Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Scores Indicate 2e...Suggestions for Next steps

We met with our tester. We have great confidence with her. She suspects 2e but said the scores don't tell a complete picture here. I posted on testing thread and am posting here for 'next steps' advice. I'll copy scores at the end of this post, as well.

The suspicion is stealth dyslexia...phonics testing did not confirm. He fits profile, somewhat...hard to tell...hence the stealthiness of it .

The Plan:
1) The thought is we use this year (first grade) to remediate--privately and not share results with the school. She suggested we get a private tutor for reading and writing and tutoring method not as important as frequency of focus. I'm trying my best to find a qualified private tutor but seems to be a crap shoot. Any advice?

2) Also frequency? She said 1-2 times a week....but at $50 an hour and the sessions are 2 hours...I may be only able to swing 1xs a week. But I don't want to short change him...I just want to ensure he can also do other things for enjoyment and enrichment!

3) Hopefully he will get into the one-day a week gifted program at his school and that will cover enrichment outside of lego robotics and weekend excursions.

4) If remediation doesn't yield a big jump in achievement this time next year we are on to adding accommodations as well and clearly involving the school.

Thoughts on the above as a game plan?

The Scores:

We have scores. We have scatter. We had an awesome tester, and even though achievement doesn't hit mark she suggested we still apply. Any thoughts on scores and application appreciated. A LD is suspected. phonics scores though do not confirm one...hmmm. Child is 6.7 years

VCI 166
Similarities 21
Vocab 20
Comprehension 21
Information 20
Word reasoning 19

PRI 148
Block Design 16
Picture concepts 16
Matrix Reasoning 22

WMI 129
Digit Span 13
letter-number sequencing 17

PSI 97
Coding 10
symbol Search 9
Cancellation 8

GAI 170

WJ III
Overall 123
Everything in similar range...
Spelling 109 was lowest
Calculation 138 was highest



CTOPP for Phonics Screening (due to gap in Achievement scores)
All average to above average...
Phonological awareness. 132
Phonological Memory 118
Rapid Naming 112

What do you see day to day? What are his weaknesses and struggles?

Is it possible lower achievement is partly lack of exposure?

It is possible achievement is lower due to exposure and interest. He did go to preschool and we have always read at home. But he was never interested in learning to read and we have never jump started a skill (preferring to wait until it is introduced to same-age peers).

But, the lower processing speed does seem to mean something.

As far as strengths: he is a very verbal kid. He would create very funny riddles and word plays as a 3 and 4 year old. When 5 he was really into words with multiple meanings and now creates puns (i think thats what he does...ha!) constantly. He remembers everything and learns concepts super quick...and connects dots very easily...a big picture thinker for a six-year old...he is decently creative...and loves living in pretend worlds, playing Legos and Minecraft. He loves to illustrate stories in great detail, as well. He is a very hard worker, rule follower, and people pleaser. Academically he is great with sight words, comprehension, science, and math facts. He is good with mental math, fluency, addition/subtraction.

Weaknesses: He loathes writing. He is a 33 week preemie so we thought it a fine motor skill issue for a long time. He loathes the process of writing...figuring out what to put in the paper and most importantly spelling. He gives up very easily if anything is hard and always has...things that seemed hard for him included reading, writing and numbers. Once a foundation is created (like when he learned his sight words and built up some decoding skills) he is no linger resistant. But introducing a new process seems to be the hang up for him...this reading a book like Life of Fred is a lot of fun for him...or reading about the weather, or making snap circuits...learning how to ell time...excruciatingly painful.

Does that help?

Helpful rambling. Really appreciated. I need more guidance based in your thoughts

1) how would I go about further investigating LD? The tester did the CTOPP so it includes a gazillion subtests. Where do I go for a deeper dive and does anyone believe I should do that now or wait the year as tester suggested?

2). The tutoring is suggested for reading and writing. That's all we were told...to help him close gap to aptitude I suppose. As for what I see...his reading did not progress in a typical fashion. He had no trouble learning letters or sounds...all before he was two. He did not make the leap to CVC words. We tried a few BOB books and he resisted. What he did was memorize loads of books with dense text and read those to people. When 4.5 he was given a list of 50 flash cards at preschool. He learned them all in a day at school and started level one readers. He guessed at any word he didn't know and was accurate many times as he used contextual clues. He hung in this phase until kindergarten where he started at level A and ended assessed at level I (instructional M). When he reads now it isn't a joy for him, he does well but still resists decoding if it isn't fluent, sometimes skips lines and words, but seems to have strong comprehension. I notice other struggles with sequencing, motor planning, and yes the pragmatic reasoning you mention...


3). Yes, we are exploring vision as suggested by the tester and have a referral for a developmental optometrist. We have yet to make that appt though so I need to move in that. Trying to figure insurance first.

4) thank you for the advice on balancing remediation as I do not want this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, nor a self-esteem drain. If we do this it is to allow reading/writing to become easier and more enjoyable.

Thanks again. It feels complicated, but hopefully it will be clearer soon.

Hi N...
Quite a few similarities with my DS7.5, to the point of wondering if dyslexia might not be something for us to explore. We know he has corrected vision issues that may be causal, but could just also be coincidental.

Here are some other specific traits we see that may have some dyslexic overlap or overlap with trait concepts that the Eides detail in their "Dyslexic Advantage" book, that I'm curious if you see:
* Frequently skips words or gets them out of order when reading out loud
* Will confidently guess at words, when wrong he has a hard time switching to the corrected answer
* Strongly drawn to podcasts or videos over reading, but completely absorbs info from those sources
* Dislikes repetition of any sort
* And similarly loves change and new things and places
* Does not enjoy reading, but claims he does, but just doesn't get around to doing it on his own

I'm also curious if anyone knows specifically what therapy or accomodations for dyslexia look like compared to something like vision therapy or help for dysgraphia.

My basic concern with going any one direction is burning bridges with DS who is driven nuts by repetition (and it would be hypocritical of me to not support him in that need.) Many therapies seem to require continuous daily repetition and getting the wrong one with no positive outcome would not be good. We are trying an experiment with writing and spelling tutoring for six months (two hours a week,) but if it is dyslexia versus just needing some specific bridging and direct instruction I don't want to waste his time.

Hi N
I have a 7.5 DS who was a 32 week preemie. His problem is in writing not reading, was a very early reader. The most obvious way to see if remediation is necessary is to compare to age-mates not intellectual peers. DS in pre-k was behind his age peers in writing. He hated anything that worked his hands - like playdoh - but he didn't seem delayed because of his intellect. Once he hit kindergarten in a gifted school, it was more dramatic, the differences in writing ability. And more importantly the difference between what he could do verbally but not on paper. The weirdest was spelling - he can spell a word incorrectly writing it but if you ask him to spell it aloud he spells it correctly. There is some disconnect between the thinking and the writing - most of it is physical, some is rushing, and some is his wiring. And it is also clear now, that he has slight delays in most physical things. So we do swimming and gymnastics in order to build up core strength and arm strength. He has an IEP in school and gets OT for writing - they work on Handwriting w/o Tears and all sorts of strength related stuff. Everything is slowly getter better. Master of None told me 2 years ago that by third grade, a lot of the balance type things get better - like needing to sit in a W or have a foot on the floor while sitting - and we are already seeing those gradual improvements.

His writing issues do not appear to be dyslexic related or its that he has already compensated for it - his letter and number reversals still pop up occasionally - when tired or stressed but rarely. He still writes rather largely and his letter formation is rarely the same. He is more dysgraphic but not exactly. His main issue is that when writing to get out ideas, will lose spaces between words so everything runs together. What is helping is graph paper - its teaching him to write the letters the same size by putting in a box and leave a box as space between the words. And you can make graph paper to the size necessary.

Your indication of his reading level suggests he is not behind but not when you factor in his scores. Although lots of kids have high VCI and take awhile to read comfortably.

YMMV, but in my experience the difficulty was all mental - in terms of remediating it. DS was SOOO resistant to everything in K because he was so embarrassed and so frustrated that things were so much harder for him. He did not understand that all the learning he had been doing had been work because it was fun for him - and that physical things require repetition. But during 1st he had a great teacher and OT who really worked together and with the changed attitude came huge gains of effort. He finally sees that other people have issues and that this is his. Now, we have buy in, we do work over the summer, and he now understands that the work is paying off and things are better - not great - but better. DS especially hated that he could not draw the complicated things in his head- so we are working on drawing - like with Ed Emberley's books.

DeHe

Wow, great insights in both cases. Like there is a big pre-processing engine that is continuously evaluating, interpreting, and correcting incoming sensory data. That suspicion clicks for me... though I wonder if it may be the reverse, the brain gets really good at pre-processing to cope with sensory issues and that same mechanism happens to be extremely useful for G.

Welcome N. - everything you wrote below sounds soooo so very much like my ds13 when he was young:


FWIW, my ds is dysgraphic and shares *some* of the traits of the Eides' definition of stealth dyslexia, but I don't believe that he's dyslexic. His reading development was a bit quirky, but once he was reading he was reading way above grade level and that's continued throughout school so reading really doesn't seem (on the surface) to ever have been an issue. OTOH, he has a very similar WISC profile to your ds, and fine motor dysgraphia has been a *huge* challenge for him. That's not saying your ds is dysgraphic - there are many different reasons that you might see a dip in scores like he has - but what it is saying, to me, is that you need more information to understand what's up, before you're truly going to be ready to come up with a plan.

There are two places you can refer to for more information on your own: the subtests on your ds' achievement testing, and your knowledge of what you've seen re your ds and academics - where he performs well, where he struggles. You can also look for signs of either visual or fine motor challenges in everyday life - did he have a challenge learning to tie his shoes, for instance.

A third resource is to read everything you can on dyslexia, dysgraphia, stealth dyslexia etc and see what might fit or not fit with what you've observed over time. Some clues are going to go back to early childhood too.

The other thing I think you will need (and this is just me, a non-professional parent, so take it all with a big grain of salt:))... is additional testing. Our ds' neuropsych testing included tests of visuo-motor integration, executive function, and fine-motor functioning - these tests helped tease out the reason for the large dip in processing speed.

Another thing for you to do is to review exactly what skill is assessed by each subtest of the WISC. You've mentioned the low processing and dyslexia somewhat intertwined, and processing speed does sometimes test low in people who are dyslexic or have reading challenges - but these subtests are tests that can also be highly influenced by slowness in brain-fine-motor integration or by a visual challenge or by simply being anxious about being timed (most of the other WISC subtests aren't timed... I think one of the PRI subtests is but can't remember which one). One way to separate out is there a reading challenge is to look at the reading achievement subtests - are they consistently low or is the fluency subtest lower? There are different response types required on the subtests - students like my ds who have a fine motor challenge but *not* a reading challenge may have a score in line with their IQ score percentile on a reading achievement subtest that requires a verbal response and isn't timed, but will have a lower than anticipated score on a subtest that requires a written response, and an even lower than expected response on a subtest that requires a handwriten response and is also timed.

I hope that makes some sense - I'm writing this all out in a bit of a hurry!



I thought the same thing re my ds when he had his first neurospych and his achievement scores were very scattered and much lower than I had expected them to be. It's possible that's what's happened, but you've mentioned behaviors re writing etc that indicate there *could* be something more going on. I'll also add that my ds never seemed interested in learning to read and we just thought that was all personality - he was into legos etc, building things. He was so advanced verbally and able to express such complex concepts at an early age and always asked such advanced questions we just chalked up the things he *wasn't* doing to gifted-kid quirkiness. Instead, they were signs of things that were real struggles and it just took school experiences to bring it all to the surface. Everything was fine when he was still at home and in preschool because he *could* choose what he did with his time and we (parents and his preschool teachers) didn't push any type of skill development, we were following his lead.

The other thing I wanted to mention was my 2e dd - she's younger (9) and we are still trying to work through how her challenge impacts her and trying to define exactly *what* it is, but she has had a very tough time learning how to read and is very frustrated by it. In her case, she has a weakness in her ability to associate sounds with symbols - she can understand and comprehend at a high level when she listens to audiobooks etc, but not when she reads from text. This has *nothing* to do with your ds except for testing - she's been through two dyslexia screenings, and one very thorough reading assessment. She's had the CTOPP and has similar type range in scores, but she's also had quite a few other reading-specific tests, including Gray oral reading and a bunch of others that I can't remember the names of but would be happy to look up if you'd like to know. If you think you're looking at stealth dyslexia or some type of reading challenge, I think it would help to have the breadth of these other tests - and the place I'd look for them would be through a reading specialist. In any event, there are so many different types of reading programs that I can't imagine it would be useful to dive off into one direction (program) without first having a really good understanding of what the challenge really is.

Lastly, once you have a good understanding of what the challenges are for your ds and what accommodations + remediation he will need - I would share it with the school - and I'd share now, not wait another year. The sooner you start advocating for accommodations in school, the better for your ds. The school district might not be able to provide your ds with all of the help he needs (we've relied quite a bit on private therapies etc) - but it's important (jmo) that they know early on that he has needs. It's also important to try to figure it all out so you can help him understand.

Gotta run - I am sorry I didn't have time to be sure this made sense - feel free to ask more questions!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks everyone!

I see there are many similarities with all your children and mine! Feels better knowing your situation isn't a Lone Ranger . Yes, dysgraphia fits too...and it seems it is a large component of Stealth Dyslexia...if I'm reading Eides stuff correctly.

I didn't list all tests done as so many...but these were conducted:

WISC -IV
W-J III
Beery VMI 6
CTOPP
BASC -2 SDH
BASC -2, PRS-C
executive Functioning

WJ-III Subtests
A few of you mentioned taki g a deeper dive here. I have to say everything is in a clustered range with a few exceptions. I'll list...score/percentile

Letter-word identification 125. 95
Reading Fluency. 120. 91
Calculation. 138. 99
Math Fluency 126. 96
Spelling. 109. 73
Writing fluency. 119. 89
Passage comprehension. 124. 95
Applied Problems. 114. 82
Writing samples 113. 81

Tester comments were that comprehension is greater than fluency...another sign we may be dealing with Stealth .dyslexia or Dysgraphia (my words not hers)

The Berry-Buktenica Test Visual Motor Integration

Standard Scores 98
percentiles 45
category. Average
Age equivalent 5-11

The executive functioning was all in T-score range.

As to waiting for further assessments in my notes I wrote the tester said..."Let DS establish himself with teacher first. See what she thinks." I think she was nervous that the IQ would cause school to expect more than DS can give and then write him off...or ignore PG for the disability...that we aren't sure is there just highly suspect.

For those of you with 2e did your second child have the second e, as well. I have a toddler (almost 3) daughter and I've noticed she not only has zero interest in letters but when introduced to them she is not remembering them, yet she is also highly verbal and logical.

Thanks. Findi g the right tutor may be the hardest part of this.

Do you read the scores as not revealing much...as well...tester kept saying the scores weren't helping us much...