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    #241370 02/20/18 01:04 PM
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    Hi,
    My 9 year old girl was recently given the WISC-V during an assessment for ADHD, at the recommendation of a therapist. Results:

    FSIQ-137
    GAI- 140
    Verbal Comprehension- 133- 99th percentile
    Visual Spatial- 119- 90th percentile
    Fluid Reasoning- 147- 99.9 percentile
    Working memory- 132- 98th percentile
    Processing speed-111- 77th percentile

    Subtests
    Verbal
    Similarities -16 -98th percentile
    Vocabulary -16- 98th percentile
    Visual spatial
    Block design -13- 84th percentile
    Visual puzzles -14- 91st percentile
    Fluid Reasoning
    Matrix Reasoning -19- 99.9 percentile
    Figure weights -17- 99 percentile
    Working memory
    Digit span- 16- 98th percentile
    Picture span -16- 98th percentile

    My questions are.. based on these scores alone, should I push for my daughter to bed included in the gifted pull out program at her school? I've been warned by the school psychologist that it will be difficult to get her in. I do not know what the whole process entails. She's not excelling at school now. Her grades and MAP scores are highly variable. MAPs as high as 99th percentile, but as low as mid 70s when she is not dialed into the test. Her teachers in 1st and 2nd grade were not receptive to the idea of having her tested for an IEP for giftedness. One told me that she did not see a gifted child'when she looked at my daughter. The testing that we had done was through an independent psychologist.

    Would she be a potential candidate for Davidson's? It seems the only score she has above 145 is there 147 in fluid Reasoning. I don't know if the expanded fluid Reasoning index was done during testing. I can't find it in any paperwork. Is it worth getting additional testing?

    Any advice is appreciated.


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    aeh Offline
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    Welcome!

    1. Whether it is worth advocating for the GT pullout depends not only on whether she is GT, but whether the program is designed for learners with her particular profile. Often, they are best suited to learners who perform in the upper 110s and 120s cognitively, are organized and conscientious, and are motivated to/capable of producing large quantities of written work. This may or may not describe your child (or many other gifted learners). You may wish to investigate further as to the programmatic, curricular, and peer benefits of the program, and then assess them for suitability for your child specifically.

    Her mixed achievement profile may reflect attentional or motivational factors, or it may hint at an actual underlying second exceptionality (e.g., gifted/learning disabled), among other possibilities.

    2. Her existing scores do not appear to meet DYS criteria. If the subtests listed are all of those administered (which I know they aren't, since neither of the PSI subtests are there, and you have a PSI score), then you do not currently have all the subtests necessary for the EFI. Without knowing that this would have value to the family, there is no routine reason that the psych would have given the other two subtests. Many families here report benefits from DYS. You may be able to negotiate an add-on rate for administration of the remaining two subtests (we're literally talking about 10-15 minutes of administration time, and maybe another half hour to revise the report--unless, of course, the results are noticeably different). The other two subtests in EFI are Picture Concepts and Arithmetic. PC often tracks with Similarities, and Ar often follows DS, so it's also possible that the EFI won't be any higher than the FRI, and may even be lower.


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    Thank you!! Yes, I did forget her processing speed subtests. Coding was a 10 and symbol search was a 13. Speed is not her thing.

    I did not think it was likely she'd meet DYS criteria. She was provisionally diagnosed with mild ADHD. While doing controlled tests at the psychologists office for attention, she scored normally. But the questionnaire my husband, her teacher and I filled out looked like inattentive type ADHD. I don't know what to make of it.

    I'm not sure how to advocate for her. I don't know what the GT pullout looks like at her school. I do suspect that it is high achievers. Whether or not they meet a certain GAI, I don't know. The response I'm getting from the school is something like.... It doesn't matter what the tests show, if we don't see evidence of advanced abilities in the classroom then the kid is not going to the GT room.

    Truthfully, I don't even care if they call her gifted or not. She's so anxious all the time. She's increasingly frustrated with school. It's hard to watch this, as her mom, and not know how to help. In a way, the WISC results were difficult to hear... I thought I had an ADHD kid. She looks and acts like one. Knowing that she is so intellectually capable, and still watching her struggle, is heartbreaking.

    Are there any support organizations out there for kids like mine? Above 99th percentile, but maybe not all the way to Davidson's 99.9 requirement?


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    Hi!
    Have you found anything that has been helpful for your DD? The situation is similar to what we are going through with my DD. Scores are lower for my DD but some of the same behavioral issues.
    I hope things are improving for your family!


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    I'm sorry, I didn't see your follow-up post.

    For other support organizations, you could try Mensa, your state Gifted Child Association (www.nagc.org check listings for state branch), Duke TIP (https://tip.duke.edu/), JHU CTY (https://cty.jhu.edu/), to name a few.

    One of the challenges for your DC in particular is that her cognitive profile is a bit spikier than some school GT programs are equipped to handle. I'm guessing she's particularly good in mathematical thinking (given the extreme strength in FRI, and very strong WMI), though she has strong language reasoning as well. Her concrete visual skills are not nearly as strong as her abstract nonverbal reasoning, which means she may not always have much scope to display her giftedness in an early elementary classroom, which is mostly concerned with concrete skills and language development. Academically, she may not actually have opportunity to really spread her wings until she hits higher math. Throw on top of this the suspected ADHD, and it becomes easier to understand why some teachers haven't "seen a gifted child". They're likely expecting a child who is uniformly 130ish across all domains, rather than one whose spatial skills and production rate are "only" high average, and who isn't being given opportunities to express her exceptional abstract and divergent thinking abilities. The late primary/early intermediate grade classroom doesn't demand much in her strongest ability areas.

    Aside from the question of GT placement, I would also wonder if her anxiety and frustration in school, and uneven achievement even on objective, nationally-normed tests, in combination with the aforementioned spikiness in her cognitive profile, may reflect some other obstacles to learning success, such as a third exceptionality (in addition to GT and (or in place of) ADHD). Did the private psych do achievement testing?

    Last edited by aeh; 04/11/18 08:42 PM.

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    Hi there! Sorry for not responding sooner. There weren't any responses on my post for a while and I stopped checking. Thank you so much for responding.

    Private psych did not do achievement testing but DD is scheduled for a WIAT in mid June. The psychologist suspects a written expression specific learning disability.

    You are so correct about her mathematical thinking abilities. She can figure out riddles... The farmer, fox, rabbit, grain all need to cross the river type stuff... Almost instantly. It is really cool but it doesn't help get the spelling worksheets finished. She is terrible at spelling.

    The school psychologist says that she "doesn't have a need" for gifted services until she performs at the top of her class. MAP tests don't count. They need to see it in the classroom. It is supremely frustrating when the school psychologist tells me, in every conversation we've had, that gifted children display a strong work ethic, a drive to achieve, etc. Without these traits, there is no need for the gifted pull out.

    I'm not so sure there gifted pull out is the best choice for her. The kids there supposedly work on higher level projects, critical thinking activities, etc. That would be a welcome change from the worksheets from my girl's perspective. She does want to go to the gifted room. But it is only a 3 day a week pull out for an hour at a time. Even is she gets in, would that even change her situation?

    It is purported to be a selective program where a 135 GAI is the minimum requirement. In addition to the 135, kids also need to display a "need for services". There are 25 kids in my daughter's class and 4 of them go to gifted already. If a 135 Wisc score is 99th percentile, I guess I'm dubious that 20% of her classroom scored in the top 1% on an IQ test. Of course I'm frustrated with the school maybe getting cynical about these things.

    She obviously needs help with whatever other exceptionalities she's also dealing with. I just wish that the school wasn't fighting me on getting her help with anything. It has been a long, expensive few months with all the testing. And I don't think I'm any closer to knowing how to help her academically than six months ago. Her anxiety and frustration levels are better, so that is something.


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    Glad to hear she is getting followup achievement testing. For a child with that VCI to be terrible at spelling does suggest a possible SLD in written expression (though sometimes ADHD is enough to explain the spelling, depending on the degree of terribleness--or other factors may be involved, such as fine motor/handwriting). If she doesn't meet criteria for the school to remediate her spelling and written expression (which may be the case, if it's within the average range--which would still be well below her verbal cognition), you can also try home-based Orton-Gillingham-based programs. OG programs are designed for dyslexic/dysgraphic learners, but can benefit any underperforming reader or speller. My usual go-to is All About Spelling (https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/all-about-spelling/). AAS is relatively inexpensive, easy to use for a parent or responsible college student, and typically received well in 3-5 interactive 20-minute sessions per week. It's also individualized, so she could zip more quickly through some lessons, if she knows them already, or grasps them quickly, and slow down for lessons that need it. I would start from the first lesson of the first level, and not skip any, though, as the sequence and completeness are important.


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    Hi, looks like you have some pluses and minuses to deal with. I didn't follow did they think she does or does not have ADHD?
    It seems like ADHD and the relatively low processing speed supports ADHD. I would a) focus on supporting her ADHD (there are many techniques, like small notepad for remembering things, clocks in every room time timers for tracking time, writing down all assignments), b) try to find something she is very interested in (e.g. beast academy from AOPS or Hopscotch (programming) or Scratch (programming) or minecraft modding or math olympiad, and work on that at home. ADHD CAN focus on things they are strongly interested in and she needs something positive to support her positive abilities. Good luck!


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