Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC-V where do I go from here...

My 7 year old son had a horrible year in first grade - saying he was bored, refusing to go to school, and the teacher refusing to believe or give him challenging work at his level. Therefore, I had him assessed with the WISC-V. I was hoping he would qualify for DYS to make use of the consulting services because I'm just not sure what this all means or how to best advocate for him. He was just a little shy of qualifying, so failing that, if anyone can offer insights or advice for how to advocate for what he needs, would love if you would share your thoughts, as I feel lost and helpless. Here were the scores:
Full Scale: 99.6 percent
Verbal Comp: 98 percent (Vocab 17, Similiarities 14)
Visual Spatial 96 percent (Block design 14, Visual Puzzles 15)
Fluid Reasoning 97 percent (Figure Weights 16, Matrix Reasoning 14)
Working Memory 99.9 percent (Picture Span 19, Digit Span 17)
Processing Speed 99.7 percent (Coding 18, Symbol Search 16)

From what I understand, it is somewhat unusual for Gifted students to have working memory/processing speed as their highest score. Any advice for how to direct him to help him reach his full potential would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Welcome!

Having such high cognitive proficiency (WMI and PSI) scores can be quite an advantage, as he would be expected to do well with the kind of output expectations that academically-advanced placements often have of students. This is not always the case for GT students.

His reasoning skills, in contrast, are more in the optimally to moderately GT range, which is still quite strong, but more frequently experienced by schools (one out of about two classrooms, vs one out of one or two schools, or only one in the district). Actually, his profile is in some ways more amenable to curricular adjustment, as it may be easier to convince school personnel of his gifts based on his work products. Not to downplay the frustration you have had up until this point, but this frequency of occurrence does mean that, if your district has any kind of congregated/magnet programs for GT, he is likely to have peers out there, if given access to that program, and he is likely to present in a way that is easily appreciated by the GT teachers.

The trick will be maintaining him until he has access to that kind of programming.

In the primary years, my personal philosophy is to let the child lead. The academic goals of the elementary years, especially the early elementary years, are relatively few, consisting mainly of learning to read fluently, the associated spelling and sentence-level composition skills, and basic arithmetic skills. The first goal is addressed in a reader simply by allowing him to read a great deal, based on interests. The second sometimes comes more slowly, as it is gated by age-appropriate fine-motor skills, but can be supported by allowing children to use technology (typing, speech-to-text, scribing) to free up their language expression inventiveness in written or dictated creative works of personal expression. With his strong memory skills, he may also enjoy memorizing poetry, passages from literature, musical or dramatic works. If he initiates extra math work, there are plenty of resources out there (many here have used and enjoyed Singapore Math, Beast Academy, and others), but generally one prefers that these be child-led afterschooling activities, not parent-directed.

Mostly, I would allow him to play, create, explore, and "waste time" on his own interests. That's really how children at this stage of development learn best.

Welcome!

You've received great advice above.

I'll just add that for new members on the forum, the first five posts are held for moderation to help reduce spambots... therefore there may be some delay in seeing your first several posts and replies. Hang in there - it gets better.

This old thread contains a roundup of advocacy resources, some of which may be helpful to you.

thank you for the link to old thread of advocacy resources!

Also, thank you for the advice "aeh". Our district in NJ has wonderful G&T magnet schools at the high school level, but not much for the G&T kids before then. I do let him lead with what his interests are and try to provide access to plenty of books and opportunities for stimulation outside of school. The challenge is to not "lose him" and his engagement during the school day, which unfortunately I already see happening. I will check out the other resources you mentioned. And thank you again for your thorough and thoughtful response. I understand how my child feels alone and lost sometimes because I feel the same way trying to figure out how to help him. Forums like these are very helpful.

I wanted to follow up this post to say that my son (whose scores are mentioned above) has since been identified as 2e - with SPD (including auditory processing disorder) and possibly ADHD. His psychotherapist said it’s amazing he has been able to perform as well as he has in school given these challenges and he’s been compensating with his intellect, but he’s been under a lot of stress from these unaddressed issues. He just turned 9 so I’m glad we’ll be able to get him help now before the underachievement showed up. My question is, after OT treatment for the sensory issues and addressing the underlying anxiety and possible ADHD, do you think it would be worth retesting him to see if his scores would change To the point that he would be eligible for DYS? He does present as a PG kid in many ways and my goal would just be to provide him as much appropriate support as possible. Thank you.

His current scores are not typically considered qualifying scores for DYS, according to the posted criteria, but it is possible that they would change with treatment, especially for ADHD and anxiety. (Probably not so much for sensory issues/APD--at least not on this short a time scale.) If you are looking at retesting, keep in mind that 24 months is the minimum valid test/retest interval for the same test instrument. And yes, you'll want to interview and reference carefully for an examiner who understands complex 2e learners.

More importantly, it's good news to hear that you are identifying his needs, and obtaining remediation, at this young age!