News here is that we just had an in-depth visual processing workup done to try to sort out that low WISC processing score. It turns out--and this rings true to me--that DS's visual processing per se is actually very strong (high 90th percentiles). But his VMI (or maybe just fine motor skills period--don't yet have the report and didn't think to ask) are so weak that any time there's a timed test that involves writing, he bombs. Also, because he is not great at keeping his mind on things that don't interest him, he can just completely check out of a test in the middle. Yesterday I was in the room, behind him, during the testing, and at some point he said "Oh wait--I was thinking about math."
So now we are thinking that OT and learning to touch type are in order for the summer. We were already planning to do the typing thing, but I was not fully convinced about his writing issues until I saw how painfully long it took him to write a single sentence yesterday. He was clearly concentrating and trying very hard to do his best. It took him something like 6 minutes.
He also apparently has some gross motor issues that make his body want to open his hand when he turns his head (as in, toward a piece of paper he's about to write on). So his brain has to do extra work to even keep the pencil in his hand. It was pretty interesting to see extra parts of his body move when the examiner moved one part. Apparently those reflexes should have disappeared long ago, but they haven't. It's remediable, so that's good.
Polarbear, thank you so much for encouraging me to get to the bottom of this! The results of this testing ring much more true to me than just "processing speed issue." I would definitely characterize him as a deep, not fast, thinker--but his scores were SO low. The new viewpoint makes a lot more sense.
The other issues remain: (1) extracting information from his brain for writing tasks (even if the actual writing part is removed)--but it turns out he has not been taught standard tools like graphic organizers, so we will play around with that kind of thing this summer, and (2) remaining focused on what he's supposed to stay focused on when it doesn't particularly interest him. The examiner yesterday also said that DS does not fit an ADD profile and thought it was more a maturity issue. I am reading all kinds of books about how to help your kid strengthen executive functioning, but if anyone has ideas about practical things we can do over the summer to help him learn how to stay on task during his school day, I am all ears! I suspect that this will wind up being the long-term issue that needs lots of attention.
It feels really good to start getting some believable answers rather than blanket statements about a test that involves multiple skills!
Last edited by evelyn; 06/15/13 12:42 PM.
