Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional SPD and WISCIV

Hi, Our son was officially diagnosed as "sensory defensive". He is 6-3/4 and was also evaluated to need PT for some motor weakness. Needless to say this was shocking as he is in perpetual motion. I have been reading up on it. We had his IQ tested in Jan and he tested "gifted" just missing the DYS cutoff but the evaluator said this was not a good indicator of his true ability because of his distractibilies. So does anyone know how much effect SPD would have on the IQ results? I know it has severely impacted his school performance. At least we are on the right track. Thanks.

Actually, I think you know the answer to this better than anyone. Being his parent, you truly understand your child's mind, the things he comprehends and so forth. Now, take your child and work with him at home, challenging him to the max that he can handle. Then, decide what that difference is between his moments of clarity and his SPD challenged mind. The actual points don't matter, I don't think, unless you wish to build a case for DYS in the future. Just my take.

My son has SPD and we also tried to assess him and the psych told us that his IQ score was not a good indicator either due to his SPD....there is also a lot of research all over the internet about it as well. He has issues with being very distracted in locations he has never been due to his over-sensititives so if the air kicks on, they have any kind of funky potpourri or cleaning materials, fluorescent lighting....the list goes on...he will switch his focus momentarily to where he is being bombarded sensory wise and then will focus back on the assessment. She told us it would benefit us if we found an assessor that has experience with SPD children or possibly finding someone who could come test in our home. We finally found a person across the state who is going to assess him next week = she works out of a special OT gym that is for SPD children and we will have the entire gym to ourselves for the entire testing procedure so he can swing or bounce on a ball or whatever sensory needs he has to have met while he is testing to give us a more accurate look hopefully!
So yes, a child with SPD can have issues taking IQ tests

If your child has weakness being addressed by PT I would suspect that he has low proximal muscle tone, often found in kids with SPD. In practice, I find that kids with low tone are often in constant motion - staying still requires too much energy. Low muslce tone means there is difficulty maintaining muscle contraction for joint stability and postural control. It's actually easier to be moving than sitting still. The difficulty sitting still certainly can contribute to interference with IQ or any testing.

(responding with my OT hat on)

Thank you Doodlebug. That seems to be exactly what is going on. We have started "brushing" but now he says it hurts. I am thinking it seems more that his body is responding. I am giving him a day off and will pick it up again. He has no idea where his body is in space they told me. This was very hard to understand as he is in perpetual motion. Your reason above is a lot easier to understand. He does seem to be slowly calming down.

Belle, I really like your logic on giftedticcyhyper's post. I have gone over the aspberger's checklist too many times and come up negative. I would love to know how your testing goes. Please keep me informed.

Giftedticcyhyper-I do know that he is much smarter than his score. I have been told by so many people that he is "wicked" smart and an "indigo" child (this is not something I am either for or against) and that he has very wise deep connections with the world. But make him write the alphabet and on a good day he can get almost all the letters right. Unfortunately that is part of the WISC IV. So I was wondering if the SB would better show me where he falls (how many standard deviations) so I can better find him an intellectual peer group and really decide on school.

Thanks for all your replies.

I completely understand your dilemma. In fact, I share it. DS6 WISC scores are FSIQ: 118, GAI: 129. Doesn't jibe with his capabilities and what ALL of his teachers at three different schools have told me. So, I'm trying to do the homeschool thing right now and working on the sensory issues and stuff. The large public school environment was wreaking havoc on his senses, anyway. I hope that within say, 3-6 months, I can retest him on the SB and see where we are. There is no way this child has an IQ of 118, that's for sure. I was told that he was in constant motion during the test and very distracted and during that time, I had trouble with him during lessons as well, so I know what he was like.

It's terrible too because he tells me that his class is called kindergarten but the work is actually for babies. He was complaining about the level of work every single day and I could see what he meant when I saw the curriculum. I fear that this is a common conundrum. I honestly think that hs is the only option right now so that I can truly observe him, straighten him out, then retest him and get him into a more appropriate environment.

doddlebug, can you explain how balance and constant motion relate to each other? I've heard about how vestibular issues affect those kind of things and I could use some free clarification. Ha ha! By the way, hkc75, do you have a suspended swing at home or a sit and spin?

I agree with you 100% giftedticcyhyper. I heard from the OT we are working with that 1st grade now is like preS was for us as far as expectations. So in K for example the kids are expected to sit for the same amount of time as we were in 2nd grade 20-30 years ago yet the curriculum is often lower than when we were there. (just an opinion from the OT) that is her perspective on why so many sensory defensive kids are having a hard time today (they have not had enough time to develop coping strategies for the amount of expectations). I hope I didn't just open a can of worms. My son made so many comments about the work being for babies. I think that is why he started acting more immature.

We are concentrating on "wrapping", "brushing" and organized movements. For example when DS decides to turn the couch into a trampoline, I have him do an obstacle course 3 times. He has to concentrate on specific actions (3 hops, 2 spins, 2 summer saults, 5 jumps done for 3 rounds). This has been very effective. The wrapping is really fun too. We roll him up and gently spread ketchup on him, mustard and pickles to make a hot dog. This is done by applying gentle pressure working from top to bottom. He loves it! It won't last but is working today. HTH

I plan on trying your coconut milk thing. Just got the acidolophus (sp?) Another mom also told me to look into homeopathy.

You took the words out of DS6's mouth! He stated verbatim, "Our desks are set up like big kids so that anyone walking by would look in our room and think we were doing big kid work but we're really doing baby work." So, what can public school do for us besides add to his sensory issues? Compounding the issues is that he also says that the other kids just aren't very nice. He says that their main form of entertainment is describing other people's failings. "I saw a lady yesterday who was fat and ugly with ugly teeth." He says that he just doesn't find that funny and yet, that's all these kids talk about. I view this heightened morality as a sign of good parents (he he) and also maturity, yet the school views lack of interest in socializing with his "peers" as a sign of autism and/or immaturity. Sigh.

I hear ya loud and clear. That is why we are homeschooling. I hope if we get the sensory issues under control we will start to see some motivation to do "school work" but until that time I am doing multiplication in the car, writing in a doodle book and spelling ala Webkinz. LOL He will do Singapore math once in a while and is taking a class at the Science Museum (Luckily he has a teacher who has a 7yo with SPD). Whew! R u hs too?

Yep, we're trying homeschooling. Monday will be the first day he's officially missing school. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm scared Child Protective Services is going to show up and find me with oatmeal in my hair, diaper rash on my baby's bottom and a three measly math workbooks. I'm still gathering information and deciding how to organize this endeavor.

As far as hs goes, I'm sort of crunchy and I want to support his interests more than focus on discipline. Maybe it's because he/we've been through so much already in terms of anxiety, doctors and schools that I just want to take it down a notch and give him an opportunity to be happy and remember what learning is all about. He's starting to come around again and ask lots of good questions and he's becoming very articulate about the precise points that he needs to have explained again. I'm slowly increasing his workload and giving him lots of encouragement. It's as if his inability to tolerate sensory info has caused him generalized anxiety which extends to insecurity even about his areas of competence. Poor guy. At what point did you notice the sensory defensiveness? How do his symptoms present?

BTDT!

It will be okay. I suspect you'll be amazed at how well it goes.

That doesn't mean that you won't have oatmeal in your hair though. You should see the disastrous state of my house! But it's all okay. You get through it. I promise!

LOL Kriston. The hs chapter in our area just did a survey on "free" counter/center island space. The results were that the average family had 47% of free space on their counter (out of 37 families). So we are not alone.

Giftedticcyhyper- My son has always been sensitive to sounds especially (busy crowded areas, museums, malls, family get togethers,etc). I just figured he'd grow out of it. He tends to get the "flight" response. When he started getting the whole "restless, fidgety" labels, I knew something was going on. He can be sitting on the couch reading a book and if I turn on the vacuum, he will shoot up like he is on fire and run out the door. He used to run away when his baby sister would start crying. Stuff like that. He is my first so I had no idea other kids didn't do it. There were a few other quirks I checked off in "The Out-of-Sync Child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz,M.A. I also saw a lot of things in "The Mislabeled Child" by Drs Eide. HTH

hkc75 and Belle,

Can you speak to the SPD vs. Aspberger's at all? We had an Aspberger's/PDD-NOS diagnosis years ago (when my DS11 was 6) and as I read more and more about giftedness and misdiagnosis in the Webb book I am wondering if what we're really dealing with is giftedness and SPD, not Aspberger's.

He has always had sensory issues and a lot of the things that we're really disruptive behaviors early on he has sort of learned to cope with over time.

But the major factors that still present are his constant motion, repetitive movement and sensory type responses to sounds, food, textures etc. I know it is not ADD as he has no problem concentrating--he just doesn't sit still very much. (He is also a drummer so imagine the dinner table at our house!)

He also does not seem to know where he "is in space"--he runs into me a lot, door frames, knocks things over, etc. though he is fairly coordinated with group sports like baseball and soccer and very good at archery.

He is fairly inflexible in a school setting and that in part with his boredom in class and constant movement has led me to begin homeschooling several months ago. (He is much happier BTW).

We have never done any OT for his diagnosis but I am reading with interest about the brushing, wrapping, etc. Any further thoughts?

Can you recommend any good sources for further reading?

Thanks a bunch.

Elizabeth4, I am very new to all this as well but I have found "The Out of Sync Child" by Carol Krawitz (I don't have it in front of me) very helpful. Also the OT evaluation was extremely helpful. They told us he lacked muscle tone so even though he was in perpetual motion, he was very weak in certain muscles. He can not sit still becuz of this and sensory issues. Feel free to pm me and I can get into it more off line.

We started HSing 2 years ago for a number of different reasons. I thought I'd address your statement about CPS. Have you checked out the HSing laws in your state? It's really a good idea to make sure you are working within those rules (hopefully liberal ones) when you withdraw a child from public school. Or you do in fact run the risk of being hassled about withdrawing your child due to the mandatory attendance laws.

I think you said your child was in kinder, in which case he may be young enough that the mandatory attendance law doesn't apply yet. But you should be aware of the rules so you can avoid any problems.

Here's a link to a homeschooling website that lets you look up the HSing laws in your state.

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

Best wishes,

Patricia

Ah, what I wouldn't give to have 47% of my counters cleared...

As I understand it, the one key feature of autism spectrum disorders that helps to set them apart from other neurodevelopment issues like SPD w/o ASD is the child's reaction to or ability to engage in social interactions.

A gifted child (especially one from a language rich environment) may have very high functioning language that masks this underlying deficit/difficulty. This is true with our son.

Depending on the age of your child this can be hard to figure out. But here are some possible examples or ideas of observations that may help you sort this out:

Does the child avoid direct eye contact or break off direct eye contact very quickly? This can be very subtle, especially in a child who is in "constant" motion. Repeated observation with peers and people from outside the family may be the most useful since he may have built up some tolerance for eye contact with close family members. It often seems as though there's a good "reason" for the shift in eye contact so regular observation over time and with different people may be necessary to identify this pattern.

Can the child take the perspective of the reader when writing (for older children)? This is a major issue for my son and is why his writing is often disorganized and incoherent. He is almost completely unable to take the reader's perspective.

Can the child engage in meaningful conversation with or "interview" another person about themselves? The essential skill here is the ability to generate a meaningful series of personal questions about another person's interests or activities that takes the other person's responses into account as the conversation progresses.

Many very high-functioning ASD children can engage in what I call pseudo-conversation but when you closely observe the content of their conversation you realize that they are not really asking these kinds of questions. They may ask about things in the other person's life (what kind of car you own, is that ball yours) but not about the other person's connection to or feelings about those things (why do you like that kind of car? Can we play with the ball together?).

Also they often turn the conversation very quickly to topics of interest to themselves or into a story about themselves that doesn't really have much emotional content or have much to do with the other person's conversational responses. For example, when asked to notice what was different about a series of photos of his speech therapist, my son pointed out that her hair was different in each photo. When prodded, he managed to ask the SP if she got her hair cut often. When she said that she did he immediately responded with a lengthy story about getting his own hair cut and failed to follow up with any meaningful questions for the SP about her own reasons for changing her hairstyle. Even when re-directed he could not come up with any questions for her. He is 13 1/2 and really should be able to do this at least a little. At the start of this assessment, when the SP asked him to interview her (after modeling this skill for him) my son flatly stated "I can't do that" and became clearly uncomfortable. He was right - he can't do that.

Problems with peers can include developing complex rules for games - a very "gifted" sort of thing to do. But in the ASD child, the rules will be arbitrary and inflexible and often focused on ensuring that the ASD child wins. The ASD child has little ability to recognize that other children want to win too, that the rules they have created are self-serving, and that peers don't want to play when there is no chance of winning. The gifted child's rules will make sense in terms of making the game more interesting or hard but not in a way that offers no chance of winning if you are playing with them - provided you are can follow their logic and remember all the rules

Difficulty with abstract thinking/concepts can be hard to identify in younger children but is also a fairly prominent feature of ASD's than may be helpful in distinguishing between gifted ASD and gifted non-ASD children.

In the child with apparently excellent language skills, you may find that the ASD child knows lots of words but doesn't necessarily know the meaning of the words he's using. His usage may be just a little "off" and adults tend to just correct the child's usage rather than ask the child "what does that word mean?". I suspect this is a very mild form of something found in more severe PDD's where the child parrots back something like a jingle from a commercial, over and over. The gifted ASD child hears a new word and retains it but may not understand the meaning, especially the abstract or emotional/social meaning of the word. He uses it in conversation, "parroting" the way he heard it used because that's the only way he knows to use the word.

It can be hard to differentiate these things and you may need to go to someone who specializes in ASD diagnosis with your questions.

Patricia

Wow Patricia Thanks so much for going in depth. It is very hard to see the line. At what age did you really pin point the possible ASD? The other day my son "won" a date with mom. He turned into the most considerate gentleman, he opened doors for me, poured me a glass of pop, held my hand and offered that I order first since I was a "lady" among other things. These are not things he picked up from just watching dad as I am pretty independant and don't necessarily like to be attended too. So I am unsure where he got these social cues but they really surprised me as I know several men who would be clueless about such things. Would this be something an individual with ASD would be unable to do?

I like your interviewing assignment. I will definitely use that.
Thanks for your helpful info.

I agree with hkc. It's hard to draw the line. I think one of the problems is that most of those things can be explained by sensory issues. Lack of eye contact could be hyper visual sensitivity caused by trouble processing auditory information. If a child is in constant motion, he or she clearly has either a vestibular issue or AD/HD.

Also, the meaningful conversations could be lacking because of shyness. I know for example, my son is super shy in front of other people but the second we get home, he'll barrage me with a slew of insightful questions about the person that he met that day.

Hmm. The abstract thinking issue and lack of ability to see things from someone else's perspective is hard one. I can't explain that any other way.

Wow,thanks for the info. I will definitely try the interview thing. And I will watch the eye contact with others more closely and the tone of conversations--the back and forth give.

I am very perplexed right now. DS11 has an official diagnosis (at 6) but several things lately have made me begin to question this diagnosis.

First of all, I read the Deborah Ruf Losing Our Minds book and totally saw my DS in the overexcitabilities and quirky traits of the highly gifted. It rang so true, more so than any of the Aspberger's books I've read. I just kept thinking, this is SO my DS.

I also read the Webb book on Misdiagnois. And, when I finally decided to homeschool DS11 (he was very unhappy in our public school)so many of the explosive, inflexible, uncooperative behaviors disappeared. He still has difficulty sitting still, transitions can be challenging and he has sensitivities, but these are minimal compared to the challenges we were having in the classroom and due to his extreme resistance to school.

It is such a dramatic difference that I'm really questioning the initial diagnosis. His existing behaviors can be explained away as SPD, or giftedness or even being a boy. Many of the behaviors that presented as an infant to 6 year old aren't even an issue anymore. Can you grow out of Aspberger's? Do you just learn to deal with the challenges as you age?

Anyhow, thanks everyone for the input. I didn't mean to hijack. This post just really interested me because I also wondered how SPD might effect DS's WISCIV scores and there seem to be a few of you who are particularly knowledgeable on this subject.

Thanks

One of the most interesting insights I got from Webb's book on misdiagnosis of Asperger's versus gifted - some gifted kids look really out of step socially when they are not with their true peers. This often results in a diagnosis of Asperger's. But when you put them in their own circle - true peers who share their interests and are intellectually similar - the "asperger's" disappears. All of a sudden the child is able to relate, connect, share, engage and show emotions. A child with Asperger's still looks like he/she has Asperger's. I've seen three boys with Asperger's get together who all love Pokemon. They still display all the characteristics of Asperger's despite all sharing the same interest and even perhaps intellectual level. They still appear to be alone in a group. If they've learned social skills they may interact differently but appear stilted or unnatural in their exchanges.

Look for the quality of the social interactions in different settings. If the quality changes from one setting to another it is not likely Asperger's, IMHO. But, lately I'm on my soapbox for less diagnosing and more acceptance. So I might be biased.

Debbie, can I get some free OT advice? I plan on calling my therapist in the morning with a lot of ??? but a big one is, How do I get my perpetual motion child to stop and let his body rest without hypnotizing him (seriously thinking about getting certified here J/K)? He has the hardest time just resting. Example: I did hopscotch with him today and we played frisbee. I was totally wiped out and asked him to lie in the grass and watch the clouds go by (no sensory issues with grass-barefoot whenever there isn't snow on the ground). He said "No Mom, I just don't want too." He sounded disappointed so I let it go. Any ideas?

My son can also be quite the gentleman. He has picked these clues up from watching other people, TV and movies along with reading a wide variety of fiction. That doesn't mean he really is able to take my perspective - he's imitating behavior he knows he's "supposed" to display. I'm not saying that's the case with your child, just saying it is true for mine at this point.

I agree it can be hard to figure out and sometimes you need to decide why you want to figure it out. If your child is going to public school it can be essential to get a diagnosis that the school understands and recognizes. Unfortunately, being "odd" doesn't get you services, just lots of negative attention.

I have long wondered about whether my son was on the spectrum but his language skills are so superior that he dazzles most adults. I have been told repeatedly that my child is "a little professor". Trying to get his doctor to listen to me (or even the school psych's) has been an uphill battle.

I do think that ASD kids can learn and change their behavior. But that doesn't mean that the underlying difficulty has disappeared - it just means they have adapted and learned the rules of proper behavior. It may be that your child was mis-diagnosed or that he is on the spectrum but not as severe as his earlier assessment suggested.

I know my son's problems have only become really prominent in the past 2-3 years. He had symptoms before that (including the whole parroting thing when he was little) but the social difficulties didn't become really noticeable until he reached 4th to 5th grade. And because he has a hearing loss, some of the problems he has were attributed to his hearing loss.

Since your child is 11 I would really consider getting an updated speech eval. And if you're not doing much writing to grade level prompts you may want to focus on this as a way of helping clarify whether he really has problems with perspective taking. For my son, the impact of the ASD issues is really apparent when he tries to write a response to literature that requires him to analyze and respond to human emotion or social interactions. He also has trouble writing from his own perspective - if the writing prompt asks for him to write a story about his own experience he usually ends up writing about someone else as the main focus of his story - instead of himself.

Patricia

giftedticchyper - being shy is not what I am talking about. My son almost never expresses interest in other people and this is true of all the Aspie kids I know (including my niece). In your example, where your son has lots of questions about the person he met (even though he didn't ask them at the time), my son is likely to behave as if the person never existed.

If you bring the meeting up, he will agree it happened and may even comment on some aspect of the meeting like where the meeting occurred. But he will not ask "insightful" questions about that person as a general rule. If he does have questions they are not focused on the motives/emotions/thoughts of that person (i.e. no "why" questions).

Thanks, rls. I finally understand the difference. It's unfortunate that a lot of folks go around "diagnosing" other people's children but they do. So many people have called my son an aspie but when I read the symptoms, I just don't see it and the doctors agree. He is painfully shy and when he sees new people, the poor dear does something I call "the chicken". Mouth open wide, elbows back and hands down. The hands used to flap. Later, he'll say, "I hate when I meet new people and my body goes like this." He can't help it, though! Does anyone know why he does that?

Well, I wouldn't want to diagnose your son but that sounds more like a social phobia or anxiety type of problem than ASD but, given his physical reaction, I can see how that would get classified as ASD. Also, he may have "grown out" of the more severe ASD problems - it's not unknown for that to happen.

Perhaps he would be considered to be "on the spectrum" - which means he displays some characteristic ASD behaviors or the ASD behaviors are sub-clinical in severity but overall he does not have enough ASD features to meet criteria for Autism, Asperger's or PDD-NOS.

And it could be classified as a tic (sudden, usually repetitive, non-rhythmic, stereotyped motor movement). I'm no expert but if he perceives it as an involuntary reaction under stress it may fit under that category of movement disorders. Especially if he has other behaviors that might be tics or problems with movement like crossing the midline vertically or horizontally.

Patricia

Yes, he has been formally diagnosed with chronic motor tics. They run in the family. Yes, learning patty cake took him years. The doctor felt that his praxia/motor planning area was so strong plus the family history of tics, he put him into the tics category. I said, "What about ASD?" He said, "No. Don't worry about ASD. That's not what it is." I would have loved for him to take the time to explain further but time was a tickin'!

More about his empathy. He does always know what's bothering his baby brother, even when I don't. I'll say, "Why's he whining?" and DS will say, "He's hungry. He needs a diaper change. He wants you to bounce him." and he's always right even when my guess isn't. I guess if anyone here is ASD, it's me! LOL. He's not very verbal, though. He's kind of the rugged cowboy type. It's all about facial expressions and actions that speak louder than words. He's been that way since he was a baby. I may be wrong but I view it as a masculine trait. You know how men can stand around and not talk and feel as if it's a bonding experience? He's got that same proud stoicism. I hope I'm not gushing.

Is he getting any OT or PT services? The lack of words may be an aspect of his motor planning problems. Has he had a speech eval done?

Patricia

Not really. I tried doing OT at the local hospital and they had no idea what they were doing. They started with Alert but self-control isn't his biggest issue. He already works sooo hard to control his tics and such. He will be going to a sensory clinic in two weeks where they will work on his pons skills. I guess I don't understand motor planning. He is pretty proficient with legos /pattern making. I thought that was motor planning/praxia. What could a speech eval tell us? Maybe he has damage in broca's or something?

I'm no expert either just seems to me to make sense since speaking requires complex motor planning. As I understand it, motor planning refers to the process in the brain of taking a decision to do something that requires movement (I decide to say "hello") and translating that into the action (I say "hello").

I could see motor planning affecting speech and language in lots of different ways - everything from basic articulation problems to more complex problems with long sentences that require many consecutive motor actions.

I don't mean to say that there's something wrong - just wondering out loud I guess. I know with my own kids that I had no idea they were having so much trouble with language tasks that could be helped through speech therapy until they got speech evals. They could "talk" well enough to get by in life and it just didn't occur to me that there was something more going on than slow processing.

If you're concerned about it, here's some of the questions you might ask yourself - or him for that matter - about his speech and language usage:

Is he able to:

-talk freely when he wants to, especially when stressed or upset
-say what he wants to say without struggle or stuttering
-answer questions promptly with no unreasonable delays
-tell a story from beginning to end with all the information in the right order and without you having to ask lots of questions in order for you to understand the story
-focus on the important parts of the story and leave out non-essential details when appropriate
-follow complex 3 step directions
-recognize when he doesn't understand directions or information and ask for help
-understand metaphors and other non-literal speech/references without trouble at an age appropriate level
-use and understand pragmatic language accurately
-determine the correct interpretation of ambiguous messages based on the social context or non-verbal clues
-understand and use humor appropriately

Sorry - I think I got a little carried away. I'm sure you've got the idea.

Hopefully the sensory clinic will be helpful. Maybe you could ask them what they think about whether he would benefit from a speech eval.

Patricia

I think I missed how speech came into the picture, but I'm just piping in to agree with Patricia that yes, there absolutely is such a thing as motor planning problems with speech (usually referred to as "oral motor" problems). Any speech therapist should know about that.

Two of my kids had this problem (and they also had/have SPD). With the more severe one, who is still in speech therapy at 6 y.o. (due to articulation issues), for a long time, and even now sometimes, it takes a certain amount of time for him to "spit it out" so to speak, time for the signal to be sent from the brain to the mouth to form the sounds/words. It was quite the issue a couple years ago when he was even more shy/introverted than he is now - the speech majorly compounded the problem (he's still very introverted, but he's getting slightly better about talking when it's necessary - and slightly faster at getting the words out in spite of his artic issues). What really amazed me was when he first started talking - so much had been up there in that head that hadn't been coming out. I think that it was so much effort to talk that often he'd just say nothing if he could get away with it.

It can also be said that oral motor problems, like other types of motor problems, are a subset of SPD. Sort of downstream. Somewhere I have a nice triangle diagram from the Star Center (where my kids did their OT), showing where various problems fit, with the most basic being central nervous system at the base of the triangle, academic affects at the very top, and various motor issues, among other things, in between. Our OTs said it can be most effective to treat the problem on the most basic level (central nervous system) before working on the other issues that are downstream. We found that to be 110% true when it came to ocular motor issues (vision therapy) (long story). As for the oral motor, we know that ds6's speech improved quite a bit over that time (it was a short, intensive program of OT that he did about a year and a half ago), according to his speech therapist and his teacher. But he still has a ways to go. Anyway, that's my two cents on oral motor.

On the OP issue of SPD and the WISC, when my dd8 did the WISC IV a couple years ago (she was 6 then), the testers pointed us in the direction of getting treatment for her vision issue and for SPD. So, we are hoping they made a difference. The vision is probably more likely to have a direct affect on her WISC score, particularly in the area of block design, for example. As for the SPD, we know it affected her vision which in turn affected her WISC score, but beyond that I'm not really sure. I'm dying to re-test but I don't have much of an excuse to spend the $ at the moment. (Her reading also improved dramatically so I'm hoping that, sort of overall, might affect the VCI portion but I really have no idea if it could.) As for WM and PS, I have absolutely no idea whether the SPD could affect that.

The speech thing has really got me thinking. I need to ponder them some more and then, respond.

These are DS's recent scores, although they were before I solved the AD/HD mystery. What do you guys see in these scores?


WISC IV:

Verbal Comprehension 126
Perceptual Reasoning 125
Working Memory 99
Processing Speed 94
FSIQ 118
GAI 129

VCI:
Similarities 14
Vocab 15
Comprehension 14
(Information) 12 She said he was burned out by this point
(Word Reasoning) 16

PRI:
Block Design 16
Picture Concepts 12
Matrix Reasoning 14
(Picture Completion) 14

WMI:
Digit Span 11
Letter-Number Sequencing 9
(Arithmetic) 9

PSI:
Coding 9
Cancellation 9

WIAT II:

Composite Math 109
Composite Oral Lang 114

Word Reading 114
Numerical Operations 110
Math Reasoning 109
Spelling 125
Listening Comprehension 117
Oral Expression 108