Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Such a big spread - diagnosis?

First of all, I hope there is none. I just read somewhere that a 20 point difference in scores can point to some issues?
I really wish the Psyc spent more time with us, discussing it all. I now know my son is bright, but so is a kid at 120. Is there is big difference between 120 and 151? So you see anything I should keep an eye on?
Urgh, I don't even know what to ask. However, I know why Kindergarten did not work out so well for him 3 years ago.

WISC-4
VCI - 138
PRI - 142
WMI - 111
PS - 118
FSIQ - 138
GAI - 151

VCI
Similarities - 19
Vocab - 18
Comprehension 12

PRI
Block Design - 15
Picture Concepts - 16
Matrix Reasoning - 19

WMI
Digit Span - 11
Letter-Number Sequencing - 13

PSI
Coding - 18
Symbol Search - 8
(Cancellation) - 7

Please help me make sense of these so that I'm properly able to advocate for my son.
It is much appreciated.

Welcome!
First of all, those are honking high GAI scores. His VCI and PRI represent how 'unusually smart' his is. Quite unusually smart. Smart enough that all the usual advice given to you by parents of 120-bright kids hasn't been working and is likely to make you cry or doubt your sanity. And the same goes for many many Psyc, particularly if they don't specialize in highly gifted kids.He may not have said anything because he has no richness of experience to draw on. One way to find out is to ask, in a sincere tone, 'Is a GAI of 151 all that unusual in our area?'

Ususally the Psyc will say, 'I've actually never seen score like that in my 10 years of practice.' Hopefully your child will be out of earshot at that moment.

Definitely apply to DYS program. It's so nice to have cyber-neighbors who have BTDT.

The WMI and RRI scores are much weaker, comparatively speaking. They might well represent a diagnosable condition, or not. They may represent a source of frustration, which we here call a 'bottleneck.'or your child may have some kind of unwanted behavior or symptoms that arise simply from being in a classroom that doesn't feed his strength.

If you post here about what led you to seek the IQ scores in the first place and any behavior that worries you, we non-experts will give our free advice and tell our stories. Another idea is to send the scores to a Psyc who specialized in Profoundly Gifted kids and have a heart to heart discussion with him or her.

For better or for worse, the IQ scores, even with Achievement test data can hint at problems, but only thought and discussion with a capable expert can diagnose problems. Lots of ordinary problems look quite different on PG kids - see the book
http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-Diagnoses-Gifted-Children-Adults/dp/0910707642
for more details.

BTW - I've been blogging lately about exactly what Working Memory is at SchoolSuccessSolutions.com and I'd sure appreciate any feedback about how I could make that more helpful.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Hi,
I am not an expert, but since your psychologist isn't explaining this to you, I wanted to share that for the two 19s, it might be helpful for you to ask what the raw scores were. 19 is the 'ceiling' for the standard scores, so in some cases a kid can get a really high raw score but it is still reported as a 19. If you get the raw scores, you can convert those via the WISC extended norms guidance (not sure where the link is, but you can Google it or probably search the archives here). Also, I think it is valid (please could somebody who knows confirm this?) to calculate the GAI using the extended norms, so your kid's GAI (and FSIQ) could be higher than the values you got here.
Also, in our experience, it is well worth finding and working with a psychologist who specializes in gifted and 2e kids, because otherwise you can get somebody who kind of glosses over the gifted part and just focuses on the behavior problems from the '2nd e' so you get a bunch of diagnoses that may not be correct and might cause significant trouble for trying to get into a new school in the future. In addition to the James Webb Misdiagnosis book, there are articles about 2e kids and distinguishing 2e from normal gifted on the Davidson site that are quite informative.
Best wishes,
Dbat

Those are some really great scores! Were you testing for admission to a gifted program, or because your ds is struggling in some way?

I'd have a few questions for the psych who did the testing - I'd want to know if he/she had any thoughts re why the comprehension score is lower than the other subtest scores under VIQ, and also what his/her impressions were re why symbol search and cancellation are lower than coding. There might be some kind of connection between each of those (re response type, skills required to answer the questions etc) that makes some sense. Also if you had your ds tested specifically because something was challenging to him or you were worried about some aspect of his academics, then you might find a clue re the reason for the challenge somewhere in those subtests.

If you put together a list of questions, can you ask for a follow-up appointment with the psych to discuss them? Or send them via email? Personally I've found it more helpful to have a face-to-face follow-up because invariably the psych has tossed out pieces of info based on our discussion that wouldn't have been automatically included in an email and that's led to other questions from me which has helped me understand better. I've also found that our neuropsych is also much happier answering follow-up questions when she's being paid for a 1-hour appointment - not great for the pocketbook, but that follow-up discussion has usually been invaluable to us and well worth the extra $. OTOH, if it's a school psych, we've usually not had much luck with getting any kind of detailed responses... but... otoh... we have been able to call with follow-up questions. In any event, I'd try to follow up with the psych.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hi, my DD8's WISC-IV profile from age 7 is very similar to your DS's. I'm curious to hear what he is like in general.

Our testing psych specialized in gifted children and said he rarely saw GAIs in the 150s. I was too stunned to remember much else, except when you see a 19 it is very significant...it means he got everything right and they ran out of questions to ask. Our raw scores show a 19 being an age equivalent >16:10.

I think two 19s would qualify for extended norms. In DD's case she had one 19 and two 18s, and extended norms pushed her GAI 5 points higher.

I think the extended norms might have been used in the GAI calculation as I get 148 for the GAI. As for the difference between the PRI/VCI and the PSI/WMI, that's very typical for gifted kids.

However, the difference between the Coding score and the Symbol Search and Cancellation scores is interesting and could mean something. I'd start with a developmental vision exam.