Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Raw WISC-IV Results - so discouraged

After waiting, cajoling and negotiating with our insurance company, my son is finally seeing a neuropsych this afternoon.

I'm a little nervous because of the process - this psychiatrist meets with a parent and then does the testing all in one sitting. I'm concerned it might be boilerplate or not thorough, but I will go in with an open mind and just see how it goes.

Thanks to you all, I'll have a lot better questions to ask him beforehand.

All I can say is that I am SO frustrated.

The neuropsych basically said it is going to be nigh unto impossible to get an accurate IQ score for my son because of how "cloudy" things are. He said there are significant auditory processing issues that come into play and that he "over thought" his answers and ended up getting several wrong because of giving too detailed of an answer (how are green and red the same? Answer they wanted - both are colors. My son? Both are on the light spectrum, blah, blah, blah). But that answer is wrong on the IQ test. UGH.

So, according to this WISC-IV, the FSIQ is 92 - almost twenty points less than it was two years ago. He said he's sure the actual IQ is much higher but that we likely won't get it on paper - ever - to get my son qualified for gifted.

I am so downhearted tonight and discouraged about my son's experience next year of more textbooks and workbooks and all the things that go to his deficits instead of allowing him to excel at the things he's good at.

Here are the raw scores:

Block Design - 38
Similarities - 26
Digit Span - 15
Picture Concepts - 19
Coding - 43
Vocabulary - 39
Letter-Number Seq - 16
Matrix Reasoning - 22
Comprehension - 20
Symbol Search 25

Verbal Comprehension Sum 28 / VCI 96
Perceptual Reasoning Sum 29 / PRI 98 (he said this was down by 23 from his last test)
Working Memory Sum 18 / WMI 94
Processing Speed Sum 16 / PSI 88
Full Scale Sum 91 / FSIQ 92

"He said there are significant auditory processing issues that come into play and that he "over thought" his answers and ended up getting several wrong because of giving too detailed of an answer (how are green and red the same? Answer they wanted - both are colors. My son? Both are on the light spectrum, blah, blah, blah). But that answer is wrong on the IQ test. UGH."

Oh no! My DD had a similar problem with listing different colors: my DD "magenta, fuscia, burnt umber, cerillion etc" when they wanted: "light blue, blue, dark blue"

How old is he? It took us a month to get the FSIQ and other scores after the testing so I wonder at how they got them so quickly.

Can you address the auditory processing issues and teach him /explain some of the over-thinking concepts and retest?

Way back when my DD was testing for the GT program, they did a lot more than just an IQ test, they talked with her and really looked at how deep she was, not just check-box answers. She was 4.5 yrs old and understood math but didn't know what "=" meant so she added "11" to every question and although she got every single one wrong they figured out what she did and she got in anyway.

I would disregard these results, it's obvious your son is operating way beyond the norms and you and the tester both know it. Can you talk to the school about this?

I am so sorry for the disappointing results, I hope you canfind another way.

Nik - the issue is that our state (NM) requires a score of 130 to qualify for the gifted program or a score of 120 with a diagnosed exceptionality with an IEP. He has an IEP, and his last IQ test two years ago was 119. How it is 92 now is beyond me.

The goal was to get him out of regular ed where he is doing 95% workbook, worksheet and textbook work in his classes - all things that work directly against his deficit of dysgraphia and dyslexia.

He gave me the raw scores when I left. I won't have the full report for about 2-3 weeks.

Oh Lisa...so dissapointing! ((Hugs))
Can you use the IEP to get him away from the worksheets?
Can you treat the CAP,dysgraphhia or dyslexia? What is the school doing for him?
Is a private school or homeschooling a possibility?
Love and more love
Grinity

Curses on the red tape bureocacies with a misspelling and the fleas from a thousand camels. Off topic, but I tried your chorizo stuffed chicken. I think next time I'll ritz cracker bread it and oven fry it. How else can we get the healthy off it? Yum!

ABQMom,
I don't know what to say about the frustration, except that my DD was recently tested and they said there was just too much of an extreme gap between her Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning (high) and her Working Memory and Processing speed (low) that they just wouldn't calculate the full scale.

So, that doesn't help you but I feel your pain. The school says she reads on a 5th grade level (she just finished 3rd) but the WIAT says 12th grade. Her math fluency seems to be a concern for her level of intelligence. I'm still trying to figure it out amoungst the excitement of summer vacation and fresh strawberries...she just wants to be free! So do I.

ABQ, if they did all the testing in one day, do you feel they were comprehensive? Is there achievement testing that would show what your child can do? Or is he likely to test all over the place on all tests?

Is there another school where the style and content would meet his needs better?

Feeling for you.

DeeDee

Grinity - the neuropsych said his goal in the recommendations will be to provide the right kind of learning for Thomas within the scope of what we're allowed in the public school system, so I think he is planning to use the IEP for this purpose.

LaTexican - hee! Thanks for the feedback on the recipe. And, yes, the original goal WAS healthy. If you want to bread it, you can use crackers or dried bread crumbs (let bread sit out overnight and then pulse in a food processor). Dredge in beaten raw egg, roll in the crumbs, and fry away.

bzylzy - the neurpsych said he couldn't believe the poor quality of the drawings - that it is very obvious. He was appalled that he wasn't still in OT and said he'd be recommending more, so I'm hoping that will help as well.

DeeDee - the entire testing took 1.5 hours total. He did already have the two reports from my son's previous testing, but I asked about additional testing as well. The neuropsych said he felt that any additional testing would be just as scattered. I wasn't sure whether I should push for more or accept that is valid, and after the results, well, I was too overwhelmed to argue or use logic or anything that even remotely resembled logic.

I'm sure that it is much too soon, but did you get the scaled scores for each of the subtests within each index and not just the raw scores? I'm sure that a lot of us are more familiar with those scaled scores and I don't think that it is simple to convert from one to the other b/c you need a chart that includes the child's age band.

The fact that he mentions scatter, and those raw scores look scattered, makes me wonder if it is possible to ascertain what parts of the test were the most impacted and whether they are the same parts that he had difficulty with previously. I'm sorry that this was such a disappointment, but glad that you didn't have to pay a ton for the testing at least .