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My DS9 is 2E with ADHD. My DS13 is not gifted but I have been fighting the system for years because I feel he is dyslexic and meets several of the symptoms. He does have ADHD.

So, DS13 was tested last year with the WJIII and CELF-4. On all of his teacher assessments, it says the same thing. His classroom behavior is below grade level and he is not meeting the expectations or achieving to his ability. He was enrolled in speech therapy for 2 years in Texas due to his inability to properly say words or express his wants and needs. They removed him from therapy when I expressed a desire for more assistance.

Now we come to middle school. His standardized testing has him as below grade level on all timed tests. If he is taking a test that is not timed, he scores in the high-average to well above average. He has a huge problem with reading items and having to process into written words. He fails all of his spelling tests regardless of how much we study. 6th grade was the first time he finally stopped mixing his d's, b's, p's, q's, etc. The school psychologist stated he doesn't believe he needs further evaluation for dyslexia but I have a hard time agreeing. Please let me know what to make of his scores and what direction to go.

WJIII-SS then %
GAI 105 63
Verb Comp 94 34
Vis-Aud Learn 98 45
Spat Relations 96 39
Sound Blend 114 82
Concept Form 123 94
Vis Match 87 19
Numbers Reversed 97 42

The psych stated that his performance is advanced on tasks involving inductive logic but average to low average on tasks requiring visualization of spatial relationships. It was also stated that his working knowledge is much stronger than his crystalized knowledge. It then stated practice would improve crystalized knowledge but that it would continue to stay below his fluid reasoning skills.

With the subtests, which will also be posted, the psych stated that the spelling was graded on the ability to write the words orally presented but was not judged on whether the words were actually spelled correctly.

For math it stated his performance is advanced on tasks requiring the ability to analyze and solve applied math problems but was low average on math tasks that required speed and accuracy.

For broad reading he was marked as advanced on tasks requiring efficient operation of reading process but was low average on tasks requiring reading decoding and the ability to identify words.

WJIII Tests of Achievement- Grade Equivalent, SS, %
Broad Reading 9.3 113 81
Letter-Word ID 6.8 99 47
Passage Comp 12.5 111 77

Broad Math 11.7 117 87
Calculation 10.5 112 79
Applied Prob 13.0 119 90

Broad Written Lang 13.0 120 91
Spelling 13.0 118 78
Writing Samples 14.4 119 90

Academic Fluency 9.8 114 82
Reading Fluency 13.0 120 91
Math Fluency 7.2 101 53
Writing Fluency 8.8 110 75

For the CELF-4, it stated he had difficulty explaining how several items were related including minute/hour, empty/full, achieving/accomplishing, occupied/vacant, and sunset/dusk. While he was easily able to conclude they were related he was unable to correctly articulate the commonalities between the words.

For number Repetition he was normal in forward number sequence but had difficulty in backward sequence for numbers resulting in low average.

Familiar Sequence he struggled with days and months backwards as well as counting by 4's and 6's.

CELF-4, SS, %
Core Lang 98
Receptive Lang 99
Expressive Lang 99
Lang Content 110
Lang Memory 98
Work Memory 88

Subtests
Concepts & Directions 9
Recall Sentences 8
Formulated Sentences 12
Word Class Receptive 11
Word Class Expressive 10
Word Class Total 10
Expressive Vocab
Word Def 14
Understand Spoken Para 11
Number Repetition 7
Familiar Sequence1/2 9

Numbers forward he was able to recite 7 accurately but backwards was 3.

I am not an expert on test interpretation, but your son seems to meet many of the criteria for dyslexia. Much in your description would made me highly suspicious of dyslexia, perhaps even stealth dyslexia. Check out books such as The Dyslexic Advantage for a detailed description of dyslexic symptoms.

I'll start from the CELF: overall, it looks like his language ability is pretty much intact, with the only mildly weak scores in subtests with significant impact from ADHD/working memory deficits. (Recalling Sentences, Number Repetition). The remaining scaled scores are uniformly in the Average range, with word definitions high average/above average.

This is consistent with the WJIII Verbal Comp, which is solidly average as well. It is not, however consistent with the working memory task on the WJ, Numbers Reversed, where he scored in the average range, in contrast with the CELF Number repetition, especially the backwards portion of it. Given the pre-existing Dx of ADHD, I would suspect that this inconsistency is related to fluctuating attention, as the two tasks are nearly identical.

As to the rest of the WJ Cognitive, I see that he has a significant relative strength in fluid reasoning, the cluster with the most resemblance to what we classically have conceptualized as general intelligence (g). Some might say that this suggests that your DS13 is more like gifted than not. A significant distinction when it comes to advocating for services (assuming you are in a district that will accept the discrepancy, PSW, concordance-discordance, or similar models of LD). Processing speed is a relative weakness, which is often found in individuals with LD, ADHD, or both.

WRT achievement: on the whole, he is achieving consistent with his fluid reasoning, rather than his General Ability or other cognitive clusters. The exceptions are Letter-Word ID and Math Fluency, where his performance is more like Verbal Comp and (somewhat) processing speed (that's Visual Matching). I mention this in case the district LD model is PSW (pattern of strengths and weaknesses) or concordance-discordance, which both look for academic strengths and weaknesses matched with relevant cognitive strengths and weaknesses.

There's an asterisk in the discussion with regard to Spelling. If what you are reporting is an accurate interpretation of the report, then a nonstandard scoring of Spelling was used. The spelling of words on Writing Samples and Writing Fluency is as you have described (unless item scoring criteria specifically call for accurate spelling, words just have to be identifiable), but not Spelling. I would seek clarification on that, as you would not have obtained meaningful normative information on actual on-demand spelling skills if the subtest was not scored according to the manual.

If the Spelling score is legitimate, then that is not an area of academic weakness, even using his Superior fluid reasoning as a standard of comparison.

The most curious part of his results is the Reading cluster, which has fluency consistent with his fluid reasoning, but decoding accuracy relatively weaker. If there is a good explanation for this, it would be that he is able to use meaning and context to read short bursts of text, but that his decoding in isolation is relatively weak (though solidly in the average range). Plus, you only need to get the sense of the readings, not perfect accuracy, to score well, which means he could be making a lot of miscalls and still zipping his way through. A better oral reading fluency test, with a little more depth and precision, would be the GORT-4 or the WIAT-III ORF subtest. If his Spelling score is legit, this means that he encodes better than he decodes, which is highly unusual, especially in dyslexics (or ADHD, actually). One often sees compensated dyslexics (older and/or higher functioning) who have reached a more-or-less normalized level of decoding (usually at slower than normal rate), but still have a lot of vulnerabilities in on-demand spelling. The reverse is not expected. I would be interested to know 1) if the Spelling score is a real one, and, 2) how he would score on nonsense words for spelling (the WJ subtest is called Phoneme/Grapheme knowledge) and reading (Word Attack). A high-functioning LD individual can brute force his way to having a decent reading and spelling vocabulary, but will still be exposed as having vulnerabilities on novel vocabulary, such as nonsense words.

Another area of assessment to look at would be a more sophisticated measure of phonological awareness, such as the CTOPP or CTOPP-2, looking in particular at the nonsense word subtests, and more complex measures of phoneme manipulation, such as phoneme reversal (only on the CTOPP) or phoneme isolation (CTOPP-2). He did fine on WJIII Sound Blending, but that is one of the easier forms of phoneme manipulation, and can be mastered by high-functioning dyslexics without necessarily addressing the underlying weaknesses that lead to problems with orthographic mapping, and, thus, labored reading of connected text.

His struggles with expressing himself in classroom writing, especially at the middle school level, may have multiple causes, as the attentional and organizational demands of paragraph+ length writing are considerably more than those of single sentences or phrases. I would say that, regardless of LD/dyslexia diagnosis, his existing Dx of ADHD warrants a closer look at his extended writing, preferably through a gold standard instrument like the TOWL-4. The written language subtests of the WJ are no more than sentence length tasks, which do not require him to employ his (likely) deficient executive function (planning, organization, initiation, sustained attention) skills. He already has documentation of a disability (ADHD, which is usually classified as Other Health Impaired or Neurological, depending on the state), and it is irrelevant what the qualifying disability is; if he is eligible as ADHD, and he is found to have deficiencies in written expression and processing speed, then he should have accommodations and services as warranted for them, even if the district doesn't agree that he is dyslexic.

At the very least, between ADHD and low processing speed, he ought to be able to get a 504 for extended time.

His spelling is absolutely horrible and always has been from the time he started spelling tests. I work with him a lot and it gets very frustrating due to the district refusing to do an IEP. They say that he is not eligible for any assistance and that he is performing just fine, which he isn't.

As far as the spelling on the test, it says multiple times that he was evaluated based on his ability but the correct spelling itself was not evaluated. He does process things very slow and most of the time things he is told have to be repeated. He excels at math even though this test does not show his actual abilities. He does horrible on timed fluency, which the test showed, but fantastic in the concepts. He is in Honors for math but has stated multiple times he is bored out of his mind. He scored A's and B's on his report card for math but did not study once or do any homework, which is why his grade dropped to a B. As far as science and humanities, he would spend an average of 3 hours a night trying to grasp the meaning of his assignments and write his assignments out. He cannot process the info and get it into words on paper.

Actually, I think the test does show he has very good mathematical concepts, as he scored at the 90th %ile on that subtest, right on target with his fluid reasoning, and was probably limited somewhat on the calculation subtest by lack of exposure to advanced mathematics procedures.

In any case, I would definitely suggest more in-depth assessment of writing, with an instrument like the TOWL-4. If given the entire test, spelling and mechanics will be assessed (in context), as well as both contrived (sentence-length) and spontaneous (open-ended, supposed to be multi-paragraph, requires more executive functions) written expression. You have teacher reports that he is not meeting grade-level expectations, a diagnosis of ADHD, and concern that extended writing was not assessed in the evaluation previously conducted. And, you know you can ask for an independent evaluation, at district expense, if you disagree with the findings of the initial eligibility team meeting. As long as it's been under two years since the original eval, you can still request an IEE. If you go this route, do please provide the second examiner with a list of the instruments already administered, and the original eval report, so as not to invalidate the second round of testing with inadvertent duplications. And also bring up the concerns you have with the original testing, including points we've discussed here.

I can understand the comments about not evaluating spelling with regard to two out of the three written language subtests, but doing so on the Spelling subtest itself is very puzzling. Can't explain why the examiner would do that. Although I have certainly seen my share of puzzling test administration behavior--and that's only what people actually admit to in their written reports!

I emailed the psychologist so I am hoping we can start more testing soon. I try to have patience but it can be so difficult at times. Add in that the school is giving zero assistance besides emailing me complaints on DS's work it is very frustrating. I have had to fight the district concerning DS9 to the point that he was pulled from the school and transferred out of district in order to get the proper education.

Also, he was tested in December 2013.

aeh,
Can you explain more on the coding vs decoding?

Encoding (spelling) means generating the written form of a word from the oral/spoken form. Decoding (reading) means generating the spoken form of a word from its written form. For most people, decoding is easier, because, in English, there are multiple spellings for many sounds, so, while one can more readily recognize a spelling as a representation of a phoneme, selecting the correct grapheme (spelling) for a sound is trickier.

Gotcha. Yeah, he can look at a word and copy it but still spell it wrong. When he hears it he sounds it out and seems to spell better even though that isn't great itself.