Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Improving Processing Speed ?

My DS9 was tested recently using WISC IV.He has been frustrated with school work this year and has had complaints that he takes too long to complete his work.
His scores were
VCI 114
PRI 135
WMI 110
PSI 100
The psychologist said that his processing speed is considerably lower than his PRI score.And also that the working memory and processing speeds are tied to each other. She suggested that he work on website like branskills.com and that will improve his processing speed. Has anybody used something similar to aid thier child? Has it helped? Its quite expensive so I would really appreciate any feedback. I realize its not really a 2e issue but I wasnt sure where to post this question.

It might be a 2E issue, I wouldn't rule it out, because I think with subscore spreads more than 25 (?) there is a concern. I think there are others who can give more thorough answers, but I'm not sure about the improving it thing. Possibly as part of a whole system of adaptations to support the child.

I'll watch this topic to see if anyone has had any luck in this area. I don't want to be the voice of negativity, but my older dd, for whom processing speed was dramatically lower than any of her other indices (all were in the upper 90s [percentiles] except for PSI which was something like 42nd) really continues to be a slower worker. She was tested @ 7 and is now 13.5.

She has learned some techniques to be as efficient as possible, although she still procrastinates and doesn't use them all the time, but as to whether her processing speed has actually improved as she's gotten older, I'd say probably not. It just seems to be part of who she is -- very deep, but not unusually fast.

We have not tried brain training, though, b/c I can't afford to waste money and I wasn't sure if they were really going to work. I've not seen any studies that indicate that they do save for studies that were not published in peer reviewed journals and which were done by the companies that were selling the products.

My dd I also wouldn't really consider 2e. I've got one who is and there is a distinct difference.

I would say, though, that my kiddo has managed to do very well in GT and accelerated classes and with a grade skip despite the speed issue. Some of it is b/c she is very able and some of it is probably due to greater maturity that she lacked at a younger age.

I think the websites might help or might not help.

I tend to see Processing Speed as basically fixed, however there is a lot that can be done to affect the overall length of time that tasks take.

Keyword: Automatisity

So I'd sit down with DS and ask him what are the things he gets caught up on over and over, and make a list, than rank the top three concerns, and look for something that that you can attack.

Example - perhaps getting out to school in the morning is a problem. The rate of neuron flow might be the same, but having a well oiled set of habits is so much more powerful than that. So brainstorm a list of possible 'habits' that might become automatic and speed up the process. At our house this meant buying more pairs of his favorite style of pants and shirts so that he can set out entire sets of clothing on Sunday for Monday through Friday. I used something like this -
http://www.amazon.com/Household-Ess...ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337296598&sr=8-2

Make sense?

This is the kind of kid who might really want to work at memorizing those times tables in Math, or perhaps he can get accomidation to use a written out table of all Math facts in the classroom so he can continue to learn the content.

I've seen plenty of kids with WM/PRI gaps like this and PS/PRI gaps like this. Having both is a pain in the rear end, but still clearly overcomable. What 'worries' me more is the gap between Verbal and PRI. Clearly anyone with a PRI in the strongly gifted range with 114 Verbal is going to be frustrated in school, where the Verbal skill are worshiped.

It may be that his Verbal type skills are fine and his WM and PSI difficulties blocked him from expressing it to this particular tester on that particular day. Anyway,I'd want to be sure to spend as much time enriching the PRI strength as working on the other challenges.

If you wanna share his top 3 irritations, we can help brainstorm systems and habits.

If you wanna share his PRI related interests, we can help brainstorm possible enrichment activities.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thank you for all your replies I am really greatful that you took the time to reply.
It confirms the thought I had that it is something that is fixed and cannot really be changed as such.
It could certainly turn out to be a 2e issue but the psychologist said to continue to watch over the next couple of years and if it gets worse to come in for a complete neuropsych eval she said a PSI of 100 is considered normal for boys his age.

Cricket2 I appreciate an honest response so no fear of being a voice of negativity. I have suspected the same which is why I posed the question.I am very glad to hear your daughter is thriving. DS is apparently doing fine in school too except for needing reminders to complete his work. He "Exceeds expectations" for most subjects as per his report card. But he hates school these days. I guess we are lucky that he is a people pleaser and tries to please his teacher tho home is a different matter. Would you mind sharing what are the strategies you use with your DD?

Grinity, those are some very good ideas which I wil be sure to borrow. DS struggles with his daily routine too. I had dismissed them as laziness before.
Everything from getting up on time to getting to the bus stop needs me pushing him. As you suggested I need to get a schedule down and enforce it everyday.
Its funny how you mentioned the multiplication tables - he had a hard time memorizing them but managed to clear the 3rd grade requirement this year.
As for the VCI - The psychologist specifically made it a point to showe me why his Verbal score was low. There is a section where the child is supposed to describe a picture in writing and ofcourse as I expected DS choose to write the least amount of words required.There were 3 blank lines for each picture and he hardly filled one line. He does the samething at school.His teacher has to ask him to redo it then he does a good job. I am not sure if its him just being lazy and trying to skate by with the least amount of work.
Another thing is that English is not our first language so though we speak English at home now our vocabulary is not as good as native english speakers. I mean we tend to use simple english words at home. Maybe these factor affected the score or maybe not. Also he qualified for the School Gifted Reading program based on his ITBS scores.
His top three irritations I would say are
1> Taking a lot of time to complete tasks. For example He knows he has to get to the bus stop at 8 but he will still take his own sweet time to sip on his milk or read a book even if its 7:55. I have to yell at him to hurry up. But I have to say he can be quick when he wants to - on field trip day last week he was ready at 7:30 ;-) so I guess he needs motivation.
2> He says school is boring.Everything about school is "stupid"(his favorite word) these days. Last month he begged me to homeschool him. Suprisingly he doesnt consider math as his favorite subject. I am talking to a math tutor who is a math professor and works with gifted kids. He is a gifted person too and he said he was slow himself so he understands DS. Hopefully DS will like him when he meets him next week. This might give him the enrichment he needs and bring back the love of learning.
We are also switching him to a new school that promises to focus on STEM. He is excited about that since they have clubs like Lego FLL. He wasnt too thrilled tho when he learnt that they have 2 periods of math each day.
3> He hates doing anything physical. Tried soccer and hated it. Swimming was fine until his coach moved him to a swim team now he hates it and considers it too hard.I am not sure how to cover this area because he definetly needs the excercise but is not sporty.

He loves building stuff like Legos. He assembles kits that are meant for teenagers in a few hours. He loves doing puzzles does not stop until he is done with it. Currently he is building a train set meant for age 14+. And ofcourse video games which he can play for hours if I let him.
Thank you for all your help.

I think whether or not processing speed can potentially change may be related to why it's what it is to begin with - i.e., my ds12 has a fine motor disability and his processing speed is significantly lower than his other scores. Based on what we know about the neurological nature of his disability, I expect it will stay where it is. My dd10, otoh, had one extremely low processing speed score when she seven, and we learned that it was due to a visual challenge which was correctable with vision therapy. We haven't had a reason to have her take another IQ test, but if she did I suspect her processing speed score would increase quite a bit.

I have heard (and been told by our neuropsych) that working memory is a score that can increase, and we've seen that happen with our ds12, without using any wm-targeted program. Our neuropsych says it's not uncommon (in her opinion) to see increases in wm as children get older (the increase for our ds occurred between 8 and 11 years old). We have friends who's school and neuropsych have both recommended CogMed for working memory.


Well - a psi may be "normal" for boys his age, but so would a PRI of 100 be "normal" - a PRI of 135 is definitely an outlier - so instead of looking at a PSI as "normal" it's more useful instead to think of "what is normal for kids who have a PRI of 135" - is it normal for them to mostly have PSIs of 100? Not really.

From what I understand, scatter > 1 SD in subtest scores is *not* "normal". It doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem, but when you see scatter in subtest scores like your ds has - there is the *possibility* of something going on that you might want to look into - doesn't mean for sure it's a 2e issue or that it's any cause for concern, but it certainly might be useful to know what is behind the scatter in scores, which is what you have the potential of learning through a neurospych evaluation. I also think that there's another piece of data that is equally important in this situation - your ds is unhappy at school and he's had feedback that his work is slow. As he moves up in school, the demands on his time and his workload will continue to increase, so if he is being held back by a relatively "low" PSI (relative to his other strengths) at some point it may impact him even more than it is impacting him now.

And, like Grinity, I'd also look into the VIQ vs PRI split. If it was me, I'd ask for a referral to a neuropsych - the neuropsych might agree that there isn't a problem, but otoh if there *is* something behind the discrepancy in subtest scores, you'll be glad you went forward with the neuropsych consult now rather than waiting. The other upside to a neuorpsych evaluation is that you'll (usually) get good advice on what programs you might want to invest $ in or time in to work with your ds and what programs are most likely a waste of time.

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - we were posting at the same time, so I hadn't seen your latest reply when I added mine. FWIW, much of what you wrote about your ds sounds a lot like my ds, who had Developmental Coordination Disorder. Before he had his first neuropsych eval and we knew about the DCD, we attributed a lot of things to lack of effort, being not motivated etc (he too was slow to get out the door in the morning, slow at changing clothes etc). That doesn't mean your ds has DCD - but the things that you mention above are symptoms that are seen as bits and pieces of several different challenges (as well as being just perfectly normal for some very neurotypical kids). The sum of what you've listed though, jmo, is enough to seek out a consult with a neuropsych who can help you sort through everything to see if there is something going on.

We've tried a few things. One, in re to perfectionism, she tends to spend too long on things and has had to learn how to let some things slide when she doesn't have the time. She's in high school now so she can track her grades online. We've talked about the weighting system her teachers use so she knows where to place the most effort and has been willing to not do her absolute best on some projects b/c she has a very high A in the class and can afford to get a lesser grade. I've helped her figure out the lowest grade she can get on a given project and still keep an A with a little cushion. She's learned to let go some.

In regard to working at her fastest rate: She's checked with teachers as to how long assignments are supposed to take and then timed herself to see if she can get them done in that time. She's tried working as fast as she can and seeing how much she can get done in x minutes and then using that to estimate how long the whole assignment is likely to take.

She also tends to be distracted by noise. This isn't as bad as it was when she was younger, but even today she said that she got thrown a bit on a computerized French test b/c the girl next to her kept talking while she was trying to think. She hit "enter" too soon on a few parts and missed questions that she said she knew after hitting the enter key (she couldn't go back). We've tried to keep her working in her room where it is quieter if she needs to concentrate and she had a 504 plan earlier in elementary which included quiet testing environment and seating away from noisy objects like the heater and pencil sharpener.

Basically, we've tried to make the environment as conducive to success as possible, she's learned to do a good enough job at times and let go on perfection, and she sometimes pushes herself to work as fast as she can, but it still honestly isn't even close to as fast as someone with fast processing speed.

My son did a program through school called Fast Forward (maybe 4word??) It is considered a program to improve reading skills for most kids, but was done specifically to target processing speed and working memory skills for my son, who had a significant difference in his processing speed and PRI scores - similar to you child's. This is a brain training program, may be similar to the one recommended to you. I have noticed a great difference in his timed test math skills and his focus on completing some tasks. He was diagnosed 2e (pervasive developmental disorder) by a neuropsychologist in part based on IQ scores similar to your child's.

Thanks Polarbear! This is an excellent point. Another example that comes to mind is the child with excellent processing speed in life, who has a lot of perfectionist behaviors and gets a low score because they are trying to do the task perfectly. Or even a child with a good work ethic who has trained themself that 'slow and steady beats fast and sloppy' - who wouldn't want a child to learn that?

When I was a kid, the adults used to shake their heads on a regular basis and say 'slow as molasses in January' becuase that was the behavior that they saw. My processing speed is actually quite fast and one of the ways I compensate, but the overall picture of me as a kid was slow-slow-slow - a daydreamer, space cadet, etc. It turns out that there is so much ADHD-I (inattentive) in my family that it looks like normal to me, so it's possible I would have been diagnosed if I had been born more recently. What slowed me down in day to day life was my 'bottleneck' (not a true disability, just a place where my racecar brain had only tricycle wheels to ride on i.e. average for an average person, but a true PIA for me)
with Working Memory. Getting dressed, teeth brushed and fed in the morning is a great example of a complicated task with lots of little parts to juggle,track, and monitor. I recently took 20 minutes off of my 'get up and go to work' routine by not allowing me to leave bedroom/bathroom area until I was 100% complete in there,and not going back unless absolutely essential, and then moving through the house in similar fashion. What was I doing for those extra 20 minutes? I have no memory, but apparently a whole houseful of temptation is too much for me when I'm half asleep. Writing is perhaps the paramount of WM challenge - it involves supporting one's body in the chair, positioning the arms, hands, paper, pencil, thinking what to say, forming the letters, evaluating if the letters are being produced clearly enough, managing the spaces between words and the margins, Captiolisation and punctuation, spelling, subject/verb argeement, keeping on the main point of what one wants to say, oh yeah - what do I want to say? and what does the teacher want me to want to say?

So there is one example where a lot of slow behavior comes out of bottlenecked WM even for someone with plenty of Processing Speed.

(You might wonder why I think I have lightening fast PS even though I've never seen any of my test results. I sort of know because when I go to a movie, I laugh about 10 seconds before the rest of the crowd gets started. It also helps with reading between the lines to pick up on little things that are not directly stated.)

I'll type more soon, in the meanwhile, I've introduced the concept of 'bottleneck' which is a great concept to have when your kid has a profile like yours, also what WM is and how that can contribute to slowness, also I've surfaced the idea of what it's like to be bright with ADHD-I, (in my mind if the WM is 2 standard deviations behind the strongest other area, and can't be explained by any other reason, then that is 'by definition' ADHD-I, but I'm not a professional or a researcher, just a mom. In 20 years we'll look back and be amazed, or laugh)and the idea that challenges and strengths tend to group by family, and so looks both less impressive and less alarming to the parent who has a 'whole bunch more just like this one back in their childhood.'

Please ask about any questions that come to mind while reading this!

Grinity

This is interesting to me, because as far as I know, there isn't any subtest in Verbal that requires a pencil. I'm most familiar with the U.S. version of the test. I know that there is some variation between different versions. Can anyone help me out here, without giving away specific test items, of course.

Rachsr - would you be willing to post the subtests that make up the Verbal portion? I've mightly curious what the names of the subsections are, and how much spread there is in there. I'm trying to figure out if your kid is 'nicely gifted' or 'super gifted' - which we call LOG here - level of giftedness. It mostly matters in being impressed at how much of a people please he would have to be to be obedient in school. How hard is he working to deal with faking an interest in academic material well below his 'readiness to learn' level? He sounds like a good natured kid, but I don't ever trust that to last indefinitly. I'm so glad to hear that he is going to a new school next year that has double Math and Lego Robotics!!!!

BTW - it doesn't suprise me at all that he doesn't like Math, as presented in school. My son hated math in 4th grade, and progressed to 'slighly positive' once he hit the middle sschool honors classes + a grade skip. (He's quite unusually high LOG, but your son might be exactly the same, actually) It wasn't until he got to work at his own level and really see Math in it's glory this year in PreCalc that he fell in love. And it's so sweet to watch.

Smiles,
Grinity

Are you in my head? lol. I need to make up that rule for myself in the morning. A whole houseful of temptation--so true!

You know I think this explains some about myself, but even more so about my brother, and my grandfather (both called slow as molasses frequently). That maybe it isn't a processing speed issue but an adhd inattentive thing. I know my dd11 gets frustrated when I don't answer her right away--I have been telling her to be patient with my slow processing speed but actually it is probably more being distracted.

Interesting thoughts here.

I'm happy for you to borrow the ideas, but I mostly want you to borrow the process and bring him into the process, if he is mature enough to be interested. My son is living away at boarding school, and he has been been doing the daily problem solving that I carved into him to create his own solutions for the last 2 years. Recently he was getting out of the car and said, causally, "I make it a policy to always carry a writing impliment." I grinned and grabbed my pen from the 'car pen spot' and held it up in salute.

That's what builds automatisity - good habits. One needs the frame of mind to search for which good habits suit one, and be ready to keep modifying the habits until they work.


Actually, I am hoping that you will be his consultant, to help him brainstorm a schedule, brainstorm a reward system, and help him monitor if and where it needs tweaking. If he melts down emotionally at this, them perhaps you need to do it for him, but he may be mature enough to find this to be an interesting project, which is why I'm suggesting you find out what bothers HIM the most.

I wanted to pull these quotes out to show you that he IS being affected by his bottlenecks. If you think he is lazy, unmotivated, skating by, then most teachers are probably thinking the same thing. If you are yelling at him every simgle morning, isn't it likely that he is internalizing a self image of himself as 'babyish' or 'unable to do things right?'

I am not suggesting that you are doing anything other than what I have done, blamed my child for not doing as good as his best day, on his normal days. That is the halmark of many 2E kids.

To put it another way. Suppose that you had to go through each day with a 20 pound weight strapped to your head. Wouldn't you try to 'skate away with the least possible effort?' Wouldn't you struggle to keep doing what you percieve that other people in your role who don't have 20 pound weights strapped to their heads do. Wouldn't you judge yourself by what the others were able to accomplish? And what if you were preparing a wonderful fancy dinner for a favorite family member, and you somehow managed to do it, because you were so very motivated, wouldn't you reproach yourself even more the next day when you returned to your struggle to do the ordinary things? How would you feel about those looks you got from the family member who is thinking, "If he or she can cook such a beautiful meal for my birthday dinner, why is tonight's meal so minimal and plain? He or she must not be trying today."

This can be very hard to hear, and I do want you to set standards for your son. But my Husband and I would have discussion after discussion trying to understand why our son seemed able to behave perfectly on one day (particularly if that day had special learning in it) and then behave dreadfully on the next day.

What I am hoping you will do is to adopt a 'value-free' vocabulary to refer to your son's challenges. His level of motivation may be high, but not high enough. His organizational skills may be strong in one area, but weak in getting ready for school. He may be strong in following through if someone else creates the structure, but weak in creating the structure for himself. Perhaps he Daydreams while getting read for school. This might be a weakness while trying to catch a bus, but a strength when he gets to school and there is little for him to learn, but he is motivated to not interrupt the classroom activities so he has to entertain himself.

Sadly, you can't work on everything at the same time. It can be challenging to decide what to do first: Psychoeducational eval, so that if he needs medicine to get that 20 pound rock off his head he gets it? What about Occupational Therapy so that he can learn to be strong in his body? Ride a 2 wheeler? Play kickball and wall ball with the other boys on the playground? Get his mornig routine in order? Drill Handwriting so that writing 3 sentences is easy - or start by drilling the verbal part of thinking of 3 sentences to write? Do you want to start entirely with yourself - organizing the environment so that there is less disraction? Starting a new 'fancy vocabulary word of the week?' (If so, I like the book 'Direct Hits Vocabulary) Getting more excersize so that your child might 'just naturally' want to do movement with you? Having more funtime scheduled so you can be more patient during the unfun times of parenting?

I could never hold all this in my head, so I encourage you to do some journaling and list making and start to figure out what your own prioities are.

More soon -
Grinity

All 3 of my sons went through the gifted program, and when the first one tested, the district director asked for a meeting with me because she had never seen such high scores. She wanted to know how I was teaching him. I told her that I taught him to think 'conceptually', to think about what things really are, not just what they're called.

This conceptual thinking is also what I believe leads to faster processing speed. Processing is the conceptualizing stage of reading. It is when you comprehend the material. It is when the words form ideas and when the ideas become assimilated in your mind.

There is a new site that uses this approach to teach reading effectiveness, www.readspeeder.com. It is free and isn't selling anything. The site looks a little low-budget, and may not be the easiest to understand at first, but it is amazingly effective. I think it's the only place that can display text highlighted into real thought-units.

The basic approach of this method is to concentrate primarily on improving comprehension as a MEANS to improve reading speed. In other words it's primarily about learning to process the ideas more efficiently by learning to focus on ideas versus words.

Now it's time to celebrate all the things you are doing to enrich his strenghts! You are doing a great job here - these are exactly the sorts of things I would suggest for a kid with 135 Perceptual Index score. Yippee!

What I particularly like is that you were willing to let him try those difficult LEGO sets even though the age on the box was clearly well beyond his years! Most parents would be stopped by something like that, but you persevered - Go YOU!


My son enjoyed electronics kits also. And a book http://www.dangerousbookforboys.com/
which might give him some woodworking project that might be a sneaky way to add some physical activity to his life. My son built a wheeled cart that he would drag up the hill and then scoot down on with his friend. Not the sort of activity he would usually be interested in, but because he had built it with his dad, he was.

More soon...

I would ask him to say exactly which tasks are taking a long time to complete. If you can, narrow the tasks down to the top three irritations, and then we (you and him and us) can brainstorm possible interventions and observe (like a Scientist!) which ones work. If he can't narrow it down, try getting him a wrist watch with a chronometer and asking him to keep a journal of common activities and how much time they take to accomplish. (Again, like a Scientist) Another general time saver for kids who hate to write is to teach them to keyboard without looking at the letters. For my son, I switched his schools between 4th and 5th grade, and when I brought him to the private school to be evaluated, I said: "You'll just have to trust me, but DO expect him to show you his true mind unless he is in front of a keyboard. If you want him to write an essay, walk him over to the computer and tell him to GO."

Unfortunately, the keyboarding has to get to an effortless automatisity before it can be a help. But, once the effort is make to get mastery, so many doors open. Do you think I would have been willing to write down all of this by hand and mail it to you and wait 3 weeks for a reponse? Not too likely!

So one possible project for this summer is to learn keyboarding. My son felt 'disrespected' by the 'fun' programs like 'SpongeBob' etc, and did better with Mavis Beacon's program. Find something that your son can enjoy, or at least tolerate, give it 15 minutes a day, (or even 10) and expect it to click in all at once. My son was able to type well at age 10, and it was about the only physical task he excelled at. Once he had the basics down, he got fast by playing Runescape, because the players used typing to 'chat' with each other to trade items and pass along tips. Later, after his gradeskip, his typing saved the day, because he could do all that copious volume of work with less effort and in less time than those older, more stamina kids.

My personal rule has been, if I can invest time and effort now to save time and effort 100x in the future, I'll do it!

As far as irritations #2, I think the tutor/mentor and the new school will do the trick.

#3 - Martial Arts. Do individual lessons with an instructor if you can afford it, especially in the beginning, if he can't handle being with the little kids. We did that to try and save my son's pride, but it really helped by keeping him able to work to his level of strengths and challenges. Another way to go is to get an Pediatric Occupational Therapist involved (especially if your insurance covers it) - part of that slow processing may be interfering with sports being fun. I find the whole physical activity think to be like a vicious or virtuous cycle. It isn't fun to use your body unless you are good at using your body, and you can't get good at using your body unless you do use your body. Another approach is the console video games now have physical components. That provides some fun until the strength and coordination show up. Even 'Guitar Hero' can provide somewhat of a workout (make sure he does it standing up!)

Smiles,
Grinity

You bring up such interesting questions. This is so new to me that I am being bindsided by my ignorance of these issues. I read up about the disorder you DS was diagnosed with and yes I agree it a lot about it seem to match up with my DS.So its worth checking out.
How do I go about getting a referral for a Neuro psych ? Do I talk to his Pediatrician? I am hoping the insurance can cover most or atleast part of it. The testing we got done since it was called "gifted" was not covered by insurance. Thanks for your inputs.

So I need to figure out how best to help him manage his tasks and work to the best of his ability at school. The things you did for your DD gives me a perspective of what I might need to do thanks!

I did find the Fastforward program. Its on my list of things to research upon.Thanks. I am so glad to hear that it helped your child.

Hmm so do you think his processing speed improved with age ?
My DS can be absent minded like leaving behind his lunch box etc.He needs constant reminders right now.
It is good to hear about such a huge positive change. Very happy to read that your child is doing so well :-)

I definitely do think you can improve processing speed with time and practice. The brain is so plastic that it is difficult to imagine that you can't.
My son at age 6 had a roughly 45 point spread between his PSI and other scores. We have done piano, competitive swimming, and lots of flashcards. He has written into his IEP (which is for hearing loss) that he can have extended time on tests, but he has never used it.
Flash forward 3 years- is he the fastest kid? No. It still lags other things. BUT- with alot of work and practice, he can complete timed tests appropriately (OLSAT, STAR test, SCAT for CTY). I do think he will have trouble competing at high level math competitions if speed is an important factor.
so... practice, practice, practice.

My eldest DD's PSI declined from 7.5yrs to 10yrs. On paper. I think at 7 she just did the test as fast as she could and didn't care about neatness etc. Or possibly even accuracy. At 10 she had perfectionism and anxiety in the mix too. She had OT assessments at a similar times as well, and her handwriting improved on all measures (against age peers both times). Which is to say that at 7.5yrs her handwriting was below average in all measures and by 10yrs it was above average for neatness and marginally above average for speed. She's still not fast, but she's not that bad and her writing is very legible and fairly appropriately sized. I personally don't think her actual processing speed is any worse than it was, it might be better, but given that she has ADHD-I I am not going to complain about a low score qualifying her for extra time.

I think that the WISC PSI subtest are very easily skewed by personality and can pick up such a wide range of issues that it is really hard to pinpoint whether it really means anything real, and if so what. Is it anxiety? If so is the child usually anxious or only about this test? Or most tests, but not school work? Is there a vision problem, a co-ordination problem, an attention problem, an actual physical problem with handwriting? You don't get any of those answers from the WISC, only a hint that you need to investigate something.

My 2nd DD is actually quite co-ordinated, has good sensory integration and is reasonably attentive, but physically cannot hold a pencil well without a custom brace and special pencil grips, this might be why her PSI score was 50th percetile, but she also just plain refused to finish the test and got a perfectly average score in half the available time, which the tester would not have mentioned on the report had I not brought it up. The tester seemed to assume that this was all DD could figure out - hello, she did each item perfectly twice, she feels she has proved mastery, she's not unable to figure out what to do, you didn't emphasise that it's a race, or that she has to do as much as she possibly can, you only told her what goes where, she's shown you that she understood the instructions, it's a really boring test and her hand hurts so she's done.... She's also not a fast kid, but I don't think the PSI score she has tells us anything real at this point in time...

The child you are describing here though is a child that sounds like they need a full neurospsych evaluation to me.

Also - I could be wrong but I believe that by your child's age the PRI subtests are timed - which means that if whatever caused the lower PSI was also at work during the PRI tests then their actual visual spatial reasoning ability is quite likely underestimated by that 135.

Thanks Grinity for writing up such a treasure trove of information. I dont think DS is a perfectionist but he is definetly is the slow and steady type.

This is such a beautiful anology.
I hadnt thought of this maybe a timer for each task will help him. I should try it tomorrow.
This reminded me that DS has a great sense of humour. He loves comedies and laughs his head off during movies that he drowns out the next bit of conversation that follows. His creative writing assignments at school have all been funny - juvenile humor nothing subtle ;-)


Thanks Grinity - thank you for being so helpful. I will pursue the route of getting an eval from a neuro psychologist.

Glad to hear it - hopefully nothing will show up, but so worth knowing.

Your Pedi is a good place to start. Best Wishes,
Grinity

We were referred to our neuropscyh by our pediatrician, and our insurance did cover most of the cost (not all insurance policies do - but there is a chance it might!). What I would tell your ped is this:

"He has been frustrated with school work this year and has had complaints that he takes too long to complete his work."

Show the ped the testing you have, and the discrepancies, and explain that since your ds was being tested for gifted only, the psych doing the testing didn't have any explanations for you re the discrepancies, and that since the testing you've researched and found that those discrepancies may be playing a part in your ds' frustration with schoolwork.

Also let your ped know about any other concerns such as lack of organization in daily life or delays in motor skills or anything else you can think of. BUT - don't worry about over thinking how to convince your ped - just letting him know that your ds is frustrated with schoolwork combined with the score discrepancies is enough to warrant a neuropsych referral.

polarbear

First I have to apologize for bailing out on this discussion - we had guests who were staying with us for a few days and it got hectic.
Coming back to your post,
The test she showed me must have been the WJ III Nu then (DS was given WSIC IV and WJ III). I have yet to educate myself on the different tests so I must have confused both of them since we were going back and forth between the tests at the end of the session.Sorry for the confusion.So he maybe at a happy place in LA/Reading at school. I havent heard him complain about Reading much ;-)

Here are his WSIC subscores
VCI
Similarity 13
Vocabulary 13
Comprehension 12

PRI
Blockdesign 14
Picture Concepts 15
Matrix reasoning 18

WMI
Digit Span 13
Letter Number Sequencing 11

PSI
Coding 8
Symbol Search 12

It would certainly be sweet to see him get his love of learning back - I look forward to that day!

Those look like comfortably MG scores to me with the two outliers being the 8 and the 18. Two scores that fall outside the range of typical aren't major cause for concern, though. Speed doesn't appear to have impacted him on block design terribly either although I would leave room for the assumption that the block design test is a bit of a low ball for him.

I'd venture to guess, based on the PSI subtests, that visual scanning isn't so much of a problem for him as is the physical act of writing. If a 2e issue is at play, I'd be more inclined to investigate dysgraphia than visual problems.

You are echoing my thoughts here. When I wrote about yelling at him in the morning to hurry up I had also written that now I feel terrible for having done that. I deleted that line thinking I need to focus on him and not my feelings here. Thank you so much for bringing it up. Yes Now I realize I havent been helping him at all. All this is new to me so I have a lot of learning to do. I grew up in an environment that was totally oblivious to such issues. Either you did well at school or you didnt and were labelled stupid or asked to work harder to catch up. I heard about things like dyslexia for the first time when I came here to the USA. I am trying to change my ways and educate myself on this. Last weekend DS did a double take and looked at me strangely when I sympathised with him about something. He seems to realize I am on his team now. keeping my fingers crossed :-)

Another great anology for me to remember.


Yes I am rather overwhelmed with all the information that is out there and more so with looking at Ds's actions in a new light.
Baby steps for now. Thankfully school will be done in a few weeks so we will have time to ourselves and one struggle less.

Very interesting. I will be sure to look into it. Thanks

I am planning to get an appointment with his Pediatrician soon for a referral. Hopefully we can get some answers.

Thanks for the tips polarbear. You read my mind and answered the questions I had about talking to the ped. :-)

great I hope that is all it is :-)
Would you mind explaining the last bit?

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, though, in that my kids' scores within tests like PRI and VCI looked more like 8, 19, 17 so I've got a bit of skewed concept of what looks "okay" . None the less, the last psych we saw re dd11 had some expertise in gifted kids and felt that "typical" MG scores tended to cluster around 13-14 for the most part with a few outliers being "normal."
Sure. Block design is the one timed test on the PRI index. You get bonus points for completing the designs quickly. If he has motor issues such as dysgraphia, it could have impacted how quickly he put the blocks together so it could be a low ball estimate.

I'd look at it one of two ways:

Either the 14 on block design is about accurate for him and, again, indicative of a MG child. It lines up with the 15 in the PRI index and close enough to the 13s in the VCI.

-Or-

The 15 was the outlier of a low score on PRI and the 14 on block design is inaccurately low due to fine motor skill issues and should actually have been closer to that 18.

FWIW, my one dd with slower processing speed had an 8 on block design and something like an 8 and a 10 or two 9s or something around there on the PSI index. Her other two PRI scores were, if I recall correctly, 17 and a 19 that would have gone up to around a 23 with extended norms. That made it evident that the block design clearly didn't fall in line with her other PRI scores (or her VCI scores for that matter) and was definitely impacted by something related to speed.

In your ds' instance, it could go either way.

rachsr, the Block design subtest is timed (most WISC subtests aren't, except Block Design and the Processing Speed subtests). So for a child with potentially relatively low processing speed (coding score) the Block Design score might also be impacted. OTOH that depends on why Coding is low - my dd's low score is Coding, but he hit the ceiling on Block Design. Coding requires a child to make marks with a pencil, Block Design requires the child to manipulate blocks to repeat a pattern - so in my ds' case, the low Coding score is due to a fine motor disability that impacts his ability to produce handwriting, but doesn't impact his ability to do other tasks with his hands such as moving blocks around.

Note: I'm relying on my memory re what the tests include - so my apologies if I've remembered them incorrectly in any way!

polarbear

eta - I was posting at the same time as Cricket - who explained it much more clearly!

Nah, I was going to say the same about you! It is actually interesting to hear that fine motor delays didn't impact the block design test for your ds. That adds another interesting bit of info .

It's a bit of a mind-blow to blink and have the whole world transform in that moment. I recommend chocolate or favorite reward of choice.

Babysteps is absolutely the way to go! Keep us posted
Grinity

Thanks Polarbear and Cricket2 - twice the explanation is always good for me :-)

Grinity - pool time and video games should work as reward for DS. Oh well let us see where this journey takes us:-)
Thanks everyone for all the helpful information posted. I am so glad I posted my query here.

The chocolate is for you dear! As the airlines say...put on your own oxygen mask first.

If you've been using rewards all along then I love the book 'Dont shoot the Dog'

but if your son isn't used to them, then I would recommend reading my very favorite parenting book before you start them...'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo. (Yup the workbook covers the book fully and more concisely) They use reward systems very effectively but with a few twists.

Smiles
Grinity

ROFL I would love that. I got the books on Amazon today. Thanks Grinity

Just wanted to give an update since you were so helpful to us.
We got DS9 talk to another psychologist and after a couple of sessions was diagnosed with mild ADHD Inattentive type along with anxiety issues. He said this was amplified by lack of interest or anxiety.
He did not recommend medications at this time. His fine motor skills was average nothing to worry about. They did a lot of different tests for the processing speed and the diagnosis was that it was low average. The Dr. Said the results were skewed because of Ds refusing to take risks to answer questions - meaning he would answer only if he was sure of the answer. So most of the questions he answered were right but he answered too few I the given amount of time.

So I am not sure if this testing gave us any new perspective but at least it ruled out any other disorders. DS is currently in a new school seems happy except in Math which he says is a repetition of what he knows. Likes working with his math tutor twice a week. Loving martial arts and got into the Lego FLL club at school. So far 3 weeks into school has been good.