Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC and WJ results

Our DS (9 yrs 10 months) recently took the WISC IV and WJ III. We had DS tested because both public and private schools have not been a good fit for him. He does well academically, but he is not a high achiever (he does not strive for good grades, he just loves to learn). He struggles with writing (output in general) and organization. He is bored in class and has read every textbook numerous times under his desk while the teacher teaches. DS�s 3rd and 4th grade teachers have hinted at ADHD, but his doctor did not feel comfortable giving him that diagnosis. However, the doctor did diagnose DS with dysgraphia.

We welcome any thoughts on his scores, specifically on the huge difference between the VCI and PS. Also, do the scores on the WISC and WJ seem consistent? Unfortunately, we did not receive much from the psychologist in the interpretation of his scores. Thanks in advance!!!

WISC IV
Full scale 142
GAI 151

VC 150
Similarities 19
Vocabulary 18
Comprehension 18

PR 133
Block design 18
Picture concepts 12
Matrix reasoning 16

WM 129
Digit span 12
Letter-number sequencing 13
(Arithmetic) 17

PS 115
Coding 11
Symbol search 13
(Cancellation) 12

WJ III
Brief achievement 130
Total achievement 138
Broad reading 136
Broad math 130
Broad written language 126

Brief reading 130
Brief math136
Math calc skills 117
Brief writing 133
Written expression 121

Academic skills 130
Academic fluency 115
Academic apps 144

Letter-word identification 122
Reading fluency 137
Calculation 130
Math fluency 89
Spelling 125
Writing fluency 100
Passage comprehension 137
Applied problems 133
Writing samples 130

Let me just start by saying I'm no expert and several people on this board appear to be, so hopefully they will chime in. My DS11 is ADHD and dysgraphic and his WM is 113 and his PS is 103. I believe that having both low WM and PS (the part of IQ that indicates the brain's "executive function") strongly correlates to ADHD. Your son's are lower than his VCI and PRI but nor so low that I would immediately think about ADHD.

OTOH, my DD8 is most assuredly not ADHD and has a somewhat similar score pattern to your DS. Her VCI is 155, WMI 132 and PS 100. What I see over and over on this board is that low PS in gifted kids is not uncommon or concerning. Also what you describe your son doing in class-reading textbooks-is not typical behavior for an ADHD kid.

I am really on a limb with your WJII scores but I notice a pattern of depressed scores regarding tests related to math and writing fluency, math calculation and spelling. These are all areas of extreme struggle for dysgraphic kids so I would say your DS' scores are affected by his dysgraphia.

His reading in class and inattentive behavior could be the result of writing avoidance. Is he allowed to use an Alphasmart or computer? When my son got this accommodation it changed his life!

My ds12 has dysgraphia and similar splits in VIQ/PRI vs PSI and WM. It will help to make sense of the WJ-III achievement tests if you look at them grouped by response type (oral vs handwritten) and also grouped by timed vs untamed. Our ds' scores seem to be very scattered upon first glance, but when you group them this way it's very clear which tests are timed and require handwriting - so his low scores are due to his dysgraphia and the tests don't accurately reflect his knowledge.

Is your ds going to have accommodations for dysgraphia at school? Do you need any suggestions/help with figuring out what to try or ask for? You mentioned your ds isn't a high achiever, that he just likes to learn. That sounds a lot like my ds - he never appeared to have very much motivation or "drive" when he was younger... but once he had accommodations in place his performance at school really improved a bunch, and he found some of that inner motivation. But he still reads ahead in class when he's bored lol.

You should be able to find the info on which tests are verbal/oral response and time vs untimed online, but if you can't, let us know and I'll get it from my notes.

polarbear

Thanks, Fwtxmom for your thoughts. I do think my son is avoiding writing and reads and finds other things to do rather than do his work. His teacher is supposed to be making accommodations, but in my opinion they are not nearly enough. I believe SHE feels she is making appropriate accommodations for him. I have difficulty talking with his teacher. She is NOT parent-friendly and other parents who have had older children with her say that that is just the way she is. The only accommodation I have seen her make was when they were working on long-division. She wrote out his problems for him on graph paper.

He brings home more unfinished classwork than others (according to the teacher) and it is usually work that involves a lot of writing, ie. reading comprehension questions. The other day, he was assigned 7 comprehension problems to do in class. He only finished 2. I have no idea how long the students were given to complete it. He is allowed to type up work at home, so I decided I would have him dictate his answers to me and I typed them up. It took 4 minutes to answer 3 additional questions! I then had him type and answer the remaining 2 which took him approximately 30 minutes because he had to reread the chapters.

His teacher also started to deduct points off his tests because he did not finish them in the allotted time! On one test his score was unaffected, but on another, the deduction brought down his grade on his social studies test from an �A� to an �A-.� I have not spoken to the teacher about this yet. I am not as bothered by his grade as I am because the teacher is not accommodating him; rather, she is penalizing him. DS is bothered that his grade was affected. I should mention that DS is in a private school.

Thanks for the suggestion, Poloarbear. It had not occurred to me to look into which tests were verbal/oral and timed/untimed. I will look into this.

As far as accomodations, last year when DS was in 3rd grade and we were looking at different schools, we chose this particular private school because they agreed to accomodate him. It wasn't until November at parent conferences that the teacher admitted to forgetting all about DS's accomodations!!! That is when she began writing out his math problems.

When we were touring the school last spring, we gave the teacher a list of accomodations we felt DS would benefit from. I printed up an article on dysgraphia that listed accomodations and I specifically highlighted the ones I felt would help DS. At the time, the teacher agreed to all the the accomodations we requested. She just forgot between April and the start of school in September.

Looking online, it seems that DS's lowest WJ scores are those that were timed which was math fluency and writing fluency. So what does that mean?

As far as the lower scores on the timed WJ III tests, that is a product of your DS' dysgraphia. More time for tests and written assignments is one of the main recommendations from my DS' tester to address his dysgraphia. This and being allowed to keyboard or having a scribe are extremely important for leveling the playing field for kids with dysgraphia.

Your DS' teacher sounds pretty awful. Poor guy! Maybe you could suggest she write on the board and demonstrate all the math problems all day one day with her non-dominant hand so she could get a feel for how every day is for your DS! Seriously, she obviously does not understand dysgraphia. Another meeting may be in order, although it is so close to the end of the year that it probably doesn't matter at this point.

You might want to meet with your principal, educate him/her about your DS and work on getting him with the right, pre-educated teacher for next year. If your prinicpal is not receptive you may be at the wrong school for your DS. The wrtitten work only gets longer and harder from 4th grade. Without proper accommodations the school will be asking the impossible from your DS and he will tune out even more. I suspect he is VERY frustrated with school right now.

It sounds like you did not get written recommendations from your testing. Is that right? You need a diagnosis and recommendations in writing. This will help right now to have recommendations tailored to your son but also will help in the future. My tester told me we needed to have new testing done every three years and especially right before the SAT/ACT. Needless to say, I have not been thinking about the SAT with a son in 5th grade but apparently some kids get suddenly "diagnosed" around that time to get extra test time. Having an early, documented diagnosis and follow up will help your DS get extra time if and when he needs it for these tests, as well as the extra time he needs now.

We are also at a private school. It's both easier (power of the purse strings, competition) and harder (no IEP or 504 rights there). Good luck! My heart goes out to your DS,

Hi,
It sounds like your DS and polarbear's DS have some of the same issues as our DD (and also similar teacher issues). We are currently at a private school and the next level teachers haven't agreed yet to take her next year; we are trying to work it out. Previous teachers at that same school (and another Montessori school) were great; this year, not so much. I tend to ramble so will try to be concise. Here are a few things I wish I had understood before or done differently this year:
1) I wish we had *not* worked with the school psychologist for an evaluation (we thought this would help get DD in next year). Instead, from what I can tell, she based the evaluation entirely on questionnaires--mainly from DD's teachers who only mention positives on the way to complaining (at great length) about her behavior. Find a specialist in gifted/LD kids who can help.
2) (1) particularly because once you get an evaluation, schools in the know to which you apply in the future will ask you whether you have had one and please provide a copy. If you have a very unfavorable one, this puts your kid in a very bad position--private schools are likely to not want to deal with 'special accomodations,' in our experience. So then you are in a position of either wasting the application fee or lying.
3) We had the same kind of thing with DD's teachers this year--they suggested advanced math lessons from the school's own staff math resource person, but it didn't happen until four months later despite regular but pleasant queries on our part about when it might begin. I don't know what else we could have done except do it on our own--which we now are, with IMACS and EPGY. Very disappointing for a private Montessori school where one of the 'selling points' on the tour is that kids can work at their own pace and even go to the next level if that is appropriate. It did work with previous teachers, but not this year (okay, until Spring).
4) We're still working on how to address DD's dysgraphia. Voice recognition programs have not worked well for us; we are trying to encourage DD to keyboard but she has been slow to adopt. Actually her writing isn't so bad, just slow. Plus I have to sit with her anyway when she is doing word processing on a form because if her typing changes the formatting (i.e., in a Word document with previously inserted questions) she gets frustrated very quickly. But at least I can do that if necessary.
Best of luck; sorry you're having these problems.
Hugs!

The scores on those tests are essentially not valid for showing what your ds knows re math calculations and whatever the writing fluency test tests (I'm sorry I don't remember at the moment!). What it means is that the tests are artificially low because your ds was slowed down by the act of handwriting, which is difficult for him due to dysgraphia. You can use this data to help show his school the impact of his dysgraphia. For instance, you could ask that whoever gave him the WJ-III give him the alternate version of each of these tests (there are two versions, I think one is called version A, the other version B), but this time have him answer the questions orally instead of relying on handwriting. His scores will most likely be higher - so you could then use that to show that handwriting impacts his ability to show the full extent of his knowledge on timed tests, which in turn means he should qualify for some kind of accommodation on timed tests - either oral answers/scribing or extended time etc.

We didn't have the "version B" comparison, but we were able to use the scores on fluency to show the impact on handwriting by making a spreadsheet of his test results, plotting either percentile or standard score against the subtest name, and using one set of symbols to post the results of the subtests that had written answers vs the subtests that had oral answers. It's the same data you have in your list, but organized in a way that make those low scores pop out as obviously tied to handwriting. Remember that in general, you'd expect achievement to track IQ, and that's what you see with your ds' other scores. So once again, a way to show that handwriting is preventing him from showing his knowledge. This particular chart was very helpful to us in advocating for accommodations for us at school - maybe more so than our neuropsych's report which very clearly stated that ds could not rely on handwriting. For whatever reason our school did not want to acknowledge the private eval - I think at times they got caught up almost in an ego thing where they wanted to show they were more of an expert than the experts even if it had nothing to do with reality!

I'm sorry I get really long-winded when it comes to dysgraphia lol, so I'm going to go back and re-read the most recent post and will reply to that in a minute. I'm also trying to clean house at the same time, so it might take a little while for me to get back to it!

polarbear

Hi Dbat, I tend to ramble too and I can just see me rambling all over the place when I have time to reply to your post! Lots of good advice in there, plus a few things I'd add on to and comment on when I have time to comment.

For now, I just wanted to add one thing - my ds did not have very legible printing, but when he learned how to write in cursive it looked extremely neat - his teachers even tried to claim it was the neatest cursive in his class. Like your dd, it was slow - very very slow. DS got so much encouragement from school about his cursive and it made it difficult for us to advocate successfully for him because it was legible. I suspect you already know this, but for any parents of kids with dysgraphia or suspected dysgraphia who might not be aware of it, just because they *can* write doesn't mean the student should be relying on handwriting. Dysgraphia doesn't just mean messy handwriting and slow handwriting, it means that the act of handwriting is using up all of a child's working memory in order to get the writing down on paper, which leaves nothing left over for spelling, punctuation, much less putting thoughts into what ideas the student wants to write about. In addition to all of that, handwriting can be fatiguing - you might not see it while the child is writing, but by the end of the school day when they have to write over and over and over again a child with dysgraphia can be just beyond mentally exhausted as well as physically fatigued. They may also experience wrist or hand pain from trying to hold their hand in a certain way to get the letters formed - this is something that I feel horrible about - we knew that this happened for our ds when he was very young but he went through a year of handwriting OT in 3rd grade and learned how to write without pain - but what I didn't realize was, he was only writing for very short periods of time at that point. We went on to move him to AT and didn't think much about handwriting again, but he still had times in school when he had to handwrite (partly because he just didn't want to mess with scanning his worksheets etc or looking different). He just told me again this spring (in 6th grade) that his hands hurt when he writes.

I'll be back to talk about AT and accommodations. Dbat, finding the AT that will work for a student can be tough - it's been tough for us! For a lot of different reasons. Our ds is much more of a voice-to-text kid because his fine motor issues extend to keyboarding.

More later,

polarbear