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Is it possible to diagnosis dyslexia with the WISC? Would dyslexia or a visual processing disorder and/or visual motor integration negatively affect an IQ score?

TIA

I hope someone knows more about this than I do who will come along and answer soon, but it seems doubtful.
Certian parts of the test would surely be affected.
Is your tester the one who is suggesting the dyslexia and visual processing disorder? Can you arrange a meeting to sit down and go over the info? Which test was used?

Do you want to post the various subscale results?
Grinity

The party line in my school district is that dyslexia is a medical diagnosis. Nobody in the school system is qualified to make that diagnosis.

The WISC, in combination with an academic assessment such as the WIAT or WJ can help identify significant gaps in achievement to help with eligibility decisions or educational programming. A doctor may find these assessment results helpful when making a diagnosis.

The school system does not need this diagnosis to move forward with a program. The term "dyslexia" is one that the general public believes has more meaning than "specific learning disability", but school psychologists and special education teachers are looking for other, more specific information, anyway. Learning that a student is dyslexic does not actually tell us, specifically, what the student's educational needs are. We have other ways to find that out, including the WISC and a whole alphabet soup of assessments.

Naturally, there are other opinions, hypotheses, and stances, even within our school system.

I doubt that you could make a diagnosis based on WISC. Some kids may show slower processing or working memory but that would not be dispositive. My DD's dyslexia did not affect her WISC scores.

You may want to check the international dyslexia assoc website for more info: http://www.interdys.org/

Problems with visual processing and visual-motor integration could certainly have an impact on the subtest scores used to compute the PRI and the PSI.

My DS, who is not dyslexic, but who is dysgraphic and has AS/NVLD, and who has problems with visual processing and visual-motor integration, scores like this on IQ tests:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....e_WIAT_III_subtest_scores.html#Post94041

The RIAS does not have reading or motor output requirements, and the visual items are easier to see than those on the WISC. The RIAS also doesn't include social comprehension items (a problem for AS/NVLD individuals)in the verbal index score. The differences between the WISC scores and the RIAS scores here can give you some idea of how these kinds of deficits can impact scores on the WISC.

Currently she is 8 years old. She was tested at age 6 at a college by a psychology student. The tester says there are no indications of a learning disability (comparing her WISC results to her WIAT results).

VCI
Similarities 11
Vocabulary 10
Comprehension 14

PRI
Block Design 15
Picture Concepts 14
Matrix Reasoning 09

WMI
Digit Span 10
Letter Number Sequencing 07

Processing Speed
Coding 09
Symbol Search 09

Ten months ago we had her evaluated by a well recommended OT who works only with children. She was diagnosed with dyspraxia and a visual motor integration disorder. The OT also said she tested positive for 3 primitive reflexes that should no longer be present past the age of 1. She also commented that she had similar test results as the dyslexic children she sees/evaluates.

We had her evaluated by a developmental optometrist at the age of 6 1/2. Her vision is perfect. In visual discrimination she tested the highest possible as a 13 yo, and visual memory as an 11 yo. But tested below her age for visual memory that required her to recreate what she saw/remembered on paper. Her other weaknesses were directionality, laterality, and tracking. He suggested vision therapy but we don't have thousands of dollars to spend on controversial therapy. I have a friend whose son is dyslexia and they spent 4k on therapy (prior to the dyslexic diagnosis) and it did nothing for him.

She is struggling with learning to read, has difficulty sounding out unfamiliar words, confuses easy small words (such as when, was, that), skips small words, and has no sense of punctuation while reading. In spelling she will often have the right letters in the word but not in the right order. Her teacher will also mark words wrong for letters that are backwards. So she can fail a spelling test but if you ask her to spell the same words out loud she'll get them correct. And no matter how long the word is or how fast I spell it out loud she can tell which word I'm spelling. In fact, we have a secret language where we speak only in spell without even acknowledging where the spaces are for the words. She also reverses her numbers and gets them marked wrong. And she frequently will transpose numbers for instance making 43 a 34 and this is causing problems in math where she has to borrow and carry.

Her strengths are science and history. When she was 3 she started watching documentaries geared for adults on t.v. One I recall was about why the levees failed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina or about ancient Egypt (her greatest love). And today she still prefers these types of educational over cartoons. She has an amazing long term memory. She can remember facts she learned years ago and will spout them off to me and I didn't even know she knew the stuff (i.e. how old Napoleon was when he died and how he died). But asking her to remember 8+4 is impossible.

At the age of 5 while we were reading a space book she tells me the photo of the man stepping on the moon couldn't be the first person on the moon (as the caption claimed). That the person taking the photo was actually the first person on the moon. This is the photo I'm referring to: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dVj-kNcst...o/s1600/62288main_aldrin_ladder_full.jpg And she was right, after some research I discovered that it was Neil Armstrong who had the camera on the moon and took all the photographs while on the moon.

I get frustrated when I hear her teachers tell me she could get better grades if she applied herself. Yet in math, spelling, and reading she is really trying. We have been working on reading for 3 years now and her progress has been minimal. My daughter is upset that she can't read and write as well as her classmates. She is very frustrated and it is hurting her self-esteem. She fails spelling tests that I know if the teacher asked her to spell the words orally she'd get them right. She can read a story 3 times (once in class, once with me reading to her, and once she reads to me) but b/c she can't read the questions on the comprehension test (about the story) she fails the test. If you were ask her orally the questions she could tell you the answers. I feel all of this is affecting her grades imo.

I'm really not sure where to go from here.

I agree with knute and aculady. The WISC cannot be used to diagnose dyslexia, but can be used along with a battery of other tests. Low scores in the PSI and WMI are often a red flag for a LD - but in and of itself, cannot diagnose a reading disability.

Visual motor issues may impact scores on certain subtests such as block design, symbol search and coding.

Depending upon how one defines dyslexia, scores in the VCI may be affected by dyslexia.

These tests are often used to diagnose dylsexia (and to pinpoint the type of reading problem):
Grey Oral Reading IV
WJRMT
Test of Word Reading Efficiency
CTOPP
Tests of reading achievement various subtests in the Woodcock Johonson, WIAT, Kaufman etc batteries

Very often people with dyslexia also have speech/ language processing difficulties - a full speech and language evaluation can shed light.

You have described my DD9 to a tee. She suffers from very similar struggles with her writing, down to the reversals and spelling issues. She is so incredibly bright, but she cannot translate her knowledge onto a piece of paper. We have often heard the same spiel about her not applying herself. I know how hard she tries. She is to the point that she is shutting down at school and refusing to do work that she knows will be difficult for her.

She was assessed with the WISC-IV at 7.5 yrs. At that time, the achievement tests the were mostly average to slightly below average scores (spelling was dismal, but reading comprehension was at a grade 8 level)... concerning to me because she is described as HG+/PG. At first, we assumed her ADHD was negatively affected her school performance. After 1.5 years of trying to tweak her meds and make accomodations, nothing has changed and everything is getting worse as she advances in school and the writing load increases. We took her back to the psychologist to assess for dyslexia at the beginning of this month. I honestly cant' recall what tests she administered, as they were not familiar to me. DH and I have an appointment to go over the results at the end of this week. I will be shocked if she is not identified as having dyslexia. Everything I have heard and read about dyslexia makes so much sense in DD's case.

If I learn anything at our meeting this week that may be of any help to you, I will post. Best of luck!

These issues sound very much like dyslexia to me. Have you looked at this website? http://www.interdys.org/FactSheets.htm

You may find this fact sheet about testing especially helpful: http://www.interdys.org/ewebeditpro5/upload/TestingandEvaluation.pdf

Additional information about evaluation/testing for LD's related to reading, writing, spelling http://www.concordspedpac.org/Whichtest.htm

THANK YOU - that's the exact kind of information I've been searching out to understand my son's quirks. (Which, according to the information from all three links, is not under the umbrella of dyslexia. Still going on the "quirk" hypothesis...)

I'm not sure where you should go either. It is SO frustrating to hear the teachers say that she isn't applying herself, and you have to pray that the teachers aren't saying this to her directly, although that certianly did happen to us when my son was in 2nd grade.

Do the teachers know that she can't read the comprehension questions?

I can say that her WISC results don't match up at all with the descriptions you provide, so it's not suprising that there isn't much of a discrepancy between WISC and WAIT. Both are far from what you are seeing at home. (Even the Verbal WISC which is totally verbal in it's administration just doesn't sound like her.)

I wonder if your dd's reading problems are difficult for the school to detect because her intelligence is allowing her to 'scam' the tests without knowing she is doing that.

I would send a letter to the school saying that you are very concerned that she can't read and what can they offer to do about it.

I do have a tip for Math: Use notebook paper turned sideways. It may be that having columns to work with helps her check to see if the numbers are in the right places.

I think that I would make some videos of your daughter talking about some favorite topic in great detail, and using the secrete language and bring them with you to your next school meeting and any future doctor visits.

It might be worth asking your pediatrician to give some advice or options. Perplexing!
Grinity

Ginity - good idea about the math paper. My son did this. Some kids like to use graph paper for the same reason - but ds found it too busy. When he was especially tired, I'd copy the problems onto the paper to help him get started.

mimmy - is she in a US public school? Have you made a special ed referral and requested a full evaluation? Schools MUST evaluate in all areas of suspected disability if they get a referral - even if they think the child is too smart or the mother is crazy!! While I much prefer private evaluations to school because of their independent and diagnostic nature, schools need only to "consider" independent evaluations. It makes sense to get the school evaluations going - hope that they are of decent quality and that they will indicate remedial reading help and accommodations. You can still have the independent evaluation lined up to go in after to expand on the results, give you a diagnosis and offer a more independent interpretation.

www.wrightslaw.com offers great info about the special ed process
http://concordspedpac.org/RequestEval.htm contains a template for a letter