Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Finally got our WPPSI IV results...

So, after our month and a half wait for results I finally got them in the mail today. I'm not really sure what to make of them as it seems my son was not very cooperative, to put it nicely. I'll list the results and then the notes from the psych. I'm not sure where to go from here or if the results are particularly useful or not. For those who may read this and not know our situation, my son is diagnosed with autism which, if accurate, would be best described as mild aspergers. Other opinions of experts over the years include: Severe ADHD, SPD, anxiety, and in the opinion of the IU, ODD/crappy parenting.

WPPSI

Full Scale Not applicable
General Ability Index 133

DS demonstrated a GAI of 133, which is in the very superior range and at the 99th percentile when compared to other children his age. The GAI provides provides an estimate of general intellectual ability that places less emphasis on a student's working memory and processing speed. Subtests composing the GAI include Block Design, Information, Matrix Reasoning, and Similarities Subtests.

The GAI is deemed to be most representative of DS's intellectual functioning. His behavior grew increasingly restless and he was unable to regulate his actions to stay focused on non-preferred tasks. He did not finish the timed task forming the basis for processing speed in a manner that would provide a valid estimation of his ability. DS worked in spurts, sometimes working very quickly and then stopping to engage in another behavior. Thus the GAI, which places less emphasis on processing speed, was chosen to represent his cognitive functioning.

Subtest Score and Behavior:

Block Design 19
Information 17
Matrix Reasoning 12
Picture Memory 11
Similarities 13

"During testing DS appeared cooperative and motivated on the block design and information Subtests. He completed all 17 block designs very quickly and in a systematic and logical manner. He earned the highest possible scaled score of 19, which is in the very superior range on this subtest. DS obviously enjoyed these tasks and after completion of all of the designs, he wanted to do more. I showed him that there were no more designs and he became agitated, likely at the suspension of a preferred activity and the transition to a new activity. When I picked up the the stimulus book, he grabbed it and raised it over his head in a two handed grip as if to throw it at me. I reached out and took the book out of his hands. DS reacted by swiping all of the books off of the table and then crawling under the large conference table. I walked to the adjacent room and asked his mother to help calm him down. She did so and testing was resumed in approximately 7 minutes.

On the information subtest, DS answered all but 4 questions correctly. He earned a scaled score of 17, which is in the very superior range. However on the next subtests of Matrix Reasoning, Bug Search, and Similarities, DS was not especially interested in the tasks and despite gentle prompting, he did not remain in his seat and answered haphazardly."


I also have a report from the IU behavior analyst, who apparently observed during the IQ test. She had all of this great stuff to say:

"When the behavior analyst arrived, DS was sitting underneath the table while his mother was attempting to coax him out in order to continue with the testing. DS then began to work cooperatively with the tester on the assessment. He was observed sitting up on his knees and constantly swiveling around in the chair as he answered the questions. He would speak in a high pitched baby voice as he answered and also became very distracted by the psychologists scoring system. When DS completed the task, they moved onto the next test. DS was given a dobber (I'm guessing she meant dauber?) and instructed to use it to match pictures. He was compliant and focused. DS was observed laughing as he worked and did require some reminders to keep working. DS did not want to return the dobber and was given extra time to use it. When the tester presented the next task DS was observed lying across the table and heard making noises including mimicking the tester when she sighed. The psychologist then moved onto a verbal task. DS stood on the chair and began swiveling back and forth as he participated. He began banging the chair against the table and became very distracted by the scoring sheet. The tester had to repeat the questions several times before he answered. When she marked incorrect on her scoring sheet, DS immediately began to protest and whine. He grabbed the testing booklet and threw it on the floor. DS left the table to get the booklet, but instead of returning it, he threw it under the table and hid under the table. The tester got him out from under the table by switching activities to a number task although she did have to prompt him multiple times. DS sat back in his chair, but when asked to write some numbers, he refused. They moved onto an addition task and he did write the numbers to answer the questions. He refused to transition from addition to reading and the tester ended the testing at this point. When the tester went and got his mother, he protested that he did not want to be done."

Also, they did the BSRA 3 and WIAT III

He got 100% mastery on BSRA 3.

On WIAT III is says: DS was administered various subtests. However, his resistance to tasks that were evidently non-preferred impacted his performance.

On numerical operations subtest:

Correctly added and subtracted single and double digit numbers.
Correctly solved various multiplication facts to 30.
Solved subtraction problems with regrouping.

On the early reading skills subtest:

Refused to provide names of letters, but did correctly sound out letter groupings. On this task the evaluator believes he wanted to demonstrate that he could read and felt that naming letters was too easy a task.
Correctly demonstrated rhyming.
Correctly demonstrated 2 letter initial sounds.

At this point the test was discontinued due to DS's frequent hiding under the table, non-compliance with directions, and taking of task materials.



So, there we are. Did we really learn anything? I wish I had forked over the money and gone private. I'd like to think a private tester would not have tested in a big conference room with giant swivel chairs. I honestly have no idea why others have such a hard time with my son, with me he is just fine. If he gets out of line I give him a firm reminder and he is able to calm down.

Regardless of the results they are recommending a small special classroom for him and that he do grade K work as they feel there are gaps in his knowledge, although they didn't say what they might be: "It is important to note that while DS has many above grade level skills, he also has need for skills at his grade level". DS is easily at 2nd grade for reading and math. He reads simple chapter books and loves math. I taught him division for fun and once he got the concept (took about 5 minutes) he was able to figure out all of the questions I asked him in his head in a matter of seconds. He loves to dictate stories to me, but hates to actually do the writing. I can't think of anything related to grade K that he might not know, other than social skills and regulation and such, but he can practice those skills while doing a more challenging curriculum.

I think I am going to just homeschool him, obviously the district/IU aren't interested in properly serving him and since he can't seem to behave without me around I can't see sending him to a room full of behavior problems who will just feed off of each other.

The results of the evaluation were used to take away his speech therapy though. He was getting it for pragmatics and social skills, both of which the report indicates are still problem areas. It says because he does not present with a speech-language delay or disorder he can't qualify for speech services anymore. The IU also does not think he has any sensory processing differences and that all of the sensory behavior noted by others is merely attention seeking behavior. Odd how he does it in his room during his down time with no one there to observe.

So, frustrated and probably just as confused as ever Um, tell me what to think? I feel so lost on all of this and have no idea what the best decision is. Or even what might be a sort of decent OK one.

I tend to agree that you didn't learn anything particularly new about his learning profile. OTOH, I can understand why they recommended a small special classroom for him. Whether that is the best possible placement for him is a separate matter.

It strikes me that, though the swivel chairs probably didn't help, he probably would have been difficult to test even in an ideally-situated small, child-scaled testing room, as the precipitating factor for his first bout of noncompliance was a transition, not the room or its distractions. Several of the other behaviors reported by the behavior analyst were also associated with transitions. That he responds substantially better to you suggests that your familiarity with each other is extremely important to his ability to cope with change. (And as to the later outburst over being marked incorrect--this is why I never let children see my side of the testing materials, nor do I give anything other than accuracy-neutral comments on their performance.)

Obviously, from an academic standpoint, he will learn more at home with you. He will probably learn more cognitively in terms of pragmatics and social skills, too, though you will have to be intentional about creating graded alterations in his social and other environments, so that he has opportunities to generalize and apply those skills successfully. I suspect that generalization and transfer will not come without planning.

In the small classroom, he will have more opportunities for generalizing social skills in a facilitated setting (properly trained special ed teachers can cue and help process social interactions in real time). On the downside, his social partners will probably be more impaired than the ones you would find in your homeschool and community setting, and academics would be likely to take a back seat.

I would not worry too much about the loss of the pragmatics and social skills training as pull-out services, as those skills do not transfer well from in vitro to in vivo, anyway; he is better off practicing what he does know with real children, in naturalistic settings, but with on-the-spot coaching by adults.

Although I'm not as far along on the journey as you, I want to commiserate, as I expect DS3.5 would be about as compliant at being tested as your DS, possibly less so.

I just wanted to chime and and say that your experience sounds very similar to what we went through with our DS when he was tested privately at 6.5. The tester did her absolute best but the tasks themselves were enough of an issue on their own for DS. My DS hid under the table, flat out refused to do things, threw toys around the room and was a general PITA. We came out with a WISC GAI of 99%ile which given what I witnessed was a miracle, I thought she was going to laugh me out of the room for thinking he might be gifted.

He's now almost 9 and we recently retested. I don't have the full results yet but apparently his new GAI is >99.9%ile. I'm still in a bit of stunned shock although really I shouldn't be surprised since many of the HG+ stories on here are very familiar and it does match closer to what we see IRL. I have no advice on the school front, our experience has been a rocky one and we're far from a solution.

I just wanted to commiserate and say to go with your gut about his actual LOG. If our experience is any indication, 99% is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks everyone. I guess my main problem is that my gut is pretty much as confused as my brain at this point. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of having a kid who is way outside the norm, so the result that we got was in some ways a lot less scary than it could have been. It did also confirm that he is gifted, so I can work with the schools from a 2e perspective now, which I think will be helpful.

I can finally use actual real test results to refute all of the BS I get about how kids on the spectrum are often good at academics or have splinter skills, but are generally average to below average IQ. That he wasn't understanding what he was reading or that he would be unable to understand the big picture or put concepts together.

My parent report has been meaningless, because as we all know, experts who don't even know your kid know more about them than you do. My child has been defined by a possibly not even accurate diagnosis for far too long. Even with not paying good attention or trying hard at all he still managed to do above average on every area they tested, so I'm pretty sure all of that autism stereotype stuff will be hard for them to defend at this point.

I think what we will do now is wait until 7 or 8 and retest with the WISC. Hopefully he will be mature enough then to understand the importance of doing his best on the test. Plus if we go private perhaps they will make use of the fact that I have no problem doing 1 subsection a day if needed to get good focus and compliance. I also sent in his weighted vest, headphones, body sock, snack, and small fidget, all things that help him calm down and focus. None were tried. We had the same problem with the schools.

Who knows what the future test will tell us, but for right now I've decided I'm happy just knowing that my son is most likely at least mildly gifted. This will help with advocacy at the school and helps me understand him a little better. I was hoping for more useful results to see if there were any specific patterns of deficit or anything, but I guess that will have to wait as well.

Our current homeschool setup is 4 hours a day, with 8 transitions built in. He does very well with it. We do use a schedule, but I change it up frequently "for fun". We spend about 1.5 hours of the time on real academics, the rest is art, music, games, puzzles, etc. We are working very hard right now on losing gracefully.

We go out most days after school to places with kids to socialize. My son is doing better than ever. We just started a weekly IU playgroup and I am looking for some group activities to sign up for in the summer. We have weekly playdates with friends in a variety of locations. We keep pretty busy and practice social skills a lot. We have books and projects that we do for homeschool that work on social skills.

DS actually is pretty great at listing out all of the social and behavioral things he has been taught, he just can't seem to remember to stop and use those skills when upset. And he gets upset easily and often. We just keep working at it, year after year. I'm really trying my best.

The elementary school my son would go to is right next door to us. It has a greatschools rating of 2 and looks like a prison. It's covered in graffiti and it's constantly surrounded by smoking, drug using kids and, unfortunately, parents as well. The plan is to move, but it's unlikely to happen before September as home sales are pretty much non-existent in our area. I think I will stick with the homeschool until we get to a better district and then see how he does back in real school. So far he has been kicked out of 3 private schools, so my experience there has shown me that private is not a good option for kids who have behavior problems.

I will continue to allow DS to learn at whatever level he seems ready for. I'm not sure what is typical for kids at different LOG, but for right now we will keep going with the combo of 1st to 4th grade curriculum we are working on. DS loves logic puzzles, games, and mazes and does them at a much higher level. I buy him stuff for adults at this point. He was so happy last week with the new sudoku game I bought him (sukugo), that he gave me hundreds of hugs and kisses and positively gushed about it for hours. I can't see my son happy in a K classroom learning the letter of the day and counting to 20 at circle. He mastered those skills before he was 2. Maybe he is more gifted than the test showed, maybe not, but he has a great mind for academics and a great interest in and aptitude for learning. Why hold him back academically based on his deficits?

This jumped out at me, I have no idea how/if this would work for your case but I will say that "The Explosive Child" book was a lifesaver in our house. The title is a bit over the top but the approach really helped our DS (and us). Our local library has copies.

Best of luck!

Thank you, I will look into that book. I am always looking for something that can help, if even just a little. I'm a try everything sort of parent

Edit:

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

Looking at the full title, I think I should own this book. If there were a definition for easily frustrated, chronically inflexible in the dictionary, my sons picture would be right next to it :p

You have my utmost empathy. Your testing experience sounds like deja vu of my DD's experience with the WPPSI. We did use a private tester, who had problems with my daughter refusing to answer easy questions, hiding under the table, jumping up, paying attention, etcetc. She did score around 135 as well, which was an underestimate of her abilities. She did the WPPSI around age 5, entered regular K but with an IEP and pull-out services, was dx with ADHD at age 6 and Asperger's at age 8. Based on my experience, here are my 2 cents:

* DD is still in her regular grade. While her academics are definitely 1-2+ grades above universally, her organizational, executive function, frustration tolerance, flexibility, and social skills are not adequate to help her handle higher level work as it would be presented in a classroom at a higher grade.

* Our first 3 years of school were hell. Our district refused to acknowledge that she was 2E--she was totally stuck in the "special needs" box--and basically operated on the policy, "We'll give her academic accommodations when she behaves like a normal kid!" Obviously, that amounted to never giving her academic accommodation. I feel this was actively damaging.

* We move to a different school district. Our new district is by most measures a "worse" district. But they know what 2E is. Our home school has a special cluster program for kids with Asperger's, where the kids spend much of the day in a regular classroom but attend the program for social skills groups and things of that nature. This has been a godsend.

* Homeschooling would have been better than school when we were in a bad school situation. However, if DD had homeschooled and had an autism dx, I would absolutely ensure she was enrolled in a social skills group several times per week and also attended individual therapy. We also do other group activities: 4-H, adaptive gymnastics, and swimming--which are all fairly structured activities. But I think the professionally managed socials skills group is absolutely a must.

* Is there a solid ADHD dx? It's a common comorbid condition with autism. But so is anxiety. DD has all 3 dx. She takes mediciation for ADHD and anxiety which is immensely helpful.

Aufilia: We do not have an actual diagnosis of ADHD. The children's hospital where we originally got the autism diagnosis at 2.5 thinks that the ADHD symptoms he has are part of his autism.

His mobile therapist through wraparound is certain he has ADHD and recommended a different psychiatrist for a second opinion. We were in for a preliminary visit in which she said she didn't think she saw autism, but she wants to do another ADOS now that he is older (his last ADOS was 3.5). She said she saw a lot of symptoms of severe ADHD, especially his impulsivity.

He definitely meets pretty much all of the criteria for ADHD with the exception of short attention span. He is very hyper when he is up and moving and very wiggly when he is seated. He is capable of hours of quiet work though. One of his favorite things to do to unwind is to page through huge books, like medical texts. He doesn't read them, he just pages through and makes up stories or talks about the page numbers. Sometimes he's entirely silent or whispers.

The children's hospital did diagnose anxiety and he was on prozac for a few months and it did seem to help, but not enough for me to justify keeping him on medication. After he got kicked out of the third school I took him off the med. My main concern was that while it did seem to help with the anxiety a noticeable amount, it also seemed to make the ADHD stuff much worse. I'm not sure if I want to start a med for ADHD as young as he is, but I did tell the psych I am willing to trial one to see what kind of improvement we might be looking at. Who knows, if it's a really big difference I might just keep him on it.

Regarding social skills groups, in addition to the IU playgroup we also do a Saturday group during the times it is in session. Enrollment is usually too low. We have done quite a few social skills groups, but enrollment was an issue with all of them and they eventually cancel the groups. The IU playgroup is mixed diagnosis, most of the kids have an intellectual disability and they all seem to have speech delays. Not the best match for my son, but at least it's practice at getting along with others.

The IU has said from the beginning that they don't have special classes or services for kids like my son, they want to provide service at private preschools and then in the regular classroom. Now that my son isn't going to get to go to the regular classroom, they are putting him in behavioral support. Basically, they only offer autism support for low functioning children, the rest either can cut it in regular ed or get put in with the behavior problems.

My son is definitely a behavior problem, but only because he can't seem to control himself. He is a very nice kid who loves flowers and is scared of dinos and super heroes and pretty much everything the other boys are into. He loves animals and babies. He is the sweetest kid in the world when he is well regulated, pretty much at home when it's just the two of us. He listens well when he is well regulated. Catch him at a good time and you will see a good kid.

Unfortunately, he is not able to come close to well regulated in a school setting, small class or not. He also gets super goofy, which I personally think is anxiety related. Once he gets that way it's pretty much impossible to pull him back. He just giggles and acts ridiculous for the rest of the day and eventually falls apart with escalating behaviors. Those days I call early bedtime.

I refuse to believe that my son has ODD or is a behavior problem by choice. No reward chart or point system has done anything to modify his behavior. He just can't seem to stop himself from reacting before thinking. He grabs what others are holding, but he gives it right back when reminded that we don't grab. He pushes if someone else is where he wants to be. He lashes out when he is upset. He always apologizes after and says he didn't mean to do it, his brain forgot to think first. He sometimes gets angry at himself for not being able to earn the things he wants because he keeps making bad choices when he is trying to make good choices.

I'm very worried about his future. It doesn't matter how smart he is or what he is able to do if he can't control himself. I see horrible things like prison or worse when I think about his possible future. I'd do anything to prevent that, but it's so hard to know what is the right thing to do or if it's even something that can be prevented.

PAS, I know it's been recommended already and you've said you should get it, but you really need The Explosive Child. You can see its philosophy in a nutshell at http://www.livesinthebalance.org/ (one page pdf summary here). Check it out of the library or buy it, but I think you are coming around to exactly the intervention strategy it suggests.

You might also enjoy Optimistic Parenting, which might provide a bit of a counterweight to all the decidedly pessimistic messages you are getting from IU and elsewhere.