Gosh, a lot of this sounds soooo familiar. The 'huh?' problem, the not sacrificing accuracy for speed, the very sloooow work on boring worksheets, super speed with learning spelling words (if he's seen it, he knows it, and he's been getting some pretty tough words lately...Qualifying for gt program under language arts even though I *always* thought of him as a puzzle-mathy guy. Hm.
Makes me wonder if Kriston or Dottie or others have a recommendation on what sort of testing to look at having conducted for ds8 - I have been wondering about going for some full-on testing since ds is getting on in years
. Seriously though, I just read over 8 the tests get less accurate. (He turns 9 in the summer.)
I guess the main reason for testing would be to help figure out the slow performance on timed tests thing, and to understand what is up with the patterny-puzzly side of him. Whether he will be ok with a regular curriculum or if he really needs something more...
So he's not been tested at all? Just trying to remember where you're at in the process...
Dottie and I formulated a vague theory some months ago that a high PRI may show itself in a puzzle-and-verbal way when the child is young, but may show itself as a facility for higher math as they get older. Pattern recognition is pretty helpful in calculus!
I have no idea if our theory is full of it yet, but it looks like it makes sense based on my anecdotal evidence. <shrug> Take it for what you paid for it!
As for testing, if you can use the help, get it. Nothing to lose but, time, money, and sanity!
If you think you have a kid like mine, I'd probably advise going for the WISC, not the SB-5. So far both my DS7 and JBDad's son--whom he describes in similar terms--had lower-than-expected results on the SB-5. I'm not sure why.
I don't know if the SB-5 is better for a slightly older kid or not, though. That could be a consideration that I'm not considering...
