Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Psych test says gifted, school retest says no

Yes. It may be important to note that last year his second grade teacher and a third grade teacher decided to "unofficially" accelerate him. I appreciate their trying to help DS, however the 3rd grade class wasn't much better for him than the 2nd. He was, once again, in the highest reading group and therefore most of the time he was in the third grade class he was left to his own devices and allowed to simply choose independent reading from the class stock. That does not help further his comprehension or reading skills and it give him too much idle time. He only read with the 3rd grade teacher and his group every two weeks or so. I now know that even though it was not official (with a WEP) that he should have taken the third grade reading proficiency test. Considering the fact that the WJ and their STAR assessments both show him reading and comprehending at 5th - 6th grade level, I doubt he would have had an issue! :-)


I was aware of the reporting, but I didn't know that was a change...I have learned A LOT about ODE rules for GT in the last few days...


I had emailed back and forth with the GT man there, he was a wonderful resource. He had even pointed out the procedure for filing an official complaint with the other issue. They have been most helpful!


Thanks!

You need to enlist the help of the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers from this year.

The 3rd grade teacher in particular should present work samples from this year, and the teacher should express concern as to how he will remain learning and engaged next year.

The district bar is the same "two standard deviations above the mean" just like the state.


The only thing that might be curriculum based would be the school's STAR assessments (I haven't delved into the world of curriculum based testing!) At Spring conferences they gave us the STAR reading and math asessments they did and he scored 631 on math (4.4 grade equivalent) and 684 on reading (6.2 grade equivalent) But I don't think STAR asessments count any longer for GT.


Originally we had DS tested because we wondered if he had ADD. We chose a psych specifically because they were well versed with ADD and the gifted (DH is gifted). Found out DS was gifted but has slow working memory / processing speed. Psych said exposing DS to higher level math may help. Also said that making sure he is challenged will help with the processing speed.

School does not challenge him. He only gets to read with teacher every two weeks, if that and when we asked, we were brushed off. We know how often he reads with the teacher because she sends home a new book with a sign off sheet for us. the sheets are not collected for weeks at a time. His math homework is very simple for him, it does not take him but 2-3 minutes to do all of his homework. He complains of the teacher repeating stuff over and over.

Third is that because he has so much free time on his hands when the teachers work with all the other groups, he amuses himself sometimes by singing, humming, or distracting other kids. Two teachers said he has maturity issues. He's not immature, he's bored. (Yes, I know the schools don't like that word, but guess what? I don't like you calling my child immature!) Also, there is not ONE faculty member in the district with a gifted credential, so I don't believe they know much about dealing with GT kids.

Our biggest concern is that he will begin to tune out if not challenged.

PSI 109 (Coding 9, Symbol Search 14)



Reading Fluency 140
Math Fluency 94
Writing Fluency 113


7 Subtests
GIA (Std)
No observations, she only provided the scores themselves to the principal and to me.


No other testing given.

Thanks again for looking at this!

The WISC results echo the concerns with the reasons for low processing speed scores that I mentioned above. He's had six measures that should reflect some aspect of processing speed: coding, symbol search, visual matching, reading fluency, math fluency, writing fluency. Performance has ranged from the border of Average and Below Average all the way up to Very Superior. That does not look like a true cognitive processing speed deficit to me. It looks more like there are other factors that interfere with consistent demonstration of his strong processing speed.

If we sort the tasks into fine-motor-heavy and fine-motor-light ones, we have, in the motor-heavy category: coding, math fluency, and writing fluency. Two of them were relatively low, in the lower half of the Average range, while writing fluency was High Average.

In the motor-light category: symbol search, visual matching, reading fluency. One was relatively low, in the bottom of the Average range, while the other two are stronger, in the High Average and Very Superior range.

Note that visual matching and symbol search are very similar tasks, involving visual scanning and discrimination. Strong performance on one, and weak performance on the other, suggests that the weaker subtest is not a complete representation of these skills. The primary differences between the two are that one uses symbols, while the other uses numbers, and that for SS, one knows what the search items are, whereas for VM, one must scan all of the items to find the matching pair.

Now let's organize these in another way. We can sort them into tasks with thinking, and those with little thinking. In the thinking category: reading fluency, writing fluency. A small amount of comprehension is required for the reading task. The writing task requires quickly formulating sentences using provided target words. His performance is quite strong when thinking is involved.

In the little thinking category: coding, symbol search, visual matching, math fluency (depending on one's grasp of mathematics; his very high reasoning scores and decent computation scores suggest that it is not the actual ability to do arithmetic that affects math fluency). The lowest scores are here, with the exception of symbol search. Coding and visual matching have in common the need for repeated re-scanning of the materials, with the potential for getting lost in the visual tracking. Symbol search has much more widely spaced lines, separated by visual frames, which makes it much easier to scan. Plus, there are specified target images, which reduces the number of scans one has to do. Coding and math fluency have in common the highest fine-motor demands. It would be good to check if his math fact automaticity is any faster when administered orally.

So my thought is, some of the areas that might benefit from further investigation may include fine-motor skills, visual tracking, and high stimulation needs (differential performance when cognitively engaged--has some relationship to ADHD and other executive functions). My suspicion is that more than one of these is involved. For example, let's say fine motor and cognitive challenge explain most of the differences. If his true cognitive processing speed is represented by reading fluency, it's in the Very Superior range. Add fine-motor constraints, and it drops 1.5 SD, to the High Average range (writing fluency). Take away the cognitive challenge, and it also drops 1.5 SD (symbol search). Do both, and it drops over 3 SD, to the downside of the Average range (coding, math fluency).

Wow aeh! That's a lot of great feedback. Thank you! We will check out the possibilities.

Update: I got an email from the assistant superintendent of the district. Since I pointed out that Ohio Administrative Code prohibits denying services based upon re-testing, they are going to go ahead with the assessment to determine if acceleration is the right thing for DS. She even listed the steps required, which agree with the state's policy. (In Ohio districts must adhere to the state acceleration policy or show an evidence based reason to deviate) I think the district administration learned something about gifted services, too. (no, that's not meant to be snarky!)

Oh,and geofizz, your comments about principals and testing was some very good insight. It helped DH and I see the principal in a little different light. Thanks!

I only hope some day I can learn enough to help someone else here....right now my learning curve is STEEP!

I have a LOT of homework to do this weekend! :-)