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    Originally Posted by 22B
    Originally Posted by aeh
    Low PSI and coding scores have many possible causes, some of which have already been listed here, including: inattention, impulsivity (if high error rate), fine-motor deficits, vision, perceptual weaknesses, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, fatigue, sleep disorders, allergies, psychomotor retardation as a medication side effect.

    So how it presents in real life depends on what the etiology is.
    What about my suggestion. I don't think it's on your list.

    Originally Posted by 22B
    This topic comes up a lot, and the "perfectionism" explanation is a common one (assuming it's not a legitimate case of slow processing). I'm not convinced. I think the problem is that you have a task where you need to come up with a strategy to find the right balance between speed and accuracy, and you have no reference point to know how fast you should be trying to go (and maybe don't have the life experience to even think about such strategies) so you simply set about the task most likely at a non-optimal speed.

    I just don't think it's a good test where the score depends on whether a child happens to hit on the right balance of speed and accuracy.

    That makes sense, too. Especially with very young children, who have yet to be trained with math-minutes, group standardized testing, etc. But these tasks persist despite that because the development of that balance probably has a sufficiently consistent trajectory over the NT population, such that it is already accounted for in the age-norms.


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    Originally Posted by blackcat
    I still think there has to be a better method of measuring that. Some people are fast, sloppy writers, and others are slow and careful. I wouldn't say that fast and sloppy equals "brighter". DD is very fast with other fine motor skills, like making those rainbow loom things, weaving, braiding hair, playing piano, etc. Those are all things where the "slow processing" isn't apparent. Ask her what 9X6 + 8X7 is though and it will be more obvious. So there are big differences between motor speed with her depending on the task. Writing is really the only area where I see a deficit in terms of fine motor.
    To be fair, fast and sloppy would be likely to be down-scored somewhat on Coding, too, since one does need to copy the symbols accurately enough to be recognizable.

    Another note is that the fluent and dysfluent tasks that you mention are not really the same. The fluent tasks are largely repetitive patterns or sequential patterns, where there are contextual and meaningful threads to follow, once you get going, while multiplication facts involve retrieval fluency, often in a fairly scanty context.

    But to your overall point, I would agree. It's just that there are tasks with decent correlations to intelligence, that we use as proxies for whatever direct measurement would be, which may not be good proxies for every person.


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    Do you know what the alternative would be to coding on the WISC V? I might have to take DS to be tested and don't really think that subtest makes a lot of sense for him, given his low tone and DCD. He doesn't even hold a pencil correctly. Also block design requires motor speed and I don't see him being particular speedy, even though he has very good visual spatial ability. Kind of like the pegboard (the test involves putting pegs in holes and it's timed)--he scored well under the 1st percentile. Meanwhile he was above the 99th percentile for the PRI tests that didn't involve motor skills. I can see how those subtests make sense if you are TRYING to find a disability, but the school districts don't understand that when they're just plugging numbers into their computer and rank ordering scores for g/t services.

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    Originally Posted by aeh
    Originally Posted by 22B
    Originally Posted by aeh
    Low PSI and coding scores have many possible causes, some of which have already been listed here, including: inattention, impulsivity (if high error rate), fine-motor deficits, vision, perceptual weaknesses, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, fatigue, sleep disorders, allergies, psychomotor retardation as a medication side effect.

    So how it presents in real life depends on what the etiology is.
    What about my suggestion. I don't think it's on your list.

    Originally Posted by 22B
    This topic comes up a lot, and the "perfectionism" explanation is a common one (assuming it's not a legitimate case of slow processing). I'm not convinced. I think the problem is that you have a task where you need to come up with a strategy to find the right balance between speed and accuracy, and you have no reference point to know how fast you should be trying to go (and maybe don't have the life experience to even think about such strategies) so you simply set about the task most likely at a non-optimal speed.

    I just don't think it's a good test where the score depends on whether a child happens to hit on the right balance of speed and accuracy.

    That makes sense, too. Especially with very young children, who have yet to be trained with math-minutes, group standardized testing, etc. But these tasks persist despite that because the development of that balance probably has a sufficiently consistent trajectory over the NT population, such that it is already accounted for in the age-norms.
    I suppose my point is that, on a strategy continuum from slow&accurate to fast&inaccurate, each testee will make an uninformed choice of strategy, and their score will include a "luck" component depending how near of far each testee's chosen strategy happens to be from their optimal strategy. This could add a large amount of noise to the signal that represents their true ability at the task if they had chosen their optimal strategy. It may be possible to quantify this effect on average, but in a population of testees, some may be far more adversely affected than others simply due to their unfortunate non-optimal strategy choice, rather than their true ability.

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    Originally Posted by 22B
    Originally Posted by aeh
    Originally Posted by 22B
    Originally Posted by aeh
    Low PSI and coding scores have many possible causes, some of which have already been listed here, including: inattention, impulsivity (if high error rate), fine-motor deficits, vision, perceptual weaknesses, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, fatigue, sleep disorders, allergies, psychomotor retardation as a medication side effect.

    So how it presents in real life depends on what the etiology is.
    What about my suggestion. I don't think it's on your list.

    Originally Posted by 22B
    This topic comes up a lot, and the "perfectionism" explanation is a common one (assuming it's not a legitimate case of slow processing). I'm not convinced. I think the problem is that you have a task where you need to come up with a strategy to find the right balance between speed and accuracy, and you have no reference point to know how fast you should be trying to go (and maybe don't have the life experience to even think about such strategies) so you simply set about the task most likely at a non-optimal speed.

    I just don't think it's a good test where the score depends on whether a child happens to hit on the right balance of speed and accuracy.

    That makes sense, too. Especially with very young children, who have yet to be trained with math-minutes, group standardized testing, etc. But these tasks persist despite that because the development of that balance probably has a sufficiently consistent trajectory over the NT population, such that it is already accounted for in the age-norms.
    I suppose my point is that, on a strategy continuum from slow&accurate to fast&inaccurate, each testee will make an uninformed choice of strategy, and their score will include a "luck" component depending how near of far each testee's chosen strategy happens to be from their optimal strategy. This could add a large amount of noise to the signal that represents their true ability at the task if they had chosen their optimal strategy. It may be possible to quantify this effect on average, but in a population of testees, some may be far more adversely affected than others simply due to their unfortunate non-optimal strategy choice, rather than their true ability.
    Agreed, for the individual examinee. But as much as these are instruments used for individual assessment, the norms are group norms.


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    The allowable substitutions for coding on the WISC-V will be symbol search or cancellation. No more than two subtests can be substituted into the FSIQ.

    Oh, and the new Fluid Reasoning Index should be more his style, as it is quite motor-reduced (pointing or naming multiple choice items only). GAI still has block design in it, but conceivably, you could substitute visual puzzles and make it entirely motor-free. So if the FSIQ had two substitutions, with symbol search for coding, and visual puzzles for block design, you could reduce the fine-motor demands substantially.

    Last edited by aeh; 09/13/14 01:40 PM. Reason: more

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    I don't think his symbol search score was much higher than coding, but he probably had some double vision at the time, due to strabismus from his brain injury. Do both of those tests (symbol search and cancellation) involve writing? If so, what happens if someone has no writing ability due to say, an accident and or severe disability.

    I'm debating having him take the CogAT in a few months and keeping my fingers crossed. But with DD it was such a disaster that I don't know if I can bring myself to do it, esp. knowing that he is 2e as well (she was really slow or unfocused and left a lot of it blank, but they scored it anyway).

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    Symbol search and cancellation both involve some pencil work, but it's just crossing-off.

    When someone has no writing ability, you calculate the GAI, and comment that they are physically unable to execute the PSI tasks. (Or block design, for that matter. But it's possible to substitute a motor-free task for that.)


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    aeh, just curious if you have seen the CogAT. Is it multiple choice where a kid has to fill in bubbles? And how much would they have to write to compute their answers for the math section? DS is in second grade but they give the third grade test which is timed. If a kid left half the test blank (due to not finishing because they were slow), would it be scored and considered a valid score?

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    I have not proctored a CogAT in a long time, but I believe it continues to be a mc bubble test. Yes, they would be marked down if they left half the items unanswered. I don't believe a great deal of hand calculation is expected.


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