Refusing to Participate in Testing

[mommatlaw]

Good morning! I am worried and am looking for guidance. My 5-year old has had two instances of "opting out" during intelligence testing (why we are doing this testing is another post for another day!). Her scores were abysmal, and the feedback that I received from the administrators is that she disengaged during the tests, refused to participate (politely), put her head down, excused herself to go potty...basically tried to get out of it. I am not sure how to handle this (if at all). My gut tells me that she has the ability (she is up to speed - her reading is coming right along, she is beginning to understand mathematics), but not the behavior. I certainly hope that "this too shall pass," but right now I'm concerned. Help!

 

:confused:

[lynn]

I am sure it's a passing thing. Does she do this at home when having to do something she rather not do? My 8 year old always had to get a "snack or drink or potty" when he had to do chores or sit down for our reading lessons at 4/5/6. He has outgrown it for the most part.

[Jenstet]

I think 5 is young. Are they suggesting you need to do something and do they have experience with young children?

 

My 10 year old was recently tested and had to go back 2 extra times.

 

I am going to guess she may have other issues going on as well which is why you are having her tested. I don't think there is a lot you can do except talk to her about what is going to happen. In case she has some anxiety.

[mommatlaw]

Thank you for the reassurance, ladies.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

I would be asking some questions about what the tests were and what they were intended to measure. We had our older kids tested when they were not quite 6 and around 7. They were not able to use the same instruments on both kids because of their ages. The younger one needed to be tested on an instrument designed for preschool and kindergarten aged kids (ie, prereaders).

One thing that was great about our examiner was that she was really good at putting the kids at their ease. She told them that she didn't care where or how they sat or if they say, just as long as they kept answering questions. The 5 yo did his entire test skipping around the room. And there was a point at which the 7 yo did get tired and disengage a bit from the test. The examiner noted this and mentioned it to us in her debrief.

5 is rather young for testing like this. Not only is it a draining experience for the whole family, but I think it can only show so much about the child. (For example, we weren't actually claiming giftedness, just advanced reading ability. The school officials wanted us to demonstrate giftedness in order to justify the advanced books we were using with the kids.)

[Twinmom]

Do you have to test this year? If it's not a state requirement, why not just wait until your child is older/more mature/has more testing experience, etc.? In my experience working in the mental health field, intelligence testing is pretty unreliable AND tends to pigeonhole little kids before they have a chance to develop. There's nothing magical about an IQ score...they can vary up to 15 points in either direction on any given day based on a number of variables. You could get an really low score this year and see it really jump next year once she is more comfortable. (I know of what I speak...DD did that to me once and scared the heck out of me! Long story...;))

 

Now, if you HAVE to do this or really need to for some reason, I'd suggest "desensitizing" her to testing for a while before the actual test. Have her spend time doing some of the types of activities she'd do on the actual test day (ask the testing person for some ideas). Set up a structured "testing" time at home and play at these activities with her. Try some of those "preparing your child for standardized testing" programs you can find on the web and try some very basic stuff with her. Ask the test administrator if he/she can spend some time just playing with your daughter on a day prior to the test (yes, you'll pay the session fee!!) so she can begin to feel more at ease. Ask if you can either have the testing done in your home with you present (I've seen some hs testing groups offer this for things like the Woodcock Johnson, etc.).

 

No matter what, do remember that some kids are just extremely freaked out by testing and will have an extremely hard time with it. This doesn't necessarily mean that your child is of lower intelligence...just may mean that her anxiety is skewing the test. For all the claims made, intelligence testing really isn't as scientific and infallible as it claims to be! (I'll probably have to hide out from a few of my old professors for saying that, but it's true!)

 

Best of luck.

[Soph the vet]

Sounds just like my dd5. Hope its normal:001_smile:!

[Storm Bay]

My dd did two tests in kindergarten. In the strict, rigid one she thought some of it was stupid and so refused to cooperate (yes, and she was barely 6.) In the more free test that she thought was fun, she sailed through with flying colours and aced it. Some kids just won't cooperate with tests at that age for various reasons. Mine just didn't see the point of answering boring questions. I won't say that I was pleased at the time, but now I think it's rather humourous (7 years have passed.)