Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment >99.9 GAI but below average WMI

I really appreciate if any parents who could share your experience for low WMI? My 10 years old DS just got his WISC-V report and his number are:
VCI 155/>99.9
VSI 138/99
FRI 144/99.8
WMI 107/68
PSI 129/97
FSIQ 146/99.9
GAI 152/>99.9
I did lot of research online after I saw his report but cannot find any suggestions for high VCI vs. low WMI.
He had super difficult time in K which is a public school. I still remember he was sent to principle's office almost every week. Then we transferred him to a highly reputable private schools from G1. He had 3 happy years in his private school. The school placed him in advanced reading group in that 3 years but every teacher told me that he couldn't focus on reading material. All other kids could repeat the story but most of time he couldn't. All teachers told me that my DS kept ignoring teachers questions or classroom rules. As parents, we keep reminding him and sometimes punished him but things can only get better for a few days. He had G4 in a public school because of family relocation. Same as before, we heard complaints from G4 teacher.
We know our DS doesn't have learning issues and his academic is very strong but we were still shocked by his Full Scale IQ score.
Most of online discussions mentioned that kids who have low WMI usually have reading disability. But my DS doesn't. He had SSAT middle level exam at G4 and score is 95%. The next day, he tried SCAT middle level and both verbal and math are 99%.
I am coming here look for suggestion and advice. I appreciate for your help.

First, his WMI is not remotely below average. That's actually the high end of the Average range. It's only low in relation to his extremely high VCI, VSI, FRI, and PSI.

Low WMI does not necessarily translate to poor reading skills. Among other things, it can also reflect dysregulated attention (e.g., ADHD), auditory processing weaknesses, emotional interference, or even seasonal allergies/medication for such.

The history you report of difficulty with following rules and ignoring questions, and frequent disciplinary incidents, suggests that, in addition to the cognitive assessment you had done, some additional investigation, probably beginning from the items I mentioned, might be in order.

Who administered his WISC-V, and why was he given a WISC - were you pursuing help with understanding why he's had difficulties in school? The reason I ask that is if the testing was part of an evaluation to understand what was happening with reading etc, then usually the evaluator would have recommendations re further testing etc to determine the reason for the significant discrepancy in working memory. There can be many different reasons, not only a reading disability.

If you can let us know if this was part of a school evaluation or private, we can give you some specific advice re what to ask for next to follow up. Some of us have found it's more helpful to have a private evaluation through a neuropsychologist, school evaluations sometimes aren't as thorough or might be biased toward not finding an issue because the school doesn't want to qualify students for services.


It actually does sound like there is *something* going on that's impacting your ds' ability to show his full knowledge in the classroom - you have a history of input from teachers each year of his elementary school education. It might be coincidence, but combined with the discrepancy in scores, it looks like he does have *some* type of learning challenge in place - perhaps not what you'd consider a typical learning disability such as dyslexia etc but there's something going on that's impacting his ability to be successful at school in reading. High ability students are often able to compensate for weaknesses so successfully that no one realizes they are struggling in some way until later on in their education when the demands on the specific skills they struggle with become too high to cope with... conversely it's also not all that uncommon for teachers and parents to not realize how high a student's ability really is when they are having to compensate for a challenge. Hope that makes sense!

In any event, you're on the path to figuring out *what's* going on - and that's what will make all the difference to your ds

Best wishes,

polarbear

@aeh, what's the Average range of WMI? Are there anyways I can help DS improve it?

@polarbear, thanks for your message. My DS is going to apply private school - 6th grade. Some private schools here ask parents go school preferred psychologists do WISC testing. So that's the reason why we did it recently.

One possibility -- in addition to what others have written above -- is that your son is extremely underchallenged, and that he is acting out due to boredom. What really stood out to me about your post is bolded, below:

Perhaps the reading material at school is completely uninteresting to him, and so, he appears to be "unable" to focus. This could then be responsible for why he can't repeat the story: He never paid attention to the story to begin with, because it was so boring.

Yes nowhere near below average WMI. With the past history it is probably worth (if you can) looking a bit deeper though.

Reading this original post felt like a time warp back to my own elementary school days.

Like your son, ladydd, I had difficulty following rules, I ignored my teachers' questions, and I didn't pay attention to the aspects of school that bored me (which were many).

I underwent a very thorough neuropsych assessment as an adult, and I learned that I have ADHD. Also, my IQ results on the WAIS-IV are very similar to your son's scores, with a relative weakness in WMI, though it's still above average.

As an underchallenged kid, I was bored beyond belief at school -- without realizing that this was a problem, as I had adapted to the constant boredom as being just a normal part of school.

Boredom combined with undiagnosed ADHD presented in a very similar manner to what your son is displaying.
Agreed.

The Average range on the WISC-V (and most other cognitive measures) is 90 - 110, or about 25th %ile to 75th %ile (middle 50%).

Before attempting to remediate his (not really deficient) working memory, I think it would be important to find out why that score is relatively lower--or the intervention may not be effective. Beyond that, there currently is not a pool of strongly-effective interventions for improving working memory per se (although you can spend excessive amounts of money on a brain training program that will improve your ability to score well on specific measures of working memory--but with negligible transfer or generalization to any other specific task).

So again, the first step would be to acquire more data, perhaps through a review of school/academic/behavioral records, or additional assessment in academic achievement, or further neuropsychological evaluation. Just because he scores well on group-administered (multiple choice) standardized tests of achievement does not mean he does not have subtle academic skill deficits--in fact, you've reported one, which is that, despite being an excellent reader, he has struggled with reading comprehension questions for multiple years. This may be boredom, it may be not paying attention to the story, or it may be difficulty with inferential comprehension, which is not actually that unusual in children who also have difficulty with following directions and self-regulation.