Independent IQ testing under fire

High scores open door to taxpayer-funded benefits for kids who earn the 'gifted' label

Julie Poppen, News Staff Writer

Published March 18, 2002 at midnight

Text size

More Education

Despite concerns about the validity of IQ testing done by private psychologists and testing centers, metro area school districts routinely use their test results to place students in taxpayer supported gifted programs.

A review found that most districts accept independent IQ testing. Statewide, schools spend $5.3 million annually on gifted and talented programs.

"I think it's consistently a concern that test results are being accepted from people who do not use appropriate testing methods or (whether they) are qualified to administer those tests," said Ruth Gonzalez, president of the Colorado Society of School Psychologists.

"Parents who hope that their child is gifted and talented and hope to have the prestige associated with that are more likely to ask for private testing and find a private evaluator who will provide that label whether or not adequate testing is performed."

One private facility that has been central to the controversy is the Gifted Development Center in Denver, whose director, Linda Silverman, is a longtime advocate of a testing form that other experts say should be disallowed.

Silverman also did the well-publicized testing of Justin Chapman, 8, producing the highest IQ score ever recorded, 298. The boy's mother later admitted she had the test booklet -- complete with answers -- in advance.

Silverman disputes Gonzalez's contention that parents can come shopping for an IQ score.

"Quite a few principals at public schools say you can buy a child's IQ at the Gifted Development Center," Silverman said in a previous interview. "Of course you can't do that. If we did balloon the scores, it would be a travesty -- the worst possible thing to do to a kid."

Advocates of gifted and talented education in the public schools say there is a need for private testing centers such as Silverman's. They say there isn't enough money to allow school districts to do their own IQ testing.

If a psychologist has the proper credentials, an IQ test result should be considered along with other factors, said Frank Rainey, associate director of the Institute for the Development of Gifted Education at the University of Denver.

"These are children who need special provisions," Rainey said. "When you look at a gifted child, a child with extraordinary ability, that child is just as discrepant from the mean or the average as children who we routinely provide for under special education."

Silverman's center has provided testing for schoolchildren in need of special placements, home-schooling or even college-level courses.

But the Justin Chapman saga renewed controversy over Silverman's use of the Stanford-Binet Scale (Form L-M), used as a supplement to many other tests at the center.

The intelligence test was last normed in 1972. The Stanford-Binet Fourth Edition came out in 1986. Not only are some of the images and questions in the 1972 test dated, the scores routinely come out higher than those from more recently normed tests -- and many psychologists say that's unethical.

While most IQ scores top out at 160 -- a genius level -- the Stanford-Binet Scale (Form L-M) can yield scores of up to 300 with the use of a special formula in the test manual.

Silverman, 61, who has a doctorate in learning disabilities and is a licensed psychologist, said, "We continue to use it (the Form L-M) because there is no other alternative for children in the highly exceptionally and profoundly gifted range. . . . Other psychologists were willing to sacrifice this group of kids."

During 22 years of testing, Silverman's center has documented 678 children with IQ scores above 160, 333 above 170, 157 above 180, 70 above 190 and 33 over 200.

Silverman acknowledged she was blackballed by her colleagues as well as by private schools because the center used the test.

"I had to put my own integrity above my reputation in order to survive the punishment that I received from local psychologists," Silverman said in an interview last month.

Over time, Silverman gained supporters -- the public schools' gifted and talented programs among them.

"Linda's been doing research for years and years and years," said Kym Monacelli, coordinator of advanced academic services in the Boulder Valley School District. "She has been a pioneer and has really been a strong advocate for gifted kids."

Kathryn Marget, gifted and talented program coordinator for the Adams 12 Five Star School District, echoed that sentiment.

"From everything I've heard over the years, Linda Silverman is really widely respected worldwide," Marget said.

Silverman sits on an advisory committee to the team of editors and psychologists revising the fifth edition of the Stanford-Binet, expected to be released in 2003.

Most area school districts, including Adams 12, also examine a host of other information, including interviews with teachers and parents, and reviews of other standardized tests when placing students.

In the metro area, only Denver Public Schools does not accept independent IQ testing, but it's not because of concerns about validity of the scores, gifted and talented manager Barbara Neyrinck said.

"Some families can afford to have that testing done and some cannot," Neyrinck said. "Fortunately we've had the resources through our own school psychologists. Other districts do not have those resources."

More than 200 students in Denver Public Schools have their IQs tested annually for placement in the district's highly gifted program, said Betsy Cabell, a Denver school psychologist.

Cabell said the practice allows the district to avoid controversies over placements that most other districts face.

She said that for the most part, district-generated IQ test results are comparable to results from the private centers.

However, Cabell said results from the Stanford-Binet Scale (Form L-M) from the Gifted Development Center are sometimes much higher than results of tests done by the district.

Cabell said she also had concerns about the people who do the testing at Silverman's center.

"They're not necessarily qualified people," Cabell said. "You have to have specific training in psychological testing, supervised administration over a period of time, then you have to have had internship type of setting. . . . It appears she brings people in and trains them herself."

Silverman disagrees.

"We do good work and we're ethical," Silverman said. "We hire ethical people. We always work in teams. No one person is giving a test a second person isn't reviewing. Everyone of our reports is reviewed by a supervisor."

Silverman said most school psychologists have little experience testing gifted children, and that's why independent evaluators are important.

"Most of their experiences have been at the other end of the spectrum," Silverman said. "There are nuances in working with gifted kids that would elude a school psychologist that had never tested one."

But Gonzalez, president of the school psychologist society, said times are changing.

"Historically, school districts have accepted reports from outside professionals whether they be psychologists or medical doctors," Gonzalez said. "We have not required them to present us with their empirical data."

But, she said, "We are beginning to realize, as professionals, that some people outside of the school district diagnose far too readily with inadequate testing."

Contact Julie Poppen at (303) 892-5176 or poppenj@RockyMountainNews.com.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News