Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Education decisions for an 8yo boy with Aspergers

My 8yo son has a 139 verbal IQ but a performance IQ of 105. He is currently being thrown out of his third school in five years.

Problems include:
- low frustration tolerance,
- work refusal (particularly writing but also plain old worksheets),
- some meltdown behavior (outbursts, negative talk) when he feels threatened, pressured or "told what to do" (normal school directives)
- a tendency to rip up his work or scribble it out (sometimes to avoid doing it, sometimes if he doesn't like what he produced).
- some aggressive behaviors (throwing a set of keys at a smartboard, pushing a kid at recess)

When he feels appreciated/valued/heard he is an incredibly sweet kid full of creativity (he loves to build with paper, wood, legos, cardboard boxes... anything he can get his hands on). Loves to engage with other kids who are into fantasy play. He has a completely neurotypical little brother, 18 months younger (they are in the same grade, different schools) and they play together a lot.

READS. Would read 8+ hours a day if we let him. Interests span history (esp. WW II), science, technology (esp. apace and deep sea exploration), nature/natural world (esp microbiology) as well as kid classics (e.g. Dahl). His has a library of over 5k books. He loves to draw and fills notebooks with ideas, diagrams, sketches of inventions. He loves to show and explain them.

School has been a fail x 3 (Montessori, traditional public, small special needs class in a public setting) -- all fails. All because of work refusal and behavioral issues.

We think the best thing to do NOW is to place him in a private special needs school for autistic children (he's had an autism dx since age 4).

Developmentally he is not at a place where he can turn on and off his interests to complete on non-preferred work without support. With proper support, he absolutely can. When I work with him 1:1 I just have to make "deals" as in, "We can talk about CRISPR after you do 10 problems, OK?" and I'll make a mark on his page. I may need to say, "Keep going, you can do it" a few times, but the work gets down.

In the classroom, this doesn't happen so little work gets done. And if there is insistence (without little "deals") there can be a meltdown.

Our goal is to help him learn to better flow with the basic mechanics of a classroom (not to take having to do X "personally"), learn some social pragmatics (back and forth conversation/tempering monologs), turn-taking, rule following.

The problem is that the episodes of aggressiveness have caused him to be rejected from "2E" schools. So we may need to send him to a school that educates kids with a mix functioning levels (including verbal but low IQ). I just don't know - as he becomes a tween and teen - if this peer group is going to help him develop.

Any thoughts welcome. We're in NYC.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Yes, homeschooling is always the backup-to-the-backup plan.

Your son is lucky to have you.

In a similar post (sorry for the double post) I included more details about his stats. Here they are in case this help.

2014 Neuropsych

Verbal IQ 139
Performance IQ 105

2016 Neuropsych

Verbal Comp - 95%
(Vocab sub = 99%, Information sub = 98%, Similarities = 50%, Comp = 25%)
Visual-Spatial - 96%
(Block design = 98%, Visual puzzles 76%)
Fluid Reasoning - 84%
(Matrix 65%, Figure weights 91%, Picture concepts 24%)
Working Memory - 12%
(Digit = 48%, Picture=30%, Letter-Number=30%)
Processing Speed - 1% (not a typo)
(Coding = 1%, Symbol search = 24%)

FSIQ - 111 (77%)

This is only a guess, without knowing your ds or knowing what the tester found in terms of why there are large gaps in his test scores, but it looks very much like he may have a learning challenge in the mix (or possibly even a vision challenge).

Did the neuropsych report include any other information?

FWIW, if he has a learning challenge he may be incredibly frustrated at school, which in turn an feed into behavioral challenges. He may also be frustrated with instructional level due to his high ability scores.

Sorry to hear about the struggles he's having - I hope you're able to find a solution that works - let us know whatever you're comfortable with sharing of what the rest of his neuropsych eval report says.

Best wishes,

polarbear

The evaluator verbally suggested to me on the phone he "belonged in a psych ward" and that is not hyperbole. My husband, himself a doctor (though not a psychiatrist), took ds to the final appointment after hearing how terribly things were going (task refusal) and said she had the worst interpersonal skills he'd ever seen in a clinician. She made ds extremely uncomfortable, bordering on shaming him. However, since we needed the completed evaluation for bureaucratic reasons and ds managed to complete the testing, we did not pursue the issue. She never offered us a follow-up meeting to go over the results (which I think is standard).

Horrible experience.

I'm sorry to hear that your evaluator was so non-professional. What types of things are you thinking about trying now? Has your son had ABA therapy? My son is 7, and also has ASD. Right now, he gets 12 hrs of in-home ABA therapy per week, and I find that it's really helpful in dealing with all of his social issues. They go through things like reviewing your emotions, and how to describe them, practice taking turns, communicating things using words (like saying I don't want to talk about that right now, instead of ignoring someone). Also, with school work, he also gets very focused about certain topics, and doesn't want to work on non-preferred work. It seems like home schooling plus ABA might be the best fit? Since he's so advanced academically, I think it would be really frustrating being with people who aren't at his academic level.

I'm in a bit of hurry right now (leaving a trail of unfinished posts behind me!)...will try to get back to this later, but,

1. his abstract verbal reasoning ability is a lot weaker (average range) than his concrete verbal ability, suggesting there may be something to investigate in the language category.

2. in parallel: his abstract fluid reasoning skills are not as strong as his quantitative fluid reasoning skills--so the lower abstract thinking applies both to verbal and nonverbal.

3. that working memory cluster score can't be right. All the subtest scores are in the average range, so I would expect at least mid 20s %ile for the index score, if not higher. Actually, a lot of your percentiles are a bit off. I'd check to make sure those are accurate, as some of them are impossible for the indicated subtests.

4. motor-involved speed is much lower than motor-reduced speed, suggesting that fine-motor may be an area to investigate.

5. very, very sorry to hear of such unprofessional behavior...

Because we did not review results with the clinician administering the exam, I'm not sure how to interpret the results. The WIAT-III is listed below the WISC-V.

Here are the raw scores and all sub-testing results.

WISC-V

Verbal Comprehension Subtest

Similarities
Raw=22, Scaled=10, Percentile=50
Vocabulary
Raw=38, Scaled=19, Percentile=99
Information
Raw=20, Scaled=16, Percentile=98
Comprehension
Raw=12, Scaled=8, Percentile=25

Sum of Scaled Scores=29
Composite score=124
Percentile=95

Visual-Spatial Subtest

Block Design
Raw=41, Scaled=16, Percentile=98
Visual Puzzles
Raw=18, Scaled=13, Percentile=76

Sum of Scaled Scores=29
Composite score=126
Percentile=96

Fluid Reasoning Subtest

Matrix
Raw=17, Scaled=11, Percentile=65
Figure weights
Raw=23, Scaled=14, Percentile=91
Picture Concepts
Raw=8, Scaled=7, Percentile=24

Sum of Scaled Scores=25
Composite score=115
Percentile=84

Working Memory Subtest

Digit span
Raw=22, Scaled=10, Percentile=48
Picture span
Raw=11, Scaled=4. Percentile=30
Letter-Number Sequencing
Raw=8, Scaled=7, Percentile=24

Sum of Scaled Scores=14
Composite score=82
Percentile=12

Processing Speed Subtest

Coding
Raw=9, Scaled=1, Percentile=1
Symbol Search
Raw=13, Scaled=7, Percentile=24

Sum of Scaled Scores=8
Composite score=66
Percentile=1

Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (BBVMI)

Beery VMI
Standard Score=87
Percentile=19

WIAT-III

Reading Comprehension
Raw score=39
Standard score=124
Percentile rank=95
Grade equiv. >12.9
Age equiv. >19.11

Math Problem Solving
Raw score=40
Standard score=97
Percentile rank=42
Grade equiv. 3.0
Age equiv. 8.4

Alphabet writing fluency
Raw score=11
Standard score=90
Percentile rank=25
Grade equiv. 1.7
Age equiv. 7

Word reading

Raw score=50
Standard score=119
Percentile rank=90
Grade equiv. 6.2
Age equiv. 11.4

Pseudoword Decoding

Raw score=23
Standard score=99
Percentile rank=47
Grade equiv. 3.1
Age equiv. 8

Numerical Operations

Raw score=18
Standard score=86
Percentile rank=18
Grade equiv. 2.2
Age equiv. 7.4

Oral Reading Fluency

Raw score=98
Standard score=104
Percentile rank=61
Grade equiv. 3.8
Age equiv. 9.0

Spelling

Raw score=16
Standard score=92
Percentile rank=30
Grade equiv. 2.3
Age equiv. 7.8

Composite Score Summary

Total Reading
Sum of Subtest Standard Scores=446
Standard Score=115
Percentile Rank=84
AVERAGE

Basic Reading
Sum of Subtest Standard Scores=218
Standard Score=108
Percentile Rank=70
AVERAGE

Reading Comprehension and Fluency
Sum of Subtest Standard Scores=228
Standard Score=117
Percentile Rank=87
ABOVE AVERAGE

Mathematics
Sum of Subtest Standard Scores=183
Standard Score=90
Percentile Rank=25
AVERAGE

Oral and Written Language Scales, Second Edition (OWLS-II)
Written Expression
Standard Score=64
Percentile=1 (not typo)
VERY LOW

The diagnoses are:

299.00 Autism spectrum disorder
314.01 Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, combined presentation
315.2 Specific Learning Disorder
with impairment in written expression
with impairment in mathematics
315.4 Developmental coordination disorder
311.00 Unspecified depressive disorder
300.00 Unspecified anxiety disorder

It all sounds so brutal written so starkly.

I won't quote, in case you want to delete later, as this is a lot of personal information you have out there.

Firstly, your examiner definitely has some incorrect numbers in this data set. I'm going to base my remarks on the standard scores and scaled scores, when either of those do not agree with the percentiles listed, but I do need to point out that the percentiles for WISC-V subtests VP, MR, PC, DS, PS, LNS, and SS are clearly wrong, some by only a little bit, and others by a substantial amount. I've been racking my brains trying to think of what they might be instead (they don't line up with NCEs, either), but can only imagine that some typographical or formatting error entered the document you received somewhere. The WIAT-III scores look more internally-consistent (I didn't check every one, but they are at least ballpark okay, unlike the WISC).

In addition to the comments I made previously, I'll just observe that the general memory profile follows his history of verbal strengths, with auditory memory markedly stronger than visual memory. The Beery also supports the hypothesis that there may be some fine-motor or perceptual challenge.

Academic skills are best in reading, especially comprehension, with these skills generally commensurate with the most optimistic estimate of his ability, and consistent with the pattern of verbal strengths. Math is age-appropriate in reasoning, but not quite at the level expected based on his ability profile. Calculation skills (keeping in mind that these are all hand-calculated, so may be affected by fine motor skills) are at the border of average, as are spelling skills. It's possible, even likely, that calculation errors affected his math reasoning score. Written expression is well below average. This is a profile that certainly supports several of the listed diagnoses, at least with regard to SLD, and probably DCD.

If you feel strongly that this was a clinician with poor clinical skills, then you might consider having someone else (a board-certified child psychiatrist would be a good place to start) take a second look with regard to the non-academic diagnoses (you can't repeat testing, but you can have as many interviews and observations as you can get away with). Even if they come up with the same list, you may receive more practical suggestions and contextualized interpretation.

He doesn't seem like he likes schools very much. Maybe this would be a good option: http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk