Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment GATE identification for school purposes

Hello,
My DS8 was just assessed today with the WISC IV. As predicted his lower wm and processing brought down his overall FSIQ but he had DYS qualifying GAI. We had him tested because DD6 scored high enough to qualify her for DYS and also because we are concerned with his perfectionism, anxiety and his executive functioning.
He was assessed with Asperger Disorder 2 years ago and was given a brief DASII that showed he had high cognitive ability in verbal and perceptual but only "gifted" in PRI. He was not given the working memory or processing subsets at that time. His spatial visual was average. He has vision issues; convergence and exotropia. His convergence issues was mainly addressed through vision therapy and so in the last 2 years his reading ability has sky rocketed. The psychologist encouraged us to seek a more challenging school environment so we applied to our district magnet gifted and high achieving school. He managed to get in and has done better than ever, academically and socially.

Here's the thing: he has never been identified as a gifted student because his star score in math was not high enough to qualify for additional ability testing for GATE identification. He gets math concepts very easily and does well overall in math but is not a consistent state test taker. I also have never taught him out of level math at home. He got into the magnet school due to high scores in the Ravens Matrix test that was used as screening.

Is there any benefit into having him officially identified as a GATE student in the school system? He's already in the gate magnet school so I'm not sure if I should approach the GATE coordinator with his scores. Would appreciate any advice thanks!

Interestingly, his tester, who is on the hoagies list was surprised with his Asperger diagnosis as she felt he did not exhibit any of the typical behaviors, particularly as he has emotional over-excitability and is very empathetic. I've been wondering about the accuracy of the diagnosis lately also and wonder if we should proceed with a 504. He has a 40 point difference between his PRI and processing subsets. Also interesting were the increases in overall cognitive abilities, particularly in visual spatial! He did not do well in block design on the DASII but was able to complete all of them today and reached the ceiling.

I'm not clear on how he is going to a district magnet because he tested in, but is not identified as a gifted student. So I guess the answer to that question lies in what he will get out of being officially identified, since it sounds like he is already getting gifted services.
DD has around a 60 point gap between her perceptual reasoning score and processing speed. In the report it says that her slowness during testing was very apparent, in that it took over an hour longer to test her than other kids. The psych recommended a 504 for slow processing speed/ADHD in the report with suggestions for modifications. The ADHD diagnosis was a previous one. If a child "just" has slow processing speed, I'm not sure whether they could qualify for a 504 or not. Aspergers disorder should qualify. However, if he doesn't really have that, it doesn't make sense to have a label and a 504 for it.

DS's took the WPPSI in preschool and the WISC a couple years later. Block Design went up, presumably as his fine motor skills increased. It was still a lot lower than matrix reasoning or picture concepts though. His overall IQ went up a lot between age 3.5 and 6, and I suspect if he was tested again now at age 7, it would be higher than at age 6. It just happens with kids who develop differently, I think. DS doesn't have Aspergers but has some of the traits, and they have diminished over time. He could very easily have been misdiagnosed with it a few years ago.

Thanks Blackcat. At this point, I'm unclear on what is behind his disorganization and inattentiveness. Perhaps he's still underdeveloped in the frontal cortex area and it will get better with time. Did you get a neuropysch evaluation done when you discovered that large gap? I was going to request an IEP evaluation from the school due to his diagnosis but the school told me he is too high achieving to qualify.

Sorry I wasn't clear about the gifted elementary school; you get in either by being identified as gifted or if you are high achieving. You do not have to be identified as gifted but they rank students using this identity, report cards and the nonverbal test. That non verbal test is what got him in, but he is not a GATE student.

The one benefit I know of would be that he would have priority enrollment for our district's summer gifted camps. I'm not sure how else he would benefit though (we are in CA).

Slammie, the raven test is an IQ test.. if he got in with the raven then he should be identified as gifted. Some gifted kids do not excel academically, so they use several qualifiers for identification -at least in our school district. One is the OLSAT, one is qualifying scores on the CST tests (which are moot now that we have gone to common core), qualifying scores on an IQ test (usually non-verbal to keep from biasing only towards english speakers) or portfolio- portfolios are for students talented in a specific area, like art.

With DD, we already knew she had ADHD. She was diagnosed at age 6 and took the WISC at age 8. So I always figured the slow processing speed was related to the ADHD, but now I am wondering if she's just not getting enough sleep and that is contributing. I forced her out of bed this morning and then had her do some math and she was extremely slow and spacey--major brain fog(even though she was medicated with stimulants for the ADHD). There can be a lot of causes of slow processing speed. I found this article helpful:
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10782.aspx

DS's processing speed wasn't great either but the gap wasn't as huge. I think it was around a 30 point gap between processing speed and PRI when he was tested at age 6. Who knows what it would be now 1.5 years later. He also had a traumatic brain injury which probably played a role. His working memory went up when it was retested about 11 months after the brain injury (processing speed wasn't tested again, unfortunately). I think he also may have ADHD but has been diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder. So he is slow with anything involving motor skills.

It annoys me greatly when schools tell parents their kids will never qualify without even evaluating them. If I were you I would put a request in writing, stating what all your specific concerns are. Even if he ultimately only qualifies for a 504, they won't know what to put in the 504 unless some sort of eval is done. If they deny your request for an eval they will have to come up with decent reasons why, and put it in writing, and if it seems ridiculous, you can appeal it. There are so many different special ed categories and if there is anything that impacts a child's ability to learn or function in the classroom, they should at least be able to get a 504. DS's academic achievement is fine according to all the testing he had done, but he still has an IEP (in his case physically impaired). Unfortunately I'm not well-versed in all the laws and technicalities from state to state to be of much help. Check out Wright's Law.

Yes, you'd think they would be identified with the ravens test, but they are not! It doesn't make sense to me either.

Blackcat, hope your DS is doing better! Thanks for that link; I actually read it earlier today. Totally sounds like DS.
So are you saying the school cannot deny a request for an IEP evaluation? The teacher and principal were looking me incredulously when I mentioned an IEP. I tried explaining how much scaffolding I am doing at home and the meltdowns. They were very supportive and recommended a 504 but not an IEP. I'm already quite stressed from experiences I am having with having to advocate for DD with this school, so I left it at that.

The lady from Compliance (at the State Dept. of Spec. Ed) told me that even with 504 plans they should do an eval, unless it's something that's not academic (like the kid has a food allergy)...how would they know what to put in a 504 unless they see how the child is functioning? Be specific in your concerns....for instance, is he having trouble getting the work done? Is he the slowest in the class, is he counted wrong or graded for things that he couldn't do because he was too slow? Say specifically how he is being affected and what you are noticing. In terms of an IEP, our state allows for gaps between achievement and ability, I think it's around 1.5 or 1.75 standard deviations. So when DD was given the woodcock johnson certain parts of the writing section were in the 90's which is a big enough gap that maybe she could qualify for an IEP (not sure yet). So even though her writing is "average" it's not what they would expect given her IQ. DS's IEP did not require any actual academic scores...but he qualifies mostly for things like speech, OT, adapted phy ed because of the DCD...he does get help with writing though even though his writing achievement scores were all over the 80th percentile. I think it was because he just wasn't doing much in class. I have an article on how school systems should handle 2e children. I gave it to our special ed director. I will look for it later.

Here is the article I was talking about:

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/3/2158244013505855

The school *can* deny a request for an IEP evaluation, but they have to have a reason to deny it. The procedure you need to follow if you want an IEP evaluation is to request it in writing, and if you're worried about push-back from your school, be sure to cc the district director of Special Education on your request (send the request to your school principal and school SPED rep/staff person - I wouldn't necessarily include the teacher on the written request). Email is ok and counts as "written". Ask the school to respond to your request within a certain time period - 10 business days is a typical amount of time to ask for a response. That puts the school district on notice, and they have a certain amount of time in which to call a meeting which should include you and any other people you want to invite who have input into why your ds needs the evaluation. That it called an IEP eligibility meeting (here), and you'll come away from that meeting with a decision by the school to either evaluate for an IEP (which sets off the eval/testing process which has a time limit either specified by Federal law or in some cases state law which is less time than Fed. law), or the team will decide that no, there is no need to evaluate - but the catch is, if it's found that there is no need for the evaluation, the team has to have a reason for the finding, and once they've given that official reason, you can appeal the finding. If the team decides that he should be evaluated, they will start that process and at the end of that the team (including you) will meet again to discuss the results of testing and determine whether or not he qualifies.

It's really helpful if you want to proceed down the road to requesting an IEP eval if you can get advice from a local parent advocate - there are parent advocate groups in many locations that offer advice about the process at no charge (they are funded by Federal grant $). We found our advocate's group by looking at the yellow pages on www.wrightslaw.org

Re the incredulous looks, 2e kids are not common, and the school staff you're dealing with might never have encountered one before. We have had all sorts of incredulous looks on our 2e journey, both from school staff who felt that our ds was fine because he wasn't performing way way way below grade level (although to be honest he was, it just wasn't easy to see), and also any time his test scores were opened up by the eval team or by therapists etc who worked with him. One of ds' early elementary teachers sincerely believed that a child couldn't qualify for a 504 and also the gifted program at the same time and that if you wanted a 504 your child couldn't possibly be gifted. There are all sorts of misinformed opinions out there - but part of it is simply due to not having experienced a student with this type of challenge before. So ignore the dumbfounded looks and comments and just keep moving forward.

polarbear