ADHD iq / CogAT NNAT test prep vs medication

[Anonymous]

This question is inspired by an answer on another thread, where kid scored so much higher after on medication.

What if you don’t give medication but do some ‘prepping’, wouldn’t that be the same?

The reasoning I’m using is that if adhd is stopping performance, and adhd is the real reason for this lower performance, why not do some prepping to remediate that? If you’re against meditation that is.

[Anonymous]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking but the answer is no. No, don't prep or give your DC Ritalin in order to raise their Cogat score.

[Anonymous]

The point is: if the child could benefit from medication, but you don’t want to give medication, while at the same time you want them to access the curriculum, why not prep instead of giving in to medication? Adhd can mask the iq of affected people by as much as 15+ points.

If the adhd is not holding them back as far as iq, and a test like WISC is hard to ‘game’, what’s the harm?

[Anonymous]

Wow. Just crazyness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Just crazyness.

?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Just crazyness.

+1000

[Anonymous]

My kid has ADHD and no amount of prepping for a test is going to make him be able to calm down and focus on it if he thinks it’s boring and doesn’t take his meds. He probably won’t pay attention to the prepping anyway.

(That said, he did well on the Cogat/NNAT before he started meds. It as other types of tests that he struggled with.)

[Anonymous]

I don’t really understand what you’re asking bc they’re entirely different scenarios. Medicating for ADHD is treating a condition that otherwise might block performance and prevent accurate measure of intellect (I say might bc not all ppl with ADHD will perform differently w/ meds). Prepping is cheating by training for the test and artificially raising score.

[Anonymous]

Prepping is not cheating. Everyone should be prepping and the tests should accommodate or be resilient to that. Tests that can't are just bad tests (very common).

It's impossible to police accidental "prepping" in the form of *educating a child*.

Some people are very defensive/competitive about medication. If medication improves quality of life and doesn't cause harm, it is "treating" some "condition", regardless of what the constnatly changing DSM says.

[Anonymous]

This question makes no sense to me. Prepping will not necessarily help a kid with ADHD the point is that they can't focus during the test and no prep will help with that. Medication is the most helpful thing for most with ADHD. If you are worried it is impacting your child, medication not prepping and stressing them out is the choice in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

My mild-to-moderate ADHD combined type kid did fine on COGAT without meds (we got the diagnosis literally a week after COGAT), no prepping. I was actually surprised by how well he did. However, his iReady scores had been strong so I knew he could generally focus on a test when needed. I think it helped that he thought the "puzzles" on the COGAT were fun.

My concern would be that if you think they need meds to score well enough for AAP on COGAT, they will probably need meds to do well in AAP in general. Which is fine (and we will probably go that route eventually for our son), but if you want to medicate him for COGAT but then not for actual school, that seems unfair to him.

At this age, I think either you medicate or you don't. Selectively medicating in 2nd grade for an important test, etc. doesn't seem to be common, although I know it is when they're older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is not cheating. Everyone should be prepping and the tests should accommodate or be resilient to that. Tests that can't are just bad tests (very common).

It's impossible to police accidental "prepping" in the form of *educating a child*.

Some people are very defensive/competitive about medication. If medication improves quality of life and doesn't cause harm, it is "treating" some "condition", regardless of what the constnatly changing DSM says.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Studying for a test at school is fine. Prepping for a test is cheating. No one "studies" for the Cogat, they already know it's against the rules, they just think the rules don't apply to them, or that if they didn't get caught, then they are justified and all the rest are rubes. In the US, that's not our culture. It's not something to be proud of or to brag about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This question makes no sense to me. Prepping will not necessarily help a kid with ADHD the point is that they can't focus during the test and no prep will help with that. Medication is the most helpful thing for most with ADHD. If you are worried it is impacting your child, medication not prepping and stressing them out is the choice in my opinion.

If the kid has a hard time focusing, it may help to know what’s coming, in general terms, and relax and help themselves focus.

Everyone will lose focus if a task proves undoable. The point is how much will preping help a person continue to try?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is not cheating. Everyone should be prepping and the tests should accommodate or be resilient to that. Tests that can't are just bad tests (very common).

It's impossible to police accidental "prepping" in the form of *educating a child*.

Some people are very defensive/competitive about medication. If medication improves quality of life and doesn't cause harm, it is "treating" some "condition", regardless of what the constnatly changing DSM says.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Studying for a test at school is fine. Prepping for a test is cheating. No one "studies" for the Cogat, they already know it's against the rules, they just think the rules don't apply to them, or that if they didn't get caught, then they are justified and all the rest are rubes. In the US, that's not our culture. It's not something to be proud of or to brag about.

Against which rules? Can you please provide the rules?

[Anonymous]

OP, just prep your kid, it doesn't matter, they don't put much weight on Cogat scores anymore anyway.