Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional DIEBELS ???

I suspect, as Zen mentioned, that your ds' visual challenges may have influenced his scores - but I would also want to compare the results of this test to his neurospych testing - was there any question of reading challenges on that, or does he have lower scores on the tests that relate to skills needed for reading?

The Dibels is used in our school district in early elementary to screen children for dyslexia and other potential reading challenges, and scoring low on nonsense words relative to the part of the test that has the child sound out real words is a red flag. Another potential red flag are reading comprehension scores higher than individual word sounding out etc or reading from short sentences - in gifted children, this can be a sign that they are actually struggling with reading skills but able to make up for the words they miss when reading because they can put together meaning from context. I am most likely not explaining this well, but I see it all the time with my younger dd who has a reading challenge.

One thing I'd do when your ds reads to you is to watch and see if he stumbles over any individual words that may seem like words he should know. Which is tricky, of course, because that could be due to vision or it could be due to a reading skills challenge. I think what I'd do, for now, is to not worry, pay attention while he reads out loud to you, and also ask the school for further testing to determine why his nonsense word score was relatively low. There are other relatively simple reading tests that can be given which can be very helpful in determining if there is a reading challenge, and I would think with a Dibels score that low on the subtest the school would be willing to do further testing.

FWIW (probably not much lol!) - my dd who has the vision challenges had the Dibels administered in (I'm guessing here - memory is failing me re details) - early 2nd grade when she hadn't yet had her vision issues diagnosed but was struggling with reading. She actually did a-ok on the nonsense words and individual sounds but scored low on the last portion of the booklet that has longer sentences.

Hope this makes sense!

polarbear

You can find DIEBELS online for free:

https://dibels.uoregon.edu/market/assessment/material/

If you follow the link and go to the 2nd grade, you will be able to download the entire test booklet including the script.

Scores like your DS indicate to me many possible reasons for the discrepency. It could be lack of exposure to phonics instruction which does not seem to be the case for him. Or, it could be stealth dyslexia. If he is using memorization as him primarily strategy, he *could* start to struggle in 3rd grade when reading materials would include more unfamiliar words. Another possibility is that it was a task that made him rather anxious and he froze up.

I wouldn't worry about being able to read nonsense words per se but I would try to see how he copes with non-fiction materials outside of his comfort zone.

The neuropsych said she doesn't see dyslexia. He had average skills for all of the reading (above grade level but given his age average) but superior score in reading comprehension. She put it all down to his visual issues and visual processing problems... But she also said that it would be "so very rare for a kid who is gifted verbally like DS to have a language based learning disorder like dyslexia," which makes me very nervous that she doesn't have any understanding of "stealth dyslexia."

Last year his diebels were fine - well above the benchmarks actually; but his scores the year before, in kindergarten, were low - not as low as this but on the low side.

I could take him to another neuropsych and show him/her the diebels and the tests and see what he/she thinks, I guess. Just seems like I am always suspecting stealth dyslexia with him but no one seems to knows what's up with him. I breathed a sigh when his reading levels went up and his fluency went up so well and the neuropsych said she didn't see dyslexia, it's his visual processing problems I am seeing. Then I get these diebels and I am concerned all over again.

I'm glad to hear the neurospsych's take on it. Makes me feel better as I am interpreting my DS's issues in the same way. Accurately following written instructions is the one area that has some of the more annoying negative impacts for him. Irena, I hope your DS's teachers don't misinterpret the results and hold him down even further.

P.s. I know reading accuracy expectations change year to year, with third grade getting really tight (99) and if vision is causing a general 10% accuracy lost the scores are going to drop as the requirements raise.

Thanks for the clarification-- I was totally making up my examples on the basis of the different tasks involved in the two sections.



A lot of kids don't like this test and find it stressful, probably for a lot of reasons-- and anxiety definitely plays a role in performance on this one.

I don't think the assessment results that you have necessarily mean anything, but I do think it tells you something if he is actually unable to read nonsense words. I would pull up an assessment, tell him he can read whole words, and see if he can. The instructions given for the assessments are confusing and kids don't necessarily realize they are ALLOWED to read the whole words, so some kids will score low because they don't understand the assessment.

Given what you already know about your child, Irena, I'd say this is just another piece of information to back up that he's clearly not processing letters/sounds in a "normal" way. Now, as to whether or not that's concerning and worth further testing... I don't know. If he's reading at level, the school certainly isn't going to do anything for you. But if it is stealth dyslexia, you might be able to work on that at home.

I'm getting more and more concerned that my DD7 has dyslexia, but she always passed those dibels tests and reads above level... now that she's in 2nd grade and STILL doesn't know which direction to write 'b' and 'd' and 'p' and 'g' and 's' and 'z' the teacher is FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY concerned along with me. But I still don't know what/if anything they'll do. I'm waiting for her winter assessment scores then I'm going to ask them to test/assess... at least that'll be one set of free tests that I can use to figure out what's going on.

epoh, many kids just aren't developmentally at a place until 7-8yo where they CAN correct reversals.

I'd also point out that (just as we noted elsewhere on the boards recently) many early literacy practices have changed radically in the past 10-15 years, and therefore it's at least possible that some kids who are 8+, even, have not had it formally addressed as a thing that needs remediation... like invented spelling, right?

http://www.fultonschools.org/dept/psychsvcs/newsletter/winter%202008-29.pdf

My mom taught in this age cohort for 40 years, pretty much, and had dyslexia herself-- so she was VERY alert to signs of it, but also told me that letter reversals were way down the list until kids are more like 9-10yo.


I was still doing b/d reversals at that age-- because nobody had ever shown me the "trick" for remembering them.

My mom told me the trick that she used for teaching it and-- I never made the error again.

Just pointing out why the teacher might not have been at all concerned previously. It's completely age-appropriate until about 8yo, and then increasingly less so with additional development.

HTH.

Well, I worked with her at home on it numerous times last year and she still doesn't get it. If you give her spelling tests orally, she scores 100% nearly every time... if you make her write it down, errors all over the place with the letters I mentioned.

I also have noticed that she guesses at words when reading based on context/pictures, and she memorizes whole words instead of reading them phonetically. Her reading level is always assessed at a bit above whatever level they are meant to be at, but her ability to comprehend stories read to her is waaaay beyond what she's capable of reading. She avoids reading if at all possible, as well. I don't know... I feel like there's something going on.

Yeah-- big picture there, definitely cause for concern. It's also hard to say just what "developmentally appropriate" even means with HG+ kids because of wild asynchrony in play to begin with.