When our son, Kai, was about two and a half years old, we had moved back to Texas from Las Vegas and needed to establish care with new providers. Kai had already been diagnosed with PVL (periventricular leukomalacia) in Las Vegas. This is damaged white brain matter. You can see it on an MRI clearly and we had no idea why it had occurred. He also showed signs of SPD (sensory processing disorder) when it came to food and textures such as carpet switching to tile or concrete switching to grass. Kai had already received ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) in Las Vegas. Since he had not yet turned three, the age where he qualified for public school special education pre-K, we wanted to continue receiving in home therapy for the next 6 months until his birthday.
We went to Cook Children’s hospital in Fort Worth. If you have never experienced this amazing place, imagine the perfect children’s hospital, multiply your expectations by 10 and you have Cook’s. Kai had a neurology appointment. We brought along his MRI so that they could review it. The neurologist referred us to psychology for a full screening. And the psychologist wanted Kai to have an IQ test.
I found this idea to be odd. Kai was nonverbal. He was still in the process of learning to follow one step directions. As a former teacher with a Master’s degree in education, I wondered how this test would be administered and how accurate it would be. When I expressed this to the psychologist, she assured me that they would make accomodations for Kai and that his father and I could be present for the test. After discussing it with Kai’s dad, we agreed that Kai could participate in the test. I believe I said something to the psychologist like, “OK, you can try. If you can get the information you’re looking for, great. Good luck.”
Test day came and we returned to the hospital. We discovered that a doctoral student would be administering the test. We met her, she took us back to the room and we explained to her that she would get better results if she took the time up front to play with Kai a bit and get to know him. Love on him a bit. Sing to him. She tried.
Kai hated her on sight.
Kai had a history of being able to read therapists and size them up pretty quickly. One of the misconceptions I have learned that people have about children with special needs is that they think special needs kids aren’t bright. Kai is very smart. When he meets someone, he decides pretty quickly if they are worth his time and energy.
The doctoral student simply didn’t make the cut.
Kai does not respond to tangible rewards. Stickers, charts, food treats, none of this stuff will get him to do anything. These are things that she tried, even though we told her from the outset that they didn’t work. After a while, Kai refused to sit at the table. But she kept trying.
The test was designed so that Kai had to only point to a choice of four pictures. I had to stop the doctoral student to point out to her that before she could ask him any questions, we needed to model for Kai what it meant to point. It didn’t occur to her to simplify to this level.
Stop for a minute and imagine the test results for children who don’t understand what it means to point to a picture on a test page. How do you think their test results come out? Uh-huh. Not good. But, here’s the thing. Just because a child doesn’t understand the concept of pointing to an answer, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know the answer.
Imagine that you are taking a test where you know all of the answers. But the instructions that you are given for the test are in a foreign language that you don’t understand. You then fail the test because in the foreign language that you don’t understand, you were told that you needed to point to the answers as each question was asked (also in the foreign language). Is this an accurate measure of your knowledge? No, it isn’t. This is not to imply that Kai knew all of the answers. It means that you cannot use this test as an accurate measure of anything.
I still laugh when I recall what happened next. The doctoral student kept trying to ask Kai questions. Kai continued to refuse to participate. She displayed four pictures on a page. She said, “The bee says Buzz Buzz. Which picture shows a bee?” Kai, standing in the corner of the room and fed up with her after showing her in every possible way that he did not want to participate in the test, turned around and GLARED at her. He then stomped his way over to the book, pointed his finger very deliberately, smacked his finger on the bee and then turned his back to the doctoral student. He KNEW the answer, but he did not want to be bothered! As far as Kai was concerned, it was game, set and match. He would no longer interact. My husband and I apologized for laughing so hard.
But it also took my breath away. I had no idea that Kai knew that. Proof that you never really know WHAT your child knows.
What I want you to take away from this is that a test is just a snapshot of what occurred on the day it was administered. It may or may not be accurate. A good test administrator will be able to tell you if they think the test is accurate.
The doctoral student reported to the psychologist that the test was inconclusive. In other words, because Kai couldn’t or wouldn’t participate, the results were inaccurate.
Even if someone is able to get a score, it is only a snapshot of what has occurred. I am not knocking testing. You need to test to figure out where a child is so that you can meet them at their level and help them to get to the next level.
What I want you to know is that a test score is not the be-all and end-all. It is a beginning step. If you feel that a test score is wildly inaccurate, speak up and say so. Or, if you feel that a test score is pretty accurate, don’t spiral downward into a depression if the score is low.
Consider it the starting line. There is nowhere to go but up.