Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment How does SPD influence the WISC?

Hello all,

I have posted a few times before and appreciate all the interesting insight and experience of this board.

My DS 6 is a twin in a small suburban private school (mostly children of professionals) that we love. I am a little nervous because we have our parent teacher conferences later this afternoon and we are going to discuss ideas for placement for him for next year.

We had him tested in December (right at his 6th birthday) due to some concerns for social issues in the classroom (difficulty paying attention, pushing in line, not wanting to stop reading to go to art) by an assessor who is experienced with gifted kids and recommended on this board. This revealed that he has the opposite profile of a child with ADHD and although some of the teacher responses were suggestive of an ASD diagnosis, neither his assessment nor his developmental/home assessments were consistent with it. He specifically did not want to give him a 2e diagnosis.

We also initiated an OT evaluation at the same time for some mild gross/fine motor delays. She seems very experienced and agreeed that he did not seem similar to other kids with ASD who she treats but felt like he had classic sensory processing disorder. We are very excited to see what OT can do for him.



He has been trialing going to 1st for science and reading for the past 2-3 weeks and he is enjoying that. I am just trying to figure out how hard to push/insist on it for next year. It also affects his twin (she wants to know why she doesn't get to go to 1st for these subjects).

Sometimes concentration is a big issue for him. It took a really long time for him to be tested. Sorry for the long post!

Motor delays and problems with proprioception and/or visual processing can affect scores on things like block design, coding, symbol search, and cancellation, all of which have a visual-motor component to the response. Problems with auditory processing could affect verbal scores and working memory subtests.

I don't have technical tables but I am wondering if the viq was calculated using the 13 for similarities not the 18 for information. Do you know? There is almost two standard deviations between these two, that's a lot. And the other two could be seen as grouping nicely with either but are somewhat closer to the 18.

Thanks aculady.

MumOfThree-The information subtest is listed in parentheses with a footnote that says "scores listed in parentheses do not factor into index or IQ scores".

Right, well Psychologists can't just substitute sub tests because they feel like it, but depending on whether similarities was lower due to an actual weakness, distracted moment or whatever, that information score was not counted and you would have seen a higher VCI and GAI if it had been able to be used. Add that to block design and some others that may be being suppressed by spd and this may explain to some extent why you dont feel these numbers quite match the kid you see.

I assume the tester did that extra test because they kind of thought so too, though maybe your tester always does information. Have you asked them?

I don't know how SPD would impact the WISC, other than if he's having a tough time focusing due to sensory distractions his scores might be artificially low.

Did the tester mention why coding was "spoiled"? I wonder if the fine motor issues he's been referred to for OT didn't contribute to the lower coding score, and that's something that will come up after he's gone through OT?

I also wanted to let you know that my dd10 had sensory challenges when she was younger, and a year of sensory OT while she was in kindergarten helped her SO much! OTOH, it didn't make a significant difference in her IQ scores, but it made a big difference in her ability to navigate in the world and focus etc. and it was definitely worth pursuing.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Polarbear- Thanks so much for sharing your experience with your DD. I'm really glad OT helped her. DS does have a very hard time tuning in and/or out depending on the stimuli. This seems to be getting a little better with age and lots of work. As far as your question about coding it was spoiled because he skipped an entire line at the beginning and the tester didn't catch it. He is a lefty with a simian crease, fwiw.

MumOfThree,
Our tester said he usually gives all the subtests of the WISC although I don't think he did for DS as he had just turned six and although DS thought the testing was fun he was fatigued around lunchtime!

Any other insight regarding grade skipping/subject acceleration and twins would be greatly appreciated. DD is bright but doesn't seem to "need" it like her brother. The outcome of the parent teacher conference was that he would be MAP tested in the fall, but not because the trial isn't going well but because it seems easier for the school and because of OT/social concerns.