Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should we have another assessment?

Greetings from Texas! Pud (7 1/2, skipped 2nd, in 3rd grade) had the WISC and WIAT a little over a year ago. The results are here: Pud's results.

His scores are confusing and the psychologist who did the testing wasn't able to explain much. His "comprehension" was a '9' (sorry to be repeating for all those who are familiar with this story). We were told that his "social judgement" was lacking. His WIAT scores are much higher than his WISC scores would indicate. About 3 months ago, he saw a different psychologist for behavioral issues. She said he tends to be obsessive/compulsive but not to the extent that it is a disorder and that he is behind his age level emotionally and socially. She didn't really have any recommendations for us. In March, at the suggestion of our regular doctor and some on this board, we had him assessed for Central Auditory Processing. All of his scores were at or above normal but his "pragmatic language skills" were just barely in the normal range and more than 2 standard deviations below the other scores. The speech pathologist suggested we have him assessed to rule out Asperger's Disorder (syndrome?). I've talked to 2 people in gifted education who both, after only briefly meeting my son, expressed the opinion that their first thought was Asperger's. There is no one in my area that is well-versed in both gifted children and Asperger's. There is only 1 person who deals a lot with gifted kids and she says she doesn't know much about Asperger's, other than that gifted can mask Asperger's and vice versa.

I met James Webb at a symposium recently and spoke briefly to him about all this. He recommended a full assessment by either Paul Beljan, Nadia Webb (his niece), or Ed Amend. I spoke to Dr. Amend yesterday and liked what I heard. He suggested a telephone consultation after reviewing all of our current testing and reports and information. And then decide about an assessment. The testing runs 7 - 12 hours over a 3 day period and is $160/hour. We'd have to travel to Kentucky for Dr. Amend or Phoenix or New Orleans for the others.

Part of me says we need to have him assessed by an expert. Part of me says it's not necessary, just treat him as if he has Asperger's and see if things change. I am curious how he would score on the WISC if it were given by someone knowledgeable about giftedness. My husband sees no reason to have him tested. (ahem, assessed)

We are in the process of moving to a school district with a better gifted program, after 2 disastrous (well, maybe that's stretching it a little, but not much) years of school, one in a public school and one in a private school.

It almost seems like I a chasing a diagnosis. I'm not - if there's nothing to diagnose then there's nothing to diagnose. However, if another assessment could help me understand this strange, quirky little person I have to raise, then maybe that would be beneficial. If another assessment would help me to understand him better and understand what behavior is due to giftedness, what to something else, what to personality, and what to bad parenting, that would be worth something.

So, what things would you think about when considering a second assessment? The school will do their own testing for entrance into their gifted program (I think it is the NNAT and the ITBS) but I don't think it will give me much information. Dr. Amend asked me if there was any urgency and I had to laugh and answer "yes and no". Would you do it to rule out Asperger's and other things? Would you do it to help understand your kids? It's a lot of money, especially with the travel, but we might could turn it into a family vacation (I've never been to Kentucky!).

Thanks again for all your support and thoughts.

ETA: sorry that got so long

Personally, I wouldn't do it if my gut feeling was that it was about ruling out autistic spectrum disorders, but I would if I thought I might be ruling one in, because I've seen a child with an ASD really benefit from a special communication class and other services to which he wouldn't have had access without such a diagnosis. OTOH, if in your area there's nothing like that (do you know?) then it might be just as good to read up on ASDs and, as you say, take that into account without worrying about a label.

I also think labels (including GT of course) are best thought of as approximate conveniences rather than as Platonic reality. That is, there may be no real "fact of the matter" about whether he has such-and-such syndrome, let alone about which of his behaviours are caused by what. He just is how he is, and your job is to find out how to bring him up best :-)

Anytime my gut feeling has nagged me as long as yours has nagged you I usually decide to investigate. I've never been sorry.

Good luck with this decision.

Neato

It's a good idea to investigate further, especially if you feel that he is struggling (or not thriving) in the current classroom environment that he is in.

Colorado and Maryland have a gifted twice exceptional handbook on how their school district will proceed in instructing 2E students. I think other larger school districts are developing their own proceedures and curriculum for twice exceptional.

My 2E (ADHD) son experienced disasters in his elementary years until we moved to a district that had a brilliant gifted coordinator who was able to inspire teachers to keep inspiring my son. Another parent I know has a 2E son (Aspie) in Florida and his IEP allowed him to have 1/2 of his courses with the regular language arts for 5th graders (with a learning assistant) and 1/2 modified insturction in Calculus and HS Biology.

I would advise you to know what direction you are wanting to take and what type of medical tests will allow you to get the IEP you feel your son is needing (and not recieving). This may save you some unnecessary expense.

We have a medical diagnosis of gifted aspergers for my DD9 from a pediatric psychologist from Children's Hospital. It has no effect whatsoever on the school district. They do not recognize it or any outside testing that my DD had.

We have fought long and hard to get appropriate testing for pragmatics into the school. (With traditional testing aspie's can pass and actually have a problem, with newer tests specific to actions vs. answers, they don't.) The new tests qualify my DD for an IEP with a speech and language delay in pragmatics and she now receives services. A medical diagnosis, no matter who from, will not in and of itself determine services, and isn't required, in most instances, for services to be granted.

Hope that helps.

Just FYI, although I saw the 2E stuff for Colorado on line at some point a while back, at my ds6's IEP meeting last month the psych told me that the state (we're in CO) was changing its criteria for special needs services, and would not be offering any services (with the exception of speech) unless a student was performing below grade level. I don't know when this supposed change is taking place, but I got the feeling it was very soon.

Regardless, although our district has had a full time gifted program, it does not seem to be appropriate for 2E kids, from the way I have read the handbook for the gifted program. It may all be moot because the district is about to execute some massive budget cuts.

I had a girl friend that was approached by our GT cordinator about having her son evaluated for Aspergers.

You may want to check that out, if your son attends public school they may be required to pay to have the evaluation done.

This is the first day I have ever been on this site so I haven't read your whole story. I have a few questions for you.

How is your child athleticly?
Is he clumbsy, bumps into things?
Does he understand when someone is joking or does he think they are being mean?
Did he teach himself how to read?
How is he socially, does he make friends?

I have 2 friend who have children with aspergers. I may think of some of the other things she told me later.

aaaaahhhhhhgggggg

Just a year ago 2E seemed to be sparking an interest and I hoped these two districts would be leading change for gifted curriculum. I really like the objectives and teaching methods suggested.

I think you are the third person I spoke to where speech services were going to be utilized for below grade level performance. I really dislike the way it feels like gifted children will do ok and fend for themselves in the regular classroom.

Back on topic... sorry...

Let me clarify - they will offer all the usual services if the student has below grade level performance. Speech is the only service they will offer if the student is performing at or above grade level (my ds's new IEP has only speech and he's now performing above grade level; we're fortunate that he no longer needs the other services, like the OT he used to get for fine motor).

At any rate, from what I could see, the stuff in that 2E on-line booklet wasn't really being implemented in our school district (which is supposedly among the handful of better districts in the state).

(sorry for going off-topic again)

Has the current school done any kind of speech and language eval? Again, yes with the standard CASTL testing, or equivalent, and also with something like the CSLI? The first being the answer these questions test that many gifties will still pass and the second being the skills inventory that the parents and teachers rate based on his actual actions. If Pud has aspergers this is where you will start to see the most common delay. It will become more noticable from year to year without intervention, and to a certain degree maybe even with intervention. My DD passed all the standard tests last year and still just makes the cut this year, but failed the CSLI by a good margin.

I would look into something like this before I went through an expensive redo of the WISC and WIAT. Just my two cents...