Hiya all
We recently participated in a study that involved some WISC testing used to calculate an "estimated IQ." DS was not allowed to take his ADHD meds for the testing per study requirements. He was extremely hyper and distracted as would be expected without his meds.
I am mostly interested if anyone has any opinions on the areas that changed since his last testing (last test was age 7, he is currently 9).
Verbal Comprehension Index 121 (past result 118)
Fluid Reasoning Index 137 (past result 155)
ESTIMATED FULL SCALE IQ* 133 (past result 144)
Similarities 15 (past result 11)
Vocabulary 13 (past result 16)
Matrix Reasoning 19 (past result 19)
Figure Weights 14 (past result 19)
Digit Span 19 (past result 19)
Symbol Search 11 (past result 8)
Disregarding the figure weights test (tester comments below), what stands out to me is the big difference in both verbal scores, one going up and the other down. The VCI barely changed, but when he was last tested similarities was his weakest "important" score and now it's not half bad. I always wondered if it was an accurate representation of DS's verbal abilities or not.
The report does not mention behavior in relation to any specific subtest other than figure weights. Should I consider his new similarities score to be a better representation of his ability? Should I be concerned about the large drop in vocabulary?
We have an IEP meeting scheduled for Wednesday and I had planned to go in and advocate for them to increase the difficulty of his math and decrease the difficulty of his reading/writing assignments. His prior test had me convinced that he is not gifted verbally. At school he is mostly having behaviors during language based subjects, especially refusal behaviors.
He has consistently scored precisely at the 99th %ile on MAP for reading/language and his testing at the start of 3rd grade put him at level V for fiction and level Z for non-fiction. So they really push him in verbal subjects based on his performance on these measures, but if his verbal reasoning is below what he actually appears to read and understand maybe we should request that they move him back to level S books? (He generally reads anywhere from N-S at home). He was recently frustrated by a level Z book they presented at school that had a lot of words he did not know and he refused to read it (and I got a call).
Our main goal at school is no behaviors, but we would also prefer if DS was getting something out of his academic time there. He has requested harder math, so we are definitely going to push for that. It's the reading/writing that have me questioning everything, and these new results have not done a lot to make matters more clear.
In case it is relevant to the interpretation of everything, DS is diagnosed with ADHD (severe), ASD (mild), and Tourette's.
Thanks for any advice/ideas you can offer
Tester observations:
DS was observed to have greater difficulty attending to tasks as the day progressed and demonstrated greater hyperactivity. Toward the end of the session (after a short lunch break), DS had significant difficulty staying in his seat, and often tried to lie or sit on the table, grab the assessment materials, or wrap himself in a curtain (that was used to cover an observation mirror in the room). This seemed to impact his performance on one particular timed task in the cognitive assessment (Figure Weights). Although the examiner waited until DS was attending before presenting the items, DS occasionally became distracted while the item was presented and took longer than allowed to provide a response on some items; as a result, he did not receive credit for some items
which were answered correctly and likely within an acceptable time limit had he not become distracted and stopped working on the task.
