Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment 1st post- Do we belong here? WISC-IV + scores help

Hi everyone. Despite lurking on and off for a few months, I haven't had the gumption to post 11-yr-old DS 1's "numbers". Just now I'm sitting here staring at the Davidson YS application, wondering if it's presumptuous to apply, stumped on who would or could write a letter of recommendation. We welcome help: the numbers seem atypical--it's only thanks to Hoagies, Davidson, Wrightslaw, NAGC, CTD, SENG and other sites that I know these digits hold any importance whatsoever.

Around here we've only heard about letters: ADHD, GAD, SPD, 2E... Feeling that numbers should receive at least as much attention as alphabet soup, we began homeschooling DS1 this year rather than subject him to another year of "working on" his IEP to determine whether he's an underachiever or just plain stupid at a suburban-IL school that "doesn't accept outside testing", answers most email with "we know what is best for our students" and holds that "all kids are gifted". At home he is finally happy, healthy, making new friends, on appropriate stimulant meds and in OT for vestibular/proprio processing. He struggles greatly with speed, composing and handwriting but is mastering materials between 2-5 years above grade-level. We're working on typing but it's slow going.

Here are DS1's scores on the WISC-IV from 9/2010, 9y10m old. At that time he was on excessive ADHD meds, severely sleep-deprived, depressed and dangerously underweight. The testing doctor was kind, experienced mainly in hospital psych setting, but the only one insurance could find in-network within a 50-mile radius. We left with little explanation, no ed recommendations and a sinking feeling. Tests for IQ, motor skills, reading and ADHD were spread over two sessions. I'm not sure which to include, so here is what I have. Thank you in advance for honest advice and direction.

WISC-IV
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VCI: 140
Similarities: 19
Vocab: 16
Comprehension: 15
Information: 16

PRI: 149
Block Design: 19
Picture Concepts: 19
Matrix Reason: 16

WMI: 104
Digit Span: 7
Letter-Number: 15
-digit-span-forward: 6
-digit-span-backward: 11
-longest-digit span forward: 8
-longest-digit span backward: 4

PSI: 73
Coding: 3
Symbol Search: 7
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WIAT-2
Word-reading: 129
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TOWL- 99th %ile, took an extremely long time to begin and complete
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Visual-Motor Integration: 99th %ile
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Delis-Kaplan Design Fluency Test SS: filled dots-6, empty dots-5, switching-8
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Delis-Kaplan Trail-Making:
visual scanning: 100%
number sequencing: 100%
letter sequencing: 100% but almost over time limit
number-letter switching: 27/32 and over time limit by three minutes
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FSIQ: 127
GAI: 155 (My estimate as "GAI" was not mentioned by doctor, testing or school--is this accurate given the three subtest 19s?)

Hi and welcome!
I am also from Illinois. We live in the northwest burbs.
GAI is 155 that is correct.

Welcome!

I'm a middle school teacher. General education, but very interested in gifted education. I've also run more IDEA evaluation and eligibility meetings than I care to think about in a former job.

In the report, did the doc give an opinion as to whether the FSIQ was the best summary of his cognitive potential? It seems to me that the average of those subscores wouldn't have much to do with reality, those are so different from each other.

When I see a Processing Speed Index like that, I think of a kid I tested once that you had to give super-long wait time. Like you might ask a question and just sit there for two or three minutes, and he'd eventually come out with the right answer. I would think that, unless you got meds that work much better for him than whatever he was taking that day, you would be looking at a highly individualized program for him, in school or out.

I'm wondering what was actually in his IEP. What was his eligibility category? Did the school give him any kind of cognitive and academic assessments? What supports did they recommend? What in the plan wasn't working for him?

If you ever decide to try a public school setting again for whatever reason, I would also recommend you go to your state's disability rights organization and ask for an advocate. I have seen them be very good (much better than teachers) at explaining the jargon and alphabet soup. They also keep school staff on their toes. I haven't always agreed with the advocate assigned to my schools, but I know that we both want appropriate supports and services for the child.

In my experience, the help of an advocate is more effective than filing Due Process or an Office of Civil Rights Complaint most of the time. As an attorney who specializes in IDEA says every time I go to hear him speak, "Nobody wins Due Process. You lose, or you lose big, and nobody ever loses more than the child."

As to your question as to whether you belong here, I'll go with 'yes' and welcome ! Neither of my girls are DYS, but we feel good fitting in here. My youngest has a somewhat similar profile on the WISC with a FSIQ of 130 and GAI of 148 and she also has ADD. She wasn't medicated during testing and actually never has been medicated. At 11, she's still under 60 lbs (she's just small genetically!) but we've not wanted to stunt her growth and she's highly averse to treating her ADD. I've given up on even fighting her on supplements which seem to help but it is such a huge fight that I'm tired.

Do you have achievement scores to submit with your ds' DYS application? My youngest has never hit the required scores on the few achievement tests she's taken for DYS so we haven't applied.

Your kiddo sounds like his GAI is high enough, though, that you might have good odds even without those achievement scores. I'm glad to hear that he's doing better at home. We, too, have found struggling with getting the needs of a HG 2e kid met in the school system to be a huge challenge. Gifted and in the box, high achiever seem to be synonomous in many schools' minds, unfortunately.

Hi ILMom24,
Humor Alert - go ahead and apply - anyone who can use presumptuous comfortably in a sentence if fairly likely to have a kid who qualifies for the Young Scholars program.

More seriously - do you have achievement testing? If that supports the IQ numbers, then the YS program will be a perfect match. There are many kids there with very similar numbers, and similar gaps between VCI and PRI, the 'intellectual ability' subscores, and WM and PSI the 'handmaiden' subscores.
My son, also PG and ADHD-I is one of them, but he at least has WM around 120. Being without those 'handmaiden' abilities really makes elementary school very difficult. Once the other kids are old enough for the teachers to work on trying to develop abstract thought your son will possibly fit in better.

It doesn't surprise me at at all that the school system (not all, of course, and especially not Becky!) sees your child as 'stupid' - it's sort of like asking flatlanders to appreciate the difference between a mountain and a stage set of a mountain. As a group, they keep expecting the quick, talkative, compliant kid who is a dream to have in class to be the gifted one.

Happy, healthy and making friends is a wonderful combination, and unless the homeschooling is very hard on the family, keep going. At a certain point he'll be ready to audit college level classes (community college, local college or university - depending on what is available)and then you'll 'dual enroll' him as a high school student taking college classes. Some kids do well with online classes, others not so much.

I think you are doing everything right (except procrastinating on that YS application - you can get letters of recommendation from any of the teachers of enrichment classes - don't worry about what they'll say, or how long they have know your child, even little old ladies who strike up a conversation with your child at the park are fair game. If any of the new friends' parents seems to understand what gifted is, just ask them. Send a private message to FrannieandEJsmom and see if she can meet your child and ask her to write a letter! Yeah, carry copies of the letter with SASEs in your pocketbook.) Keep hammering at the touch typing - it'll come one day and change everything.

Your child isn't stupid, but your child is facing some large bottlenecks that will take time and training to overcome. Your child is gifted enough that even without the challenges of his WM and PSI the school would probably look at him funny and wonder what is wrong with him. Kids like him are rare, once or twice in a lifetime experiences for schools, so they aren't to be blamed for what they couldn't possibly be expected to know, but they aren't to be trusted either.

Keep an eye open for these programs:
Illinois and the Midwest

Splash! Chicago runs the midwest's biggest Splash, and also runs Cascade. Chicago's next event will be a winter-term Cascade, meeting weekly for five weeks.

Northwestern University also runs a Splash in the Chicago area; its most recent Splash ran April 2, 2011.

http://learningu.org/current-programs#

and join your local gifted association to try and meet some other families who are facing what you are facing.

Get that application completed and keep posting here - we want to be your peer group. It isn't easy raising a kid in isolation.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks for the welcoming!
Beckee, I'll answer as I can--sorry it's lengthy.
[quote=Beckee]

In the report, did the doc give an opinion as to whether the FSIQ was the best summary of his cognitive potential?

--The doc didn't give an alternative to FSIQ-I only later learned about GAI and subtest scatter from you all. (School was unfamiliar with term "GAI" so would only use FSIQ. )In his written summary paragraph Dr. acknowledged that the scores reflected "difficulty with visual-cognitive shifting", indicated an ADHD diagnosis was likely correct, eliminated Asperger's/ASD and finished by stating "his Giftedness can be both a curse and a gift, in many normal expectations remain expected of him yet his thinking may be beyond the obvious and into the sublime". (I'm not sure why the fairy-godmother-eze or bad grammar?) He then stapled on a three-page web printout of common ADHD accommodations and verbally indicated that some of the lower processing-type scores were suspect given faster answers on similar but more complex tasks elsewhere in the testing. He did not elaborate. Unfortunately he also had a falling-out with our insurance company over incorrect billing codes and now will not return our phone calls requesting clarification.
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When I see a Processing Speed Index like that, I think of a kid I tested once that you had to give super-long wait time... would think that, unless you got meds that work much better for him than whatever he was taking that day, you would be looking at a highly individualized program for him, in school or out.

--Yep, that's why he's home. Although his PS has gotten SO much faster now that his meds are adjusted so he can sleep. His third grade teacher kept insisting the meds weren't working so DS's (former!) psych kept adding on-ugh. Poor kid was a zombie. For homeschool we do a lot of discussion/dictation and typing rather than writing. We think the motor planning/integration is the major issue given last month's SPD diagnosis. The ADHD appears minor compared to that if we're reading it right.
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I'm wondering what was actually in his IEP. What was his eligibility category? Did the school give him any kind of cognitive and academic assessments? What supports did they recommend? What in the plan wasn't working for him?

--Our first IEP meeting did not assign a case manager or an LEA so we refused to sign and had a second meeting w/ the superintendent of special ed. District does not use the ability/discrepancy model, so most of the team felt he didn't need an IEP as he was obviously performing above age/grade level in standardized tests. Requests for AT assessment and differentiation were denied. IEP contains no measurable goals.
2nd draft IEP:
Area of Disability: OHI/ADHD and Emotional Anxiety disability.
Special Ed Svcs: OT, Social work, Resource push-in
Educational Support: social, emotional and other: time management in the classroom.
Learning Deficits: Distractibility, Other: time management and processing speed
Curriculum Accommodations: may write on test booklet, extended time on tests (may begin test in class and finish in resource), no scantron, provide visual
aids/organizers
Goals: improve coping skills (45m group social work, anecdotal log), time management (60m resource push-in, classwork), processing speed (20m keyboarding, OT anecdotal log)
School testing/assessment by school psychologist:
Test of Written Language 4th ed
-convention: percentile rank 91, SS 14
-story composition: pr 95, SS 15
-spontaneous writing: pr 99, composite index 132
Math from WIAT-3: average range, numerical ops 104 SS, pr 61 (why so low?)
Projective social/emotional tests: indicators for stress, anxiety and perfectionism
OT report: 96%ile VMI, 100% BOT, Fine Manual Control 84%ile,
Manual Coordination 21%ile.
Sensory Profile Companion:
Definite difference in school factor 4 (availability for learning)
Probable difference in auditory, visual, school factor 3 (range of tolerance for sensory input), Registration- Avoidance
Sensory Profile: Definite difference for auditory, oral and behavioral outcomes, probably difference for sensitivity (most recent outside OT assess shows Def difference for vestibular, auditory proprioreceptive )

-It looks decent on paper but unfortunately extended ISAT time and keyboarding were the only parts followed. The social worker had a baby, the resource teacher never came in (and didn't answer phone calls or email!) , no one sent him to resource, and his classroom teacher never received a copy of the IEP. DS's psychiatrist said that further OT assessment wasn't necessary when we asked for a prescription to see about sensory diet, ect.

--Academics:
3rd grade Winter Reading MAP at 235-238 99%ile, Math MAP 225-228 98%ile. Lexile 1107-1257. We were told these scores were "appropriate". After that he showed negative or slight growth for over a year--I think he gave up trying. Besides MAP our district uses 2nd-grade Cogat (he didn't finish quant--it's timed. 99%ile on verbal) as basis for math pullout-therefore he didn't qualify due to Cogat despite 98% MAPs. His ISATs for end of 4th grade (he's 5th now) are 99%ile for reading and science. 89% for math as we found out he didn't know how to "borrow" for subtraction. Khan Academy fixed the subtraction crisis and now he's doing pre-A with some AMC-8 tests thrown in.
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If you ever decide to try a public school setting again for whatever reason, I would also recommend you go to your state's disability rights organization and ask for an advocate.
--I've never heard of this organization--but it sounds like what we may need as finances are pretty tight, local advocates were $$$ and gifted programming isn't mandated in IL. I'll check wrightslaw to see what is available here unless someone has a direct link. It's so frustrating to be told public education is meant to be "appropriate, not optimal" when paying so much for outside services for multiple kids.

My next question probably does not belong in this forum, but...IF we know that we'll need extended testing time for SAT/NUMATS in the future, do we have to re-enroll DS1 in public school for at least one class in order to have a current IEP which states "extended time for standardized testing"? I've heard that without an active IEP which documents that particular accommodation, ACT/SAT will refuse time and a half. Prior to the IEP he also had a 504 Plan which listed "extended test time" and preferential seating as accommodations. Is his IEP inactive as he's not in public school this year? It would expire in March 2012 if he were enrolled. Dual enrollment is legal in IL, but I cannot find district info on it.

frannieanddejsmom, we're out in Lake Zurich but have been hanging out with the St. Charles FunEd Meetup group on Fridays. : )

Grinity, thanks for the smiles and the encouragement. I need to remember (and write down!) the humor in raising these four intensely-scatterbrained bright sparks, lol! Who else finds a stalactite nursery hanging in their washing machine? Knows the garage-door light sensor wired over the bedroom door is really a laser beam?
Has a permanent Ikea swing hanging at one end of the dinner table?
Now if only they could program that durn beeping Lego robot to bring me my coffee.... ; )

I don't think that our former WIAT achievement scores are high enough to qualify for YS due to math and MAP scores don't count. We aren't signed up for NUMATS Explore and I think the deadline for that is Jan 16-- probably not enough time to apply for extended time. I have several creative writing papers saved as portfolio and he's due to take a me-generated midterm in Oceanography which would likely qualify as above-grade-level science work as we're using a college text. Maybe I could have him take a past AMC-8 math test and show all his work. Not sure if either of those count...none of his public-school work is useful (or legible!).

Speaking from experience, you don't have to have an IEP to get accommodations on the SAT, nor do you have to re-enroll in school if you are homeschooling, but you DO have to have current documentation when you first apply for accommodations. Once you are approved, you are approved for good, AFAIK. (At least, that's what my son's accommodation letter said.)

I just wanted to say welcome! For the DYS app, has your son ever had a teacher who recognized his abilities or was supportive more than the others? A tutor maybe? We had to call our sons old principal from before we moved because we didn't trust anyone at his new school.
Hope you stick around!

So go the portfolio route - it sounds like your examples are just right. Send what you have from the MAP and the other achievement tests, it won't count against him, it will just complete the picture of a very unusually bright boy with very unusually difficult challenges. Sign up for the explore just to see, eventually it will be good to get extended time, but it's fine to take it for a baseline now.

I'll bet that now that your son is in a better place, his handmaiden scores would be much higher if he was tested today (10 or 20 points can make a big difference in his daily life) and I'll bet they are less of an impediment than they would have been then. Ok, he'll probably never be a speedy kid, but once he finds his nice steady rhythm I'll bet his achievement will start to show improvement.

It sounds like your tester's summary is actually quite good. Most testers won't give super specific academic suggestions or know the local schools particularly well, they only know when they see a kid who is far from average - really really far in your case. 155 GAI is 2/3 of a standard deviation over DYS cut offs - that's highly unusual.

(Do you want us to explain more about 'standard deviations' or any particular part of the test? Also, try searching the terms WM, working memory and processing speed. One of the reasons parents end up here instead of being able to 'let the schools handle it' is if the child has bottlenecks, that is, large discrepancies that aren't so bad as to drag performance down below average, but are still strong enough to make a child miserable in an ordinary school setting.)

Smiles,
Grinity