Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Question about WISC IV scores

Hi,

My son recently had the WISC IV test done. He is 10 years old in a Montessori school and his having behavioural and academic difficulties (not listening to lessons/instructions, refusing to do required work -- oppositional behavior,social issues). He changed to a new teacher this year, and things seem worse. He is also like an "absent minded professor" -- going upstairs to brush his teeth and forgetting what he went upstairs for . . .

Here are his results:

VCI 142
PRI 113
WM 109
PS 100
GAI 132
FSIQ 123

The psychologist who did the testing said that the large difference between VCI and PRI indicates a non-verbal learning disability and that he is frustrated because although he understands concepts more quickly than most other children, he can't show this in written work. He based this also on a sample of his writing, which showed numerous spelling mistakes. When I look at issues for children with NVLD, they don't descibe my son. I wonder if this type of scatter in the IQ scores could be "normal" for a verbally gifted child? Could the low PS indicate an attention problem? He is very forgetful and disorganized with his papers/belongings.

I got the testing done because he is so unhappy at school, but am not really sure what to do now. We live in Quebec and the French schools don't have gifted programs. Also, perhaps a FSIQ of 123 isn't high enough to qualify? I wonder if he might be happier in a regular public school than he is in his current school.

I have a son with a similar pattern including a very high VCI and an even lower PSI. Your son is clearly very bright. Yet, there are kinks in his profile (realative weaknesses) that most likely cause him a lot of frustration.

When a child has high "thinking ability" in the areas of VCI and PRI, but significantly lower processing skills (15 point difference is considered significant), it can cause many problems with output (and sometimes with input when the complexity and volume of information increases). It is like having a Ferrari engine stuck in rush hour traffic. Lot's of power that is held back by a huge bottle neck.

You ask if this kind of scatter is "normal". No - it happens in a small percentage of the overall population. The person that gave the test could check the table to tell exactly what percentage of the population would have this scatter.

You also ask if it could be an indicator of ADHD. Yes. While there is no "test" for ADHD, there are patterns that you often see in testing. Typically those with ADHD have lower WMI, PSI or both. But, you cannot diagnose ADHD from these tests alone.

There are aspects of ADHD that mimic NVLD and vice versa. My theory (and I'm just a mom with a kid with disabilities that has done a lot of thinking and research), is sometimes a spread between VCI and PRI can simply indicate an overwhelming strenght in the verbal realm. After all, his PRI is solidly high Average - not a disability per say - but an area of relative weakness.

Was there other testing done? Perhaps in the area of Executive Functioning. Here is a good overview article on EF http://www.greatschools.org/special...lens-to-view-your-child.gs?content=1017. Here are some tests that are commonly used http://concordspedpac.org/TypesTests.html#ExecFunc

Does he have any other difficulties? Social, motor, reading? You mention spelling is difficult. This is often a sign of a reading disorder. Often times very bright kids can mask weaknesses in reading in the younger years. BUt, as the load increases (complexity, volume, novelty) event subtle reading difficulties can prove to be overwhelming.

If the evaluation did not include an academic evaluation that looked at reading, writing and math skills - I believe you need information in this area too.

If you do have scores in these areas as well as the individual subtest scores of the WISC, you may want to post them along with any other concerns that you have. Others may be able to shed some light or at least suggest some questions.

Best of luck!

Hi,

Thank you very much for your comments. I am planning to ask for the subtest results to see if they shed more light. The tester did do a reading/written output test -- my son's reading comprehension is at a 9th grade level and his writing at a grade 3 level (although I think he could have done better on the writing test - his teacher and I feel that is writing skills are at grade level, which is grade 4).

Since my last post I have been doing some reading about NVLD, and my son probably does fit into this group. He does have some social issues -- difficulty taking the perspective of others, inflexible, doesn't work well in a group, thinks very much in black and white. His motor skills are OK but not great, and he has a hard time with team sports (when there's lots of movement etc). I suspected from the age of 4 that he has sensory processing issues, and now I realize that this is also common in NVLD. He also has a poor sense of time, space and geography.

He is doing OK academically (they do standardized tests every year -- he scored very high in reading, vocabulary and verbal problem solving and low average in math calculation and spelling) but things seem to be getting worse as he goes on in school. He is unhappy and seems to have lost interest in learning. He loves to read, but lately its mostly cartoons and ghost stories.

Suggestions for the most helpful interventions would be greatly appreciated -- occupational therapy, speech therapy, or others?

Also, suggestions about how to describe this disorder to his teacher -- she currently sees him as a bright child with an attitude problem and a lack of empathy ( I can't blame her for that, since I thought the same thing until we had the testing done).

Thanks again.

Just as a caveat, I wanted to mention that I have one dd who has been tested twice on the WISC-IV and I wouldn't necessarily assume that the score breakdown on one day is a permanent picture of the child. My dd, for instance, had a profile that looked very much like your ds' the second time she took the WISC (high VCI and high average or average on everything else), but the first time (one year earlier), her VCI and PRI were nearly identical (both in the upper 130s to 140s). Her PSI and WMI were more average on both testings, though.

I'd be hesistant to diagnose a learning disability based upon one IQ test's scatter. I liked this article entitled "Best Practices in the Identification of Gifted Students with Learning Disabilities" although I can't say that we really know what's going on with our dd even after reading it and after a lot of testing!

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/Publications/PsychInSchoolBestPractices.pdf

My 10 yr old son has a very similar profile on the WISC-IV (144 VCI, 113 PRI, 128 WMI and 91 PSI). The lightbulb moment for him (and us) was occupational therapy. I was very sceptical, it cost more than $100 / session and as far as I was concerned he could run and jump with the best of them, what on earth was OT going to do. Guess I am not that smart. The biggest change was in his handwriting - the OT guy said that his pencil grip was the worst he had even seen but now it is completely normal, still a bit slow, but very neat and not hard work for him like it was previously. I have no idea what hanging off trapezes and rolling down hills (part of the therapy) does for handwriting skills but I am now a firm believer in it! Honestly, it was worth every cent. I also agree with Cricket2, it has taken me two years of agonising over the nuance of every single score and now I kind of go with the flow so to speak. Yes, DS may not have the best processing speed in the world, but gee, he writes amazing poems and blows his teacher away with the language he peppers his stories with. He will find his space in life that matches his skills, he may not be an air traffic controller but he may take the world by storm with his power of the written word.

Hello,

Thanks to all for these helpful comments. I'm interested to see that a couple of you have kids with similar WISC IV results. Are they having social or academic issues that you think are caused by this kind of asymmetric profile?

My son has difficulties with organization and has trouble remembering multistep verbal instructions (go upstairs, put on your pyjamas, brush your teeth and wash your face). He is also slow to react, and there is usually a pause (sometimes a very long one) before he answers a question. This is not an issue once he is engaged in a conversation that interests him.

He has become very disengaged at school this year (grade 4), is showing a lot of oppositional behavior, is refusing to do required work and thinks that he is "dumb". His handwriting is not so bad, and he can produce very neat work when he takes his time (not often these days). He hates practicing anything that he can't master right away. These are the reasons that I had the testing done.

Do your children with high VCI and relatively low PSI show traits like this?

Jenny72, what type of OT did your son do? Was it someone who specialized in sensory processing? Did he work on fine motor skills as well as "rolling down hills" etc?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Verona, I don't know if this works but I've read that playing the game in the car where one person says, my name is Annie, I'm going to Australia, I'm taking along an ardvaark. And the next person does the same thing with "b" and repeats every answer before him. (sorry, I don't know what the game's called). Playing this game in the car supposedly helps build up the auditory sequential processing muscle so that you can begin to remember multi-step instructions in the future.

This describes my son and his VCI and PRI were within a few points of each other. He does have ADHD and this summer I finally tried medication which has been really helpful. I do not yet know how it will effect the issues in school, especially if the curriculum remains unchallenging.

Hi Verona, in answer to your question, yes, DS10 has issues following instructions. However, we are really not that fussed about it. At the time we had testing for DS done (at 8 years), he was also diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, motor dyspraxia and sensory integration disorder (took a while to get our heads around all of this). I know this isn't the answer you want, or need, right now, but we really have come to accept that we don't have to "fix" everything. DS has amazing gifts and some weaknesses in other areas. We do what we can to help, but I think he will always have issues with sensory processes and processing information. We have found that the experience DS has at school is directly related to what type of teacher he has. He has had bad years followed by great years. So...maybe this year is a blip for your son and the teacher just doesn't "get" him. OT was a program aimed at sensory integration disorders. It is funny - we have 3 boys, all gifted but in different ways. DS1 is adverse to textures, sounds, lights etc, while DS3 seeks out touch and texture. Both have sensory integration disorders but at different ends! Not sure I am helping here, just rambling - feel free to ask any more questions - sounds like our sons are quite similar!

Hi Jennie72,

That`s really interesting about your boys. DS10 was diagnosed by an OT as having sensory processing disorder when he was 4 (underactive vestibular system and liked to walk in circles, spin around, crash into things, etc). He is also oversensitive to light touch on his face and head (hair brushing, kisses . . ). I did the Wilburger protocol (brushing and joint compressions) and tried to have a healthy 'sensory diet' at home. He calmed down alot by age 6 and I stopped worrying about this too much, but maybe its time to revisit . I had his auditory processing tested this spring at the same time as the WISC IV. The report was pretty vague but he was average in most things, with a bit below average at hearing in noise. I`ve noticed he also has trouble locating sounds.

My DS6 has motor dyspraxia and the opposite sensory profile of his brother (adverse to swings and slides, very much an observer). He is doing OT for motor skills. I don`t worry so much about him because he is happy at school and doesn't have the emotional and behaviour problems of his big brother.

I agree that DS10 might be poorly matched with his teacher. She puts great emphasis on organization (not his strong point) and doesn`t seem to see his gifts like his previous teacher did. Unfortunately, in a Montessori school they stay with the same teacher for 3 years. I was seriously considering regular public school, but wonder if he might not be happy there either . . . at least at Montessori they have a small class size and children can work at their own pace. I`m hoping if I can explain my son`s issues clearly to her, things might improve next year.

He is also meeting with a psychologist in a couple of weeks and we are going to talk to him for the first time about his gifts and weaknesses, and how even though he is really smart, he might find some things harder than other kids. I`m hoping that talking about this might help him change his attitude towards school and I think it might be better if he hears this from someone other than me.