J's handwriting is illegible!!! Not hard to read but totally illegible. I worked with him at home to the point of tears every day and it never improved. As he progressed in school I noticed that even though verbally he was able to give me a 30 minute dissertation on what he just learned, when asked to write it out, he only gave short phrases.
This sounds like classic dysgraphia, and if he is dysgraphic, that will explain the large dip in scores in PSI. There are different reasons for dysgraphia (could be fine motor, could be a visual challenge). I'd ask the school to provide you with the full report, including subtest scores - these can be helpful in determining what the issue is - for instance, under PSI there is a "coding" and a "symbol search" subtest. If coding is lower than symbol search, that might point to fine motor issues. If symbol search is lower, it's more likely to be a vision issue.
There may also be variances from subtest-to-subtes within the VCI and PRI that would contain useful information; the PSI/VCI/WM/PRI scores are all averages of the subtests within each.
Because of these issues he was labeled lazy and also was but in lower level classes. He became very frustrated and bored in these classes, but was getting Ds and Fs.
I have a dysgraphic ds; this is a *very* difficult situation to be dealing with if left unrecognized and unaccommodated, particularly for a bright child, and your ds is clearly very smart (from the VCI and PRI scores), even if he's not technically considered to be in the "gifted" range.
He also struggles with short term memory issues and often forgets assignments,papers that need signed, to put on pants.
I am not knowledgable on memory issues, so can't really help you there. BUT one thing to be aware of is that sometimes symptoms such as these are shared among many different diagnoses. My ds is dysgraphic but the dysgraphia is related to a diagnosis of Developmental Coordination Disorder - and although his WM score is not as low as your ds, or as low as his PSI, he had considerable struggles with organization in elementary school, and especially struggled with things like losing all of his homework even though it was in his backpack when he went to school etc. He still has some organizational challenges but most of them improved tremendously with maturity - in some ways the improvement was due to intense work on my part and his part to repeat repeat repeat until it became second nature (and this is related to dysgraphia in a way - the lack of development of automaticity), having teachers who were structured and predictable in assignments, and also becoming able to come up with his own ways of coping as he matured.
I have a few suggestions for you - and a question. Is the school going to offer any accommodations or an eligibility review for an IEP? I'd ask the school for several things:
1) An OT eval focused on fine motor and handwriting. Include a test of handwriting speed.
2) Request the Test of Written Language (TOWL)
3) Ask for accommodations for handwriting (keyboarding would be appropriate at his age - I think he's upper elementary?). If he was really young, I'd start with scribing but at his age he will most likely pick up keyboarding quickly, unless you find that there are fine motor issues that impact his ability to keyboard. If there are - don't panic - my ds' dysgraphia is fine motor-related, and he is also impacted somewhat when typing so his keyboarding speed is slow relative to peers. It's still 100s times faster and easier to use than handwriting for him, so it's still worth having as an accommodation.
4) When you get your ds' WJ-III Achievement scores, be sure to request the full report with all subtest scores. If they seem to vary all over the place, chances are it's due to his handwriting challenge, so take each subtest and chart the score and then look for trends in scores based on response type (oral response vs handwriting untimed response vs handwriting timed response). You may see some very clear patterns here, and if you do - that means the scores aren't really representative of your ds' knowledge (if they are atypically low across handwriting response tasks) but instead they are illustrating that your ds has a challenge with using handwriting.
My last bit of advice - if you can afford a private neuropsych evaluation or if your insurance will cover it, it is probably going to be worth the investment of time and money based on the issues you've described and your ds' test results. You can request what you need from the school, but it's been my experience that private testing is more helpful for the following reasons:
1) A neuropsych will typically include follow-up tests to help determine why there was such a large discrepancy in scores. The Beery VMI, for instance, is a widely used test that will help determine if issues such as you're seeing with processing speed are due to fine-motor challenges or visual challenges. Executive functioning tests are also typically included. One of the tests that was helpful in determining that our ds had fine motor dysgraphia was a "finger-tapping" test - you'll see this referenced f you google and read up on dysgraphia.
2) Neuropsychs will typically include a detailed interview with a parent to review the child's developmental history from infancy, and this can uncover clues to what is challenging now that as a parent, you might never have realized meant anything. This absolutely happened with our ds - he had obvious signs of Developmental Coordination Disorder as early as his first year of life but we didn't recognize them as anything other than cute quirky baby/toddler things - and they didn't really impact his life at that point in time so it wasn't an issue we worried about.
3) School will be evaluating your ds' ability to access his academics; a neuropsych is looking at your ds' full life function, not only now but in the future - it's a broader perspective, and it's also a helpful perspective which can help you as an advocated put together the larger picture of what accommodations to focus on and what to let go etc, which you might not get from a school eval.
4) There is no "agenda" in what you will hear from the neuropsych - and there might be in a school report. The school may not want to provide services for a variety of reasons, including stretched budget and limits on staff etc - so they are likely to show you what makes sense from their perspective to show you, and possibly leave out other details that are important to understand about your child. Please know I'm not knocking school staff on this, just being realistic - this does happen. You've mentioned it took 6 years already to get to the point you were able to convince the school to test your ds - chances are you aren't facing an easy situation where the school staff will fall over themselves rushing to figure out *why* your ds has the test scores and challenges that he has. At the very least, having a professional private opinion you can trust will help you know you're on the right track at school even if there are no issues with the school.
5) The neuropsych will give you recommendations for follow-up testing and therapies based on their evaluation of your ds' challenges/diagnosis. You'll get more detail here than at school, because they will provide you with a list of everything your child needs (from their perspective), and the school is going to provide you with a list of everything your ds qualifies for that the school offers. It's quite possible that you'll find your ds needs more than his school is offering - hopefully not, but it does happen.
6) You will get a written report and usually a follow-up interview where you can ask any questions you have about the report. Just my experience, but I've found it much easier to get much more info in a 1 hour session with a private neurospych than in the access I've had to school psychs post-testing and in IEP eligibility meetings. Other parents in other districts have better luck, but from what you've written I see red flags re what you are going to be able to get from your school.
Can you tell us which grade your ds is in? Is he in middle school yet? Just curious.
Best wishes,
polarbear
