Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Id strengths and weaknesses - dysgraphia

Looking for feedback on DS9 assessment, as it relates to possible dsygraphia. It seems that there are patterns of strengths and weaknesses, but would like feedback on whether I am looking at these correctly, and whether the discrepancy could be considered significant. For context, eval was done by school, and also included eval for autism. Agreed on IEP for that (pragmatics, which from my perspective is a mild need, compared to writing), but only accommodations for writing, not instruction or assistance. It is possible that may be sufficient, but I think he would benefit from instruction. He is in GT class, so that makes it more complicated from their perspective. They are aware of 2E and get it in concept, but not much experience with it, so there is some awareness to build going forward.

Feedback or questions I should ask further? Are there other tests I should request? Is TOWL a good supplement to WIAT to assess writing level more specifically?

On the WISC-V, he had 39 point spread between VCI and PSI (so 2.5 sd), but PSI is still average. Noted as very uncommon profile (5% of children). He also had a very unusual profile on Beery VMI - low average for integration, but very high for visual perception. He has 99% on all standardized tests (cogat and nwea) but Wiat-III showed average on all reading and writing. Oral and math were above average. Wiat had 2.5 sd spread between listening comprehension and essay composition and 1.5 sd spread between reading comprehension and essay composition.

He does not have issues with fine-motor skills, and draws all the time (which school suggested meant that it couldn't be dsygraphia). But he talks very fast and there is agreement that his mind moves even faster - so explaining the ideas and getting them on paper are clearly challenging. In classwork and homework, it is rare for him to write more than 1 sentence, unless he is strongly supported by teacher or myself.

(Including full scores here, but will redact after feedback - I can add % if that is useful, but I think the scaled scores are more relevant?)

WISC -V. FSIQ is only 2 points diff from GAI, which seemed odd to me, given what I have read. Does that mean PSI didn't pull down that much? It looks like he is "average gifted" not HG or PG, so perhaps that is the reason?

FSIQ- 127, GAI - 129
VCI 139
Similarities 18
Vocabulary 16
VSI 132
Block design 15
Visual puzzles 16
FRI 112
Matrix reasoning 11
Figure weights 13
WMI 127
Digit span 15
Picture span 15
PSI 100
Coding 8
Symbol search 11

On the Beery VMI
Visual Motor Integration - 87 standard score, 7 scaled, 19%
Visual perception - 120, 14, 91%
Motor coordination - 99, 10, 47%

wiat-III. (Side note: I can't figure out how his reading can be lower than his writing - he is an excellent speller, I think bc of his excellent visual memory, so perhaps that is propping it up. Also, note that essay composition was 32% and that was based on being able to write about his favorite video game! If it wasn't free-write, I can only imagine it would be lower, as this is the only topic I have seen him write more than a few sentences about.

Wiat - total composite 116
Oral: 128 (listening 130 and oral expression 117)
Reading: 104 (word reading 114, pseudoword decoding 115, reading comp 108, oral reading fluency 98, total reading composite 110, reading comprehension composite116)
writing: 109 (spelling 129, sentence composition 101, essay composition 93). -
Math: 120 (math problem-solving 127, numerical ops 109, math fluency composite 92)

So... Ideas? Feedback? Am I off-base to think dsygraphia?

The WISC-V does not weight the WM and PS scores as heavily in the FSIQ as the WISC-IV did, which lessens the disparity between FSIQ and GAI. Also, in your DS's case, his WMI is strong both visually and auditorally, so the WM and PS subtests in the FSIQ kind of offset each other.

I am more struck by the 27 pt difference VCI > FRI, considering how well he did on math reasoning. I suspect he does better when tasks are contextualized than when they are abstract/in isolation--which might explain why the word problems were a better bet than the isolated computations. This is not unusual in conjunction with an ASD diagnosis.

If you could clarify which reading and writing subtests were which, it might be easier to comment on that portion of the testing. (Not everyone reports them in the same order.)

DD did the WIAT for writing when she was just over age 9. She wrote only 3 sentences (and she wasn't even on-topic) but that somehow produced an average score. My original concern as presented to the school district was that I am concerned that she hardly ever writes more than 3-4 sentences for assignments. I thought the WIAT would show the problem, but it didn't because they just required a short sample. The language arts standards put forth by the state require much more than a student in fourth grade being able to write 3 sentences, but none of the testing picked that up. They didn't look at her classroom work other than one two-sentence writing sample. They said "But she wrote 17 words per sentence!" Ummm....that's nice, but it doesn't solve the problem of her not writing more than 2-3 sentences in class. I had her independently evaluated and he gave her the TOWL. Scores still in the average range, except for the spontaneous writing part. She had to write a story based on a picture and wrote 2 sentences. This time, there were not enough words, and he couldn't score it. I think of it this way--basically kids scoring in the 1st percentile write more for that part of the test than DD did. If her story had a few more words, it would have been scorable. I'm not sure if her score would have been average or not, in that case (because the scoring is based on more than the amount that they write, and she writes well on a sentence level).

The diagnosis was not dysgraphia (although I think there is some argument about how that is defined, and the neuropsych did not want to classify her as that for whatever reason). He said her issue is ADHD which leads to executive dysfunction, and her problem is organization and planning issues. You might want to ask for testing to check for executive dysfunction.

On the WISC-V, he had 39 point spread between VCI and PSI (so 2.5 sd), but PSI is still average. Noted as very uncommon profile (5% of children). He also had a very unusual profile on Beery VMI - low average for integration, but very high for visual perception. He has 99% on all standardized tests (cogat and nwea) but Wiat-III showed average on all reading and writing. Oral and math were above average. Wiat had 2.5 sd spread between listening comprehension and essay composition and 1.5 sd spread between reading comprehension and essay composition.


This is completely incorrect. Dysgraphia does *not* mean a person can't draw - many dysgraphics, including my ds, are actually quite talented at drawing. Dysgraphia is related to the development of automaticity of skills, which means a child who is dysgraphic doesn't develop the automaticity associated with forming letters and numbers. Drawing is a very different skill - your pencil doesn't leave the paper often; when you draw you are usually creating as you go rather than having to regurgitate a letter or number that is supposed to look like something specific and be made a specific way. From what I've seen of artists working, a person can draw without the same type of pencil grip used for writing, and holding their hand differently too. I would suggest reading through an online listing of dysgraphia symptoms and seeing which apply to your ds (awkard pencil grip, holding wrist because it hurts, appearance of letters, spacing on paper etc - I won't try to list everything hear because you can find the lists easily online).



This could be dysgraphia, or it could be an expressive language disorder. My ds has both, and it wasn't clear that he had the added layer of expressive language disorder until we'd gone through the process of giving him accommodations for his dysgraphia - scribing, keyboarding etc. It sounds like the school is on the right track with recommending accommodations for handwriting (I think that's what you are referring to above?). One thing you could do at home to get a bit of an understanding re is it dysgraphia or is it an expressive language disorder is to ask him to "write" while you scribe. Pick something that is similar to the type of writing assignments he struggles with at school. If his words flow at a much faster rate when he uses you as a scribe, then chances are it's just dysgraphia. If he still struggles with knowing what to say/"write" then it might be an expressive language disorder, and it might be helpful to have a speech language evaluation that covers expressive language and written expression (if he hasn't had one already)


I'm not familiar with the WIAT so I can't give you a comparison of TOWL vs WIAT, but the TOWL was very useful for us in showing issues related to ds' expressive language disorder as it relates to written expression. The TOWL has also been useful in demonstrating how dysgraphia impacts ds' handwriting, including the speed and issues with punctuation, grammar etc.

I'm sorry I can't help with the WISC-V scores, as I'm not familiar with it.


I'm not familiar with specific WIAT subtests, but keep in mind that these types of achievement tests test a very specific - and limited - skill set in each subtest. Chances re the variations between reading and writing are extremely skill-related, and it's possible that a subtest score might be impacted more by a skill that is a challenge for your ds than the actual skill being tested. For instance, if your ds is struggling with handwriting, and has to either write an answer or draw a circle etc you might find that subtest took him much longer than it would have a neurotypical student, and your ds' overall score will be depressed because of it.


I don't think you're off base to think dysgraphia, but I also don't think you should over-worry about whether or not the school uses the term "dysgraphia" - our school district doesn't use either of the terms "dysgraphia" or "dyslexia". The important thing is to keep watching closely as the school adds accommodations and pay close attention to whether or not the accommodations are helping or if there is something more that he needs. Even when you have a specific diagnosis, putting accommodations into place and seeing how they work is a journey, not a one-step process. I definitely think it's worth doing a bit of your own research into what is dysgraphia and thinking through whether or not it fits your ds, and if it does, make a game plan for accommodations etc (yourself) based on that.

I hope some of what I had to say makes sense - I kept getting interrupted while I tried to reply!

Best wishes,

polarbear