Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Some reassurance or straight talk please?

I recently posted on another section about getting my DS6 (7 in Nov) retested because his school psychologist administered the KABC-II to him last year and I think the scores weren't an accurate reflection of his abilities. Another problem with the KABC-II is that none of the programs for gifted in my area accept the test. I think he could benefit because our school has no gifted program (IL) and I think he'd enjoy the programs.

My son also has Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) with auditory processing and tactile defensiveness. He's been working with OT at school and with a therapist for a year, and is doing much batter managing his sensory issues. Anyway, on the other post someone suggested that if there was a disparity was more due to his age and SPD rather than the test instrument. Am I crazy thinking my kid is in the gifted range rather than "bright"?

He taught himself to read right after his 4th birthday, and we discovered his facility with numbers because we had him count to calm down with meltdowns. 1-10 turned to 1-100, then skip counting, then backwards... all at age 4. He started doing simple addition and subtraction also and by age 5 he was reading at a 3rd grade level and could add and subtract large numbers in his head as well as beginning multiplication and division. His memory is phenomenal, he does Lego sets for age 12+ (huge ones!) on his own, and is working on a 750 piece puzzle at present. One of his favorite shows is "How it's Made" and he asks questions that are beyond a typical 6 year old.

He's not writing a novel or working with string theory by any stretch, but these things seem fairly outside the norm to me, and not just by a little bit. If I asked most kids his age what 176+14 is, they normally wouldn't be able to answer me immediately. Am I crazy? Am I just doing the mom thing and thinking he's brighter than he is? Do you think the SPD is a factor?

His KABC-II scores were:
Mental Processing Index (overall IQ) 124, 95th percentile

Subtests:
Sequential: 109, 73rd percentile
Simultaneous: 130, 98th percentile
Learning: 111, 77th percentile

I believe that these tests are questionably accurate for kids that young. It sounds as if he is quite gifted. Keep advocating for him and retesting.

And I know this may sound crazy, but a lot of parents move to a school district with a gifted program, because of lack of offerings in their local districts.

Casey,

That was I on the other thread. My apologies for confusing you with shorth! My intent was to assert that the differences between formal testing and your sense of your son's ability were primarily owing to his youth and the impact of his disabilities on his testing profile, not to suggest that he was not GT.

To clarify my comment: testing in young children is often not terribly stable, because of the (developmentally appropriate) inconsistencies in attention, stamina, motivation, etc. of the very young. In addition, the pace of development is so rapid and idiosyncratic in little ones that six months of typical small-child development can make an enormous difference in where they fall in the norms. The range and timing of healthy development in young children is extremely wide and diverse. Norm-referenced tests compare individuals to snapshots of age-matched populations. They do not typically track the absolute trajectory of individuals, as that is not the function for which they are designed. This means that, in age ranges where development is rapid, and the standard deviation large, scores are not as predictive of future performance.

An example of this would be language. On the average, children whose first word is very early (there are some on this board whose first word occurred in the six or seven-month range) are highly likely to be identified as verbally-gifted later in life. But this doesn't mean that children who wait to speak until over two years old are not verbally-gifted. (Again, poke around old posts on this board, and you will find quite a few late talkers who are verbally gifted.) Nor does it necessarily mean that every early talker will demonstrate verbal gifts. (Though it is more likely than not.)

The test that your DC took was a snapshot, comparing him to his age-mates, also as a snapshot. Your developmental history of your DC is longitudinal, and thus includes a different class of data, such as rate of learning, and his process of complex skill acquisition. When he is a little older (usually around age 9, plus or minus), his testability will likely have improved, as will the stability of normative comparisons.

And FYI, the Simultaneous index has the fluid reasoning (abstract thinking and problem solving, adaptive learning) and visual spatial tasks in it. Sequential, which was significantly weaker, though in the Average range, consists of working memory tasks, often impacted by attention and emotional interference, among other things. Learning includes storage and retrieval tasks (mid/long-term memory). Both Sequential and Learning include skills which often are found to be compromised in children with some kind of learning challenge.

So even given the caveats above about testing in early childhood, the discrepancies in his testing profile, in fact, are entirely consistent with 2e: reasoning is in the GT range, with working memory and retrieval/cognitive efficiency skills significantly weaker, at the Average/High Average boundary. These are not so low that they would be unquestioned concerns, (many GT individuals have significantly lower scores in these areas than in the reasoning areas, without any other evidence of learning disability) but in a child with known disabilities, they are worth keeping in mind as he moves forward.

(Note: I see that you mention his excellent memory. Working memory, as measured on this instrument, reflects short-term memory skills for generally disconnected fragments of information, which is very different from contextualized, meaningful memory. I also referenced a few common interfering factors above, which might also have affected how he performed on the memory tasks.)

DS8 has what I would consider a phenomenal memory. He knows almost all of the capital cities, for instance, even though he was never taught and I wasn't aware he was attempting to learn this. But on the WISC (taken at age 6) he was in the average range for working memory. I have a feeling he wouldn't score all that high on the KABC either, but he did very well on the CogAT (esp. on the math and non-verbal sections) and his WISC perceptual reasoning score was 140 something. His computerized math/reading scores which test above level are always in the 98th-99th percentile (he is now in third grade).

He was one of those kids who had a solidly average IQ score at age 3 (just over 100) and then it rose dramatically.
There are so many factors, like the level of motivation, rate of brain development at particular ages, particular disabilities that play a role, etc. He didn't do well on the verbal section on the WISC at age 3 (I think he was actually below 100), probably because of his dyspraxia, combined with a lack of attention to the test, but his CogAT verbal score was around the 92nd percentile.

I think you should consider re-testing on the WISC, and then a general abilities index can be computed if there are gaps between scores.

BSM,

We probably will move to a district with better options when we buy our permanent house after I retire in a couple years. I'm in the Air Force and right now we're renting. IL and MO have no gifted requirements, accommodations or funding, but there's some good options in St. Louis.

aeh,
Thank you, that makes absolute sense! My DS's visual-spatial abilities are quite strong, and I could see how they could shine through in this area despite his challenges and his strong memory is usually of the long-term variety vs. short term. You certainly gave me a lot of information and I feel much better. I think his SPD did have an effect on his lower scores.

Portia and blackcat,

Thanks for sharing your stories! I do feel much reassured, and I feel I should get him retested. We'll see how it goes!

Understood. We're in IL and our district has an extensive gifted program, but some nearby districts do not. So our real estate is more expensive and taxes are fairly high, but it is worth it.

Having said that, even in a district with a gifted program, most teachers have no idea what to do with 2e kids.

Update! (also cross posted on the testing board)
Well, finally got DS tested with the WISC-V, and I'm so glad I did. I'm still awaiting the official report, but she gave me some info on the phone. This test gave a much clearer view of his strengths and weaknesses. Very apparent his auditory SPD issues have an impact on his scores. Visual-spatial score of 138, fluid reasoning 134, processing speed 111, verbal 108, working memory 117. GAI of 127. She said he was obviously very analytical, so some of his answers were scored lower on verbal due to how he responded (details, not generalizations). She said his visual spatial abilities and mathematical reasoning (99.6% on figure weights) were amazing, and his mind was "like a computer." I asked him tonight if he had problems hearing or understanding his teacher, and he said he did, but he usually already knew what to do or could figure it out. I think I will at last be able to show his school that he's a super bright little guy, but his SPD does impact how he learns. His intelligence has masked his problems in the past and is probably why his diagnosis was so long in coming despite all the red flags. Had he been of average intelligence and his SPD drove down his scores 20 points in one area, it would have been obvious. As it was, he was always so far ahead academically it was easy to write off the red flags. I think I need to look into more ways to help him overcome his auditory challenges.
Thanks to those that gave good advice here (and thanks so much for the specialized knowledge, aeh!)

Said on another thread, will say it here too: if the SPD was diagnosed by an OT, and the 2E issues are continuing, I'd encourage a closer look by a neuropsychologist. Often OTs diagnose SPD when the core diagnosis should really be something else; the SPD is only part of the puzzle, but it's what they are trained to diagnose.