About My Child's Assessment

Richardson ISD uses the Cognitive Abilities Test to determine which students qualify for gifted services. We do not accept outside testing.

CogAT measures learned reasoning and problem-solving skills in three different areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal. Reasoning skills develop gradually throughout a person’s lifetime and at different rates for different individuals. Reasoning abilities are good predictors of success in school and are important outcomes of good schooling. CogAT does not measure such factors as effort, attention, motivation, and work habits, which also contribute importantly to school achievement.

Building on strengths and developing weaknesses: Teachers use CogAT scores to help students learn more effectively. For example, if a student’s score profile shows an uneven pattern of relative strength and weakness, the teacher can provide challenging opportunities for the student to do the kind of thinking he/she does best (building on the student’s strength). The teacher can also support aspects of new tasks that rely on a student’s relative weakness. When the student has established a foothold in an area, the teacher can guide her/him to develop the relatively weaker reasoning skill by applying this skill to the familiar task (strengthening the student’s weakness).

Identify GT: The school district will also use the CogAT test results to help identify students who qualify for gifted services.

VERBAL

The Verbal Battery measures flexibility, fluency, and adaptability in reasoning with verbal materials and in solving verbal problems. These reasoning abilities play an important role in reading comprehension, critical thinking, writing, and virtually all verbal learning tasks.,

QUANTITATIVE

The Quantitative Battery measures quantitative reasoning skills; flexibility and fluency in working with quantitative symbols and concepts; and the ability to organize, structure, and give meaning to an unordered set of numerals and mathematical symbols. These reasoning skills are significantly related to problem solving in mathematics and other disciplines.

NONVERBAL

The Nonverbal Battery measures reasoning using geometric shapes and figures. To perform successfully, students must invent strategies for solving novel problems. They must be flexible in using these strategies and accurate in implementing them.

Because CogAT is nationally normed, an individual’s test performance can be compared with the test performances of other students throughout the nation who are the same age.

National Norms: The student’s national age score shows how that student's scores compare to others who took the test.

Local Norms: In our case, we use the age norms so the comparison is in a three-month window. Remember, the Texas State Plan requires that we consider students who are advanced "when compared to others of the same age, experience, or environment." At RISD, we use local norms to compare students' performance to others within their school and the district.

Percentile (APR): This score, shown as %ile, shows how a student scores compared to other students. For example, a score of 95%ile means a student scored better than 95 out of 100 his or her age who took the test.

Standard Age Score (SAS): This score is often converted to a percentile. They are also called index scores. This score conforms to a normal distribution that can be plotted on a Bell Curve.

Standard Error of Measure: Tests must determine how reliable they are. Reliability refers to how consistent scores would be if a person took the test multiple times. We apply a standard error of measure to the Student Age Score to account for the reliability factor.

Johnsen, et. al. Implementing Evidence-Based Practices in Gifted Education, 2021, p. 37-38.

Using the Verbal, Quantitative, and Nonverbal ability scores, students may qualify for GT3 gifted services by having a SAS (Standard Age Score) of 130 or more in two areas. To account for the Standard Error of Measure (SEM) and taking into consideration the Age Percentile Rank (APR), qualifying scores for GT3 services may be reflected as:

• 126+ when the APR is the same (95th percentile) for Standard Age Scores of 126 and 127.
• 127+ when the APR differs for Standard Age Scores of 126 and 127.

Students who have SASs of 115-130 do not qualify for GT3 gifted services. If you feel your student needs to be challenged further in the classroom, please bring the ability profile to the homeroom teacher to discuss options.

Using the Verbal, Quantitative, and Nonverbal ability scores, students in grades 1-5 (1-4 in the Lake Highlands Learning Community) may qualify for GT2 gifted services by having a SAS (Standard Age Score) of 130 or more in one area and a SAS of 122-129 in a second area. To account for the Standard Error of Measure (SEM) and taking into consideration the Age Percentile Rank (APR), qualifying scores for GT2 services may be reflected as:

• One score of 126+ when the APR is the same (95th percentile) for SAS scores of 126 and 127.
• One score of 127+ when the APR differs for SAS of 126 and 127.
• One SAS of 122-125 or 122-126 depending on the 95th percentile difference noted above.

Email: kelsey.karcher@risd.org