Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment LMB and advice, please

Some of this data I'm taking out of the ed psych's narrative so I'm using her language on some of these. For example, she didn't list the Beery scores but addresses them in the narrative.

Beery
Visual perception 91%
Motor coordination 32%

WISC processing scores
Coding SS 11 63%
Symbol Search SS 15 95%
Cancellation SS 9 37%

She doesn't list the scores from each subtest in the WJ but she alludes to them in the narrative.
Spelling skills are 38 points lower than VCI
Writing fluency is 25 points lower than VCI
Ability to apply writing skills 31 points lower than VCI

She says, "His applied writing score in the 72nd percentile does not reflect a complete impression that DS left with his performance. A portion of his writing test was not evaluated due to difficulty interpreting what DS wanted to say."

I do not have subtest scores for the WJ. She mentions that reading and math skills are developing and writing is lagging significantly. She says that at every level (basic, fluency and application) across all domains (reading, writing and math) he's at least 15 points below what would be expected of someone with his ability. His writing is just much worse. I was attributing some of this to exposure to the content for reading and math. I'm not sure if that's right or not.

At home, I see a boy who struggles to get thoughts out. Unless he is an expert on the topic or genuinely interested, he has a very hard time coming up with what to write. When he does form a sentence it is very basic and then it takes 4 minutes for him to actually get the sentence on the paper. He often neglects simple writing conventions and his spelling is terrible. I've seen him misspell his own name multiple times. He also doesn't see the mistakes until I ask him a question about what's on the page. I also know that he WANTS to do a good job. He didn't finish work in his GT class and had to bring it home to finish. He was very concerned about writing "good" sentences. He kept asking me..."Is this good?" I didn't even know what to say to him. It wasn't good.

His school work appears to be done with the least amount of effort possible. I've only seen a few spelling tests, but he can spell the words correctly after practicing but he also has to write sentences with half the words and then it seems to fall apart. The only other piece of school work I hear about are timed math fluency tests. He is doing poorly on those as well. He's decided he can't do subtraction because he only gets two problems done in 60 seconds.

Last thing-his handwriting isn't terrible. I can read it, but the letters don't sit on the line the right way and he is still reversing a few letters.

Thanks for any insight you can provide. I hope all of this makes sense.

PS. LMB calls phonological processing, symbol imagery and decoding "auditory" function. It sounds like APD is different.