Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Unidentified learning disabilities - help decoding

I'm at a loss as to where to go for help for my son. We pulled him from public school this year after years of struggle and frustration. He is highly intelligent and attends the gifted program in our district one day per week; however, I'm concerned he has learning disabilities that have not been identified - specifically with reading and math. When I read about stealth dyslexia it sounds like my son. He has been diagnosed with Asperger's, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorder. He will only read graphic novels and reports he gets distracted and sometimes feels nauseated when reading text. His frustration level with reading is unreal, but he seems to be able to comprehend what he reads. When he completed the WISC-IV (a few years back) he ranked 97th percentile for Verbal Comprehension, 79th percentile for Perceptual Reasoning, 75th percentile for Working Memory, but 13th percentile for Processing Speed. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Verbal Comprehension 128
Similarities 14
Vocabulary 15
Comprehension 15

Perceptual Reasoning 112
Block Design 13
Picture Concepts 8
Matrix Reasoning 15

Working Memory 110
Digit Span 10
Letter/Number Sequencing 14

Processing Speed 83
Coding 5
Symbol Search 9

FSIQ 114
GAI 122

Thank you. I've read several posts on stealth dyslexia, but I'm not sure what to ask as far as testing. I've not found many resources in our community and got no where with the public school system. We've not met with a SLP, but that may be my next stop. Thanks again for your feedback.

With the standard caveat that I haven't seen your child in action, and thus have no naturalistic or clinical context for the scores:

I would agree that the picture concepts score is anomalous. Given his existing ASD diagnosis, it is not unreasonable to suspect that there is some social reasoning component affecting his performance. Other kinds of divergent thinkers also sometimes score lower, as they may find connections between the pictures that are different from the standard responses. Digit span also is quite a bit lower than LNS. I wonder if digits forward and backward were comparable to each other, or if one of them was more similar to LNS. DSF is more rote memory (more sensitive to attention), while DSB has a bit of visual component to it, and tends to be more interesting, which sometimes elicits a stronger performance from those with ADHD. The Cd/SS difference is also notable. Typically, this reflects fine motor issues, but I would have expected a little more of that to show up on BD as well. Was there any commentary on how he completed the tasks? I've also seen children who were overly focused on perfect renditions of the symbols on Cd end up with lower scores. Also people who have difficulty with looking up and down repeatedly, for near-point copying (often having trouble finding their place again after looking away).

Do you have achievement data? A WIAT, WJ, or KTEA? One of those should have been done at his last reevaluation (probably when the WISC was done).

If you suspect dyslexia, there are specific tests, such as the CTOPP, that get at underlying phonological processing skills and when combined with other testing - ability, achievement, memory, etc - can identify reading issues. You'd want to discuss these with a psychologist. We can help you find previous posts if you're having trouble tracking down relevant ones.

Your comment about nausea when reading, however, makes me wonder about visual processing. (Not to say it can't be both. Trust me on that one!) An exam by an optometrist or ophthalmologist who specializes in visual processing (not just physical vision issues) may be helpful too.