I wish you the best. Don't give up trying to get the data from the school. If verbal requests aren't productive, try putting the request in writing.
Agreed.
Here's a link to Wikipedia article on Working Memory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memoryWhatever it is, it isn't felt to be much related to how smart a kid is, so, for example, programs like Davidson Young Scholars don't require high working memory on IQ tests, and have ways for kids who don't have high Working Memory to qualify with other sections of the IQ test that are more closely correlated with 'smartness.'
My guess is that your school has a point system so that kids with different strengths can be allowed into the gifted program. You daughter's over all IQ score might be 'bright but not gifted' or 'profoundly gifted but superweak in WM' or anything in between. Sadly, lots of schools use the Full Scale - sometimes psychologist will say, "I can't even truely give this child a full scale score because it's meaningless, if the variation is so wide."
If Dottie has 7 children, and I have 1, we have, on average, 4 children each. Wouldn't you be suprised at how quiet my house is if you believed that this average was meaningful?
Maybe you can convinse the psychologist to try to test your DD again on the very low test 'just to see if dd was having a bad day' - of course I'm sure this isn't allowed, but ((shrug)) who knows?
Anxiety in general can affect performance on an IQ test. If your dd truely has a low WM can this cause a person to be more anxious? Maybe - I've got superfast processing speed, and 'average' working memory: I can actually watch myself loosing track of the vaious parts of a problem I'm trying to think about at time. Not fun to walk around thinking that one might forget something important at any moment - and that one most likely has! This bothered me quite a bit when I was younger, before I had words for it. Now I know what to expect, and use pencil/paper/electronic gadgets as a temporary holding tank for mental bits. Afterall, there's nothing wrong with my long term memory storage system!
Hope that helps,
Grinity