Canary in the Coalmine - Intelligence Report

December 2, 2020 12:49 PM

My four year old took an intelligence test for school. What are the "secret terms" that might be added to give more information in the report than what is stated?

I recall a question the green a few years back that asked why the doctor had added into her medical record "patient was pleasant to work with" when there was never an expectation that she would see the medical notes. Answers came in that this was to clue other doctor's into the patient's demeanor when that phrase is specifically missing without actually committing it to the medical record a patient might have access to.

Does anyone know what, if any, key phrases I would want (or not want) to see in a report that may not be immediately obvious?

posted by anonymous to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

This is sort of answering around your question so I hope it's okay ... My kid has had lots of evaluations over the years, including developmental, early intervention, IEP, ADHD and IQ/intelligence. I think trying to read between the lines of this stuff for our kids is a little bit like astrology. We as parents see what we want to see, or what we fear seeing in the negative cases. What has always given me the most insight about the evaluator's true sense of my kid was speaking with them in person. The glint of excitement in an eye when they explain he did XYZ, the somber tone of voice when they say he disclosed ABC, the pause to carefully pick words when they are saying something. If you want the read between the lines or the clues to real thoughts, have a Zoom meeting with them.

(Also, I prefer working with people with my kid who will be frank with me. When the school wanted to test my kid for gifted, I checked in with his psycho-educational specialist who was like "Decline. He's not gifted. He's very bright and but not gifted and the gifted program would stress his weaknesses." Like that is the real gold of information right there. I always tell docs and teachers - "I'm not the Mom that will only hear compliments. I can't work on problems I don't know about, so I need you to tell me if you have concerns. Don't worry about offending me, I know he's not perfect." This is more reliable than trying to read much into the presence or absence of magic phrases.)
posted by MustangMamaVE at 1:09 PM on December 2, 2020 [17 favorites]

I imagine the main thing is the percentile score. How did your child compare to others taking the test at this time? Fiftieth percentile is average. Scores of 90 or over are significant but the differences between scores between 90 and 98 are less important. To put a perspective on this, no one gets a 100 percentile. That would mean they scored better than anybody taking the test.
posted by tmdonahue at 3:14 PM on December 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

From stuff I’ve seen in my kid’s report: if it doesn’t describe the various ways the kid was agitated and/or visibly self-soothing (anything from leg-jiggling or hair-twirling to refusal to tears), the tests themselves probably didn’t provoke any obvious stress or anxiety, which may be useful info as part of a wider set of psych-related tests. It’d also mean that the tests are less likely to have big error bars (kid might find it too difficult, too easy, or have some stress reaction unrelated to difficulty—hard to say). Conversely, if they were super-engaged, finding joy in the little puzzles, that might be commented on, too, and might be a sign of whether any kind of pull-out group will appeal to your child.

I also have found it useful to note where behavioral descriptions at test time are totally at odds with classroom or home observations. The natural question when seeing that is “why?” and I’ve felt like that has been a source of productive discussion with a team.
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:18 PM on December 2, 2020

It seems to me that a more relevant question would be, what kind of school would administer an intelligence test to a four-year-old?
posted by heatherlogan at 6:53 PM on December 2, 2020 [10 favorites]

From my understanding as a Psychologist-in-training there are two types of intelligence tests for 4 year olds:

The first type consists of specific tests to look for developmental issues in different areas. These can be very helpful in figuring out early if a child has vision, hearing, or specific cognitive issues. I would not expect any "secret terms" for this kind of test as everyone is working for the child's best interest.

The second type has little basis in science and says a lot more about the abilities of the parent and teacher than it does about the child. You cannot reliably test a four year old for above-average intelligence. You can however test a four year old for how well their parents prepped them for a test, or what their mood was like that day. More and more preschools are using tests like this to try and find the future elite, but there is no evidence this actually works. There actually might be "secret terms" in the evaluations here, but they probably say more about what the teacher thinks of you as a parent then what they think about your child. Many parents of preschoolers can be very pushy with teachers. So you should be direct in asking if something is unclear, but try your best to not make them feel defensive as that would not help your child.

So I think the simple answer is: there are no phrases you should want or not want to see in the report, you should use the information to best help your child grow. There may not be a lot of detail in the evaluation, because it's hard to give reliable detail for how well a 4 year old did.
posted by JZig at 10:53 PM on December 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

It seems to me that a more relevant question would be, what kind of school would administer an intelligence test to a four-year-old?

Could be a sign of a very good one,. There are very legitimate evaluations of 4 year olds that laypersons might describe as "intelligence tests," including that might be done by a school such as an IEP evaluation so I don't think there's any need to dig on the school (or, by implication, the asker for consenting to it). True we don't know why asker's child was evaluated but these tests can often be really important in assessing a child's developmental status and needs for support. I for one am really glad my son's preschool, at 4, raised the need for that testing and began providing the therapeutic services the report identified would be beneficial.
posted by MustangMamaVE at 7:23 AM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Answers came in that this was to clue other doctor's into the patient's demeanor when that phrase is specifically missing without actually committing it to the medical record a patient might have access to.

There is no secret psychologist code. I would not notice if this particular phrase were missing. If their cooperativeness was not described I would assume the psychologist just doesn’t use that as a descriptor in their particular report style (as these vary greatly). It’s possible this is a thing in other medical professions but I have not heard of it in mine.

The fact that you’re worried about this makes me think you’re reading too deep into the situation. The point of intelligence testing for a 4 year old is not to give a deep analytical profile of your kid. It’s to screen for learning or developmental delays. The information is likely to be short and to the point. You’ll want to look at the percentile scores. They should give you descriptions of what those mean, e.g. below average, average, superior.

Re: the validity of testing 4 year olds it can be done but again, largely as a screening measure. The Mullen would be my guess for what was given. I put in all of my reports that intelligence testing is not reliable until after age 5 and should be redone comprehensively at that time.

Source: Also a psychologist in training, I conduct IQ and developmental testing primarily on kids 2-8, have written tons of reports on said testing.
posted by brook horse at 8:16 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]