hi, i just found out dd7 is gifted(gai 151, fsiq 126). Her older brother10 has fsiq 105, low low processing. Was to told by the school my son had visual procesing disorder. I took him to vision therapy for 2yrs. However, his achivement keeps sliding year by year. If you speak with my son he has an extensive vocabulary, speaks in a very mature and articulate manner, to the point that other kids look at him like he is some sort of freak. Hobbies are legos,drama, choir, architecture, egyptology/archeology, a wicked/adult sense of humor and great artwork. He cannot ride a bike still, very clumsy, very bad spelling, hates to read( loves to be read too) and extream difficulty with written out put. Verbally he seems as bright, if not brighter than dd7 id as gifted.
so here are my questions:

1. can an Ld depress an iq score significantly?

2. Are schools using visual processing disored as a dumping ground? (i think the 6,000 I spent on vision therapy was a waste of money. I never saw great improvement)

3. Any thoughts on this child would be greatly appriciated?


By the way, three people have dyslexia in my family.

Do you have his score breakdown, ie. the separate verbal, performance, memory and processing scores? Often, kids who are 2e will have a large discrepancy such as very high verbal score/very low processing speed. So, yes. An LD can depress an IQ score significantly.

If you can post the scores our resident score gurus may be able to help

Here are his scores:

Similarities 13
vocabulary 11
comprehension10


block design 13
picture concepts 7
matrix reaasoning 12

digit span 11
letter number 13

coding 7
symbol search 9


this test was done in first grade at the request of his teacher. She thought he might be gifted.

I was wondering, do they present vocabulary in a written manner, or is it presented verbally?

Thanks for the help!

Also, he just had MAPs testing. He scored in the 70%. He also told me he couldn't do the work any more and just guessed.

The verbal subtests (first three listed) are given orally, but there are many reasons why I truly gifted child might not test as such. On this testing, his highest score is only one standard deviation above average (the 13's), but it might be worth a retest if you think something is out of the ordinary.

My own daughter tested "low" orally in the verbal area (WISC-IV), and in her case...it was a false low because of auditory processing issues. The school psych testing her at the time was not in tune with how that presents, and while confused by her intriguing style (missing easy ones, then getting harder ones, missing again, etc), she took the final scoring at face value. It was only when future testing showed that DD was indeed gifted verbally that the 2E pieces started to fall into place.

Hi Dotti, I was wondering what kind of testing you did to find out about your daughters auditory processing. Also I forgot to mention I have an older boy 14, who has dysgraphia. His iq at 6 was 105(wisc iii). Had him retested in 5th grade-iq 120(wisc iv). Unfortunatly, I don't have his subtest. But I bet his processing pulled him way down.

For us, DD was identified as having a "specific learning disability" (IDEA/sped term) through the school (testing at my request) due to significant mismatch between ability and some of her more rote achievement. Her "symptoms" were very scattered performance...seemingly brilliant moments, along side very poor spelling and unusual reading errors. We followed this up on our own with an audiologist that confirmed my suspicions of auditory processing problems. I'd "identified" that as the root myself, from extensive reading on gifted and 2E. The book The Mislabelled Child is good, but the first one I'd read that screamed DD was When the Brain Can't Hear. Our schools really are pretty good, but they never would have identified this one on their own.

P.S...I should add that the school DID identify her as "pre-gifted" in 1st due to advanced reading/comprehension. That surprised ME, because of my three, she seemed to struggle. She was dropped from that list for her SAT-10 scores at the end of 1st, which had typical 2E scatter, but after we requested full blown testing, more pieces fell into place.

Hi,

You may have already contacted your local LDA chapter. We found them to be wonderful advocates with helpful information. Our LDA advocate came with us to IEP meetings as backup. They are generous this way. I agree; a verbal test would be an accurate ruler. Your son sounds like he has a wonderful intellect. Also, was the test taken by the school or did you see an educational psych in a private practice?

Hi, first I would like to say thank you for all the great input
.It is soo helpful.
He was tested by the school district. I have now come to realize they do not know what they are doing. My dd was tested by them. They made a few mistakes in her test. One, she is left handed which heavily penalizes her in coding,also a perfectionist. Her score on coding was in the 5%. Two, they would not substitue her arithmatic score(99.7%). Three, they had no clue what the GAI was, nor were they interested in checking into it.
Unfortunatly we do not have the funds to pay for outside testing(economy) for ds10. I did check into the clinical psy. dept. at our local universities. This is where graduate students practice their clinicals. They only charge 250.00.They will do IQ and achievment testing. Does anyone thinks this is a viable alternative?
Iam hoping next year we can afford to have dd7 evaluated by Dr. Ruff or at the Gifted Development Center. Does anyone know if there is a good place in Chicago to have her gitedness tested.
This would be much closer for us.

It's feasible, but not ideal. We went this route with DS, and while he did get gifted scores, with some ceilings....he also had some lower scores toward the end of the testing, and it was noted in the report that he appeared bored, and that everything was very easy for him. He also left the test session feeling totally unchallenged. In part, this is just the limitations of the WISC-IV, but it also was the result of a very "green" tester, who was more used to struggling kids, and just learning the ropes of the WISC-IV. Neither our grad student OR her supervisor understood my concerns about the test, as to them, DS was clearly the brightest kid they'd ever tested. (That's not to brag....any one of our board kids could have been in that position!)

FWIW, the achievement testing there went MUCH better. My guess is that this was more straightforward. Fortunately for us, that was the data we desperately needed, although a "valid" WISC-IV would have been nice, . The price of course was great ($150 for both), but we actually got more meaningful IQ results from the school. (Unfortunately though the achievement testing the school used was only prechool level, with hard ceilings at 145.)