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Joined: Feb 2011
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I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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Joined: Sep 2011
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Amber, that's a really low coding score - I'm guessing his symbol search score was significantly higher (to get the average value you have for Processing Speed, even though it's in the lowish average range)? Yes, I definitely observe behaviors! I should mention he is homeschooled, so we've been working around his speed and attention issues. He's a daydreamer, he has a hard time focusing, unless it's hyper focus. I suspect if he's having a tough time with focusing that coding might be very difficult, and symbol search might be less difficult - but that's just a guess - I have no actual training in this so my suspicions aren't anything you should trust lol! This sounds a lot like possibly ADHD, but otoh, it might also be describing a child who is faced with a task they can't perform easily. Homeschooling is great on the one hand because you can work around issues that arise, but otoh sometimes when you're working around issues you might not even realize something is an issue or that you are working around something - simply because you're responding to your child's needs and he's not faced with the same types of across-the-board every-student-must-complete-work-one-way situation that kids in b&m school are thrown into. Did this recent eval include anything other than ability/achievement testing? Your ds has been evaluated for ADHD in the past - have any of the evals he's had been through either a neuropsychologist or an educational psychologist who included extended testing such as visual-motor integration, executive functioning, fine motor, a parent interview going over developmental history and a look at his academic work products from school? If you haven't had that type of in-depth review of your ds' academic functioning, it *might* be worth doing. polarbear
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Amber, that's a really low coding score - I'm guessing his symbol search score was significantly higher (to get the average value you have for Processing Speed, even though it's in the lowish average range)? Yes, I definitely observe behaviors! I should mention he is homeschooled, so we've been working around his speed and attention issues. He's a daydreamer, he has a hard time focusing, unless it's hyper focus. I suspect if he's having a tough time with focusing that coding might be very difficult, and symbol search might be less difficult - but that's just a guess - I have no actual training in this so my suspicions aren't anything you should trust lol! This sounds a lot like possibly ADHD, but otoh, it might also be describing a child who is faced with a task they can't perform easily. Homeschooling is great on the one hand because you can work around issues that arise, but otoh sometimes when you're working around issues you might not even realize something is an issue or that you are working around something - simply because you're responding to your child's needs and he's not faced with the same types of across-the-board every-student-must-complete-work-one-way situation that kids in b&m school are thrown into. Did this recent eval include anything other than ability/achievement testing? Your ds has been evaluated for ADHD in the past - have any of the evals he's had been through either a neuropsychologist or an educational psychologist who included extended testing such as visual-motor integration, executive functioning, fine motor, a parent interview going over developmental history and a look at his academic work products from school? If you haven't had that type of in-depth review of your ds' academic functioning, it *might* be worth doing. polarbear It was just achievement and IQ. As far as the "ADD" diagnosis, it was off a checklist, and at the time, I didn't really think it was that accurate. His symbol search was a 9, which also sounds low. I posted his scores on page 2 of this thread, I just got them in the mail this afternoon. I wouldn't mind doing a full evaluation. We are within a day's drive of Dr Amend, but now I need to wait a year, unless we just skip the IQ portion.
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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The psych put in the report that he was making sure every line was perfect, and talking through things out loud, so she thinks its a perfectionist issue.
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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I wouldn't mind doing a full evaluation. We are within a day's drive of Dr Amend, but now I need to wait a year, unless we just skip the IQ portion. On the off chance that there's something going on and you might be able to help with remediation early rather than wait, I'd recommend asking if you can pursue an eval now, using the IQ/achievement test results you already have.
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I wouldn't mind doing a full evaluation. We are within a day's drive of Dr Amend, but now I need to wait a year, unless we just skip the IQ portion. On the off chance that there's something going on and you might be able to help with remediation early rather than wait, I'd recommend asking if you can pursue an eval now, using the IQ/achievement test results you already have. The psych put in the report that he was making sure every line was perfect, and talking through things out loud, so she thinks its a perfectionist issue. It might be… otoh it might not. My dyspraxic/dysgraphic ds had a significantly low coding score the first time he was tested, and the psych doing the testing also noted the very same things - he appeared to be making sure every mark was perfect, moving really slow, appeared to (in the psych's words) "not understand the importance of moving fast for a timed test." That round of testing was for a gifted program, and through a psych who wasn't looking for any type of challenge, and who didn't review any developmental history or look at any academic work or do any additional testing to check to see if it might be something more than perfectionism. At the time, I honestly thought ds was a perfectionist because he moved slowly and carefully and thoughtfully when doing his schoolwork. Two years later when he was tested by a neuropsychologist, his performance on coding was similar to the first test, but the neuropsychologist was looking at his performance through a different lens (was looking for challenges because he was struggling in school with attention and output), was familiar with his developmental history (through a parent interview), and had additional tests she was able to run to tease out what was up vs was it just perfectionism. That made a huge difference in understanding what was really going on. polarbear
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Thank you for the thoughtful replies! First of all, you clearly have done an excellent job with him, based on his achievement scores. (In fact, there is peer-reviewed research that finds that homeschooling parents can have as good academic outcomes with ADHD and LD children as master's level special educators.)
Secondly, whether or not he is diagnosable as having ADHD, medication is not the only treatment. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing. That's a decision that I would encourage families to make holistically, taking into consideration the needs and well-being of both your individual child and your family system. It's also not an either-or decision. The majority of psychostimulants are short-acting; I know many students who take them only during school hours, but not at night, on weekends, or during school breaks. If his attentional dysregulation interferes with his major life functions or happiness, then it becomes a problem. Otherwise, it's just one aspect of who he is. He's also still very young. Given opportunities to learn and be reinforced for skills in managing his attention, his brain has time to develop the neurocognitive skills further.
To your original PSI question: attentional dysregulation is most certainly associated with low processing speed. These are minimally-engaging rote tasks, without particular intrinsic meaning. Sustained attention for them can be quite challenging for ADHD-ish kids. With WJ fluency scores no lower than 107, I would not be particularly concerned about LD, as the inattention could easily explain the PSI. Were Coding and Symbol Search about the same? Got the scores just now! Similarities 17 Vocabulary 17 Comprehension 15 VCI - 138 Block design 16 Picture concepts 14 Matrix Reasoning 13 PRI - 127 Digit Span 14 Letter-Number sequence 14 WMI - 123 coding 3 Symbol search 9 PSI 78 FSIQ 124 GAI 139 So it looks like working memory was a bomb. Actually, the index scores are listed after the relevant subtest scores, so working memory is strong, comparable to perceptual reasoning, and not dramatically lower than verbal comp. Processing speed, on the other hand, is most certainly low, and it's so particularly for coding, which is a timed fine-motor copying task. I would be concerned about this, as 3 is in the 1st %ile. Symbol search is not all that bad; at least it's in the average range. The extent of fine-motor demands on symbol search is a tick mark. Really, any mark that is distinguishable from a non-mark will do. This looks like a fine-motor/visual-motor-integration/motor coordination issue, on the face of it. The poster above (sorry, can't remember off-hand who it was!) who inquired as to the difference between math calculation speed with and without a pencil makes a good point. As several threads have mentioned, attention problems may sometimes reflect motor coordination deficits. In which case, psychostimulant meds would not help. And, of course, sometimes ADHD and DCD are comorbid.
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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The psych put in the report that he was making sure every line was perfect, and talking through things out loud, so she thinks its a perfectionist issue. Talking things through out loud sounds more like an NVLD compensatory strategy to me, which would be compatible with something in the DCD/dyspraxic category of things. He has strong verbal reasoning, and may have figured out that he can use it to support areas of weakness, such as, perhaps, visual motor integration/coordination. On math facts/automaticity: some of the same cognitive processes are involved in terms of attaining automaticity with math facts and with fine motor coordination tasks like handwriting. His working memory is good, but that doesn't necessarily mean that skills are being readily encoded into the aspects of long-term retrieval that have to with automatic tasks (as opposed to interesting, meaningful, informational content). You can't hold things indefinitely in working memory. On re-testing: You could have him re-tested sooner, if your examiner has the WISC-V on order, as I'm told by the publisher that it should be shipping in October. Can't do the WJIII again immediately, but, then the WJIV is also out this fall. And there's always the WIAT-III or KTEA-II or -III. So if you need a short-interval re-test, this is actually a good year for it. 
...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...
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aeh & polarbear, thank you so much for your help!
I think we will have to wait until the spring, regardless because of the financial issues, as we just paid for these tests.
In any event, I am going to read up on everything you've mentioned, and see if anything jumps out at me, so I can start figuring out how to help him.
He did do a round of therapy at 5 for fine motor delay. He tested at the low end of normal though, nothing too concerning. We went ahead with the therapy anyways because we figured it couldn't hurt.
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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Actually, the index scores are listed after the relevant subtest scores, so working memory is strong, comparable to perceptual reasoning, and not dramatically lower than verbal comp. Processing speed, on the other hand, is most certainly low, and it's so particularly for coding, which is a timed fine-motor copying task. This makes more sense! The scores printed out weird, thank you for clarifying that!
Last edited by Amber; 09/11/14 01:36 PM.
I can spell, I just can't type on my iPad.
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