Does anyone have experience with WJ achievement scores being average but there still being dysgraphia or "disorder of written expression"?
Yes! My DS is pretty severely dysgraphic in my opinion and always seems to come out average on those tests. They are testing him again for disorder of written expression at school and this time they are giving him the Bender Gestalt, Test of Handwriting Skills, Process Assessment of the learner and TOWL. I am not sure about those achievement tests picking up on disorder of written expression or if the schools do not want to identify the disorder. Last year the psych told me DS scored average on one to hose tests and that he had written a beautiful paragraph for her. I was shocked but did realize that DS will kill himself to perform for a tests but not be able to keep that up so I figured that s what happened. When I asked DS a few month later, he said the paragraph was "completely illegible." So I asked to see the actual paragraph he had written and then the school said they did not keep a copy. Our school seems really keen on NOT identifying the disorder and I am not sure why. I also find that if they can, they will try to blame writing difficulties on ADHD (again just my experience but when I tried to get Disorder of Written Expression identified by the school last year they did a lot of tests for ADHD and not so many for written expression and then casually mentioned that ADHD meds do help writing. Not sure if they had bad intent on that or if that all was a coincidence. This year I told them firmly and explicitly in writing that I don't want them giving rating scales and nepsy tests and adhd type tests, I want him given tests that will show whether he has disorder of written expression - Towl, Test of Handwriting Skills, Bender-Gestalt, etc.
