The reason for testing and what the results have been used for.

[iggly2]

I am just interested in why people have had their child tested. It certainly seems that for most it has linked to a period of upset and unhappiness (or I think for some due to legal requirements-Madwomaninattic did you say you needed it for your dd?).

Obviously it costs quite a lot so you will want to get a tangible benefit rather than just say your child is bright -which you would know already. Obviously just having the result will not help your child (unless you act on its recommendations) so did you plan in advance what to do with it.

We were forced into the testing situation by our school saying that they think our DD is autistic and not particularly intelligent. I knew she's not autistic but is quite bright, but was having lots of trouble at school (bullying, etc). So we just set out to find out more about what her actual issues were, and -if I'm totally honest- to prove to the school that they're wrong about her, that she's brighter that they thought.

Turned out she's brighter than we thought too

The only problem for us was the school nurse being horrendously unprofessional (if you ask me how I'll probably be sued for libel as well as blocked from MN - I'm still irrationally angry about SN's conduct) - and the referral would have gone through her... so our only option was to go private so we could ensure the referral information was actually accurate.

my parents tested me for no reason other than to show off, it transpired recently

DS1 tested due to problems, transpired he has HFA.

I was tested as a teen when having behavioural issues.

DS1 was assessed by an Ed Psych when he started nursery, but that was because he was flagged as having problems and had been referred to the community paediatrician about them, since we suspected ASD or similar at the time (subsequently diagnosed with ASD and more recently ADHD). He was pretty uncooperative with any cognitive testing, but he did manage to do enough to confirm that behind his language limitations and unpredictable behaviour, he had above average non-verbal reasoning skills.

When he went into year 1, the school were aware that his maths ability was way ahead of the rest of his class, so they tested him themselves using a KS2 SATs paper. That actually proved pretty informative as to the extent of his knowledge and where there were gaps.

Like eyeofthenewt we were referred for WISC 4 testing on the NHS due to problems. Would never have dreamt of doing it ourselves. We found the information useful though though there were no real recommendations. Not sure if I would recommend though if no problems. Would it limit expectations if results were lower than anticipated? In our case it was the opposite as results much higher than expected but then I worry if it could make us label one sibling as brighter as others not tested.

I haven't had dd tested. I have wondered about it when school were saying she was performing differently to how I knew she was doing at home and she was having physical difficulties with writing which made it hard for her show what she can do. there was also a query about asd at one point, partly due to the physical difficulties.

she has started to write now and I am giving that time to take effect. her teacher has now told me that she can read well and has mentioned that she was able to answer some questions that others in the class weren't able to. I have also seen what she is doing in school and think it is fairly well matched to her needs. we can do extension activities at home.

at the moment, there seems no point, other than to just know.

yy iggly, well remembered! we applied to emigrate, but because dd2 has cerebral palsy, the automatic assumption was that she also had a learning disability (whatevah). for canada, you have to prove that you are not going to be a burden on the state (ie a cap on special ed requirements/ social care etc) so we had to get a full assessment detailing her cognitive ability etc etc. there was no way the lea were going to pay for a full assessment because they knew she had no learning disabilities (she rocked up to yr r reading cs lewis ). so we got a private assessment done and used it for immigration (very successfully - i was expecting to have to go through appeal etc). i have no doubt that as she was vs across the board (except processing, which was impacted by her fine motor) the required proof of no learning disability was provided... they couldn't argue, really.

the school here got dd1 tested, because it's a pre-requisite for their (g&t/ able student) coding, and any student working two grade levels up across the board is marked for g&t testing - so they tested her and she scored highly enough to get coded and can participate in the regional programmes for more able children (she is currently being matched with a local community business mentor to come up with external project work that they can carry out over the year)

interestingly, we were told originally that dd2 couldn't access the same programme as her handwriting wasn't two grade levels above her peers ( no kidding! that'll be the brain damage/ fine motor issue ) but on actually reading her wechsler testing, they've decided she can be allowed to type instead...

we've never had ds1 tested. the school suggested it/ wondered about it last year, and the gp has sometimes remarked it might be interesting. school know he's working ahead (if he wants to) but he has more complex issues i think - he's kinda as/asd/adhd/add/odd/ with a heap of anxiety. i'd be interested in seeing his profile but we are currently toying with removing him from school as he's the square peg/ round hole at the moment. the structure suits the girls but ds1 can't get to grips with it at all. his teachers have just sort of dismissed him as something different/ einsteiney and let him get on with it really, not having the time to find out exactly what/ how to motivate him, and letting him away with it because they recognise he's clever. it's not doing anything for him at all and finding the curriculum v restrictive. the new teacher has decided that more restrictive is the answer (so he won't get any differentiation unless he proves he can answer mind numbing questions they know he knows the answer to) which i kind of agree with, but there's just no way on this earth that ds1 is going to follow through. if he can't see the point in doing something, it's virtually impossible to get him to do it (he just gets distracted by more interesting stuff, rather than any sort of refusal), so that's most of the education system written off in one swoop.

so, if there's a point to it, i'm in favour of testing. but we aren't quite there with ds1 in the same way that it was 'right' for the girls. and we would only bother with ds1 if we were certain he would stay in school rather than he, which at present, we aren't really.

latesummer, yy re siblings. dd2 scored 10 points higher on overall iq, but they are pretty evenly matched in rl terms due to dd1's extreme work ethic (you can see it on the individual test results too) and the fact that dd2 has additional issues to overcome re her disability and recording.

ds1 is just ds1 and we haven't really discussed the results with the kids anyway.

madwoman - glad to hear that the situation for your dd2 has improved since the last school at least! I remember you saying she wasn't allowed to type & take part in the G&T stuff because of her disability. Heartening that another school has seen sense now!

By the sound of it your DS might have an interesting profile if you got him tested. We had a bit of a D'OH moment when DD1's tests revealed problems with Executive Functioning - we had never realised that something like EF could explain such a large percentage of her problems! Now we also know how to work around it better to motivate her.

(Yes, we had to google EF too, it's v interesting)

I knew what ef was (roughly) apparently, it sometimes does not develop if children were premature. oh and don't I know it. h was prem and ef is limited. drove me insane.

oo, that's interesting. not something i've come across before! i think any glimpse into how ds's mind works would be fascinating

certainly the differences in the girls' reports were very accurate, and absolutely as we expected, which was kind of reassuring. i wouldn't have any clue what ds's would look like, but would expect some v odd spikes - he keeps how his mind functions v close to his chest, whereas it's obvious how the dds' work. he wasn't prem, but was absolutely bathed in cortisol from 10 wks gestation for months - i know the research is limited and not very objective, but i do wonder if it had an effect (dh was blown up and sustained a head injury/ had brain surgery when i was 10 wks pg and given a 20% chance of survival, so it was all a bit stressful. we were living o'seas and although his parents flew over to help out, it was all a bit of a nightmare.)

what with dd2 and dh, brains are a bit of a hobby round here.

That must have been an awful time for you MWIA .

I guess would it tell you anything that useful if DS was tested. Everyone knows he is exceptionally intelligent and if you are to go down the home ed route than you will probebly know more about how to educate him than someone assessing him for 1-2 hours. Telling the school will not alter how they view him as they already know he is bright and probably do as much as they can for him (all schools resources are limited).

I certainly feel testing my DS would be pointless as he is happy.

yy, that's kind of how i feel about it really. it would be interesting, but wouldn't really alter any of our plans... unless anything really unexpected came up! no plans to test, anyway.

it was pretty grim. dd1 was 16/17 mos and i was not quite pg enough with ds to have told everyone i was pg. interesting times. still, all's well that ends well, and we are all still here, one way or another!

We were required to do it but I can't say why. However, now that we have the piece of paper it has opened so many doors so it was worth it in some ways, in other ways it is irrelevant because schools have the facts but rarely act on them!

Colleger what sort of doors please? What has it helped you/DC with? (We've only just received results, so still wondering about the benefits...)

madwoman - that sounds an absolutely AWFUL thing to go through! How horrible for you & family. We never set out to have to cope with these things, do we? We just cope when we have to. Sounds like you guys did ok in the end. I would not worry about the studies you mention, I've read them too and they are pretty inconclusive IMO.

Scholarships mainly.

colleger when you say scholarships how likely are full scolarships?
We may look at this route for dd if our meetings with her current school do not go well.
Thank you for your post on my thread btw,it was very interesting to hear.

It depends on the school and the year group, and another reason for keeping in year group because we always felt under pressure when he wasn't performing in his weaker subjects.

Obviously an IQ of 145 is out of the ordinary but may not be amongst independent schools who are used to these children moving into the state sector. I believe 141 is the definition of genius (I hate that word) so to be markedly above that would work more on our favour. My other son has an Iq of 137 which is within the top 3 per 100 child but inde's have not been interested.

Moving from the state sector

Thanks colleger

There is no way we could afford any fees at all,i have had a look at afew websites of independents near us and they are about £3-4k per term.
Always worth a try for scholarships/bursaries though i suppose,we have nothing to loose.

Mrs Shears a reason we haven't bothered with testing was DS school give us a bursary already as they view him as gifted (could not afford it otherwise ). The cynic in me thought this option might come up on this thread.

Hi iggly2 good for you with regards to the bursary

I really hope dd's school come up trumps for her but i really can't see it,i think a move is inevitable as i have never really been happy during all of dd's time there.
I will know more tomorrow i suppose.

Hello,

Do you mind if I join in? My ds is 8 & very bright (but never tested). He scored NC 3Bs across the board end of last yr (yr2,) but I suspect he is actually capable of more. I can't work out, firstly whether I should get him tested & secondly whether I should be doing more for him (eg looking at independent schools).

He's happy at school & I'm quite pleased that they've recognised he's clever & do try to extend him (he's doing some yr 5 work & gets taken out of regular lessons sometimes to do extension work etc) but I can't help wondering if he's living up to his potential, (hence the query on whether to test him,) & then there's that nagging worry that he might be better off in private school with smaller classes etc. Although he does well at school he doesn't have any academic interest outside school, so I know he could be doing better & although I'm quite happy for him to just 'be a kid' at the mo, it does worry me that as he never has to work at anything to do well, he's going to have problems preparing for his 11 plus in a couple of years. Tbh this is probably the main reason I'd consider changing him to an independent school, (as I know they help kids prepare for it). We can't really afford private school fees though, but I know the local inde school does do bursaries. But I'm not really sure how they work, how do they decide what to offer? Is it usually based on how much they want your child to attend or is it based on income and if so do they take into account other factors like the fact we have other kids, how much rent we are paying out etc? The reason I'm asking so many questions is that I think on the surface our income probably looks fair but in reality it only just about covers our expenditure. So if they are likely to ask us to contribute towards fees I know we wouldn't be able to proceed & I don't want to start the process if there's no chance we'd be able to go down that route.

Bursary is on income and they do take into account expenditure. For us they looked at everything (mortgage, loans, professional memberships, car running costs, heating, bills, home insurance etc....). Ds was with them from nursery and they knew he was bright. Then redundancy and they didn't want to lose him so offered bursary that they would not normally give for another 5 years. It is a reduction only but makes a difference (he can just about stay). It is rare to get 100% till secondary age. I don't know if the school is so amazing with him because they figured him out without any prompting.