Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional WISC-IV today- just starting to understand

I know there are some WISC-IV experts out there. DS9 just had testing today- we wanted to get a better picture of his academic strengths and struggles. The feedback from teachers (and general observation) has been that he is slow to complete classwork but highly capable. In 4th grade, we started to notice more frustration with any writing assignment- and makes frequent writing mistakes (though he usually immediately recognizes them and gets frustrated/ but fixes them). He is also HIGH energy, "wiggles to learn" and we've often wondered about ADHD/ ADD but teachers say they don't see it as a big problem.

I don't have the full report but curious what others think given the info. I can recall.

VCI-140
PRI-133
WM- low 90s (can't remember actual score)
PS- low 90s
I think FSIQ was either 122 or 126 and it looked like GAI was calculated out to be 144? (how would that be possible if VCI and PRI are both lower than that?)

Coding subtest was his lowest scaled score- 7

Overall- very laid back kid, enthusiastic learner when it's topics he likes, can't do timed multiplication tables to save his life in 4th. His writing skills seem no match to his ability to explain things.

The diagnosis would probably be "dysgraphia" but he does generally well at grade level in all subjects and has a sweet disposition - no real behavior issues as long as his energy/movement in class doesn't bother others.

Is it worth taking up with the school (we did private testing) or just let it ride and accommodate only if it bothers him?

My DS's VCI and PRI are similar with a GAI at 146- it's statistical "regression to the mean." I can't explain it because I haven't been in a stats class for 20 years, but the GAI looks correct.

The working memory and PRI are significantly lower. Maybe enough to suggest a learning disability such as ADHD. At the least, there will be discrepancies between ability and performance. I would talk with an educational psychologist for more insight into how these scores translate into ability/ performance.

Your son is a gifted/ highly gifted verbal and perceptual reasoner. Those areas are scored in the 98th to 99th percentile. The other scores are low average and somewhat concerning considering the exceptional reasoning ability.

Excuse me- PSI (processing) is lower (not PRI). Can't keep my WISC acronyms straight!

Yes, if it were my child, I would consider an evaluation for learning disabilities (maybe ADHD since you mention movement?).

He's a gifted kid who may be performing (or will later perform) far below his ability due to lack of accommodation. *IF* there is an issue it will get harder as he gets older and can not longer compensate with raw intelligence. .

Hils, I am not an expert on test scores, but the reason (as I understand it) that the GAI or FSIQ might be higher than the individual sub-components of VCI, PRI etc is that the *combination* occurs less often than the individual scores.

The WISC scores you have could very well be dysgraphia - was this part of a neuropsych eval where you'll have the results of additional follow-up testing included in the report? If so, that will help you understand more about the root cause of the lower coding speed (visual vs fine motor etc).

Is it worth "taking up with the school?" *ABSOLUTELY*. You've asked if you should "accommodate only if it bothers him." I'll address that question in two ways. First, it sounds from what you've written above that it most likely *does* bother him: for instance, he wiggles a lot. That could be a sign of a visual issue - my dd who has a vision challenge is a very squiggly wiggly kid. When her eyes are working together a-ok, she wiggles much less while working on schoolwork. You also mentioned seeing frustration with writing assignments and frequent writing mistakes - that is classic dysgraphia. He needs to be able to show his full knowledge at school, and chances are he can't at the moment without accommodations. As the workload in school ramps up in the next few years, chances are it's going to become more and more difficult if he doesn't have accommodations.

Next point of view - let's suppose it's really not impacting him at this point in time and he's happy as a clam. That's good - for now. But if he's truly dysgraphic he's most likely at some point in time going to need accommodations. It's a good thing to start implementing them now both for him (so he'll learn how to use them and feel comfortable using them) as well as to be sure he is *able* to get them later on. It's typically easier to get accommodations when you have a professional report that is current than to try to use that report 2 or more years from now - if you wait, you'll probably have to re-eval.

The other thing you noted was that "he does generally well at grade level". I think most of us here would expect a child who has a VCI of 140 and a PRI of 133, and who *wasn't* dealing with an unaccommodated LD to be working "really well" and "above grade level".

polarbear

Good point polarbear, our DS7 (we tested last year because he was miserable in 1st grade) has a similar GAI but much higher PSI and WMI. He coasts through school, even with a grade skip.

It's just hard to get the school to acknowledge a gap- hopefully this independent testing will help us get somewhere. On the standardized tests (CA- CST) he scores advanced in language arts and high proficient in math, so if there aren't major behavior issues, they have said they have no reason to test unless there is a huge gap between performance and ability.

Sounds like we should move forward with further testing- great if the school will do it. Who can evaluate a vision issue? I know I had visual processing issues as a kid and went through a year of eye therapy. An ophthalmologist caught it - I was very farsighted and slipped through routine exams at school and with an optometrist. We took him for an exam through our Naval hospital- wondering if they missed something important?

Another BIG question- DS9 had a very rough delivery. They induced 3 weeks early because they thought that he was not growing well at the end of pregnancy. (I measured small and an ultrasound seemed to confirm the low weight). The induction caused heart deceleration even before they started pitocin. Long story short, it was a very fast delivery and his Apgar at 1 min was 2, at 5 min up to 9. Every so often, I stew over it because it turned out that they were completely off with his weight estimation. He was over 6 lbs, three weeks early so the induction was completely necessary. Anyone know if there are studies about what parts of the brain are most impacted by birth trauma? Could that have any relation to his slow procession and working memory?

My 7 (almost 8) yo DD has ADHD. She holds herself together pretty well in school (even though she can be very hyper at home), but her main issues are focus, slowness and processing speed. I am debating having her tested. She also has a big problem with math facts/fluency and her brother who is 16 months younger has surpassed her (even though the neuropsych said that he's concerned about the younger brother's processing speed!). DS scored a 141 on perceptual reasoning but a 109 for processing speed and the neuropsych said this is a large discrepancy and it is going to cause him problems and that his understanding of concepts (math in particular) will be very high but he will probably need more time to do things like calculations, or make careless mistakes. It is possible he has ADHD as well, but if so it's not nearly as obvious as DD. I am taking him back to the neuropsych in a few weeks to do testing specific to ADHD. DD might end up scoring similar to your 9 year old (she hasn't had an IQ test yet). If we play games like Memory with her she seems completely spaced out. But when she's on her medication she does fine.

Both my kids had kind of weird deliveries. The NICU had to come in for DD because she had extreme heartrate accelerations (like over 200 beats per minutes with huge rapid spikes on the monitor--very alarming). Whenever they tried to elevate me it got worse. Not sure what the deal was. The perinatologist mentioned "benign tacycardia" to me after she was born. DS had an extremely slow heartrate every time I had a contraction and he looked purple for a couple hours after he was born. But no one acted too concerned about either one of them. DS wasn't breathing very well so they sent him to the nursery for observation. I know that preemies have a higher rate of ADHD than full-term babies, but I don't know what parts of the brain are involved.

In terms of vision, OT's can do some of that. They just gave my DS a perceptual vision test a couple weeks ago. But it looked to me like it was measuring visual spatial ability, visual memory, similar to the perceptual reasoning part of the IQ test. So your DS would probably do well. The OT is trying to get us to go to a developmental optometrist, saying she can hook him up to a computer to see how his eyes are tracking. My DS had a brain injury and skull fractures on Dec. 31st that paralyzed a cranial nerve and caused one eye to be "stuck" for several months and we're not sure if it's completely normal now or not. Since he reads so fast and fluently and his eyes appear to be tracking together, the neuro-opthamologist thinks his eyes are fine. But the OT is completely unconvinced.

Having heard lots of simulate stories I've come to the conclusion that actually they can't tell the size of the baby with ultrasound any better than a midwife can with a tape measure. I also know from personal experience they can't tell gestation very well either.

Hils fwiw my DS7 has a huge spread in his scores with his processing speed down in the 9th percentile (we were never given raw scores) and his working memory is really low as well. His birth was a textbook 10 hours of labour, no interventions and no drugs for either of us. I don't know what his apgar scores were but we both walked out of the hospital 3 hours later without protest so it must have been decent enough.

Sorry it was such a dramatic start for him but try not to beat yourself up. It might not be a contributing factor.

I think GAI exists because processing speed and working memory are so disconnected from other measures of intelligence. As much due to the inadequacy of the tests as actual operational abilities being disconnected from other mental abilities. If a kid is scoring near average on those, I personally don't think it should be an area of concern. Below average then I'd think it has diagnostic value.