Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Could my son be 2e? Any info appreciated...

We recently had my son evaluated (almost 6) and received the diagnosis of severe ADHD. We thought he would be gifted based on his behaviors, academic performance, and family history.

The psychologist had to give us two scores. She redid two parts of the test because he was so distracted and the second score reflects those scores. She didn't redo processing speed which was his lowest overall area because she said regardless of the reason thats what his processing speed is.

So these are the second set of scores:

FSIQ 120, 91%

VCI 137, 99%

VSI 129, 97%

FR 127, 96%

WMI, 113, 81%

PSI, 97, 42%


Would he be considered verbally gifted but not globally gifted? Would his GAI score qualify him for giftedness? He took the WPPSI-IV.

His Woodcock Johnson Test scores were all very high, total score was 98%. It would have been 99% but his ADHD made him really mess up the Math Facts Fluency section. He is doing second grade math now as a kindergartener and got a 34% on that. The tester said he got overwhelmed by all of the questions on the same page.

Thanks for the feedback!

Welcome!

I'll have to start with an obligatory caution, which is that any cognitive scores obtained by re-administering the same tasks within a very short time period have to be viewed with great care, and as loose estimates only, if obtained for good reasons, and more-or-less tossed out, if obtained for a not-good reason.

That being said, if we take the fairly large assumption that the results presented to you are representative of his true abilities, it is possible (even likely) that the GAI would tip the 130 nominal scales for GT. The distance between his nonverbal and verbal scores is not really that big, especially where you are describing him as highly distractible. BTW, I should clarify: my understanding is that the scores you've listed include retest scores for at least two subtests (or did she retest whole sections, like the whole VSI?), which presumably are higher than the original scores she obtained. Anyway, based on the scores we can see, his development in the reasoning domains is fairly even, with some scores just above the 130 line, and some just below. But that line is arbitrary, so I wouldn't get too caught up in parsing verbal as GT, but visual spatial as not. It's only a couple of points.

WMI and PSI are by far the domains most affected by ADHD (and are also often closer to average/high average even in GT individuals who have no second exceptionality).

And I wouldn't really give the WJ math fluency score a second thought. His age is barely even on the norms for fluency and calculation. Littles are quite variable in their test-ability, and often don't show you everything they can do, for developmental reasons much more pedestrian than ADHD.

Sounds like he's doing very well academically in your homeschool. I'd say address whatever needs to be addressed functionally on the ADHD, and keep up the good work academically!

Hello,

Thank you for your reply!

The evaluation was just for our information to utilize with homeschooling and to figure out if he had ADHD or something else. (It was 13 hours total with a phd student.)

She redid the test Block Design, Picture Concepts and Picture Memory. She said she found new material for the two of the three tests. For Picture Memory, his retest score just went up one point. They went way up for Block Design (from 6 to 14) and Picture Concepts (from 6 to 17). It was like he didn't even show up the first time on those (which is easy to believe). But yes, its not super accurate either way. We will have to have him retested when he is older if we want an "official score" for something and with someone who understands how to test a child with ADHD.

Thanks for the positive feedback on my homeschool : ). I guess part of the reason I'd like to know is to help me socialize with other moms. As in do I belong with the "2e moms" or not? : )

Hm. Where he is nearly six, she may have given him the BD and PC subtests from the WISC-IV or WISC-V.

We homeschool also, as do several other families on these boards. I'm guessing you've only been homeschooling for a little while (formally, at least), based on the age of your child. I think you'll find that most homeschooling communities have space for a wide range of learning profiles. Our circle includes families with HG children, and families with intellectually impaired and globally delayed children (sometimes those are the same family), and families with and without LDs, ADHD, etc. You should go ahead and socialize with any mom you please!