Marking verbal responses on wisc/wais
Started by NeuropsychLarry
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
NeuropsychLarry
New Member
You think that would be a 2 pointer or 1 pointer?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Just checked the essentials WISC book- you don't take off anything for grammar on vocab. So if otherwise a 2 pt response, it remains a 2 pt.
Last edited:
Not a great idea to discuss protected test information on a public forum.
If you have questions about scoring, you should be asking your clinical or research supervisor.
If you have questions about scoring, you should be asking your clinical or research supervisor.
The example isn’t a real item.
But, am I missing something? What’s wrong with the grammar in the hypothetical response?
I'm talking about the scoring (that there are different point values for different responses), discussing whether grammar matters, etc.
Or maybe I'm just a bit overly conservative about test security.
Did you get the Stroop task shirt when you renewed your APA membership?
I'm a nerd, not a dork, thank you very much.
Meh, Stroop is an effect. Not a protected test. Hit me up and I'll sell you Stroop speedos for the right price.
Neither was the OP's example, but it's a fair point. I want one that says pink in blue please and thank you.
then testingmom.com will make you really grab your pearls.
Oof. Feel sorry for those kids.
I'm clutching my pearls right now. Jebus. Talk about invalidating a test.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
I'm horrified reading this site. Especially this:
Is it true that you cannot prepare for these types of tests?
This is false. Many psychologist do not like when children practice because they think children will be exposed to testing materials and that this may skew the results. Our test prep does not expose your child to testing materials but instead helps them understand the types of questions they will be asked.Um... no. Completely obfuscating the whole standardization aspect of how these tests are scored.
Is it wrong that my first thought was that now I really want to do a study to see what effect that kind of test prep for something like a WISC actually does to scores?
Personally, I just found it delightful that the founder's name is Karen. And she literally looks like the memes. And I can totally envision Karen demanding a refund on the assessment because her 8 year old didn't qualify for the gifted program. I mean, what was she paying you for?
Thus a business venture of dubious ethics emerged from her fiery tirade....
Thus a business venture of dubious ethics emerged from her fiery tirade....
Last edited:
Did you see that one of the testimonials was from an EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST who themselves does IQ testing? I was like, you of all people should know better!
I did not see that... I just... wow.
I suspect there are some psychologists who have enough of an issue with the idea/concept of intelligence testing that they would not see something like this as a problem, such as relating to access to/restriction of resources, etc. And others who just see it as "helping" the client.
Yes, I think you're right. Kind of an odd way to "help" someone if it gets them into a school where they'll struggle to thrive, but hey - maybe their admissions testing is harder than the academics.
And the irony here of course is that these kinds of things actually exacerbate rather than solve issues of access to resources, since these paid resources are only available to people who can afford them.
This is long standing issue in school psych—parents want to coach their kids to qualify for gifted/talent programs for bragging rights, basically, because G/T programming in most districts is really, really lacking, tbh.
I've been thinking about, when I open a private practice, explicitly stating that I do not do "gifted" testing because telling a kid how smart they are is usually one of the worst things you can do. Although, there are some exceptions (e.g., when a kiddo is showing learned helplessness or academic rejection because of a learning disability or attentional issue).
Sanman
O.G.
Eh, I used to do a lot this testing in grad school and it can be a mixed bag depending on how you deliver feedback. I always preferred focusing on relative strengths and weaknesses than comparing to peered norms. We got plenty of business using that testing to recommend area private schools based on what kinds of resources they were offering (some had better gifted programs, some LD or LD/gifted , etc).
Just curious, what's the potential concern here down the line?
I suspect this is not based on an empirical foundation.
1. I don't want to type out a huge dissertation, but there is research showing that praise for ability (versus effort) can actually undermine motivation and performance. The seminal study showed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, etc. This viewpoint is not without controversy.I think it's often a case of the self-fulfilling prophecy and less about ability. Nevertheless, there is also a pragmatic approach that I take, while you can not alter ability, we can alter things like process and effort.
2. I also have huge issues with how the implementation of intelligence as a construct (as operationalized by WISC/WAIS, etc.) is not actually measuring "intelligence" or giftedness. Now I am a huge fan of G and intelligence testing. It's very useful for treatment planning and understanding how a kiddo processes information. I am not a IQ denier by any means. However, IQ is a much better measure of unintelligence as it's predictive validity (especially on the right side of the curve) diminishes quickly as IQ increases. IQ, especially crystalized intelligence, has huge issues.
3. There is very little support for GATE programs and most of them are not evidenced based (or needed). My most-cited paper actually looked at emotional functioning in gifted vs. non-gifted kids. Most GATE programs are an ill fated attempt to shield bright kids from learning how to interact with the diverse spectrum of people. They view gifted kids as fragile (disharmony vs harmony), but research usually shows that "gifted" kiddos have better social and emotional functioning and come from more priv backgrounds (that is to say they don't need to be coddled). As Terman showed...
With regard to this specific point only, if I'm not mistaken, the research that supports the idea that praise for ability over performance undermines motivation entails repeated instances of such praise over time, rather than a single incident of feedback at the end of a psychological evaluation. I will grant that this is not an area of expertise on my part, so maybe I'm missing something, but this point feels like a stretch as it relates to the claim that "telling a kid how smart they are is usually one of the worst things you can do" in the context of psych evals.
Bit of self-disclosure: I'm not a genius or the brightest, but this explains....so much. Guess I'm a product of my parent's uber praise/helicoptering generation. who also has SERIOUS problems with procrastination (i.e., I used to write entire 20ish page forensic evals in the morning before they were due to the Court). I'm working on it, but my parents didn't do me any favors with this, and your point rings very close to home.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Yeah, there appear to be several large leaps in logic and generalization from a somewhat equivocal topic area.
It's not a stretch to imagine what a little bit of knowledge in the wrong hands could lead to more of the wrong kind of praise. I should add that expectancy effects are very real, especially in educational settings, (e.g., like Brophy and Good who showed how they are actually done procedurally rather than that they exist). But, I also don't find much utility in using high IQ to make recommendations for different programming and I really don't think the evidence supports its use as a measure of giftedness as much as a measure of unintelligence. What is better, I think, is to let kids who are precocious and let them find their way into more challenging settings. Plus, there is a whole industry over smart kids.
Sanman
O.G.
I had that habit up through grad school, but have been better about managing deadlines as I have gotten older. I still struggle with doing uninteresting or rote tasks, such as paperwork. I have learned to listen to audio books and podcasts on other topics to keep myself engaged through these periods.
I guess you kind of said it better than I could have. I won't do gifted testing because I don't want to enable that kind of parenting... Its usually more for the parents ego than a desire to help the kiddo find the correct setting.
Don't you fall victim to an offshoot of Uncle George's pancake fallacy.
Isn't regression to the mean another concern with gifted children?
Regarding their performances across numerous cognitive measures, yeah. Although I wouldn't necessarily refer to it as a concern, since it's the norm.
Generally why we focus on confidence intervals rather than a single number. It's not like a person 2SDs above the mean in IQ is going to fall into the average range barring an injury or disease process, but they'll shift a little within their window.
But they do, often, fall below the district IQ set points (usually IQ>130) on a second test. For an IQ of 130, the expected level of regression if r=.8 is 6 IQ points; https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746292.pdf)!
I am not aware of any gifted programs in my state that actually utilize confidence intervals for the local districts. Furthermore, IQ isn't really stable until age 9 or so. You might be very surprised how much children's IQ changes. While low kids will generally be low and higher kids will generally be high later, it's not a fact.
IQ is fairly stable, as far as traits go, and high IQ children are even more stable over time, so it's a supprted notion as much as anything is in the assessment realm. As for districts not using confidence intervals, that's on them for not knowing the science, not the science itself.
IQ is not very stable for younger kids (esp. under 6). The article I referenced above shows that 40% of children of kids with an IQ >128 did not remain in the top 3%...
Normal variation of 1-2 point differences could knock them out of the "top 3%", a somewhat arbitrary distinction. The real question would be how many varied by .5SD, or 1SD? If the argument that an exact IQ score is not very stable, sure, but that's a stupid argument. If the argument is that IQ within a reasonable confidence interval is not stable, well then the data do not agree with that argument.
I worked as a school psych on a military base where we'd get kids who were "gifted" in other states but wouldn't remain qualified for "gifted" in the state I worked in due to state-level criteria. It's not just school districts not knowing "science" but also what states require for eligibility for funding for services. I had many a "de-gifting" eligibility meeting while I was there. It was probably the worst part of the job.
Problem on the other side as well, where guidelines and cutoffs for special education and accommodations differ.
What was working on a military base like? Tons of transfer iep meetings?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Yeah- we had 40% turnover throughout the year and 90% turnover every 3 years. You essentially had to train parents at the beginning about how to carry documents and advocate for their sped kids as they moved. Don't pack the IEP- hand carry it to your next placement. You will get there faster than the last school will be able to fax the paperwork.
Do you recall how many % had IEPs?
It's been awhile- but I remember we had a high identification rate which is typical for military kids. But excluding gifted IEP's I'd guess about an 18% identification rate across the district. Including gifted I believe it was above 20%.
We had a high gifted ratio also because ASVAB is highly correlated with IQ and we were a base that lots of people with higher ranks ended up at. To become higher ranking you need to score high on the ASVAB. So their kids were also often higher IQ kids. Also having a kid with Autism means you get a lot of services paid for by military- but it also means you cannot be deployed certain places where services cannot be provided. So we'd get parents who both really wanted their kid to have Autism, but also really didn't want their kid to have Autism. And then high ranking military people who get an outside diagnosis of Autism or LD for example were pretty well able to advocate for services with the district even when the school psych maybe doesn't think the kid qualifies...
Such is life 🙁
No shade on outside psychs or people who did good Autism evals by the way- usually it was counselors who gave a KABC for example and then declared the kid to have Autism that we didn't like. We actually had a partnership with some psychs from a local med school who would come and do ADOS evals every few moths. We really valued those!
