Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Concerned about low processing score

well, I feel I may have wasted everyone's time. I talked to DS about the test today, and asked him if he thought any parts were harder than others.

He said he didn't like the timed parts, because they made him feel nervous, and that one section at the end, he went slow on purpose because he wanted me to be mad at him. I asked him why he would want me to be mad at him, and the said, "I wanted to see what it would be like to be a "bad kid" like the bullies in the Big Nate books."

He does have issues with handwriting, so I don't know what to think anymore! I'm going to let this all simmer for a while. Thanks everyone for your help!

Well, that would just make the handwriting difficulties even more marked, because the last subtest is not coding, it's symbol search. So if we take what he said at face value, that means his fine-motor reduced processing speed is at least above average, while his fine-motor-laden processing speed is in the extremely low range.

Among the core subtests, there are only three subtests which are timed, and he did well on the first, horrible on the second, and adequately on the last (but he claims that that was an act of deliberate sabotage). Is it possible that he is picking up on your concern with the timed tasks, or simply already aware of his relative weakness, and is attempting to mask his actual weaknesses by disguising it as being "on purpose?" A lot of LD kids, gifted and otherwise, do this. 'Cause one would rather be perceived as being unwilling than unable.

He didn't say it was the last one, just "at the end." He talked about "at the beginning of the test," and "at the end of the test," in general. He said he messed up the block part on purpose too, but he scored the highest on that.

He's 7, so who knows if he's being honest about this or just making it up. He has an active imagination. I don't want to grill him about it either, so I'll probably never know.

My DS said some strange things about his IQ test as well. I wonder if your son was aware of the loadedness/possible importance of the test. Mine was (unfortunately) and I think he thought he needed to perhaps justify any wrong answers. He didn't seem emotional about it, but made comments that things were "goofy" or that he didn't pay attention at X part or whatever. (He did fine, though he did kind of bomb one section.)

He does this though. Last year he tried to reinact Calvin & Hobbes scenarios all the time. I'm not convinced that's what happened here, but I wouldn't put it past him.

I don't think it was a matter of him not doing as well because of the levity either, because he did the WJ and did as expected.

I'm just really confused about the psi and coding scores. Can anyone elaborate on what this weakness would look like in everyday life? The only thing I can think of is handwriting, and even then, it doesn't seem like he's in the 7th or 1st percentile.

Aeh, I did look into nvld after you mentioned it, and a lot of it sounds like him. He's ok with facial expressions, and socially, but the other coordination things were spot on.

I don't know that you'll ever know for sure how much (if any) impact your ds had on his own coding subtest score if he did purposely go slow or whatever.... Until he has another coding subtest or similar test. You can, however, test his handwriting speed at home - have him write the alphabet, upper and lower case, from A to Z and time him while. He does it. To get the most accurate time, I wouldn't let him know he's being timed. Then divide the total number of letters written by the total number of minutes to get letters/minute, then compare that to same-age and/or same-grade level peers by googling "letters per minute second grade" etc.

I don't know your ds, but there are a few red flags I see in your posts that suggest a lower coding score might be real. The thing to focus on though isn't just the coding score and trying to understand what it would look like - but to look at the broad functioning of your ds, any challenges you see him having, and then look at the subtest score s and other data to see what fits. He's been evaluated for suspicions of ADHD in the past, you see some things that look like NVLD, fwiw Developmental Coordination Disorder, NVLD, ASD all share symptoms in common. It's most likely going to take a professional look throu a comprehensive evaluation to really understand what's going on.

FWIW re what a low coding score *might* look like - for one child, with DCD, which in and of itself presents differently in every person who is impacted by it, my ds at 7 years old, prior to diagnosis, delayed or fought doing any type of homework that related to writing. It wasn't obvious to myself or any of his teachers that his handwriting was any worse than any other student in his class. He didn't tell us anything was wrong but he did get mad when he had to do homework and he didn't seem to be working at the level we thought he would be working at based on his verbal communication. We didn't realize his incredibly deep complex verbal communication was one-sided in that there were only certain kinds of conversations he was having. He had a few develop,entail things that we just thought of as cute and quirky - things like crawling late and then not crawling any more, talking late etc, not wanting to out on his jacket, screaming when it was time to go to skiing lessons, silly things that just looked like little kid behavior. In school when worksheets were passed out he acted like the class clown or he daydreamed untl he got the two minute warning to finish them. In second grade, he became extremely anxious and we started getting reports from the teacher that something wasn't right, that he must have ADHD. That's all what it looked like pre-diagnosis. Neither his teachers or us (parents) had a clue what was really going on. And his ped never caught on to anything as a concern at his well-child checkups.

Best Wishes,

polarbear

Low PSI and coding scores have many possible causes, some of which have already been listed here, including: inattention, impulsivity (if high error rate), fine-motor deficits, vision, perceptual weaknesses, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, fatigue, sleep disorders, allergies, psychomotor retardation as a medication side effect.

So how it presents in real life depends on what the etiology is.

If it is something that affects handwriting, you may not see it that easily if he is not doing timed activities, as he may be able to be accurate, if slow.

I completely agree polarbear, that an in depth evaluation is definitely warranted! Thank you for taking the time to type all of that out. You've been a big help!

Thank you aeh! I'm intrigued by the allergy mention. Ds has multiple food and environmental allergies as well as EoE.