Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC-IV old raw scores from unofficial test & SB-5

Hello All,

Wondering if someone might be able to help with these raw scores?

WISC-IV RAW SCORES DS 4.5 (UNOFFICIAL/NOT VALID)

Subtest
Raw Score

Block Design 14
Similarities 20
Digit Span 15
Picture Concepts 10
Coding 22
Vocabulary 19
Letter- Number Sequence 3
Matrix Reasoning 15
Comprehension 8
Symbol Search 13
Picture Completion 10
Information 9
Arithmetic 10


SB-V RESULTS VALID BUT NO REPORT/never used

SB5
1. Fluid Reasoning = 41
a. Non- verbal FR = 26
b. Verbal FR = 15
2. Knowledge = 46
a. Non verbal = 16
b. Verbal = 30
3. Quantitative Reasoning = 26
a. Non - verbal = 14
b. Verbal = 12
4. Visual - Spatial Processing = 29
a. Non - verbal = 16
b. Verbal = 13
5. Working Memory = 23
a. Non - verbal = 11
b. Verbal = 12

Overall Non- Verbal = 83
Overall Verbal = 82
Full Scale = 165


BACKGROUND sorry a bit long: DS is possibly 2E, we are waiting for appointment with neurologist but have already submitted various forms. DS diagnosed with vision issues about 3 months AFTER this kindy testing.

These scores are from a very unique situation we were in, while in Asia a couple of years ago, when my son was only 4.5. While living there for a couple of years, the topic of sending my son to Kindy there, came up.

We were at a Private School for entry testing with SB-5. During our first visit - while there, a 6 year old was being tested for 1st grade placement - the boy was very shy. They asked my DS if he would keep this boy "company" until the boy's test.

Well, time came and my DS wanted to be tested like the big boy. He was apparently about to cry and throw a wobbler. The psychologist had a junior colleague training at the time. Because my son was so "cute" & "smart" they decided to let him test with the WISC-IV for training. They took the boys to separate rooms according to our nanny who was allowed to stay nearby. I only found out about this later when they brought him back to the parents waiting area. The results are not technically valid. I was given the scores verbally, as they said it cannot be used (obviously).

I did not think much of it at the time, because we took the SB-V results as the correct one. We were not given a report, I only got scores, these were for entry into that one school only. Which we ended up not sending him there, homeschooling instead. I only noticed these now since I have been digging up various notes for his upcoming eval.

I am now very curious as to what might the scaled scores, etc. would be with these raw scores IF THESE WERE VALID. He was tested as "6" year old. Hoping one of the forum experts might want to chime in? We don't know what upcoming tests will be scheduled yet, but we are expecting one of them to be IQ.

Edited to add: Also meant to ask about the SB-5 scores as well. I did give both of these notes to the tester's office, but we are told wait times can exceed 5 months! So just very curious as to what picture this paints of my child back then, that could be related to what we are seeing in him now.

Thank you all so much in advance. Although I lurk (due to extreme social anxiety) most of the time, I am extremely grateful to everyone that shares their life here for everyone to learn from and to all of you that take time out of your lives to help people like me.

All the very best,

Lucky

So, to clarify, these are all raw scores, and you were never given scaled or standard scores for the SBV?

First of all, it is not possible to generate true scaled/standard scores for the WISC-IV results--not even close, as the youngest age norms for the WISC are age 6 years 0 months, and your child was much younger than that at the time. This is probably partly why the testers had no problem with testing him with an unofficial training WISC; they knew that it would not spoil any future administrations of the WISC, as it would be at least a year and a half before there would be any possibility of a re-test, which was reasonably safe (minimum re-test time is 2 years). I trust it has now been at least 24 months since these tests were administered. Otherwise, you will have to go with a different test, or wait a few weeks/months for the WISC-V to come out.

As to the SBV, I'm on summer break right now, so I'm not in my office on a regular basis. If I happen to have a free moment there before the new school year starts, I'll try to help you out with some standard scores. Otherwise, it will have to wait until September.

If you don't get a suitable response from me or someone else by the beginning of September, bump this up and remind me...

Dear Aeh,

Thank you so much! I was starting to feel really embarrassed about posting the question!

I did not know how much background to include, sorry. I was not given the report or the scores as these are only made available to enrolled students/families. Although we went through the whole prelim process, we ended up homeschooling, so did not get a formal report.

Some additional info in case it helps:

DS is almost 6.7 months old now, so you are correct. She told me the only difference with their test was that, they used an age of 6.0 years for the WISC, but used his actual age for the SB-5 which was 4.5.

This was apparently initiated because my son could tell they were using a different book/box? for the other boy and my DS noticed immediately! The SB-5 we had to do about 2 weeks later if I recall correctly.

They were very excited about him and told us he was "gifted" which is how I came here in the first place! Then we learned that gifted means so many things!

We came back to the US last year but we were prioritizing his medical first so we are just now attending to his other needs. We were hoping he would outgrow some relative weaknesses we are seeing, but now at 6.7, we can no longer attribute certain things to immaturity.

At the time, I have to admit, we thought we were being "groomed" as customers, as we did not think DS was gifted. This was/is an international school that was advertising enhanced/advanced curriculum and by Asian standards, was very expensive.

When we sent him for his 1 week readiness tryout, our manny had this specific story - there were about 6 kids in the class. They were studying phases of matter (which DS already knew at that time), when they started with just "solids", DS stood up, spread his arms to his sides, looked at the teacher and said "solids?" but I already know that! He burst into sobs and said "I'm so bored!!!" I want to know about new things!". He was increasingly getting frustrated during that year and we were hoping Kindergarten would save us.

So they took him to arts and crafts and tried to distract him there until it was time to go home. All the rest of that week, he just wanted to play because he said he already knew what they were teaching. He was into dinosaurs, siphonophores, bacteria, etc.

We are waiting for the neurological eval which is still at least 5 months away (although we've waited 2 years, 5 months seems too much all of a sudden), which is why I braved the "exposure" to try to get more info as I prepare background notes for the testers.

I have looked here from time to time, always wondering about what if DS is really gifted? I was afraid to think like that because he has weaknesses which made us think he probably is not.

So, in case it helps, here are some of the things he can/can't do:


1) Read and comprehend up to around 10th/11th grade level paragraphs used for "comprehension" tests on DORA (home proctored online test)- I'm not kidding, he can read and understand almost anything. New vocab words DO have to be explained though. He also likes to read books like Magic Treehouse, Goosebumps and various other adult books we have at home but font size is an issue. Adjustable font is required. Waiting for the new Kindle.

2) He can perform the majority of all math up to 5th/6th grade, algebra, etc.Per DOMA (math version of this home test). and we've only been doing about 2 hours a week of formal book lessons. He also knows basic algebra and knows PI and PHI! We try to slow him down as much as we can, but he likes the videos.

3) Spends hours on minecraft, internet and youtube "rabbit holeing" watching people talk about math, science and anything else. Can play video games like skylanders very well.

4) Can climb certain things very well, can dance shockingly well, can sing a little, can do cartwheels.

CAN'T DO

1) Can't write well, can't write without pain and fatigue.
2) Can't spell without lots of practice and support - transposes letters, etc. (Vision issues are related to print size)
3) Can't catch small balls but can catch bigger balls.
4) Can't push tricycle pedals, can't walk on balance beam.
5) Very clumsy, bumping into corners, trips on his feet, spills drinks all the time (thanks wow cup).
6) Trouble with fine motor like buttons, snaps, opening containers, eating salad with a fork is very difficult for him.
7) Can't follow directional instructions and will look nowhere or wrong place, etc.

Because of these various things, his ped referred us for the eval. suspecting some type of developmental challenge.

The biggest problem we face is trying to find out where his ceiling and floors are so that we can tailor his lessons better. We are literally confused as to whether to push him to do more or to do less? Is it hot housing if he likes to do stuff? Do we stop him if he's been watching math videos for 3 hours straight? Do we push, if he gives up writing or spelling after 5 minutes?

To be clear, we are homeschooling because we don't think a regular teacher would have the patience for our little chatterbox at this time. He might self regulate better as he gets older but right now, it would be hell for both of them, frankly. Also, there is the sticky point of which grade level, etc. Not even factoring medical issues in that.

We are part of a 2 hour/weekly home-school group, but it's mixed age, so he tends to be friends with the older boys. His skype pal is 9 years old. He has gym and swim class, but just dropped out of drum lessons as they were very difficult (although he loves percussion with his hands.)

So yes, any feedback on the scores could be very helpful as we have at least 5 months of waiting and I'm sure a few more months after that to get a report.

In particular, we'd love to know if anything jumps out about the scores? We are wondering about some type of coordination disorder and if he would be actually considered gifted based on the scores?

Sorry this was so long!

Thank you again so very much, I noticed how helpful you are to so many, may you have tons of good karma!

Grateful,

Lucky

Hmm. Just from your list of cans/can'ts, it sounds very much like you may be looking at a 2e situation--something in the category of dysgraphia, developmental coordination disorder, or nonverbal learning disability. Are you having a neurological eval or a neuropsych done? The latter ought to be very helpful in giving you information about how best to challenge and support him.

If you search for threads on DCD or dysgraphia, you should find some good info here, as a number of families have 2e kiddos with one or both.

And I'm going to tender a suggestion based on your signature. I see that you have an adult DD who is 2e. Exceptionalities often run in families, so it is possible that there is some overlap between your DS and DD's profiles. Being careful not to expose any more of her private affairs than necessary, I will just say that you might consider asking her if she has any insight into her brother's situation.

Keep in mind these are raw scores, not scaled scores, so we don't have normative information on his performance at the moment. Also, at 6 yo, bonus points for speed are relatively unimportant, especially with a raw score of 14, which means he probably didn't reach the items with bonus points on them.

But I would say you bring up some good things to watch out for, Portia, especially the observation about the vestibular system. He also seems to do better with gross motor activities than fine motor activities, especially if they don't involve eye-hand coordination (manipulating objects). Hence preferring hand drumming to stick drumming.

Lucky, I can't help you with the scores, but fwiw everything you've listed above sounds a lot like my ds who has Developmental Coordination Disorder (a lot of the things your ds *can* do also sound very similar to my ds at his age… including the Minecraft lol!).

The neuropsych veal will include tests beyond just ability and achievement, which will help tease out what might be causing the discrepancy in the subtest scores, and also some of what you are seeing at home (i.e., is it fine motor, is it vision, is it something else).


If it was me (and I'm only a parent with a 2e child, not an expert on education :)), I'd follow his lead for now, and let the things he has trouble with take a backseat until you've had the neurospych and any follow-up evals (OT, vision, whatever the neuropsych recommends). You will then have a meaningful plan (hopefully!) instead of basically trying to guess how to move forward in the areas he's pushing back in such as writing. OTOH, in his areas of passion, I'd let him fly (i.e., take it as far as he wants to go).


I can't imagine you'd have to wait several months for the report - we've had immediate verbal feedback the day of our neuropsychs, and a meaningful draft report with parent follow-up interview usually within two weeks - have you heard from other people who use this psych that the report takes several months?

Best wishes,

polarbear

It's region- and examiner-specific. Even school systems I've worked for have sometimes had to wait for a month to receive a neuropsych report--and we have due process time lines.

That's a bummer - being able to start remediation/accommodations quickly can make such a huge difference for a young child! Plus, when the neuropsych eval yields recommendations for other evals such as speech, OT, etc - the sooner you can get on a waiting list the better - wait lists for those services are incredibly long (like 6-9 months here).

polar

Wow! Thank you Aeh, Portia and PolarBear

I grok what you have all said and I will read up on all your comments and suggestions.

Aeh, I have called my daughter and we will revisit her symptoms and also have her take a good look at DS and get her observations. It has been many years and I could be missing what's right in front of me.

Yes, unfortunately we were told that this midwest children's hospital serves a lot of kids in the region and so wait times COULD reach 2-3 months for just the reports, depending on the local schools (seasonal workload). We could get lucky and get it sooner, but I am hopeful we could get some feedback before that.

We are scheduled for PT eval in 2 months, OT eval next week and I won't wait to implement things if it's what he needs.

I will return to give more info as soon as I can.

Thank you all so much!!!

Sincerely,

Lucky

Hello Aeh, Portia, Polar Bear and everyone

Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far.

I spoke with my daughter and she came by to observe DS. She immediately noted some "obvious" things about DS with regard to fidgeting, etc. (I won't elaborate now but shared all with OT)

I have some incredibly helpful new information from our recent OT appointment for DS. OT was wonderful and gave us several things to work on. While there, she offered to do a visual test to help us while we are waiting for the neuro-psych appointment.

Please see the report notes from his TVPS - R (TEST OF VISUAL SKILLS, NON MOTOR) below.

For the sake of brevity, I tried to make this short - kindly ask for more detail if necessary.

Based on your collective comments and some research, I've come to some early conclusions:

[For the record, DS' vision diagnosis is Amblyopia with Refractive Anisometropia (of unknown origin at this time) and we severely underestimated the GRAVITY of his VISION problems and their effects on his learning]

Because, when I asked his opthalmologist how his prescription and vision would affect reading, I was told, just give him big fonts/print to read - to lessen the strain on his visual system (simple solution, sounded great!, at the time)

We are incredibly chagrined and WISH the opthalmologist mentioned vision therapy when I brought up DS' difficulty with schoolwork - we could be so much farther along now. To be fair, DS was diagnosed as a 3 year old, and certain things were not obvious to us then, as they are now.

Unfortunately for us, it's already cost DS 3 YEARS!!! of INADEQUATE? treatment. (We currently patch 2-3 hours/per day and have fairly frequent prescription changes) but NO EYE EXERCISES/TRAINING.

DH and I are feeling very guilty and bummed about this. I am very upset that I did not research this sooner! Just did not correlate his learning difficulties with vision. I don't know why, but it never occurred to us that his "Dyslexic & Dysgraphic" presentations are aggravated by vision and is something we can affect, and do something about at home (duh!).

In other words, we believed that dyslexia was not something we could do anything about or change, just accept and work-around. (Which is true to an extent, of course).

Our OT suggested the website "eyecanlearn.com" which has given us many ideas and starting points to use for our home exercises. I have also scoured the net for various writings about the topic of vision therapy. Youtube has saccades videos, etc. that we have started using as well. We will be sure to discuss this with Opthalmologist at next appointment.


Meanwhile, below are the test results:


Vis Discrimination: raw score 15, Percentile: 98%, Perceptual Age: >12-11

Vis Memory: raw score: 13, Percentile: 93%, Perceptual Age: > 8-11

Vis Spat-Relationships: raw score: 16, Percentile: 98%, Perceptual Age: >12

Vis Form Constancy: raw score: 10, Percentile 63%, Perceptual Age: 7-5

Vis Sequential Memory: raw score: 13, Percentile: 97%, Perceptual Age 11-4

Vis Figure Ground: raw score: 12, Percentile: 87%, Perceptual Age 9-7

Vis Closure: raw score 5, Percentile: 10% !!! Perceptual Age 4-10


Comments:

Visual skills, occular motility, occular coordination and convergence:

convergence to tip, accomodative delay noted with divergence pattern. Pursuit shows occasional breaks with left to right pattern rather than right to left. Patient indicated difficulty with keeping eyes on target.

Other accomodations we have implemented per OT:

1) Soft grip for pencil (it took about 15 different samples) to find one that was exactly right. Has not complained of pain since! His stamina has greatly improved as well, no writing avoidance now.

2) Wide ruled pad with raised lines - Have greatly relaxed our written spelling standards at home, and focusing on content vs accuracy (much happier boy and has given him confidence to write more) Oral spelling continues to be no problem.

3) Special scissors with loop (awesome!!!) - he had difficulty with OPENING rather than the cutting - still difficult for him to navigate 1 sheet of paper and cutting within 1/2 inch of zigzag line on paper but now it doesn't HURT.

4) Thera-putty (he loves this!!!) which he uses as a fidget and strengthening exercise for fine motor.

5) Bought a long skirt with buttons , zippers, laces for practice (still can't do all this well, but now we know what to work on)

5) Bought a slanted/adjustable desk and adjustable chair (old flat desk, basic office chair before)
also - huge change for him is tying Thera Band between his desk legs so he can "step" on the band and use it as his foot fidget.

Now we know these things, DS no longer is upset and frustrated with himself and has not once complained of "it hurts", "my hand is tired" etc.

Although it's only been a few days, the above adjustments have changed our boy's attitude and have made him and us, so relieved and happy.

OMG!!! This has been very illuminating and makes sooo much sense, in light of the difficulties we see in DS at home. It's likely to be expounded upon with neuropsych testing and we are looking forward to new information in the coming months.

I would greatly appreciate any comments about this and particulary if this test can be correlated to the Wisc, SB-5 sub-tests.


Thank You in advance!


Lucky