctly write their name
it could be that your son was exposed to more academics than that of his typical aged peers, which will lead to a higher WJ score
its interesting that they spoke about gifted in term of academics, its usually spoken about referencing IQ.
And IQ tests ARE tests of cognitive abilities. That is what they test
the WPPSI has 3 indexes or domains it looks at, verbal, performance and processing speed. any domain could have brought down his score
the WJ achievement has many different domains such as writing, reading, phonemic awareness, math etc

rain

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:32 pm

michal817 wrote:

thats for the WJ. on the WPPSI, average is 90-110

michal817

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:34 pm

rain wrote:

michal817 wrote:

thats for the WJ. on the WPPSI, average is 90-110

OP said the 114 score was on the WJ, so I was just stating the range for that specific assessment.

rain

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:39 pm

michal817 wrote:

rain wrote:

michal817 wrote:

thats for the WJ. on the WPPSI, average is 90-110

OP said the 114 score was on the WJ, so I was just stating the range for that specific assessment.

o got it! whats school are you in? im a school psych to! working already 2 yrs...

michal817

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:42 pm

rain wrote:

michal817 wrote:

rain wrote:

michal817 wrote:

thats for the WJ. on the WPPSI, average is 90-110

OP said the 114 score was on the WJ, so I was just stating the range for that specific assessment.

o got it! whats school are you in? im a school psych to! working already 2 yrs...

I'm not a school psych yet, I'm going for my masters now in Queens College. Where do you work? (Maybe it would be better to continue this by pm, instead of hijacking the thread? Wink

)

amother

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:43 pm

Thanks so much for your answers! I did get a report but all it says is he is of average intelligence (she went more into detail about his social issues)
I don't know WHY she did the tests she did.
I don't mind breaking it down here. No one knows me right? But hopefully someone can explain this to me so I can understand.

WPPSI-III

Verbal 102
Information 12
vocabulary 9
word reasoning 11
(comprehension 10)

Performance 101
block design 9
matrix reasoning 11
picture concepts 11

Processing speed 102
(symbol search 11)
coding 10

WJ-III Cognitive ability

Comprehension knowledge 102
Verbal comprehension 103
General information 100

Visual spacial thinking 103
spatial relations108
picture recognition 98

Auditory processing 109

Processing speed 94
visual matching 97
decision speed 91

Short term memory 125
numbers reversed 136
memory for words 104

long term retrieval 114
visual auditory learning 111
retreival fluency 114

WJ-III Achievement

Reading:
Letter word identification 129
Passage comprehension 121

Mathematics
Applied problems 115

Written language
Spelling 125
Writing samples 165

Chana Miriam S

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 9:58 pm

I agree that the IQ test is really pretty irrelevent It does not matter how smart you are if you cannot use the intelligence properly. Behaviour has a lot to do with success in school and life and often brilliant people are under achievers.

my own child, who is on the spectrum tested around 100 at 7 or so, but he was also very uncompliant. They told us specifically that the IQ portion of the test was less important than the 1st percentile executive skills. There is no way any of us could have predicted what a weird up and down it would be with him since he is terribly brilliant and then there are gaps as big as the Grand Canyon. So, for example, he can multiply triple digit numbers by triple digit numbers in his head, or tell you exactly where the train will collide with the other train in an instant- before others get out their calculators, but he cannot show his work and has consistently had terrible marks in math.

his written skills are brilliant and sometimes he can achieve it himself, but sometimes not. by the time he was in 4th grade, his vocabulary and spelling ability was university level. Verbally, he can speak and articulate well but he can be slow to respond and if you interrrupt him while he is formulating an answer, you restart him and never get an answer.

interesting enough, that my kid with a communication disorder just got an 83% in Grade ten academic level french. He flunked out of Grade 9 Academic French bc he could not keep up. its all a mystery just deal with what you have before you and look to the psychometrics to enable you to anticipate where the gaps might be.

michal817

Sun, Feb 12 2012, 10:00 pm

I'm not exactly qualified yet to give you a definitive interpretation, but here is my take on the scores:

Based on these scores, it would appear that your son's strength lies in his short-term memory (and, to a lesser extent, long term memory). This could contribute to his academic success, because being able to hold information in your mind and manipulate it is an important factor in reading, writing, and math. For example, when reading or listening to a passage, you need to be able to remember what you've already read/heard in order for the passage to make sense. Or with math, you need to keep the numbers and operations in mind in order to do the computations or the word problems successfully.

Aside from these areas, your son performed in the average range. His scores on the processing speed section of the WJ were somewhat lower than the rest of his scores, but they still fall in the average range and therefore aren't an area of concern.

I'm not that familiar with the WPPSI (I'm still in school so I haven't had experience with it yet), so I'll leave interpretation of it to someone more knowledgable.

amother

Mon, Feb 13 2012, 9:32 pm

Thanks for all your answers. This is really very helpful to me and you explained a lot.

I couldn't understand how his IQ tested so average if he was clearly smart. I thought maybe I was delusional and was seriously doubting myself.

So would I be correct in predicting that he will be the kind of kid that may not be brilliant or gifted "officially" but will just have an easy time in school because he'll just remember information? My brother is like that. He never cracks a textbook but gets straight As from just remembering what the teacher said in class...

Please understand, it's not the labels I care about. It's more about what life will be like for Ds. IDK, Maybe I'm wrong in using this as a crystal ball...

sarahd

Tue, Feb 14 2012, 5:18 am

That was me. I'm not brilliant or gifted, but I was able to do very well in elementary school by remembering what the teacher said. I would recommend, if this is the case with your son, that you make sure he acquires study skills, as I did not have those when I started high school, where it was harder to coast along on your memory, and it took me a long time to figure out how to review and study for tests.

michal817

Tue, Feb 14 2012, 11:01 pm

I would say that chances are he'll continue to be a good student, and his IQ score could very well improve in several years (or it could stay the same...). I just want to stress again that IQ scores obtained at such a young age aren't that useful in predicting future academic performance- it's most certainly not a crystal ball! I would suggest that you encourage him and challenge him academically, and like sarahd said, make sure he learns study skills (though you can wait a couple of years before you have to worry about that! Smile

)

Overall, be proud that you have such an intelligent son, and continue to nurture his intellectual growth! And, of course, you can have him reevaluated for giftedness in a few years if you see he is far ahead of his peers.