Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Some Help Please with WISC scores

I am hoping someone can help me. My son is 6 years old, in Kindergarten and having some trouble in school.

Some Background:
He has hypotonia and thus, physically, he has a great deal of trouble with fine motor tasks, writing, and sitting at a chair or even in criss-cross applesauce for any length of time. The ignorance on the part of the teacher and assistant to his having hypotonia and the symptoms and effects of it despite there being a 504 plan in place accounts for the some of the behavor issues.

He is displaying OCD tendencies, imo, and he tends to argue. For example, he argues about the reading books being "boring" and doesn't want to do writing exercises because he doesn't agree with what the sentence says - eg, one sentence said something like "We are so happy spring is here" and he refused to to write that exact sentence because he hates spring because he gets so sick from the tree and grass pollen. He wanted to write his own sentence (saying he hates that spring is here). Also, he HATES writing because it is physically hard for him so that is an issue, too. He also refuses to sing patriotic songs or say the pledge because he feels these things, and I quote, "make him pledge to something he has not made up his mind about yet. I can't pledge to something unless I am sure about it." I SWEAR to you all he does not get this from us - we are a noraml American family LOL!!!

He had terrible with issues with a para-professional who refused to let him choose his reading books or color of marker (along the lines of OCD he insists on using certin marker colors like red and refuses blue) - she would say "you get what you get and you don't get upset" which absolutely infuriates him and he feels this "dismisses him" and "treats him disrespectfully and like a baby". She also shamed him for his poor fine motor skills (!!!) and he never trusted her again. I actually had to intervene and get him switched to another para-professional as he was literally deterioring with anxety and stress b/c of her. Once switched things were so much better and he began to excel again.

Anyway, I have suspected he's gifted for a long time and I am thinking that has something to do with his issues. I also think he has some sort of OCD or something along those lines. He is really, really articulate and smart. People are amazed by him. He is extremely creative - always writing books (that I have to type), etc.

WISC IV test scores
So, anyway, he was given the WISC IV test and I find his scores disturbing to say the least. Can someone help perhaps? Here they are:

There is a 44pt discreptancy between his verbal and processing speed skills. He demonstated Borderline visuospatial reasoning - he simply could not do bloc design. He kept inverting and struggled. At one point he asked if he could stand next to the examiner to see it form her perspective to complete it (which she would not let him do) Also note that he scored borderline in processing speed, which I realize is partly due to the hypontia. And He socred really low in Symbol search.

I have no experience with these test or scores or anything in this field. but I really feel like something is very wrong, like a learning disability, for there to be such a discrepency. I also think that his GAI (while superior nonethless would be incredibly high if the issue/disability whatever is would be addressed.

Does anyone here have any idea what this looks like in terms or what it could indicate? The psychologist basically gave me some mumbo-jumbo that she is suspecting PDD-NOS and that's why these score are the way they are. I say that is crap! He has been exremely verbal since he was 2 - he has ALWAYS spoke well and very articulate, he carries on many conversations - he is adpet at conversation and has been for years. He does NOT have ANY of the social interaction issues of the spectrum at all. He was given the KRUGs index and he scored 7 across the board (the cut-off is 15 for aspergers).

Am I crazy?

You could schedule a phone consultation with a professional knowledgable in gifted twice exceptional because they might have answers that make more sense.  If you think there is giftedness and a learning disability then a tester not experienced with giftedness might miss that, from what I've been reading online.  Many testers are used to testing for learning disabilities and if they're not familiar with what giftedness masking disability looks like they might not recognize it when they see it.   I found this list on hoagies, but I didn't see Dr Amand, Aimee Yermish, or the Denver Gifted Development Center which are the names I've seen mentioned that provide phone consultations.

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/professionals.htm

http://www.amendpsych.com/

http://m.facebook.com/pages/da-Vinci-Learning-Center/89199593047?id=89199593047&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch&_rdr

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/




If you want a little understanding I'll say that my kid also likes to argue. And interrupt-really trying to work on interrupting if someone's on the phone.  I don't think he would have survived the "children should be seen and not heard" generation.  Maybe it's all in the upbringing.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I'm stubborn and my husband's persistent, so my husband says.  I like how he tries to call mine stubbornness and his own he calls persistence.  Nice.
http://www.figarospeech.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/

I can't helP you figure out the test scores or the IEP, but maybe someone else here can.

I'd probably expect to see a much lower comprehension score in a child with PDD-NOS or asperger's in that it is testing understanding of appropriate social responses and norms. Other than the low PSI index and block design, both of which can be explained by his hypotonia, honestly his scores look to me like a bright child and not necessarily indicative of anything terribly askew.

If we assume that those three low scores would have been more in line with his other scores were it not for that disability, he'd have FSIQ right in line with his GAI (low 120s), which is a kid in the top 10%.

I know that it varies from place to place as to what gifted programs serve, but I'd say that a kid in the top 10% is often a high achieving student who does well in GT classes, but who does not need extreme interventions such as grade skipping, for instance.

I wouldn't be surprised if your son is not treated as a top student or offered enrichment such as GT pull-outs due to his disability holding him back from performing the way others with his ability may. I wouldn't be overall concerned with the WISC or WIAT scores and they do line up pretty well with one another. I'd be more concerned with finding a way to get the school to accommodate his physical weaknesses such that he can participate in appropriately challenging classes.

Hi,
I would second LaTexican and encourage you to seek out an expert on gifted and twice-exceptional kids, especially if you really feel the scores are not representative of your son's abilities. We had an evaluation this year from an uninformed local psychologist who didn't understand giftedness at all and it was pretty much a disaster from which we are still trying to recover. (Also had a teacher who didn't like DD8 at all, which was the cause of the disaster--hooray, only 3 more days of school!). So we got tentative diagnoses of ADHD, Asperger's, ODD, and dysgraphia--based almost entirely on questionnaires filled out by the antagonistic teacher. Based on James Webb's Misdiagnosis of Gifted Kids book, I don't believe those are correct, but there are definitely issues that we are still trying to sort out. Even if the specialist confirms the test scores you already have, it might go a long way toward putting your mind at ease that you know what is going on with your kid and that you're doing everything you can to help the school address his needs.

Good luck!

(P.S. thanks very much for that link to the arguing article, LaTexican--it explained things very well! We're going to practice today!)

Like Cricket, I also wouldn't be concerned with the WISC/WIAT test results, as they seem to line up pretty well with each other, and the lows on the WISC are most likely due to your ds' hypotonia. The one thing I might wonder about is vision, only from your description of your ds looking at the blocks in block design from an odd angle. My gut feeling at first was that hypotonia prevented him from doing well on that test (in block design a child has to manipulate blocks to replicate a design, and it's a timed test)... but getting up and looking at it from an odd perspective *might* have something to do with vision.

On achievement tests (WIAT) any subtest that is labelled "fluency" is usually timed, so again your ds' hypotonia most likely impacted his academic writing fluency subtest.

The GAI is calculated from PRI + VIQ - working memory and processing speed subtests are not included. The PRI and VIQ subtest scores are all very close in range (and very strong). I am not an expert, but I don't see anything that would impact the GAI. His FSIQ will be lower due to the WM and PSI scores, but most gifted programs we've looked into accept GAI in place of FSIQ.

As Cricket said, you'll most likely have to advocate at school to be sure your ds isn't held back due to the challenges of his hypotonia and possible OCD. While his WISC scores aren't stratospherically high, they are VERY strong and having the weaker scores in WM and PSI is *very* much expected due to hypotonia, so really I see what you have is strong - it shows strong ability, the scores are consistent and they make sense. Being able to show that scores make sense and support what you see in your child helps a lot when advocating.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Looks like you have a very special and bright little boy on your hands. My son is a 2E child and has dysgraphia. I would see if your school system would test him for LD. They should just based on the huge difference in scores. Writing is only going to get harder as time goes by and he will need at the very least a 504 plan in place. I am going through a bit of the same thing with my son. His problem is he compensates so well because he is so smart. They don't think he needs help. Lucky for us by the end of last year his teacher was seeing he wasn't getting any better at writing so next year we should be good to go. Keep on them and don't give up. I know it gets tiring but that is the only way to get results!

Thank you all for your insights and advice! It is so very much appreciated.

I met with my son's OT since my original post(and his teacher and principal and school counselor re his 504 for his hypotonia) . The OT was with me on the LD - she brought up gently how he is inverting letters and numbers A LOT. Of course a certain amount of that is still normal but he is doing it much more than his peers and doesn't seem to be getting better. I had noticed that as well and was very open to hearing her suspicions. (finally validation!) And she and I were chatting away about it. I shared the WISC eval and report and she also thinks it is well worth looking into LD and/or a visuo-spatial disorder (and possibily eye therapy to help with that). She wasn't convinced, of course, that he has an LD but she can see why there I am concerned and she is concerned too. She thinks it's more likely a visual motor integration issue that may be addressed with some vision tehrapy (though she warned me if I mention vision therapy to a psychologist as the psych will very likely 'pooh-pooh' it. LOL. I had already had that happen and was confused by it so now I know!

I made an appt with the Eye Institute for the visuo-spatial/visual-motor integration eval and I also made an appt with a neuropsychologist to further look into whether the has a Learnign Disability - potenitally dysgraphia (I suspect spatial dysgraphia). I am not sure how great the neurpsych is - I picked her based on the fact that she accepts my insurance. She supposedly specializes in LD and gifted issues but we'll see. I have the consult tomorrow so I'll try to get a better feel for her and now, with the posts here, I have a little more insight and more questions for her to help me. I just want either confirm or rule out an LD, ykim?

Incidently, re the the block design, my husband bought some block design type game on amazon - just on a whim as a he was looking to see what the block design test is and what I was talking about (he was not at the testing). He came across the game and bought it and it arrived yesterday. He took it out and played with it with both sons. The one at issue here, Ben, again at first didn't understand what he was suppose to do but then once explained he started doing it - and getting better and better at it. Granted, they were just playing around and it's not like I have a copy of the WISC test to replicate the exact designs, ect...plus we weren't timing or anything. But he seemed to catch on and get noticeably, progressively better at it. So, now, husband suspects that Ben (son at issue) just didn't undertsand the what he was suppose to do (and was nervous) and that with a little experience with the game he'll be fine on that part of the test in the future. I don't know. Ben did mention to me that he had trouble hearing the tester (this was after the test <eye roll> when I asked why he said he didn't know the meanng of some words I KNEW he knew. He said "oh, I had trouble hearing her at times, she spoke too low sometimes).

Incidentally, my 3 year old son was a wiz at the block design game and very attracted to it (he also loves puzzles, which DS has never cared for) - kept playing it by himself after the other one went off to read. Three year old was replicating the designs shown on the instructions all by himself. I thought it was funny how their strengths are so different. DS is strong with vocab and language and his three year old brother seems to love visuo-spatial challenges - loves puzzles, loved the block design, etc.

Anyway, I am not convinced there is an LD and I certainly don't WANT him to have one BUT I didn't want it missed and not addressed and accomodated for if he does have one Yk?

Also, does anyone have any suggestions how I could better advocate for his hypotonia disability? He does get weekly OT at school and I am thinking of adding some weekly private OT. But what else could I be doing for the hypotonia in terms of accomodatiosn at achool and during testing, does anyone know? I have a 504 plan for him but I just don't know what to push for other than understanding and OT...

Thanks for the update marytheres - it sounds like you are doing what you need to do for your ds and you'll be getting more good info to help understand his strengths and challenges

Re the mention of vision therapy - a lot of people pooh-pooh it, but you'll also find a lot of people (in perhaps unexpected places!) who don't. It made a *world* of difference for our dd - but when we told her school we'd be taking her out of class one day a week for two hours (over lunch, recess and quiet reading time!) her teacher was soooo so adamant that we were making a huge mistake and that there was nothing "wrong" with her vision! By coincidence, our librarian happened to overhear my discussion with her teacher and piped in that *she'd* had vision therapy for convergence issues when she'd turned 40 and it had been very effective for her. To be honest, when it was first suggested to us by our dd's neuropsych I thought it sounded like hocus-pocus but I asked around and heard from another mom who's dd had struggled with reading until she'd had VT. The *last* person I thought would recommend it was our regular eye dr, but she too said it works well for kids who's issues are caused by muscle weakness in the eyes and that the types of vision issues that are caught in a VT assessment are challenges that she would never have seen in her regular type of eye exam. So we took a leap and went forward with VT and are forever happy that we did so.

Re suggestions for what to put into your ds' 504 plan to address the hypotonia, could you let us know what's in his plan now re accommodations for classwork and accommodations? And where does his hyptonia impact him? Re handwriting, our ds with dysgraphia has accommodations allowing him to use a "word processor" for all written assignments ("wp" is our school district's code for computer/alphasmart/etc), and has an accommodation stating that he is allowed to answer with oral responses for all fluency tests (math facts drills etc). He has extended time on all classroom testing and state testing, and he takes state (standardized) testing in a "quiet" room - basically a room where all the kids with accomodations test, so it's less kids than the regular classroom and the proctor is prepared to handle accommodations. He has challenges with copying written work so he's allowed to write his answers in the test booklet on state tests and he's allowed to use a "word processor" with spell-check turned off for questions requiring more than one sentence response on state testing.

I can't remember the rest of the specifics of his accommodations, but I'm going to look them up later this week for another mom, so I'll try to remember to post them for you too. He also has accommodations that he uses that aren't specifically outlined in his IEP (we switched him to private school this year when the struggle to get his accommodations and intellectually challenging classwork in public school just weren't working out, and we haven't fought for anything to be added to the IEP since then since his current school is willing to allow him to use his technology without any fighting). Things that you might want to think about are scanning in worksheets, access to printer, how to turn in assignments that are completed on the computer (our ds used to use a thumbdrive to transfer the files to his teacher in his elementary school; in middle school he either prints the assignments or emails them to his teachers).

Pushing for understanding is probably the thing that's most important - it's certainly been our largest challenge over the years! Once a teacher really understands, they often come up with great suggestions and ideas too.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - one last thing that made me think of my dd who went through VT - the mention of puzzles; she never liked puzzles when she was little.

"So we took a leap and went forward with VT and are forever happy that we did so."

Yes, I am anxious to get him tested for this. I'd rather it be this than an LD, I think! The OT leans more towards him needing vision therapy than him having a LD (and she's been working with him weekly for the school year). Appointment is on the 18th, and anxious for it to come. How much therapy did your daughter need, Polarbear?


Re his hypotonia, his hypotinia affects his ability to sit still (he is very uncomfortable sitting at a table for any length of time, etc) but I am told that has improved significantly over the year. His hypotnia affects his writing the most. He, of course, hates to write and do worksheets as they combine the two things most uncomfortable for him - sitting at a table and writing! He tries to avoid it (and admitted this right to me with no hesitation) by wandering around the classroom and looking "to get in some walking time". This is consistent with what his teacher reports... that Ben is hard "to get on task and needs prompting (sometimes significant) to do worksheets and writing even though he knows the answers and has no trouble with the actual work once he gets to it." So , once he is there he has no problem with the answers but it is getting him there (overcoming Ben's avoidance, I guess) and sometimes keeping him there (he fatigues) that is a challenge. They warn me this will be a problem in first grade. I think they they think it's something to do with his attention, etc ... Most of the time school people don't realize that it's most likely more a physical thing than an ADHD or ASD thing (not that he has those diagnoses but I feel like people kind of hint at it). I know him well and he trusts me enough to tell me the truth and he says the truth is that he hates sitting and writing. he knows the answers but sitting at a chair and writing is "boring" and "uncomfortable" and he hates it.

BUt his plan now doesn't have anything addressing this issue (b/c I don't know what to ask for, I think!) I'd love him to be able to take tests orally, etc... but will that only feed his diability? I don't know. Will the school balk? I don't know. I'd like to try if that is the right things to do. All his plan now provides is OT weekly, a special cusion for sitting and that's it. I think it needs more but am lost as to what to ask for, what is reasonable to ask for, and what he needs.


What can I add? I'd love some help!!!

Mary, my dd's vision therapy lasted a little bit longer than one year. We were given a plan at the start from the dr which spelled out what would be accomplished and how long it should take (the original estimate was 6-9 months). Our dd made huge gains during the first three months; I could see her ability to track (eyes together) improve within just the first few sessions and by the end of three months she was doing sooo so much better with tracking and that's when her reading ability really took off. She continued to make progress for another few months but by the end of the year she was no longer making much progress and started to refuse to do her exercises, so we all (myself, dd, her therapist, her eye dr) mutually agreed it was time to stop. Her challenges in addition to tracking had been double vision and one eye shutting down (both due to muscle weakness) and a severe lack of peripheral vision. Her double vision went away completely at some point in time during therapy and the signs (tilted head etc) that the vision in one eye was shut down also disappeared. Her peripheral vision improved (of course) when both eyes were working but it was one of the things she was still working toward when she quit. I wish she'd stuck with it until she was completely finished with her course of VT but her therapist was concerned that if she continued she would burn out and potentially slide backwards.

She quit VT at the end of 3rd grade, and she's going into 5th grade this fall so it's been a little bit more than one year since she quit. There have been a few times during the year when I know she was seeing double-vision, and during the past few months she seems to be reverting to her more bumping-into-things type of behavior which I think indicates her peripheral vision is declining. I think that once she is a little bit older we will probably offer her the chance to go back for more VT if she wants to; in the meantime we have a notebook full of the exercises she did which she can do herself at home as well as a few things that we learned in VT that she can do in school if she's having a tough time, and no one around her would realize she's doing something to help her eyes.

I'm not familiar with hypotonia, but my dd had low muscle tone in her trunk when she was younger (actually I think she still does... just not quite as bad as it once was). Between the low tone in her trunk muscles and her double vision, she fell off of most chairs (repeatedly... to be honest I think she sorta enjoyed falling off chairs...)... at home she usually stood up to eat instead of sitting in her chair. She has one of those cushions to sit on which she likes, but she'd fall off of that too. Her sensory OT suggested she wear a leotard under her clothes to school so that she'd have the sensation of the fabric right on top of her skin, and that helped a little bit with keeping her still when she needed to sit still. I'm not sure if there's an equivalent clothing solution for a boy... but maybe something like that would help. She also was allowed to stand at her desk to do her work as long as she wasn't distracting other kids or goofing off etc. We also had our dd swing to help strengthen her core muscles (it also helped her work off steam when she was frustrated).

"Most of the time school people don't realize that it's most likely more a physical thing than an ADHD or ASD thing (not that he has those diagnoses but I feel like people kind of hint at it)."

This has happened with both our dd and our ds - and I think part of it is simply that teachers more often see kids who have ADHD or are on the ASD spectrum so that's what they are familiar with. As a parent you just have to keep politely bringing up what your child's challenge is and how it impacts them at school. When our ds went through the IEP eligibility process ADHD was once again suggested as a "possible alternative" to SLD by the school district, so we purposely had him go through a private ADHD evaluation simply to rule it out. Had we not done the private evaluation our advocate had advised that when the school brought up ADHD we should formally request that the school do a functional behavior analysis - which is an analysis that includes input from teachers and parents.

"I'd love him to be able to take tests orally, etc... but will that only feed his diability? "

By feeding his disability, I think you mean will he become dependent on this at the expense of developing his handwriting skills etc? I don't think so - you can have him work specifically on handwriting at a time that *isn't* a test-taking time.

"All his plan now provides is OT weekly, a special cusion for sitting and that's it. I think it needs more but am lost as to what to ask for, what is reasonable to ask for, and what he needs. "

Have you asked his pediatrician and his OT what they think he needs in the classroom? You mentioned fatigue when answering questions - do you have any gut feeling re what causes the fatigue? Is it sitting too long? Something else? One thing I wonder about from your description - would it help your ds to have breaks where he can get up and walk around? My ds12 was allowed to get up and take a bathroom break when he hit a wall in trying to output written work (he has an expressive language disorder). He didn't really need to go to the bathroom but having that "break" allowed him to get up & walk and not look like he was just goofing off to the other kids. DS also has some other little tricks that he uses in school - one of them is to chew (either chewing gum or granola bar). DD keeps a water bottle at her desk (the kind with a straw in it) so she can suck on the straw when her eyes are bothering her. Those are both very specific to each kid so they probably won't apply at all to your ds, but the idea is that over time and with advice from the people who worked with them we came up with little tricks that helped them out individually. I suspect that is what will happen with your ds - so my last piece of advice is to hang in there, and don't worry if you don't have all the answers right now. You can always add an accommodation at a later point in time when you get the idea.

Best wishes,

polarbear