After a very long wait and extensive testing, I finally have the scores for my child.
He has very high verbal and high perceptual reasoning scores, but his processing speed is low. ...Is it normal to have such a large variation ?
It's fairly rare in the standardization sample.
Also, the neuropsych has adminstered a test called Beery Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Intergration and he scored ...(which is very low). No further recommendations were given based on this test. What (if anything) should I be doing to remediate this ?
This is a fine motor task, copying drawings with a pencil. In combination with the low PSI, I would suspect a perceptual-motor issue. I second pb's question about the supplementary tests. Did the npsych do the tasks that separate motor and visual?
Should I also request a GAI score, in addition to the FSIQ score ?
Yes.
His WJ scores are as follows. What does age equivalent mean ? Can I translate these scores to saying " 1 in ____ number of kids have this score, similar to what can be done for verbal, WM, Processing, Perceptual Reasoning ?"
Not the age-equivalents. I've mentioned before that ae scores are specifically not recommended by APA and NASP, the two primary professional organizations that house psychological examiners. The standard scores OTOH, are transformations of z scores, so they can easily be converted to percentiles, which will give you the "DC did better than x out of 100 other children his age did on this task."
What do these age equivalents mean in the context of WJ scores ?
AEs in general mean that this child received the same raw score as the 50th %ile of children this age did. They certainly do not mean that this child can appropriately be placed in instructional settings designed for children this age.
Broad Reading
Letter Word Identification
Reading fluency
Passage Comprehension
On a par with his VCI, generally.
Spelling
Broad Math
Calculations
A little higher than I would usually expect based on his VCI.
Probably affected by the same factors that lowered his PSI, as this is a timed fine-motor task, in addition to being a test of arithmetic fluency. Reading fluency would not be as affected, as the fine-motor response consists only of circling/marking Y or N.
Up there with his VCI, possibly partially reflective of language comprehension.
Cluster based on Calculations and Math Fluency.
Question for you: What did his PRI subtests look like? Was Block Design, by any chance, lower than the other two? This is a timed visual-motor task, though not so fine-motor, and is often affected by the same factors that might be expected to lower PSI, the Beery VMI, and WJ Math Fluency. I'm wondering if his PRI is a low estimate of his actual perceptual reasoning/nonverbal reasoning abilities. How was the WMI?
