Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment gifted child with average achievement scores-long

Ok, I am a bit confused. I just got home from my DD10 GIEP meeting in which I signed a waiver to forgo the 10 days that I would have to review any tests...I know stupid of me probably huh?
I asked for testing to be done because DD seemed to be having problems with spelling and a few other things. During the meeting the Psych went verbally over the scores and everything sounded fine. I actually get home and start reading the report and now I am not so happy.
What do these mean?

First he gave her the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test
Verbal 129 97th% Above Average
Nonverbal 126 96th% Above Average
IQ composite 132 98th% Upper Extreme

Nothing surprising here it pretty much matches her previous IQ full IQ test.

Now to my confusion/concern

Woodcock Johnson III Test of Achievement (WJ-III)
Letter Word Ident 107 68th%
Reading Fluency 118 88th%
Passage Comprehension 105 62th%
Word Attack 104 61st%
Calculation 114 83rd%
Applied Problems 112 78th%
Spelling 95 37th%
Writing Samples 116 85th%

In his written evaluation of these scores for Letter-word Ident, Passage comprehension, Word Attack, and Spelling he said that she performed in the Average range and that there was a "Severe discrepancy (more then 15 standard score points) between her measured overall cognitive ability and her measured performance. Of course when he verbally went over this he didn't say it this way he just said she was in the average range.

The way I am interpreting this is that she is not performing at the same level as her IQ scores state she should. Of course since she is getting all A's in school and performing on Average with her peers school is not going to do anything for her.

I am just trying to figure out if we as her parents should be taking this further and if so what to do.

Help???

The WJ-III scores are all above average, which is great. If you are thinking that he should be at the 98-99% percentile for everything, then you probably have to work more with him at home and talk to his teacher.
For example, Calculation scores above could be if he knows his math facts cold. Or work more on his spelling at home.
My gifted second grader is hearing-impaired. Many hearing-impaired kids have trouble spelling (he doesn't). Every week, I do 10 spelling words that I download from the internet- I have him spell them for me daily. It takes 3-5 minutes a day. After a year, that is 400-450 new words he can spell! Maybe your son just needs a little extra tutoring from mom at home. HTH.

The Phych said that there was a Severe Discrepancy between her Cognitive Ability and her Achievement Scores. Wouldn't that mean she has some kind of learning disability? She scored Average in half the categories but that is against Average Peers not gifted peers. She is in public school which teaches to the Average child so she is getting all A's. I am just wondering what she could be doing if she was performing at her cognitive level.

Am I making sense or am I just reading into this too much?

I don't think that means there is a learning disability. You may have found that, for example, your school is not as good as you thought it was. If someone is an A student at a mediocre school versus a B student at an excellent school, which child will score higher on an Achievement Test? Perhaps the B student.
My hearign-impaired son scored in kindergarten on every part of the WISC at 98-99% (percentile) and 40% (percentile) on PRI, the processing speed. At the time, we didn't know he was hearing impaired since he had passed all of his hearing screens. An over 50% spread like that does indicate a learning disability.
You may be seeing that your child has raw intelligence that is not being channeled the way you feel it could be.

A discrepancy between achievement test scores and IQ scores *can* indicate a learning disability. However, because achievement tests are designed to test achievement (in other words, what kids have learned), they will reflect the learning opportunities that a child has had.

If a child has been in a school where they are not accelerated and not being exposed to additional material elsewhere, that child may score only in the average ranges on an achievement test like the WJ, which covers a wide range of grade levels. Most kids who haven't been exposed to material past their current grade levels, can't perform at really high levels.

This is not to say that your child shouldn't have better instruction. I think those scores indicate that pretty clearly!

OK, I get it. So because the school is teaching to the average child she is therefore achieving average. We need to get our a@@ into gear and get her enrichment before she stagnates. We knew our school was having problems especially with contracts and the teachers pretty much have been in a "working" strike for the last year and a half. She is in the gifted program but that is just a pull out class for 2 hrs a week. They do not give any additional work in the classroom for the gifted kids.
Guess I just never realized the education she got there was that bad and that we as parents need to take a more active roll. We have been dropping the ball on that score :-(

She has had previous IQ testing done before. The WISC-IV when she was 7 I think. Here are her scores:
Verbal Comprehension - 128
Perceptual Reasoning - 125
Working Memory - 126
Processing Speed - 106
Full Scale IQ - 128

I know that put her under the 130 mark however, were were told it was in the range since the test scores can vary from day to day etc..

The reason we had asked for testing to be done is that she has horrible problems spelling and complains whenever she has to read. She actually was in Title One (reading tutoring) when she was in first grade. Her handwriting is also horribly messy. She also seems to need help understanding directions on assignments. She always wants to "check" to make sure she is doing what the teacher wants. That may be anxiety.
She does get straight A's in school..they don't count spelling any more when grading.

I guess my gut as a parent says there is something wrong. She has wonderfully creative ideas, but it always seems that she actually can't perform them without help.
Oh and on an annoying side note...the kid still struggles tying her shoes. LOL

I'm going to agree with Dottie here. My dd12 had very few years where she was actually taught anything in elementary school yet she still had very high achievement scores, particularly in reading/writing. Language arts seems to be an area where a gifted child should make progress regardless of instruction just due to reading on his/her own. Math, from what I've seen with my girls, may or may not be an area where achievement is on par with ability in the absense of instruction.

My one child whose achievement has rarely matched her ability has ADD and an anxiety disorder and simply doesn't like to read so she hasn't always progressed as much in the LA area when the instruction is lacking. I do think that poor instruction can hinder performance, but there sounds like there might be something more going on here.

eta: I wouldn't worry about her FSIQ not crossing that 130 mark. With her processing speed being where it was, the tester should have figured a GAI instead of FSIQ, which I suspect would have crossed the 130 mark. Dottie can get you the exact # for GAI.

Well the school is the problem. I had to fight for a few years even to get this testing done. They have washed their hands. She is performing and on average with her peers so they will not offer any additional services and the gifted program is a cookie cutter program the same for all the gifted kids. They get a pull out 2x a week for 2 hours and are given group instruction. Nothing geared toward a specific child.

So where do I go from here? Who do I go to so we can find out if she has a learning disability?

FWIW my ds, 11, has a learning disability. His IQ scores have a discrepancy similar to your dds - her Verbal Comp and Perceptual Reasoning are higher than her Processing Speed. If you have a copy of the subtest results, take a look at those. Although my ds' Processing Speed average score on the WISC is around 110 or so, he had a subtest which is very very low, and that is related to his learning disability.

You also noted she has a hard time tying her shoes - that was another sign in our ds that we didn't recognize. His disability is tied to fine motor skills, and ultimately impacts the way he writes, how he organizes thoughts in order to write, etc. He has other things going on too, some of which sound similar to your dd.

The one thing that is different - our ds has a wide range of scores on his achievement tests - some are very high, some are average, some are very low. The variation in scores makes sense when we look closely at what specific skill is being tested, what kind of queue (visual, auditory et) he's given for each question, and what type of response is required (oral response vs handwritten). Timed vs untimed also makes a difference in his case.

We went to a private neuropsychologist for our ds' diagnosis - sometimes insurance will pay for the assessment, in our case it was covered because our pediatrician referred our ds for anxiety. Our ds has also been tested through our school system but we had much better luck getting in depth information and having questions answered with private evals.

Best wishes,

Kath