A Guide to Your Child’s Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) Report
What is the CogAT?
The Cognitive Abilities Test measures your child’s
developed reasoning abilities in three areas: verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal (figural). These
abilities, acquired both in and out of school, are important because children use them on a daily basis
to learn and solve problems.
It is important to note that the CogAT is neither an
intelligence test nor an achievement test. It measures developed rather than innate abilities.
What specifically is tested by the CogAT?
The CogAT consists of three sections, or batteries,
each containing three subtests.
Verbal Battery - The Verbal Battery’s three subtests appraise verbal inductive and deductive reasoning skills, flexibility, fluency, and adaptability in
working with verbal materials and solving verbal
problems. Students with high scores display effective use of a variety of verbal strategies.
Quantitative Battery - The three subtests on the
Quantitative Battery assess deductive and inductive reasoning skills, flexibility and fluency at working with quantitative symbols and concepts. Students with high scores on this battery use a variety
of strategies for working with quantitative materials.
Quantitative reasoning abilities measured by this
battery are significantly related to high-level problem solving mathematics and in other disciplines.
Nonverbal Battery - The three subtests on the
Nonverbal Battery use geometric shapes and figures that have little direct relationship to formal
school instruction. These subtests require no reading. Students with high scores on this battery have
well-developed strategies for dealing with new materials and use them with flexibility and accuracy.
How is the CogAT used in Norman Public
Schools?
Classroom teachers use the CogAT as another
piece of information about their students. It is especially useful in identifying cognitive strengths and
weaknesses and understanding why a student is
not performing to his or her abilities. A student’s
profile is tied to recommendations on differentiating
instruction for individual student needs. The CogAT
is also sometimes used as a screening tool for our
gifted and talented program and as a diagnostic
tool for special education students.
How did my child do?
The first section of the report details your child’s
percentiles on each battery and the entire test in
comparison to children in the norm pool close to his
or her age. A National Age Percentile of 62, for example, indicates that your child’s score is equal to
or greater than 62% of children in that group.
Directly below this section you will find a student
Ability Profile with a brief narrative. This string of
symbols can be used to access an extended narrative profile of your child’s test at www.cogat.com.
Simply click on the interactive Profile Interpretation
System button and select the profile from your
child’s report.
The second section puts your child’s scores in a
grade-level context. The National Percentile Rank
is your child’s percentile rank in the national norm
for children in his or her grade. Do not be alarmed
if the Age and Grade percentiles do not match;
younger students in a grade will often have a
higher age than grade percentile.
This section also contains a Local Percentile Rank
which compares your student to NPS students in
the same grade. This percentile will be lower than
the National Percentile Rank because NPS students score on average well above the national
norms.
Both sections report scores as stanines as well as
percentiles. A stanine essentially generalizes percentiles to 9 broader groups using standard deviations. A stanine of 5 represents students between
the 40th and 60th percentiles. A 9 represents the
top 4 percent, and a 1 reflects the lowest 4 percent.
Finally, look at the section on the right side of the
report for a narrative of your child’s performance on
the CogAT.
What should I do with this information?
The CogAT provides one more piece of your child’s
overall academic picture. If you have questions
regarding your child’s CogAT results, please find
an opportunity to discuss them with his or her counselor or gifted resource coordinator.