[quote=aeh
In this case, it is possible that, not only is the younger sibling taking the "non-academic" role to avoid poaching on older sib's territory, but she may be doing so as a coping mechanism, in the interests of a coherent storyline for herself that explains academic struggles that she intuits are discrepant.
So in addition to counter-messaging, obtaining additional data to explain cognitive and academic intra-individual differences may be helpful. For example, was her WJ cognitive uniform across subtests, or were some scores much lower? [/quote]
ITA with aeh on this - and one other thing I'd note. I'd give some weight to the teacher having concerns. When my ds was in early elementary, it was so easy for me to pass off on signs that he had a challenge and remarks from teachers simply because I knew how smart he was - it was obvious from what I saw at home and what he said when he talked. The thing was, the teachers' observations also were very spot-on, even though they didn't point to high intelligence. A teacher spends a great deal of the day with our kids. If a teacher feels a child is overwhelmed, chances are *something * is up.
There was a question somewhere above also re why would the WJ-III Achievement scores be so high if there was a challenge. aeh did a wonderful job explaining how that can happen, I just wanted to mention that this *exact* thing happened with my dd who has vision issues. She was absolutely struggling to read, but had very solidly high, consistent, WJ-III Achievement scores. You could see a glimpse of her vision issues in her WISC scores, however, where she had an extremely large dip in two subtests that relied on visual discrimination.
Best wishes,
polarbear
