Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Writing assessment?

Hi
I've been following the Writing Fluency thread with interest. DS6.5 is in grade 1 (regular class with a gifted IEP) and in many ways seems similar to what was described in that thread:

Inconsistent printing: sometimes tiny, sometimes huge, sometimes fancy bubble letters??; mostly it is hard to read. Some letters and numbers are backwards - which I understand is normal for age. It seems to take him a long time to write a sentence. I've asked his teachers several times about his printing, and they assure me it's age-appropriate. Also, apparently the wait-time for a school OT assessment is ~2yrs.

Fluency: He resists any task that involves writing, whether it is printing, or if I scribe for him on a computer. He seems to have a hard time thinking of something to write and if I do get something out of him it is lacking in any detail. However, verbally (in conversation) he is very fluent with a large vocabulary and constantly corrects my grammar ;-)

Spelling: Generally seems to be good, although thinking about how a word is spelled sometimes slows him down in writing

Reading: He can read and sound out just about any word he sees, but he reads very slowly and has trouble keeping his place in long passages of text. Reading aloud, he also does slowly but he seems to be trying to get the inflection just right before moving on (i.e. he'll read a sentence, than re-read it until it sounds just right - especially for sentence constructions that are unfamiliar). He also sometimes substitutes words based on context, so it seems like he's not actually reading every single word. Comprehension is good though.


So here's my question - should we try to get him assessed privately? Is it better to wait and see if some of this is developmental and just gets better with age and practice? (Looking back at last year's work his printing has improved)

If we do get him assessed what kind of assessment are we looking for - OT assessment, psycho-ed assessment, other?
So far he's only had a school gifted assessment (WISC IV).

Thanks!

What did his WISC profile look like? You don't have to print scores here if you don't want to, but do you have the subtest scores, and was there any variability? That would be one clue re whether or not what you're seeing is age-appropriate or a sign of an issue.

I also believe it's important to listen to your gut too - did you have concerns about any of this before you started reading all of our threads here, or are you just wondering about it because you've read and seen similarities?

Hang in there - this is a really tough age for knowing what's up and which way to turn. If you have a concern that something's going on, I'm in the camp that favors testing now rather than waiting - if the testing turns up nothing, you really haven't lost anything (other than the $ and a small time investment), but if it does turn up something, you'll be glad you know now and didn't wait.

Best wishes,

polarbear

They did not give us the sub-test scores, but only the overall (GAI?). I did talk to one of the psycho-ed consultants who had access to his results and she told me there were no inconsistencies, and there were no notes about him taking a long time to answer, or anything like that.

He's had trouble with his pencil grip since pre-school and the teachers worked with him on it in kindergarten, so we've been aware of printing issues for awhile - but also been told it's 'age-appropriate'. The resistance to writing in general is something else I've noticed and found puzzling. But when you have only a sample of 2 (ie 2 kids) it's hard to tell what's really normal or what he might need help with.

I tend to be a little test-happy, because of my profession, BUT, I also have seen a very wide range of typical development in six-year-olds. I think the primary criteria I would consider would be
1. forward progress: is he making gains in reading & writing?
2. frustration: are his levels of decoding, handwriting, and written expression skills causing him to feel bad about his schooling, or interfering within his acquisition of, or demonstration of, other skills?
3. functional skills: are there any other nagging concerns that you have had about his development, outside of pure academics?

If you have ongoing concerns in one or more of these areas, then you might consider additional assessment.

In the meantime, you might try some very simple accommodations:
1. visual guide for reading: take a book mark, turn it horizontally, and have him use it as a placemarker under the line that he is reading in text passages. A lot of young readers find this helpful.
2. separate the steps of written expression: ask him to dictate sentences to you about the writing topic. Read aloud, or have him read aloud, his dictated work, to check for meaning, syntax, and organization. Make any corrections he voices. Then dictate the sentences back to him to copy into his assignment.
3. if the difficulty is idea generation, try asking him pre-writing questions about the topic, such as sensory details, or action words.
-Some children (esp. GT) have difficulty narrowing down the possible topics for writing. It's not really that they can't think of anything, it's that they don't know how to select an idea. In that case, offer some constraints--e.g., instead of "my summer vacation", "one activity I did with my family during summer vacation", or "the first fun thing I did during summer vacation". Try to make topics more concrete and contained.
-Other kids have difficulty with topics with absolutes ("the best", "my favorite"). In that case, change the absolute to a lesser level ("one good", "a favorite"), so he doesn't feel like he has to have comprehensive knowledge of the whole universe to answer the question.

Was it a GAI or fsiq? A would indicate either or both working memory ot GAIotocessing speed were different enough to prevent it being valid to use then. Can you get the subtest scores?

Are you in the US and is this a public school? If so, the school has to evaluate within a month or two if you put in a written request for a comprehensive evaluation, and they need to evaluate all areas of concern, including motor skills. If they decide not to evaluate they have to have a reasonable reason why. Schools need to locate kids with disabilities, so if there is any reason to suspect a disability (or one is known already), they should be evaluating.

From my own experience, I would get an OT assessment and maybe a psychological assessment too. But like aeh, I am testing prone and have learned by experience that my evaluations of DD10's learning problems are often completely wrong. There is so much involved in writing, it is hard to get to the bottom of the problem on your own. There may be factors contributing to this problem that you hadn't considered. An OT assessment would rule out any physical issues like muscle weakness or dexterity problems. Waiting 2 years for a school assessment would put him ages behind if he has an issue. DD10 had similar symptoms with writing task avoidance, odd pencil grip, a mix of upper and lower case letters in writing, poor spacing of letters in words, slanting writing down the page, and just overall terrible penmanship. Her baseline printing was bad, but if she put a lot of effort into her work, she could make her writing legible. She was never failing any subjects in school. She was however, an excellent speller, but struggled getting her ideas down on paper. Verbally her vocabulary was amazing, but on paper her toughts lacked development and detail. Her OT assessment involved a Beery VMI, BTO2, and a ETCH-manuscript (for writing). The ETCH was important because it was timed and it showed that although DD10 could complete some of the writing tasks, it took her a considerable amount of time. The OT assessment found a fine motor skill delay, and some visual motor integration issues. She is now receiving OT therapy. Generally speaking, if it is a motor skill issue, kids aren't going to improve with time. They will continue to have delays acquiring new skills and fall further behind.

As polarbear said, all you lose is a little money if in fact your son falls within a normal range for fine motor skill development. Then you could focus more on processing/executive issues to see if you get improvement there. It sounds like he may have difficulty organizing his thoughts while writing.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions! Since most of this type of work is in class I may pass them on to the teacher.

re: forward progress - there is some in the printing as compared to last year, but progress feels slow to me. I don't know what's up with the sudden bubble-letter writing craze but it could be an attempt to mask his frustration with printing normally.

I think the writing is causing some frustration because the more 'advanced' math they offer him is mostly word problems - which he is avoiding.

He is also frustrated in any art they try to do (one day he told me he "failed at art") - so more fine-motor problems there too.

Outside of class, he enjoys gross-motor activities (bike riding, soccer). He still has trouble with cutlery.

OTH, yesterday he was home from school and spent quite a lot of time cutting and coloring small pieces of paper. So he doesn't totally avoid fine-motor things.

I just find my kids so confusing sometimes...

She did give me the scores, but I don't have them here. She said they were all consistent - nothing stood out. But they didn't test working memory or processing speed - at least that's what she told me.

No - we're in Canada. We would probably need to do private testing of some sort. Not sure where to look at the moment...