Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Should I be working with DS on WM and PS?

There are numerous educational diagnostic tests available to educational psychologists, speech therapists, audiologists, occupational therapists, ECT. I our case, IQ and achievement were primarily used as a basis for comparison to results of additional investigative testing. My daughter attended a prominent university psych Ed department for three half-days of testing. Results from various earlier tests and her prior IQ and achievement tests were also incorporated into their analysis and report.

My daughter was tested for ADHD, visual perception, auditory perception and memory, in addition to another administration of IQ and achievement, the WISC IV and WIAT.

Some examples;
Her auditory sentence memory percentile rank was 79, while her word memory percentile rank was 45. Her word discrimination landed at the 1st percentile! Her compensation strategy for information presented via auditory means is to figure it our based on the context of the discussion/topic. _

This deficit matched her very low (unfamiliar) word and pseudo-word decoding skills which we have been warned will affect her reading comprehension. Her reading comprehension abilities have been greatly supported, to this point, by her very strong vocabulary skills. However, we are just recently seeing her reading comprehension percentile ranking decline as had been predicted. Although, this has occurred later than expected.

delbows, cym, Dottie, thanks for clearing up my ignorance about these matters. It sounds like the simplest way to do an initial check is to compare IQ to achievement.

His math fluency was a lot lower on the WJIII, but no one seemed to think much about that at the time. I mostly chalked it up to his dawdling personality. Now I'm not sure that's all.

I'm still chewing on all this, trying to make sense of it and decide what to do about next year. Hmmm...

Paths crossed there, delbows.

Thanks for the personal example. It helps to hear about real cases like your DD's.

I think my DS is at most a borderline case. I'm not even sure he's that. Mostly I just want to figure out if I should do more to prepare the school for his attendance than hand them his scores. If I need to pave the way, I want to be thinking about that now.

Thanks!

DS had a much lower working memory (digit span 9) and processing speed scores on the WISC and the psych was ready to give him an ADD label. But on the SB5, he hit the ceiling (19) on verbal working memory. In this case, it became clear that DS thought the WISC tasks were really really boring and loved the SB5 tasks, so he engaged.

I don't think we can label him with a disability, but it is clear he has trouble working through things that are boring and that quality will pose a challenge to him. But I agree with the folks who are saying that a discrepancy on one IQ test is hardly the whole story.

NOT THAT THIS APPLIES TO YOUR SON Kriston, this addtional information is for our lurkers.

I had always described my daughter�s case as border-line or subtle. I was firmly corrected in this characterization of her profile by the head of department of this U. She stated that my dd�s diagnostic testing indicate highly significant deficits and the fact that she is so smart masks the extent of the problem to casual observers and I should not down play it.

Kriston -- Sorry to be late on this!

I agree that basic facts could be slowing him down, but he may just be going through a lower interest phase. Can I ask what he's working on? Mostly because I'm curious, but also to see what he's doing that shouldn't be taking so long. :-)

We're working on multiplication facts at home now, since we're starting to move into more complicated math (B just learned how to add with carrying, subtracting with borrowing is next), so here are my thoughts.

Funbrain.com is great for memorizing basic facts. The whole first two "math arcade" levels are based on addition and subtraction facts up to 20 or so -- he's on level 3 and I'm waiting for them to throw in some multiplication, actually! Anyway, B loves the games and, if he's taking an enforced break from his regular gaming, that's what he'll choose to do.

We also got him a little 3x5 notebooks and wrote his multiplication facts in it -- we did the same thing when it was obvious he was starting to read sight words at 3yo, but with fun words for him. Something about making it ourselves makes B much more interested! Plus, when they're in the notebook, flashcards are much harder to lose. :-)

(ETA: We only work on these when he's interested; as soon as his attention wanes, we put them away. If he thought we were pushing it, he's never do it. :-0 )

Sorry I don't have much to add except my own experience ... but I also wanted to say thank you for the Last Letter Game! Ds loves it and we play it often. I'm thinking about mixing it up and doing the Second Letter Game -- there are too many es and ys in the Last Letter game! :-)

Mia

I wonder if a large number of unidentified GT kids would test similarly to your daughter? And without given help in the deficient area the child's performance in the gifted area falls off -- thus leading to the remarks by some educators that "they all even out around the 3rd grade"!

Just wanted to mention that our OT helped improve DS's working memory through games like Rush Hour, Hopper, Guess Who, and other games that require you to hold information in memory while you try to think of your next move. She said that most of the Think Fun games did this, but the one where the guy has to cross the rapids is more linear - the puzzles just get longer, not more complicated and may not be the best choice.

His speed has improved tremendously this year, too, but our OT seems to think that it's because of improved willingness to do schoolwork, and improved focus. So he's probably no faster in terms of ability than he used to be, but he is better able to show his abilities now. Mia's suggestion of fun practice games is a good one, as basic facts get better with practice, and DS will practice more if it's fun.

LOL, CFK! No, I think my lazy approach sounds a lot like yours!

******

Mia: Hi! You're not late, but I'm glad you're here!

Virtually any math problem takes him longer than it strictly should, and I don't think I'm just being a perfectionist there. It can literally take him an hour to do a handful of problems. he tries to do things in his head instead of writing them down, and that makes it worse.

The worst time for us was at the end of Singapore 2B, when we took our break from Singapore. But he was just doing all the same stuff he had been doing, only more so: 3-digit addition and subtraction with borrowing/carrying, basic multiplication, etc. Since 3-digit is not significantly different than 2-digit, it didn't seem like it should be that big a deal. He completely understood the concepts. He did not think it was hard to do. (Nor did he find it too easy, BTW.) It just took him FOREVER to finish.

He is slow at anything but geometry, essentially. Geometry is a breeze for him.

(To answer your question about what we're on now, it's the start of 3A, 4-digit addition and subtraction with borrowing/carrying and basic multiplication. Second verse, same as the the first...)

His interest in math has never been very high, which, frankly, is another thing that makes me wonder if there's more going on. I mean, if his PRI is so high--and everything I know about him supports that score as pretty much dead-on--then shouldn't he be more math-y? But aside from the obvious puzzles, mazes, patterns and the very basic geometry that Singapore offers, he's just not math-y. Or is early math just not likely to appeal to a kid with a high PRI because it IS so founded on math facts, rather than graphs and patterns and all those things that are his strengths?

We tried Funbrain.com, and that didn't go over much better than the other stuff we've done, I'm afraid. It was okay, but he didn't seem to get much out of it, nor did it seem to appeal to him at all. He did it because I asked him to do it, but he asked how soon he could be done with it. Not a raging success...

Maybe I just need to be more systematic about my approach? I fear I'm going at the math facts too piecemeal, and I really need to commit to an approach and stick with it if we want to see results. I'm just so wishy-washy about whether he's ready or not, or if there's some other problem, or, or, or...

P.S. You're welcome for the Last Letter Game! And BTW, we use the Es, Ys and Ss strategically, to make it harder for the other player and a more challenging game. Bombard them with a string of silent Es and watch them squirm! We actually cackle about it when we "get" one another that way. Moaning and groaning about how mean the child is for giving you yet *another* Y is good for a laugh from them, too!

******

To all:
Please don't think I'm basing my concerns on one test. A couple of you have made it seem as if that's what you think I'm saying, and it's not accurate. Honest, I know better than that! I have a healthy skepticism about IQ tests in general. (Remember that I started the thread by asking if I should be doing something to boost his WM and PS abilities, which I wouldn't ask if I worshipped the almighty test as absolute!)

No, I'm basing my concerns on the past frustrations of 3 teachers, his father and--most importantly--my own frustrating experiences with teaching math to DS6. The scores just back up what I'm seeing and make me wonder if this might be more serious than I had previously thought. I am utterly ignorant about what even constitutes an LD, let alone how to recognize one. But this isn't about a discrepancy on one test.

I want to be sure I'm not treating the symptoms and missing the disease causing them, you know? Maybe the symptoms are all there is, but what I'm trying to decide is if there's something causing them that's more serious than a dawdling personality or a lack of math facts.

If there's nothing more going on, super! But if there is an underlying issue, how do I find it and what should I do about it?