Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment wppsi-iv asynchrony and potential eye sight issues

Yes and then some. On the WISC-IV we had subtest scores range from 2% to 99.6%. His overall processesing speed was 9%. In our case it explained a lot of the issues he was having at school which led to us to testing (in our case these became more obvious in grade one with the increased writing expectations which for our DS are a challenge).

I'm far from an expert but to me it makes sense that low processing speed could result in a slow talker. My DS was speech delayed (at 2.25 he had about 5 words and that was 9 months into speech therapy). By 3 he had caught up to his peers and he graduated from the speech therapy program. In our case he isn't a slow talker but he does take time before he starts speaking. If you rapid fire questions at him it is a disaster because he is working on his first response by the time you've asked the third. He asks a million questions and then hours later returns with follow up questions after he's processed everything and developed his new theory that he then has to grill us on.

For parenting help I've used this board, another more local board, books, the Hoagies website and other parents (I work with a lot of very smart people who it turns out have very smart kids).

Extra-curricular - as mentioned above we've mostly focused on sports but others use music or drama in a similar way. At home we do a lot based more on his strengths (google and youtube are amazing resources).

DYS - I'm in Canada so we can't apply. Hopefully others will be able to help with that.

We can't find kids with similar building abilities (or interests) so we look for other commonalities instead. At that age it is exhausting but for us it has become easier as he's getting older and is able to get information on his own rather than relying on us for everything.

This has been extremely true for us as well. Many teachers were focused on how slow he was doing tasks and while some realized that by talking to him you could see the gifted side many were just frustrated by the fact that he wouldn't complete any of the work they were trying to get him to do. DS was also incredibly frustrated at school. He knew he was very smart (not from us telling him but he just figured it out) and couldn't understand why all of the other kids were having an easier time writing when it was so hard for him. In some ways I think it challenged his view of himself. When we got the results back we told him that he was very smart at some things but that things like writing were going to be challenging. He actually looked relieved.

Wow that's interesting scatter and insight! We also had low processing index in one subtest (like under 20%) and the tester said she thought he was distracted, but the admission director thought it was eye scanning issue - hence the recos to see developmental ophthalmologist.


Our DS was not speech delayed, but he was quiet for a while, and then he had two looooong stuttering periods. Our teachers believed that he was thinking faster than he could express, hence the stuttering. Our current teachers are VERY positive people who thoroughly respect the children, so I dread graduating from our pre-K into the unknown world.. He still talks slowly now, last week he was bullied by a friend (a clothing article removed from his body and hidden), he tried to provide long explanations to friend why the friend should stop, but friend didn't listen. Teacher said he needed to learn to say the short "No" to get immediate action, since friend didn't have the patience to listen. He's been picked on by this same kid for 1.5 years, and every time this happens, he melts down when he gets home, making me feel sad that school can be so stressful


Thank you! I need to check Hoagies more thoroughly, so far I've been just browsing lightly. Also I haven't read any books on giftedness, resources, etc. DS also does soccer and gymnastic, for which he is average, but he thinks these are fun. I also work with a lot of very smart people, and I think they have very smart kids. We have online discussion forums for parents at work. I have been passively reading the discussions, because it is not anon, and I am not comfortable to come out and discuss the age and milestones of my son, which they do when asking for activity/material suggestions.. Most or all of our classroom parents are also in the forum..


Oh that is good to know. Today, when our DS gets home from school, and we from work, we are ready to wind down, while he is just starting to get excited with his projects! It will be great to get to a point when he'll be more independent about getting information. I guess being able to read might help..

We talked to our psychologist, and she said that Davidson's requirement for PIQ in wppsi-iv can't be satisfied because PIQ has been discontinued in wppsi-iv. She thinks that if/when we know the scores from the extended norms, he will not need to re-test, as it will bump his whole VSI above Davidson's requirement. I am willing to re-test if needed for DYS, but would very much like to avoid further exposing him to more testing if possible.

Hi peanutsmum. We have been where you are in many ways. Our DD was tested on the SB V but similar to you, high VS, off the charts fluid reasoning and quantitative reasoning. SB V doesn't have processing speed as such, no real reliance on timed items so its good for reflective thinkers and may yield high scores for your child if high scores are what you need. It may also give some different information if you are thinking about retesting. DD said it was fun, with the right tester.
Regarding VS and Linda Silverman. I read her book after getting the test scores and thought, yep that is very much like our DD. I haven't been fussed over learning styles as it wasn't really an issue until now. DD read early by whole word recognition and then watched a Sesame St video on blending sounds over and over. Then she could read anything! Now, she is struggling with the amount of reading she has to do. She is a slow reader and she says it is because she uses every word to create a movie in her head. We have returned to LS's work, I have her book beside me, looking for ways to help. By the way, DD hated math, was bored rigid by rote learning especially multiplication tables, until she hit algebra. She is now accelerated by three grades in maths. She still is no where near as good with math calculation, thank goodness for calculators, as she is at math reasoning. We used musical multiplication tables as an adjustment to her 'learning style' in that sense.
I am very much research trained but I also know that in both medicine and psychology there are unique situations where all the information you have apart, from your own patient, is case reports and other people's experience. I use whatever information I can but evaluate it for the situation I have at hand. Case reports and anecdotal evidence are what we come to this site to talk about, our unique kids. Where we can we draw on research and evidence we do, but the more unique the situation, the less likely there is much research available.
Learning styles are controversial but finding different ways to support your child's learning is what you will do. Finding a school who understands your child and you and is willing to work with you trumps any kind of gifted program in my opinion. Go with that if you can find it but it is really hard. You may need to change schools as your child grows and changes and that is okay too. Our DD changed schools 5 times in primary school, military family! She is reserved but she coped. Some schools were better than others. The best was a public school which understood accelerated learning.
We tried lateral extension into music, ballet and languages when school was not enough to meet her educational needs but it doesn't replace an appropriate level of education. As much as she enjoyed the other activities the classroom was still painful.
On the social side, DD gets on best with anyone, adult or child, who likes and accepts her and with whom she can find common ground. Lots of the kids are HG but one was delayed academically. She was just a really nice person!
I hear your doubts about whether your child is gifted. I still wonder that despite the evidence to the contrary, especially as I fight my way through her cluttered bedroom or she fails to complete a two stage instruction. Then I start worrying about whether she is 2e! But VS kids are messy and don't always hear you too!

I think the gifted director is trying to read way too much into it. I'm also biased against testing kids who are so young because at that age IQ testing is very unreliable and not stable. It is not stable until mid to late elementary school. So if you test him again in 3 or 4 years his IQ could be 20 points lower or 20 points higher. That is what happened with my DS. He was tested at 3.5 because of developmental delays and his GAI was 106. He was tested again right after a traumatic brain injury at age 6 and his GAI was 133. Everything shifted up about 25 points. On both tests there was a large gap between verbal and non-verbal but neither psych seemed too concerned about it. There were also large variations between sub-tests. On the latest test he scored 18-19 on matrix reasoning and picture concepts and 13 on block design, because it is timed and his fine motor skills are very poor due to developmental coordination disorder.
If your DS was much higher with the block design section than other sections it is probably because he plays with legos a lot and has "practice" compared to other kids who do not. He probably also does have talent in that area and that is why he is interested, but his score may be inflated. My DS did really well on the object assembly section at age 3 because he did a lot of puzzles at that age. Kids who practice puzzles at home will find it easier to do as part of IQ testing. IQ scores can vary depending on how much exposure a person gets. Kids who score high in vocabulary, for instance, are more likely to have well-educated parents who talk and read to them a lot. This probably starts to even out later on since all kids will be exposed to similar vocabulary at school.
If you really want to know his true IQ, I would wait at least 2-3 more years, and then re-test. Even then it may not be fully accurate.
I would not worry too much about visual tracking unless you have some other reason to believe it is a problem.

I see your comment about re-testing early, I think you have a point. Only time will tell. But isn't it the case with many DYS kids? I am suspecting he is following the path of my husband though. But as parents we feel cautious and don't want to over estimate our son's potentials, hence the doubts. But then if he is, then we want to know how to deal with it.

What about those kids who read complicated books early, does it even out at the end? I am truly curious.

Anyway I think we are going round and round And the consensus is to re-test later, which sounds like a wise thing to do. We also might try to work on DYS application earlier, since I think only good things can come out of it if we are accepted. The Christmas experience made us feel like it is the right thing to do.

My two have not evened out (yet) but that could be because they do really have gifted IQs (as much as you can tell in a 6 and 8 year old). DD started kindergarten with reading fluency well above the 99th percentile and she is still above the 99th percentile 2.5 years later. She reads a few grade levels ahead (she's 8 reading around a 6th-7th grade level). DS hasn't shown any sign of slowing down either. He has always been extremely good at decoding using phonics (started around his 4th birthday--I didn't try before that). I think he started to read shortly after his 106 GAI was calculated at age 3. I thought that was a little weird that he was reading well at age 4 with a solidly average IQ, although I also knew that he also wasn't particularly cooperative with the testing and it probably wasn't an accurate score.

Some kids enter kindergarten reading but are not gifted--they are probably somewhat bright but also have parents who work with them a lot. Those are the kids who probably "even out" within a couple years.

Anyway, I wouldn't over-analyze the scores too much at this point. His score is probably high enough that it's not going to fall out of the gifted range, but whether he's going to be a DYS scholar, it's too early to tell (IMO).

Blackcat, at your kids age, I think you can safely say they are DYS scholars, if they are already I think the IQs are somewhat stable at that point?

My DS has been always like this since he was 2, so it has been three years. His advanced logical abilities was also diagnosed at 20 months old via another test. But we will keep watching his development with interest! Only time will tell..

I don't think IQ is that stable in a 6 year old but probably an 8 year old (assuming they do their best on the test). The IQ scores of young children depend so much on what they are exposed to, it's pretty pointless to even test them unless some sort of problem is suspected.
Honestly, I don't really care about DYS. My older one has the IQ scores for DYS (her GAI and perceptual reasoning are both above the cut-off), but we don't have achievement testing and it seems like too much of a hassle/expense to bother with it. My youngest has the achievement test scores (Woodcock Johnson). He was given the WJ by his school as part of his IEP eval. Broad Math is at 155 but his IQ is a couple points off because of the 13 on block design. He shouldn't have been given that subtest because of his fine motor issues. But we weren't testing him to see if he was gifted, we were testing him because of developmental delays and a skull fracture/brain injury. So it made sense to do that subtest in that particular situation. His fine motor was especially bad after he was in the accident. If at some point we are in need of whatever services they provide I will look into it more. The school district probably couldn't care less what DYS has to say so I'm not convinced there would be much benefit.

I have read her book and the psych who assessed DD called her a "VSL". DD learned to read very easily, probably a combination of phonics and learning whole words. She was reading very well by the time she started kindergarten. She listened a lot to audiobooks while following along with the print. DS is also a "VSL" and is extremely good at decoding. He can read words that he's never seen or heard before. If i gave him a college level textbook, he'd be able to read it fairly well. Probably not understand what it says, but read it. I don't think "VSL's" learn to read differently unless there is some sort of disorder involved, like dyslexia (which may or may not be more common in VSL's). I think Silverman has some interesting insights but they are not backed up by research. I definitely would not choose a school based on whether you think he is a VSL or not.

Blackcat,

How did you teach your children to read? Or if they self learned, how did they teach themselves? I am not keen in spending the time teaching my son to read early, but I am just curious. We have nothing at our home that he can use to teach to read, no audio books, never watching teach-yourself-to-read programs, no phonics, nothing. I am actually not worried about it, because I think if he is that bright, once he is introduced to reading materials, he should take off easily. My DH is a big reader (we have literally thousands of books in our home library, with comprehensive online cataloguing!), and he knows what books he still doesn't have.. He didn't go to K already reading, but was reading Lord of the Ring by 3rd grade.