First let me tell you a little bit about my child. He is extremely bright. He taught himself to read at 2 by using two books and words he could pick out. These where "Hop on Pop" and "Pizza Pat." He can tell you this story to this day. He is still a great reader. He refers to it as a super power. He can study for and test that he might have a study sheet on by simply reading the study sheet once. At that time it is locked in. He is a reader and a writer. He has great hand writing, I have even called it "girl" like it is so neat. Once he was struggling with science and I ask what he could do to help his situation. He said read. He headed up stairs and read everything. The entire book. And could answer questions on it. It took him no time to do this.
Yet, He can not find his spoon in his cereal bowl or a pair of shoes in a room. He simply does not see it. He is at a loss.
He does not seem to do near as well with verbal learning which is odd for me.(I'm a 100% auditory learner, I hear it I know it)
Which is why I am now here. He recently took his re-eval for gifted class. He is getting excited again about being in this class. One of his best friends is now in it and two boys, from what I have read is better than just one. Yet his test results make no since to me and I have researched all day.
He took the WISC-IV and it seem that is an all verbal test.
His scores are as follows.
VC
Sim - 14
Voc - 12
Comp - 13
WM
DS - 11
LMS - 11
PR
BD - 8
PC - 12
MR - 11
PS
Cod - 6
SS - 11

VCI 116
PRI 102
WMI 104
PSI 91

FSIQ 107

The tester even question these results as they are lower than previous test by far. His TCAP test for state testing had slipped as he was really fed up with school but this was something he wanted thus my confusion.

at 5 he took the Stanford-binet and scored a 137 verbal if i remeber correctly I do not have that test in front of me.

He had been previously diagnosed with ADHD as well but actually took himself off meds to "make it on his own" He has shown a lot of maturity this year. He is 11 now and a 5th grader. and bored to tears with school.

I am no expert on any of this, hopefully wiser people will come in with some insight. I just wanted to ask if have you looked into visual spatial learners? Try this page:

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/articles.htm

That might be a possible explanation for some of his differences from you? My own daughter is entirely a VSL, with a significant auditory deficit (she is currently in the process of getting a formal diagnosis of auditory processing disorder).

Do you have the report from the first time he was tested for gifted?

If they are willing, I think it would be a good idea for your son to get back on the meds, at least until he
a) is retested
b) tries to give school another chance. It's possible that he is tuning out because it's boring but it's also possible that with the medication's help to overcome the ADHD, it wouldn't be as boring. Very subtle stuff


Also - has he been tested for 'central auditory processing' problems? If not - get it done through school or pay for it.

Do you have numbers for achievement testing? If so, post the numbers. And post the testing from age 5 too. We may be able to see some patterns.

Has he been in the gifted program this year? How many hours does it meet? Has he been paying attention or tuning out? Does the program change much between this year and next year?

Is depression or anxiety part of the picture? Bullying? Trama or abuse?

Has there every been a diagnosis or therapy for the 'finding shoes' problem? If you gave him challenges, like the Mentalist TV show, does he improve? This is worth a week or two experiment on your part if you can make it fun. Did you ever try that card game called, 'Consentration?'

Looking forward to hearing more -
Grinity

I do not have his achieve scores in front of me for the past few years. They have gone down over the last two years though. When he was tested in Kindergarten and 1st grade he was reading near a 6th and 7th grade reading level. This has always been the case but it seems it sort of just got stuck in one place after a couple years. School has yet to push his reading ability, sad really.

I talked with him a bit about the past year. He says that he lost the drive to learn and achieve mainly due to pressure at school. He has had some terrible teachers. They simply did not know how to handle him. He has a math teacher now that tries to fight with him on nearly a daily basis. This is not nearly as bad as the 2nd grade Montessori teacher that simply hated him due to his questioning nature. She was an engineer by training and a GT grad, she was lost with him. We had him switched to a different room. Problem went away. He does take things very personal.
His lone bright spot is his language teacher. She is the Knowledge Bowl coach. He is going and is excited about that.

As for the meds, he simply wants to stay off it and has worked very hard to make it work. He does not get into typical troubles and has worked so hard "not need it" as he put it. HE is also a gifted athlete. He seems to be very aware of what he puts in his body. While we have talked many times about the possible need for it. He has over come so much I simply wont ask him to take something just to improve a test score or make him more in line with a teachers standards.

The VSL i tend to agree with. He has no concept of time. He learns in chunks. We often comment he cant see the trees for the forest. It is very true with him. He sees all big picture.

Side note to all that: his brother is also gifted and very detail oriented. Heaven help us all should they ever start working together.

Added: he has been in Gifted since Kindergarten. Teacher stated she had nothing to teach him that year but really loved his voices when he read to class. This was on day 1.

I'll just point out that he's showing very big splits between abilities on that W4 testing. Did the tester put it thru the scoring software that sorts out intelligence factors and gives you "IQ"s for the various factors? I think similarities and comprehension cluster to measure verbal reasoning. I think block design and coding also cluster. But you've got a 27 vs a 14 there. That's like a 120 91st percentile vs an 82 12th percentile.

38 point spreads happen in less than 1 percent of the population.

But you already knew he was 2E. One of the realities with 2E is the possibility for declining IQ scores over time. The child has to spend so much energy compensating for the low E that it drains the high E.

Luckily they don't get kicked out of gifted for it! I have 2 like you, DS1=no weaknesses, just G/T, DS2=2E.

I don't want to give the impression that he might need to take medication to get a better test score. I was trying to paint the picture that the tests aren't perfect, and that sometimes we have to bend a bit to help the test paint an accurate picture of what our skills are. In a way, this isn't too different from a child who loves to make puns, and gets a poor test scores because he answered all his answers in puns. Yes, that child's love of puns is part of that child's specialness and brillience, but yes, having an IQ test that accurately reflects that child's IQ would be very helpful in finding a better fit school situation. It might be worth it to ask the child to 'cut out the puns' for a few hours. The child might or might not do so - either because of lack of motivation, or the child just might not be able to stop himself.

It sound like trying a new setting is a great idea! Best Wishes, and please keep us posted.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity,

When did you meet my DS ?!