Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional A reintroduction and proccessing speed question

I haven't posted on this board for quite a while, but wanted to get back into things here as we are now really feeling the impacts of having a 2E kid. I have a 6 y.o., currently in kindergarten with Asperger syndrome. Most of his school struggles have to do with behaviors in the classroom. Academically, he is not performing terribly well in reading. It is not likely he will meet the standard set by the end of the year. One struggle he has is slowing himself down to make sure he is reading each word. His biggest struggle, however, is being able to retell the story when he is done reading it. I am trying to get to the root of this problem and am wondering if the retelling in particular could be related his processing speed.

I have been reviewing my son's original school (done in April 2010) and medical (done in November 2010) evaluations recently to prep myself for his upcoming IEP meeting. One of the things that popped out at me, and I have been trying to think more about is the scores he received on the WPPSI during his medical evaluation.

I don't have the full report in front of me, as I am at work right now, but here is what I recall. His verbal language score and patterning skills tested in the superior range. There was a significant gap between his verbal language and nonverbal language scores. The largest gap was with his processing speed. That score tested in the low average range and was about 40-50 points below his verbal language score.

What I am trying to research and understand is how this disparity could be affecting his classroom learning and if there need to be some adaptations put in place for his processing ability. Does anyone have any insight on this matter?

Hi Mamabird,

It could be processing speed; but it could be many other things. People with autism generally all have some language delays (they're not supposed to have a severe delay if they have the Asperger's diagnosis, but all the Asperger's diagnosis usually means is "autism with unimpaired IQ.") A language delay can absolutely impact both reading and retelling stories.

Compound with this the preference of many people with AS for reading factual material instead of fiction (which means they can't even see the interest in the story in the first place). Or the social skills deficits that often mean they can't remember which character had which thoughts, because it didn't mean much.

A 2010 evaluation is a long time ago for a kid who's 6. I'd go back to the diagnostician (hopefully a neuropsych) and ask them to do a follow-up workup. My DS had one every year in early elementary and pretty much is down to every 2-3 years now. They don't test everything every time, but they test areas that are troublesome-- the reading and expressive language problems you are noticing should definitely be re-tested.

Ideally, you'd then take those re-test results and use them to formulate a therapy plan. My DS has had years of ABA therapy. In the early years there was work on comprehending and following instructions, putting story elements in order, tolerating a wider range of reading material, shoe-tying, losing nicely at games, and remediating his very odd pencil grip and reluctance to write.

I'm not saying you necessarily have to put something like that into place outside of school as we did, but I do think you should make sure that someone, in school or out, is working on the things that are hard for your DS in a way that will help him stay caught up with peers in these key skills.

DeeDee

Our DS7 is in 1st grade and had a WPPSI done in July 2010, so around the same time as you. His processing speed was substantially lower (50th-ish percentile) than his other scores (98th/99th percentiles). DS7 does not have Aspergers, so we don't have that in play.

His processing speed has affected his reading abilities, primarily his fluency, which it sounds like your DS is having problems with as well. If our DS slows down his reading, he can sound words out at a 6th grade level, but when trying to read fluently, he makes all kinds of mistakes. He has to focus so hard on the actual reading that he has a difficult time with comprehension, which affects the retells. So, we're seeing the same symptoms of lower processing speed that you describe for you DS. All of these things have improved with tutoring over the last two months. (I'll also note that his improvement is erratic, with great gains, and then a plateau or bit of regression, and eventually some quick gains again.)

We had a dyslexia evaluation done Dec 2011, which found he's not dyslexic, but his fluency is affected by his processing speed. The tester recommended tutoring to improve his fluency, and accommodations by the school such as increased time on assignments, etc. We are pursuing a 504 with the school right now (meeting is in 3 weeks to get it set). All of his teachers, after reading the results of his dyslexia evaluation, which included his WPPSI testing results too, and then applying that to their observations of him over the course of the school year, agree that accommodations/adaptations make sense for him, which leads me to think that such accommodations would benefit your DS based on your post.

I will note that our 1st grade teacher told us that it's very common for readers this age to have problems with all of the things your DS and our DS experience. In my mind, it's the difference between their overall cognitive abilities and their reading/writing performance that start to raise flags.

I'll second DeeDee's recommendation for a follow-up evaluation from a neuropsych, which will help you understand better what causes the drop in processing speed test scores as well as what's behind the challenges with reading. Adaptions and possibly remediation will most likely be important for your ds, but first you need to understand what's causing the challenges - and there can be so many different reasons processing speed is slow relative to other areas of ability tests, as well as many different reasons a child struggles with reading. It's even tricky trying to understand test results sometimes because one struggle in one area can *look* like a low test result when really it's due to something else - I'm sure even just the way I tried to describe it is confusing! A neuropsychologist will be able to take a broad look at functioning and also follow up on discrepancies etc with more in-depth testing, as well as recommend a plan for follow-up evaluations as needed with other professionals (OT, SLP, etc).

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks so much for your replies, DeeDee and Coll.

DeeDee - My son does receive a gamete of services outside of his school services. Following his November 2010 eval, he started receiving intensive day treatment services up until he went to kindergarten. Now he does once a week social skills group, once a week individual therapy to work on his emotional regulation and OT. We are looking at doing some in-home therapy during the summer through a local ABA provider to work on some non-compliance issues that we are seeing.

A re-eval is next on my to-do list for DS1. We actually have two on the spectrum and a 3 month old baby, so things are pretty crazy! We had to have my DS2's annual medical re-eval at the end of November to continue his day treatment services, we had our baby in January and went through a full school re-eval in February and March to transition to 3-5 services for him. We are just finishing up writing his new IEP and working through ESY vs. a bump up in outside therapies for summer for him and then preschool placement for next year.

We have DS1's annual IEP meeting on May 3rd, so I am trying to get prepped for that now. With his current team, I have to bring any and all suggestions to the table and have good supporting documentation as to why he needs it and how it should be implemented. Your information about factual vs. fictional is really interesting and something I hadn't thought of. But, duh to me, he always gravitates towards non-fictional books. I will do some activities at home where I pose very specific questions to him about characters to see if he is picking up on those things. Thanks!

Coll - Your last sentence hit the nail on the head! That is what I keep trying to explain to our team. This isn't about him doing "fine" and producing "kindergarten quality work", this is about the fact that his team has no clue what his potential is because his disability is getting in the way of that potential.

Although his team has his WPPSI in his cum file, I am going to sned them over again and highlight the disparity between the different categories to get them thinking about how his ability to process could be affecting his learning and to remind them of his learning potential. He is bored to tears with kindergarten and so his behaviors are high and that is all they see when they look at him.

Polarbear - That does make sense. We are working on getting him in for a re-eval with our neuropsych. SPED in school age children really is a whole new world to me. So different from the EI years. I am learning the ropes slowly. I appreciate your feedback.

mamabird, I am replying while I'm working on other things and generally just very scattered this morning, so I apologize for that! I wanted to add that my ds12, although he is not on the autism spectrum, also has a very difficult time retelling what he's read, as well as gravitating naturally to non-fiction rather than choosing fiction. When he was in early elementary he for the most part chose just not to read at all! He still, at 12, struggles with summarizing what he's read and just recently stumbled onto a situation with reading at school that we didn't see coming. I am not 100% sure even now what the challenge really is for ds - is it his processing speed, is it his expressive language disorder, is it stealth dyslexia etc. That probably sounds very discouraging... but it's not meant to be discouraging, just an acknowledgment that 2e kids can be so very complicated!

Those early years of elementary school were very tough for *me* (as well as ds!)... and a large part of it for me was being discouraged about all that it seemed my ds was missing out on - lack of intellectual challenge, so much focus on his areas where he needed help, teachers who just couldn't see his potential. FWIW - hang in there - school *really* did get better for us - much better - as ds got older. Middle school is going so much better! We finally got to the place in later elementary where we understood ds' challenges in much greater depth and were able to have appropriate accommodations for him, he grew into understanding himself much more so than when he was younger, as well as maturing to the place where he could communicate his struggles to us much more clearly when he was young. And... combined with all of that we switched schools - based on ds' input. DS is still dealing with all his 2e-ness, but now he's at a place in school where he can also really move ahead and challenge the intellectual strengths he has instead of primarily focusing on the other e. Your ds will get there too!

Best wishes,

polarbear

I noted that one of the things you identified about your child's reading was that he doesn't "slow down enough to read each word".

My AS son had significant problems with tracking, convergence, and visual processing (including left-sided visual neglect), and it appeared that he needed to "slow down" so he didn't skip words, insert words from the line above or below, or blend words together when he was reading. This was not really a matter of him needing to "slow down", it was a matter of him not having the visual motor control and processing to keep his eyes from skipping around on the page. Intensive specialized OT to work on visual motor control and visual processing helped a great deal. Some other things that have helped my son with reading every word on the page include giving him access to large print or magnification, use of colored filters to reduce glare, using a card with a cut-out slit just large enough to show a single line of type to cover everything on the page except the line he is reading, and having him follow along the line with his finger as he reads. BTW, my son's ability and inclination to sustain eye contact, while still not usual, improved a great deal once the worst of his ocular-motor issues were remediated.

He is now a voracious and highly skilled reader (and his reading comprehension really took off as soon as his visual issued were corrected/compensated for), but he would to this day tell you that summarizing is the hardest (and least favorite) task he faces when asked to discuss what he has read.