Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ test results (continued issues)

Can I get some help with my other dd's WJ results? She's not identified as gifted and has been diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia.

At 8y6m she was tested with the WJ and received the following results for Passage Comprehension:

28%
SS: 91
AE: 7.7

She was tested this past spring (age 10.9) on the WJ for just reading.
Results:

Passage comprehension: AE: 9.4 and GE: 4.0
Picture vocabulary: AE: 12.10 and GE: 7.3
Reading vocabulary: AE: 12.7 and GE: 7.1

Fwiw she wasn't tested on picture vocabulary or reading vocabulary when she was tested at age 8. There seems to be a drop in her Passage Comprehension but because I didn't receive a SS or percentile I can't tell how significant the drop is. Is there any meaning in the discrepancies between the Passage Comprehension and her Picture/Reading vocabulary results?

Also, she was tested at 8 with the CELF and her Receptive Language was 18%. She continues to struggle with following directions (in particular directions that involve multiple steps) and I can't discern if it's an issue of low Receptive Language or short term auditory memory weaknesses. Or are the one of the same?

Based on what you've posted, I would guess that the examiner did not calculate the standard score or percentile, as the AE and GE numbers are the estimated ones printed as guidelines in the record form, not the actual ones obtained from the scoring software.

This is what I came up with:

Passage comprehension- 94, 36 %ile
Picture vocabulary - 110, 74 %ile
Reading vocabulary - 114, 83 %ile (AE = 13.4, if you care about that)

Reading Comprehension Composite - 102, 56 %ile

This would indicate that her passage comprehension is essentially unchanged (normatively), but has kept pace with her age peers in terms of absolute growth. Her vocabulary skills are slightly (but not very significantly) stronger than her passage comprehension. I would suspect that she is more successful when processing small chunks of language than when managing multiple sentences. The two vocabulary tasks are one or two-word stimulus, one word response.

I'm curious as to why the basic reading skills subtests (letter-word ID, word attack, reading fluency) were not administered, where her Dx is dyslexia. That's where the deficits would be expected to show up.

Either receptive language or memory deficits could independently explain the difficulty with following directions. They are not the same, but they both affect directions. Is there data about her working memory?

WISC 2010
WMI - 91 - 27%

WISC 2012
WMI - 94 - 34%

She did have more of the WJ administered in 2012 than she did this past spring. The spec ed teacher last year was not great, she ended up being let go by the school. The spec ed teacher tested dd last spring because I told her I was concerned about her reading (originally dd was given an IEP for her math only). These were the tests she gave dd and as a result added 30 min a week to dd's IEP for reading pullout.

Speaking with the new spec ed teacher recently dd tested at 90% accuracy for the end of 5th grade level (I believe this is with the DRA). However, dd's reading comprehension is still poor. So she can read but she struggles to make sense and comprehend what she reads.

The 2012 WJ results:

Letter-word ID: 45%
Word attack: 49%

Not sure if this is important but the results from 2012 that are at or below 16%:

WJ BIA and Achievement:
Visual Matching
Rapid Picture Naming
Math Fluency

GORT-4:
Accuracy
Fluency

CTOPP
Phonological Memory
Rapid Naming

All of the areas of weakness that you listed from the 2012 eval have to do with speed (even without fine motor), with the exception of phonological memory, suggesting a generalized weakness in retrieval fluency. Her lwi and wa scores from 2012 are solidly average, which is probably why reading was not added to her IEP at the time, although I note that accuracy falls in connected text. I'm a little surprised that the sped teacher was able to justify adding reading based on her recent comprehension scores, unless the cognitive measures are above average. Not that it's a bad idea to add the service. Just that I would have discussed it earlier, based on the GORT results, rather than these comprehension results. If her isolated accuracy is good, but her fluency is not, what probably happens is that she can only do one aspect of reading at a time (decode or comprehend).

Interesting that her phonological memory was weaker than her symbolic working memory. Probably related to the Dx of dyslexia, as it interferes with achieving automaticity for phoneme-grapheme associations (orthographic mapping).

I see that you did not have a comprehensive cognitive instrument administered. I hope a complete battery was done at some point, as her processing speed scores on the WJ BIA (visual matching) probably pulled her overall score down quite a bit. There are only three subtests in the BIA, which could have given an inaccurate picture of her potential, if not interpreted with care.

I'm replying from my phone so can't go into too much detail. I think the main reason they added reading to the IEP is because her writing was below grade level and said that the reading pull out includes working on writing skills. The new spec ed teacher is actually a former reading specialist and I think she is doing a wonderful job with dd.

Cognitively, on the WISC, WJ BIA, and PPVT she scores consistently in the 85th-87th%. Of course with the WISC and WJ BIA I'm not including the indexes that measure fluency, processing speed or working memory. She is a bright girl and I've had many parents of gifted children tell me she seems gifted and I should put her in the G&T program and are surprised she doesn't have the scores to qualify. She definitely thinks differently than kids her age and is highly creative but academically she struggles. Also she struggles with anxiety but it's getting better.

Ah. That makes more sense. Her passage comprehension actually is significantly below her cognition, if her reasoning scores are all in the 110's.

Good to hear that she is getting good support from her new sped teacher. And, as of yet, there are no really good measures of creativity (Torrance notwithstanding), so it's difficult to put the kind of number on her creative gifts that gifted programs are so fond of.

Communication with my dd12 is still a struggle. I'm beginning to get frustrated but I know she can't help it.

The first issue is I can tell her something, check for clarification/understanding, she walks away and asks "What am I supposed to do?".

Second, her language comprehension seems off (oral and written). I can't really describe it, we just have a lot of miscommunication where if I'm not overly specific with her she misunderstands/misinterprets.

I don't know if something more is going on with her language comprehension/processing, if it's a part of dyslexia, or if it's neurotypical for her age. Compared to her sister who is 9 she seems behind in these skills. Perhaps I don't have a clear idea of what is normal for a 12 yo since dd9 has an FSIQ of 149, granted her VCI was only 124.

I just would like answers but I'm sure the school can't do an in-depth enough eval to dissect if there is an issue. And dh won't pay for any more outside testing after the money we spent in 2012 to have Children's test her for dyslexia. Also, because last time we paid the first school SPED disregarded our test results and so we run the risk of that happening again.

You mentioned above that she had low scores in receptive language on the CELF. This would be consistent with what you're reporting about her language comprehension and ability to follow oral directions. She also scored poorly on phonological memory, which is not only associated with dyslexia, but auditory processing, which can also affect how she comprehends oral language. Both the putative receptive language deficit and her documented relative weaknesses in reading comprehension would affect her ability to comprehend text.

I think you may already have the data necessary to document a receptive language deficit. Depending on your local school district situation, your school speech language pathologist should be able to update the receptive language testing, if that seems called for. You can request that the IEP team add this testing, even if you're mid-cycle. It's possible you may obtain a little additional information if you also pursue an auditory processing evaluation at a hospital. This is usually covered by insurance, with a referral from your PCP.

Sorry for taking so long to reply, we've been on vacation.

Just out of curiosity how would having the diagnosis of an auditory processing disorder or receptive language deficit benefit her at school? Meaning, what could they do to help her with either of these disorders? Would she receive speech therapy that would help alleviate her struggles with her comprehension of both oral and written text? Can they use the speech eval from 2012 or are the results outdated?

She is already on an IEP and receives some accommodations, although it has been hard to get the reduced workload accommodation followed. The solution to the homework overload was that if she is spending too long on homework, or she starts to feel overwhelmed by the workload, she is to stop and email the teacher and the learning specialist. This actually isn't too bad of an idea because her homework load isn't always excessive. Some weeks her workload is rather light. Just took some discussing with the specialist to make this happen.

From my perception the learning specialist seems surprised dd has an IEP since "dd is doing so well, especially compared to other 6th graders not even on IEPs". Honestly I've been providing quite a bit of scaffolding at home to help dd adjust to the expectations of middle school, homework, grades, etc. since this is new for her this year. I'm on top of missing assignments, teaching her how to study, follow rubrics, and so forth. I'm a stay at home mom so I have the capabilities to do this, many of the parents at the school work so I'm guessing the students who aren't doing as well as dd don't have parents checking up on them and making sure things are done and turned in. Honestly without my help I'd hate to think how dd would be doing right now.

She goes to a rigorous STEM charter middle/high school so my guess is getting services added might be a battle. In fact, her three year renewal for her IEP will be up at the end of this school year and I'm worried they won't want to give her a new one and that is a fight I'm going to start preparing for. Between my scaffolding for her and the fact that dd is an EXTREMELY hard working, people pleasing student (i.e. an assignment that may only need 15-30 min for the neurotypical student to complete, dd will spend more than an hour because of her learning challenges and also to ensure she does it right and well, so the work she produces is average or even above average but takes much more time and mental energy for her to complete), I don't know if I can convince them that she benefits from an IEP.

One more question.

When it comes to reading comprehension, dd struggles with long, more complex sentences versus short, simple sentence structure. I always thought it was due to her weak working memory that she wouldn't understand these longer more complex sentences. Can an auditory processing disorder or receptive language deficit cause this type of difficulty with text comprehension? Fwiw the comprehension difficulties of longer more complex sentences isn't isolated to just written text. It also happens with her oral comprehension.