What Happens at a Stanford-Binet V Evaluation: Step by Step

If your child has been referred for a Stanford-Binet 5 evaluation — or if you're considering requesting one — you likely have a lot of questions about the process. What exactly happens? Who administers it? How long does it take? What do they do to a four-year-old for 90 minutes? This guide walks through the full process from start to finish.

Who Administers the Stanford-Binet V?

The SB5 is an individually administered psychological instrument. It can only be administered by licensed professionals, specifically:

• Licensed psychologists (PhD or PsyD) in private practice or clinical settings
• School psychologists employed by a school district (they typically hold a specialist-level degree or above)
• Neuropsychologists conducting a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation

The SB5 cannot be administered by teachers, gifted coordinators, paraprofessionals, or online testing services. If a service offers an "SB5 assessment" without a licensed psychologist involved, it is not the actual Stanford-Binet 5.

How Does a Referral Happen?

There are several common pathways to a formal evaluation:

• Parent request: You can contact a licensed psychologist directly and request an evaluation. In most states, parents do not need a physician's order for a private psychological evaluation.
• Teacher recommendation: A classroom teacher who observes exceptional ability may recommend testing through the school's gifted program process.
• Pediatrician referral: Some pediatricians who observe developmental acceleration will refer families to a pediatric psychologist.
• Gifted program application: Many selective gifted programs (particularly those for highly gifted students) require an individualized IQ test as part of the application. The school or program coordinator will specify the required instrument.

Before the Evaluation: Intake and Paperwork

Once you've scheduled an evaluation with a psychologist, you'll typically be asked to complete several forms before the appointment:

• Developmental history questionnaire: Covers pregnancy, birth, early milestones (when did your child walk? talk?), medical history, and family history of learning or developmental differences.
• Behavioral rating scales: Standardized questionnaires that ask you to rate your child's behaviors, attention, emotional regulation, and adaptive skills. Common tools include the BASC-3 or Conners.
• Teacher questionnaire: Many psychologists will ask you to have your child's teacher fill out a parallel rating scale to compare home and school observations.
• Previous testing records: If your child has had any prior evaluations — speech/language, developmental, educational — bring those records. They help the psychologist understand the full picture.

Complete these forms thoughtfully and honestly. The psychologist is not judging your parenting — they're building a full picture of your child to interpret the test scores in context.

What the Testing Day Looks Like

Understanding what actually happens during the evaluation session helps reduce anxiety for both parent and child.

Total testing time is typically 45–60 minutes for preschool-age children and 75–90 minutes for school-age children. Some comprehensive evaluations that include the SB5 alongside other measures (achievement tests, behavioral measures) may span multiple sessions.

The Specific Subtests Your Child Will Encounter

The SB5 includes ten subtests in total (five nonverbal, five verbal), plus the two routing subtests. Here is what your child will actually be doing:

• Object Series (routing, nonverbal): "What comes next?" pattern completion tasks using pictures of objects.
• Vocabulary (routing, verbal): The examiner shows pictures and asks the child to name them, then asks the child to define words orally.
• Nonverbal Fluid Reasoning: Pattern completion using matrices and novel problem-solving tasks.
• Verbal Fluid Reasoning (analogies): "A bird is to feather as a fish is to ___?" — orally presented verbal analogies.
• Nonverbal Knowledge (Picture Absurdities): "What is wrong with this picture?" tasks testing world knowledge through visual scenes.
• Verbal Knowledge: Vocabulary and general information questions answered orally.
• Nonverbal Quantitative Reasoning: Number and quantity tasks without words — comparing amounts, completing numerical patterns.
• Verbal Quantitative Reasoning: Word problems and orally presented math reasoning.
• Nonverbal Visual-Spatial (Form Board and Form Patterns): Placing puzzle pieces to match a target design — a direct manipulation task with physical pieces.
• Verbal Visual-Spatial (Position and Direction): Following directions like "touch the square that is above the circle to the left of the triangle."
• Nonverbal Working Memory (Block Span): The examiner taps blocks in a sequence; the child must repeat the sequence.
• Verbal Working Memory (Memory for Sentences / Last Word): Repeating sentences verbatim or recalling the last word from a series of questions.

What If Your Child Refuses or Fatigues?

This is more common than parents expect, and experienced pediatric psychologists are fully equipped to handle it. Options include:

• Offering a short break and returning to a task
• Skipping a task temporarily and returning to it later
• Splitting the evaluation across two sessions on different days (this is standard practice for young children and children with attention or anxiety challenges)
• Noting task refusal in the clinical report rather than scoring the task

Do not pressure your child to "try harder" during the evaluation. The psychologist is trained to motivate children appropriately. Parental pressure in the room is counterproductive.

After Testing: The Written Report

After the testing session, the psychologist scores the raw data, converts to standard scores, and writes a comprehensive psychological report. This process typically takes 2–4 weeks. The report will include:

• Reason for referral and background information
• Behavioral observations during testing
• All scores: FSIQ, NVIQ, VIQ, and all five factor scores, with confidence intervals and percentile ranks
• Clinical interpretation of the score profile
• Recommendations for educational programming, accommodations, or further evaluation

The Feedback Session: Questions to Ask

Most psychologists include a parent feedback session (sometimes in person, sometimes by phone) to walk through the report. Come prepared with questions such as:

• What is the confidence interval around my child's FSIQ? What does that mean for placement decisions?
• Are there meaningful discrepancies between my child's factor scores? What do those suggest?
• Is there anything in the score profile that suggests a learning difference or twice-exceptionality I should know about?
• What specific recommendations are you making for school, and how do I communicate those to the gifted coordinator?
• Should my child be retested? If so, when?

Using the Report After the Evaluation

The psychological report is a formal document. You can:

• Share it with your child's school or gifted program coordinator (you control who receives it — it is your document)
• Provide a copy when applying to selective academic programs that require an IQ evaluation
• Share it with specialists if your child is also being evaluated for learning disabilities, ADHD, or giftedness-related social/emotional concerns
• Keep it for future reference — scores from an SB5 at age 5 are not re-administered until at least 1–2 years later, and many programs accept scores that are up to 3 years old