Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Complete Newby and Test Results

Hi Everyone,

I have been checking out these forums for the past couple of days. Wow - a lot of information to take in but everyone seems so knowledgeable and helpful and this is totally what I need right now!

My DS age 8.5 has always been a bright and very inquisitive kid but ran into trouble at school around the end of 1st grade and into 2nd grade when he started having difficulty with learning to read, we practiced relentlessly even though he hated it immensely and would say things like "maybe I am too stupid to learn how to read" and "I don't get this"... He did manage to figure it out and is reading fairly well, then he was having trouble writing - he can tell you amazing things about so many things but will write a 6 word sentence; illegibly with mispelled words, no punctuation and letter reversals when he has to write things down. His 3rd grade teacher (current teacher) indicated back in November that he was concerned with his progress. Around the same time DS was getting increasingly frustrated saying that other kids were teasing him that he was always the slowest and he had said to us that maybe he was too stupid for school. Teacher said he would like to have him tested at the school for an LD -we agreed that we thought there was 'something' going on, since his interest in and ability to learn was way out of line with his grades and his written output ability. Testing through our school board can take a long time, in the meantime we decided to seek testing (psych. assessment) outside of the school board to speed up the process.

These were the results (sorry I only have percentiles and not the actual score):

WISC IV

VCI 95th
PRI 99.9th
WMI 95th
PSI 9th (yep that is 9th not a typo)
There was no FSIQ given since the large discrepancy
GAI 99.8th percentile

He absolutely loves to learn and figure things out but does have a somewhat negative attitude towards school, his marks are not great but it really doesn't seem to bother him in the least.

We sent the psychologist's report to the school and are having our first 'official' meeting on Tuesday with his teacher and the principal (not sure if a SERT will be there or not) and have no idea what to expect.

Any advice or any more insight into what these test scores mean for my DS would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Amber

Hi althca and Welcome!

Good for you for getting your child tested! I imagine that this information will make a huge difference for your son. With a profile like this I'd bet that his teachers haven't recognized just how bright he is.

Have you already sat down with the tester to discuss these scores? I'm sure Dottie (or another testing guru on the forum) could give you a pretty good estimate of his GAI from that 99.8 percentile.

I am running out so will finish my thoughts a little later, but wanted to "bump' your post a little, as your meeting on Tuesday is really soon!!

athca- Does DS have any medical problems or past medical problems that may be a possible source of the slow processing speed? It must be so frustrating for him to have it all in there, but not be able to get it out. Did the psych that did the testing give any input as to suggested accomodations for school? Although my DS9's scores aren't nearly as discrepant as yours, it is extremely frustrating for me to know how truly smart he is and NOT see that translate into excellent performance in school because of his defiencies in processing speed.

Thanks so much for your response.

We have sat down with the tester to discuss but it was a bit of a whirlwind meeting.

Should I request the WISC subtest scores and the actual WISC scores from the psych.?

I am worried that at the meeting tomorrow they will want to focus on the processing weakness LD - which I think will be a huge detriment to him. Given his self doubt comments I really think that being able to excel at something will give him a huge boost.

In an informal conversation with the principal, she had indicated that she wasn't sure if his scores would qualify for a gifted identification - so I don't know if we will have a battle on our hands. I feel really bad about not advocating for him sooner but I was hoping that with time/maturity his school performance would catch up with what we see at home.

Is there a way to increase the processing speed? I would love to hear about it, if there are any suggestions...

@ perplexed "Does DS have any medical problems or past medical problems that may be a possible source of the slow processing speed?" (I need to learn how to do that box thing!)

Nothing that we know of, I will give a brief history of it all in case there is a connection that I am missing ... at birth he had shoulder dystocia that resulted in very low APGAR scores at birth but he fully recovered by the 5 minute APGAR interval. He had breathing issues (cold induced asthma that he has thankfully appeared to have grown out of). He had chronic ear infections and at age 5 he had his adenoids out and tubes put in and that seemed to solve the problem.

I would definitely request a complete report from the psych. You will want to have all the information possible to help you understand DS. For my DS with processing speed issues and a disorder of written expression, the psych recommended that the school allow DS extra time on assignments and tests and that he be allowed to use keyboarding or voice recognition software. We just finished our testing a few weeks ago, so we won't put any of this into place until next year (4th grade). The school is being extremely cooperative, but I'm a bit skeptical about how well this is really going to work. I mean, if he was the only student in the class, it would be fine, but when everyone else is writing...how is it really going to work for my DS to be sitting there dictating into a computer? I need to start a new post to see if anyone has had success with these accomodations.

I'm just learning about all of this myself, but I stumble upon any helpful info, I'll let you know ASAP.

O

I think I figured out the little box thing!! :-)

The psych. has suggested that he will need extra time to complete test and assignments. He will need help with additional support with writing skills, spelling, organizational and planning skills. She also said that he will beneift from programming geared to gifted students.

We are at a very small rural school with no separate gifted program... there is a gifted program in a nearby town that (last I heard) had a gifted program that was 1/2 days integrated, 1/2 days segregated. I don't think we can get him in for September given the timing of all this...

Thank you so much, I do truly appreciate all the input/comments!!

They did WIAT third edition these were the results with standard scores:

Oral Language 126
Total Reading 107
Basic Reading 105
Reading Comp and Fluency 108
Written Expression 86
Mathematics 123
Math Fluency 98

I have a child with a 50 point spread between his VCI and PSI and also has profound reading disabilities and significant writing disabilities. Like your son, his oral expression scores are very high.

I agree with Dottie that you need the WIAT subtest scores. Additionally, I would want some specific testing in reading. I'd like to see the CTOPP to test whether or not the phonological and naming skills are in place and the WJRMT and TOWRE tests to see what his word reading for real and nonsense words is under time and un-timed conditions. Given his processing, my hunch is that his naming skills and overall skills in timed situations may be low.

Also - look at his math fluency number - I'd like to see the subtest for computation. My bet is that it is low. This would be another indication that he has trouble with rapid retrieval of rote information. His overall Mathematics is pretty solid - this tests more of the abstract/conceptual skills. These kinds of patterns are typical of a one that has reading disability such as dyslexia.

Did they do any testing for grapho-motor issues? How about memory, organization or planning?

Here are the WIAT III subtest scores:

Listening comprehension 129
Early Reading skills 144
Reading Comprehension 110
Math Problem solving 124
Alphabet Writing Fluency 90
Sentence Composition 87
Word Reading 114
Essay Composition 93
Pseudoword Decoding 98
Numerical Operations 118
Oral Expression 115
Oral Reading Fluency 104
Spelling 88
Math Fluency - Addition 92
Math Fluency - Subtraction 98
Math Fluency - Multiplication 103

Thanks again,
Amber

They did do CTOPP these were the percentile ranks:

Phonological Awareness 58th percentile
Phonological Memory 92nd percentile
Rapid Naming 8th percentile

Hey Athca!! Glad to see you made it over this way. These are the people you need to answer your questions and offer great advice. Good luck tomorrow!

Hi Athca,
Welcome. I'm so glad you are here. Your impression of your son as 'unusually bright' has been confirmed by the numbers. You should apply to DYS, it isn't a gaurentee that your son will be accepted, but it's certianly worth a try.

My son has similar Verbal and Performance scores to yours, with slightly weaker Working Memory, and Processing speed around 75th% (I can't remember exactly, but it's below average.)
For my son, it was part of Sensory Integration issues, anxiety, motor planning issues, slow-as-molasses-in-January issues, and ADD. He did very well once he learned to type at age 9. At age 10 I changed his school, to a private school, and told them - "I know he is bright - but you must agree to treat him 'as if' he has a writing disability, and allow him to type on a laptop anything longer than 3 sentences or math. BTW - for Math, turn the notebook paper sideways!

The laptop worked great once DS learned to type, and I sat with him and I bribed him big time to get that to happen. When my son finally learned to type, it was like watching Elsa the Lion return to the wild in the movie 'Born Free.' Very wonderful. Even though my son's scores aren't as much of a scatter as your sons, it was like his mind was finally being allowed to roam the savannah at full speed. ((little tear))

I get that your son is already feeling dumb in the regular classroom, and moving to the gifted classroom could be great:
(If, for example, on of the reasons he feels dumb is that his peers give him those blank looks when he tries to gain their interest in games or jokes he thinks are funny.)
or it could be terrible: (If the particular group of boys in the program are into the 'entity theory' of intelligence, and needing to compare themselves to each other over every little thing to see 'who has it and who doesn't.')

However - I would still encourage you to call the Gifted Coordinator at the other school just to request a meeting to sit down and 'pick her brain.' She may have seen other kids with similar spreads and be full of suggestions of things to try and even offer herself as a resouce to the teachers at your home school. Or she may beg you to give her program a try. I doesn't hurt to ask.

The ideal thing is to go over there and observe the classroom for a few hours and see what is going on over there, educationally and socially.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Hi athca:
You have a lot to read and think about in the next few days before your next school meeting.

At some point soon, once you get a little more comfortable with all this information and ask more questions perhaps, I would suggest that you explain all this to your ds, if you haven't already. You might even put it in context of the bell curve. Just visually mapping out the bell curve (without numbers) and explaining the idea of it has been hugely helpful for my dds. You can tell him how unusually high his knowledge tested ("you're way out here to the right", how high his ability to figure thing out tested ("even farther"), and even how strong his memory tested. And then explaining how unusually low his processing speed tested (especially relative to the others), and what that might feel like. (A racecar in molasses? who's got a better metaphor? )

I bet he might have an "ahah" moment.

I suggest you read this:

http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/stealth-dyslexia-when-writing-is.html

Thank you all so very much for all your suggestions and insight.

Grinity - I am in Ontario, Canada so we can't apply for DYS but I will look into programs on this side of the border. Also, you bring up a good point about the gifted program possibly not being a good fit - very good insight and something that I had not even considered... as for the typing we started tonight, I already had a Mavis Beacon program that I had bought, he wasn't too interested in it a while ago but tonight I told him he had to practice 10 minutes a night and he was receptive to that

Cathy and Mich - I had read about stealth dyslexics in "The Mislabeled Child" and wondered if that was what was going on - I suggested dyslexia to the psychologist in the beginning but she didn't comment on it at all in her report. I kinda assumed she would have screened for this - but I will ask about it specifically.

Herenow - you are absolutely right I do need to sit down with him to explain what is going on. At bedtime he told me that there is no one else like him - I told him that we are all unique but that there are other people who learn similarly to him and we will talk about it tomorrow.

Kathleen'smum - a million thank you's!! I am so glad that I saw your post on the other forum - a serendipitous moment for sure --> Kathleen'smum and I used to commiserate when we both had sleepless babies on a different forum about 8 years ago, I hadn't been on for years, I went on a couple days ago right after she had posted a link to this site for someone else...

My DD8.5 really loved the Dance Mat typing lessons on the BBC kids website. If he gives you any resistance to the other program.. check it out!


And now we have good reasons for why our babies were so intense!!

The pseudo reading scores (reading nonsense words to test if the student can apply decoding skills) is significantly weaker than the other skills. Spelling is also quite low at 88. This makes me wonder if he is solid on his the sound symbol relationship (phonics).

It is good that the first two CTOPP scores are solid. This tells me he has adequate phonological processing (although I'd like to see the subtest scores that make up these composite scores to make sure a "high score" isn't covering up a "low" score within the same composite). His rapid naming skills are very low - this is the ability to quickly retrieve rote information and is closely linked to how automatic and fluent a person is with reading. His scores are not surprising given low PSI and low math fluency - many of the same skills are needed.

There are a number of theories about dyslexia. Most believe that there are at least two underlying skills to good reading: phonological processing (sound symbol relationship) and rapid naming (the ability to quickly retrieve). Given your son's scores, I would suggest that you pursue whether or not your child might have a language based learning disability, with a primary weaknesses in the naming skills. If the psychologist is not experienced in dyslexia, I would suggest seeking help from someone that is. I'm concerned that because your son is so bright, he may be able to compensate in the early grades. But, as time goes on, this will be harder and harder. And, along the way he may begin to believe that he is not smart or worthy.

Here is a good article about "double deficit" dyslexia - it explains the rapid naming issues: http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/files/namgspd.pdf http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar00/dyslexia.aspx

Another researcher agrees that naming speed is critical, but believes it is a bit different than a double deficit:
http://www.fcrr.org/publications/publicationspdffiles/Fluency_chapter-Torgesen%26Hudson.pdf

All in all, it would make sense to get more information and to question your evaluator. Given how you describe your son's struggles and the scores you have posted, it looks like your reading concerns may be valid. (did he do the GORT - Grey Oral Reading? I would suspect that his fluency and rate were much lower than his comprehension - and lower than his cognitive ability)

One last resource: International Dyslexia Association http://www.interdys.org/

Best of luck!

Thanks again for all your input.

I have suspected dyslexia for a few years... DS will write 14 as 41 and then tell you it says 14, he doesn't do it everytime but once in a while. He also makes numbers and most letters backwards (starting from the bottom and going up or starting on the right hand side rather than the left hand side etc.).

The teacher has said that it's not dyslexia because it doesn't happen all the time... at the end of testing the psych. said that the reversals will correct themselves with maturity.

My husband asked the psych. yesterday if she screened for dyslexia - she said she did and that dyslexia is more of a reading disorder and he wouldn't be able to read as well as he does if he had it...

Something tells me I should pursue this further.

I agree -
With a PRI of 99.8 he could probably read as well as he does if the letters were formed from the bodies of live, moving, ants.

But of course, how many professionals have ever met a kid with PRI of 99.8? Not too many.

Sigh,
Grinity

Dylsexia is not a problem of seeing numbers/letters backward or out of position. It is a language based reading disorder that is a result of a poor phonological system. Often dyslexics show reversals, not because of a faulty visual system, but because of difficulties in processing, sequencing etc. While the reversals can be a red flag, it is only one symptom. And yes, some of your son's reading scores are fine - but he shows some vulnerabilities that indicate there may be a problem that is masked due to his intellect.

You are noticing issues around reading. He is noticing the same. He has some very weak scores in comparison to his stellar intellect.

Follow your instincts - yes you need to get a second opinion. His rapid naming scores are quite low - This is a HUGE red flag. Your instincts (and mine) could be wrong - and I hope that they are. But, I would press to get more information.

Here's another website that you may find helpful: http://www.childrenofthecode.org/

Thanks for sharing all this information Mich!

Hi Athca,

I agree that you should get a second opinion about the reading/writing problems and possible dyslexia.

I am also from Ontario/Quebec, and I think in our area speech therapists, not psychologists, are often the best resource for testing for and treating dyslexia. My son, in grade 1, just turned 7, has alot of the same issues as yours (trouble learning to read, low rapid naming scores, reversals and sequencing problems, difficulty writing legibly). We are working with a speech therapist for the reading and spelling and an OT for the writing.

Yay another fellow Canadian!!



I thought the same thing and wish that was the case where I am - We went to a speech therapist first for the writing trouble (after a private tutor last year). They tested his reading and comprehension etc. then told me that they don't test writing skills until age 9 but they would work with the writing skills now - which has helped a tiny bit but getting him to practice is a whole other ball game - he completely acts as though I have just shoved hot pokers into his eyes - but that's another story. The Speech Therapists were the ones that gave me the psychologist's name after I asked them who diagnoses dyslexia.

So now the search is on to find someone who is better trained in identifying (or ruling out) dyslexia.

This made me smile!!

I couldn't agree more!!

All of you are a wealth of information!! I feel like I have won the lottery! I love it here - there is no getting rid of me now!!

The psychologist didn't as far as I know but after Verona's post it got me thinking that maybe the Speech Therapist did. I will have to ask on that.

We had the first psych who tested dd10 tell us that she couldn't have a LD b/c you have to be below average to have a LD . The second psych who retested her suggested that we were hothousing her and that she didn't have anything wrong with her b/c her teacher said that she was average and had no issues in school. (The teacher had also told us that IQ scores in the 99th-99.9th were due to "good guessing.") Despite still having scaled scores on the WISC that varied from 8-19, and a lot of odd results on both that and the WIAT, that second psych report said that we should put her in average/typical classes and that she was bright, but nothing that out of the ordinary and also had no LD.

A year later, another psych looked at the constantly fluctuating school achievement scores, the prior testing, and met with me and dd over the course of a few months and came up with an anxiety and ADD dx. I still do wonder if dyslexia is part of the picture, too. Point being, 'things will correct on their own' is a cop out in my book. We got 'dd will perform highly if she wants to and the fact that she isn't means that she just doesn't want to and you shouldn't worry about it. Your worrying about her scores jumping all over the place is the source of the problem.' Somehow ignoring it didn't work for us. Dd has improved significantly in terms of academic consistency with more interventions and attention from us not from us backing off and having her excluded from the GT programming.

We, too, were told that our district wasn't sure that her IQ scores would qualify for a GT id. If scores like that don't, what does?

Yes, I have heard that in Canada, SLP are the best to test for dyslexia. Here in the states, there are many that also do the same. The advantage is that they are "language" experts and there is a link between oral (listening and speaking) and written (reading and writing).

Good luck! I hope you find a competent evaluator soon.

Just as an update on DS... we had our school meeting and they are writing up his IEP and they wanted our input before they began - I feel like it went really well and his scores qualify him as gifted by the school board! The principal might be a bit of an issue in regards to giving him "enrichment" time and opportunities though but on the bright side the special ed teacher next year is my DS grade three teacher right now - and they really "get" each other, so that is also a bonus... next school year I will check out the "gifted" class at the other school and then we can compare and make our decision.

As for further testing on dyslexia, I made a phone call to someone I found on the internet - she said she was going to a meeting with some "experts" that evening and would ask them for their opinions. She called me back to tell me about the "Scottish Rite" they work with kids with dyslexia and have a learning centre only 30 minutes from home. I had a meeting with them and brought them the test scores. They said that they would get their 'expert' to take a look and see what she thinks, she may want to do further testing, she may want more info - but we probably won't hear back until September. Wow they really seemed to know their stuff!!

Thanks again for all your guidance and support!!

Great News Athca - thanks for sharing!
Grinity

So happy to hear your meeting went well!!