Update! The awesome diagnostician who did the testing sent me a copy of the full report from the Kaufman s/w. I've updated his scores with percentiles - age equivs - grade equiv.
***********************

So, I'm not super familiar with this test, but it's what the school diagnostician used with DS8. (K-ABC 2nd edition) This is what I got from the draft-copy of the report she sent me:

Sequential (short-term memory) 115 (106-122) Average
Simultaneous (visual/spatial memory) 139 (127-145) Upper Extreme
Learning (long-term retrieval) 144 (135-149) Upper Extreme
Planning (fluid reasoning) 135 (126-140) Upper Extreme
Knowledge 114 (106-120) Average
Fluid Crystallized Index 144 (138-148) Upper Extreme

Confidence was 90%.

Then there's explanations of each test. Then there is another section that lists it out like this:

Sequential - 115
Simultaneous - 139
Learning - 144
Planning - 135
Knowledge - 114

Fluid Crystallized Index: 144 (99.8%)

Sequential - Scaled Score (84%)
Number Recall - 14 (91% - 15:4)
Word order - 11 (63% - 9:0)

Simultaneous - Scaled Score (99.5%)
Rover - 15 (95% - 15:8)
Block Counting - (nothing here)
Triangles - 17 (99% - 14:4)

Knowledge - Scaled Score (85%)
Verbal Knowledge - 13 (84% - 9:9)
Riddles - 12 (75% - 9:0)

Learning - Scaled Score (99.8%)
Atlantis - 16 (98% - 14:4)
Rebus - 18 (99.6% - 17:6)

Planning - Scaled Score (99%)
Story Completion - 12 (75% - 9:9)
Pattern Reasoning - 19 (99.9% - >18:6)

She also did the K-TEA (achievement test)

Reading Composite - 124 (121-129) Above Average (95%)
Letter & Word Recognition - 120 (117-123) Above Average (91% - 11:0 - 5.8)
Reading Comprehension - 122 (117-127) Above Average (93% - 11:0 - 5.4)

Math Composite - 128 (123-133) Above Average (97%)
Math Concepts & Applications - 119 (113-125) Above Average (90% - 10:0 - 4.8)
Math Computation - 127 (121-133) Above Average (96% - 9:9 - 4.0)

Written Language Composite - 117 (111-123) Above Average (87%)
Written Expression - 109 (100-118) Average (73% - 9:9 - 3.10)
Spelling - 122 (117-127) Above Average (93% - 11:0 - 5.4)

--------------------
All this says to me his strengths appear to be understanding concepts and reasoning.. is that correct? His written expression score is quite low compared to everything else, but that doesn't surprise me. He doesn't much care for writing, unless it's his own stories.

I really liked the recommendations she listed.. I'll put those in a second post. I feel like I might make this box blow up.

Arg! I can't cut and past from this darned thing. I shall have to type.... here are the recommendations:

- Compact the curriculum and provide enrichment activities. Provide environments that are stimulating, and address cognitive, physical, emotional, and social needs. Let DS move quickly through the required curriculum content and onto more advanced material.
- Implement a multi-level and multi-dimensional curriculum. Differentiate the curriculum in order to address differences in the rate, depth, and pace of learning.
- Be flexible with the curriculum. Take advantage of real-life experiences that can be translated into problem-solving academics for all students.
- Allow DS to pursue independent projects based on his own individual interests.
- Allow DS to assume ownership of his own learning through curriculum acceleration. Instruct him to work ahead to problems of skills that they do not know. To help children learn the value of attaining knowledge in their lives, encourage learning for it's own sake, rather than emphasizing the end results or accomplishments. Teach research skills for accessing information; higher level thinking skills for processing it; creative thinking and problem-solving skills for flexibility in approach and generation of information; and communication skills for sharing it.
-Set individual goals. Help guide DS in creating his own goals and set goals that are specific, measurable, aggressive, realistic, and within a reasonable time frame. Be sure not to place expectations that are too high or too low.

The following recommendations are made to help assist DS with behavioral concerns:
-Help DS to learn to monitor his thinking and actions using self-regulations.
-Help DS to recognize anger-producing situations (triggers) and his response to these situations.
-Prove DS with positive feedback which indicates he is successful, competent, important, and valuable.
-Have DS record his progress to show tangible evidence of his success.


----
Phew! So.. the educational recommendations sound practically like a pipe dream, hah! If they could implement any of them I think I might dance right there in the room. I'm not sure about the behavioral ones... I mean, obviously he's gotta learn that stuff, but the HOW is what we've yet to figure out. She doesn't seem to mention anything specific, is that normal?

Warning...this is a bit long but hopefully you'll find something in it to help!

I hope you got some percentile ranks with your data as well, or it's coming. I think that helps interpret the scores.

When my DD was tested at age 5 w/ KABC and KTEA the tester recommended someone in their group ("a perfect match") for the behavioral stuff, with the assumption that it would work hand in hand with the curriculum adjustments, which we were advised we would need a paid advocate to help us out with (come to meetings, prepare, phone calls etc.) based on the history so far with the school and how they were acting.

Unfortunately the fee was $125-$175/hr and we paid so much for the testing/meetings to get the data in the first place. Since she was only in K and the whole thing was just taking so long and she was doing poorly, we just took her out. But I'll try to give you some ideas of what's helping with my DD.

Since your DS is older (my DD is 8 now but she was only 5 then...these are some things I’d advise based on what I’ve tried with my DD):

-Help DS to learn to monitor his thinking and actions using self-regulations.

I don’t know what the self-regulations would be specifically (I really need plainer language!) but just getting him to be more aware, develop a code language or something to remind him if you see him “elevating” (so he doesn’t get embarrassed in front of people) or just when he’s done something not considered appropriate, trying to get him to stop and think about it as soon as possible when it’s fresh in his mind, or if he needs time come back and talk about it? I think the more they can become aware of "Why" they did something, what was on their mind at the time, etc., and work with that...the better off they'll be in the long term.

-Help DS to recognize anger-producing situations (triggers) and his response to these situations.

At age 8 he probably has a pretty clear track record that he might even realize himself, so I guess writing it down, having him draw pictures, talking about it, to continue to strengthen his awareness? And when he's expecting to be in a situation like this, talk to him or role play about what he can try to make it better.

SENG had a nice webinar where they made an analogy to a child’s anxiety to a “monster” that was a bully inside the child and the child had to learn when the bully was coming out, the signs (rapid heart beat, feeling hot, whatever it is with the child when his anger is starting to rise...) and to use imagination/cognitive ideas to try and “slay the monster” before it gets out of hand

-Prove DS with positive feedback which indicates he is successful, competent, important, and valuable.

I don’t know what “prove” means but this might mean compliments, rewards, making sure he has plenty of activities that he “shines” at to counteract his challenges?

-Have DS record his progress to show tangible evidence of his success.

He could do this in a journal or chart or tally marks, at his age I’d ask him what he prefers.

It think it's important that they realize they don't have to be stuck in this mode forever. One of the problems with school is that they kind of get the class role or the older they get the more they are convinced it's too hard for them to improve with these things. I just tell my DD that she CAN do it, even though it's hard, and remind her that there are kids in her class that have a reading tutor but they are pretty calm, so everyone has things they are better at and things that they find more challenging.

With my DD I’m trying, as much as possible, to talk about all this stuff in the context of her whole person/package, not just make it a big spotlight on her challenges. Also I talk about my challenges also, sometimes from past experiences or when I was a kid, or sometimes when it’s happening. lately we’ve been talking about how people say certain things and another person might interpret it one way and you are thinking it’s something else. It’s all about language and how people hear your, and maybe what they’re thinking or feeling at the moment also counts. (They have some ownership in it also).

DD is pretty analytical so I try to really break it down. It’s actually pretty educational for me, also.

It’s really helping on the playground, where she seems to be improving with calmly telling kids she won’t play with them if they don’t treat her well, and today she told her friend very clearly that this certain boy telling him he was both dumb and stupid was WRONG and mean and that he shouldn’t listen. She did it all without screeching or crying. The boy who said the dumb/stupid thing was really trying hard for about 20 minutes to get DD and her friend riled up but he was pretty disappointed today.

It’s so hard for kids like this, but I do see improvement.

Thank you bzylzy! We'll probably give a copy of this report to his therapist, and see what she can do to help out. We are still waiting on the school psychologists report to see what he says... we are in a hard situation where the only way we can see DS getting any of these recommendations put into place is if they consider him on the autism spectrum.... otherwise he doesn't meet the criteria for an IEP. We'll have the neuropsych eval results probably the first week of June, but school will be out by then and we won't be able to do anything until it starts back up again.

A diagnosis should not drive school services; the identified educational needs do. If your DS ends up not qualifying for an autism diagnosis, but still has demonstrable educational needs, the school is still required to meet those needs.

I know I say this a lot, but do a site search at Wrightslaw on "functional"-- even kids who are academically unimpaired may need significant help with self-management and other "functional" skills. These count as educational needs, too.

I hope you get good answers.
DeeDee

I signed up for the Wrightslaw e-mails and I find them to be helpful. They aren't lengthy and they really start to give you a perspective, even if they all aren't related to your particular situation.

I would think if those scores and recommendations came from school testing, they should be responsible for putting some things in place for him. I was more talking about all the things you can do at home to help when you're with him.

My DD started therapeutic riding a few weeks ago and it's been great. She absolutely loves it, her horse is now in love with her (: - ) ) and it's already starting to build her confidence. It's a larger place so they have enough kids for different categories (they even have a program for military veterans). We're going to continue it through the summer. The instructor and volunteers are wonderful and you meet parents with kids who are all over the place with their issues so they're easy to talk to.

Just something else to think about, if this sort of thing is available to you. For her, I think it's more worth the money than anything she's ever done.

So, I just got a call from the school psychologist... the long and short of it is that he's leaning toward using the label 'Emotional Disturbance' for DS in order to put into place a BIP (behavioral intervention plan.) I can't fully put into words exactly why that seems wrong to me. It just seems like such an incredibly loaded term. The psychologist said that when DS was with him he showed good eye contact (I am pretty amazed by this, he wouldn't even look at his teacher before we practiced looking at the spot between a person's eyebrows, and he won't look at me or his father for a full sentence most of the time) and he says that DS told him he has friends... so because of this he doesn't believe he should have an Asperger's label... but, if he doesn't have trouble making friends, doesn't that rule out emotional disturbance as well? bah. At any rate, we, as parents, will have a lot of input as to what ends up happening. He did, of course, mention that he feels a lot of DS's problems are due to the fact that he's so much smarter than the other kids he's around... he mentioned they rarely ever see test results like his, and that he's probably smarter than his teachers (doh).

@DeeDee - I'll take a look at the wright's law page.

@bzylzy - We are very interested in things we can do at home with him, as well as things his therapist can work with him on... I've heard about therapeutic riding before, I'm not sure how DS would do with it... he used to be scared to death to sit on a horse or pony. He'll sit on one now, but doesn't seem to enjoy it much (we have relatives with horses out in east Tx.)

Oh! And, for some reason he pointed out to me, more than once, that the neuropsych we are going to see labels '9 out of 10 kids with aspergers' ??

My son, who has Asperger's, makes fleeting eye contact, and makes more effort at making it when he is in situations with people he wants to make a good impression on, because he knows that it is considered polite. He also told the psychologist who evaluated him that he had lots of friends. He was unable to identify the vast majority of his "friends" by first and last name, and on more detailed questioning, confirmed that almost all of these "friends" are people that he sees at organized activities or knows from online interaction, and that he doesn't get spontaneously invited to their homes, birthday parties, movies, game nights, or other leisure activities unless the invitation is extended to an entire class or organized group, and that the in-person "friends" don't typically initiate social contact (phone calls, voluntary conversations beyond simple social pleasantries) with him. He doesn't see this as not having friends. The psychologist disagreed, and saw significant impairment in development of age-appropriate social relationships. If the psychologist who did your child's testing simply accepted your child's assertion that he has friends without inquiring further into the nature of the relationships, I don't think that is necessarily a fair assessment.

I would be very surprised if the statistical diagnostic makeup of a clinician's patient load was common knowledge. How could the tester possibly know that "9 out of 10" kids who are evaluated by this neuropsych are given an Asperger's dianosis? And even if that number is true, there is nothing in that to indicate that the diagnoses are inaccurate. It may be that this person specializes in evaluating people who are already suspected by other professionals of being on the autism spectrum, in which case it might be an entirely appropriate percentage, with only ten percent of the people who make it to the point of getting an evaluation honestly not having a spectrum disorder. Trying to cast doubt prospectively on the diagnostic competence of another professional doesn't really reflect well on the tester, frankly. If I had my tin-foil hat on, I'd suspect that perhaps a small number of children that this tester diagnosed as having an emotional disturbance or other issue were later diagnosed by the neuropsych in question as actually having Asperger's, and the tester got some parental blowback, and there is some animosity there as a result.

My informal take is that the school psych doesn't know what he's talking about.

Eye contact is not diagnostic to rule AS in or out; as aculady says, it can be highly variable.

Asking your DS if he has friends is also not diagnostic. If you ask my DS (textbook AS) if he has friends, he says yes; this is partly because some kids are truly kind to him, and partly because he still doesn't truly grasp what a reciprocal friendship entails.

In your shoes I would not consent to the ED label without confirmation from the outside neuropsych. An ED label can lead to very inappropriate classroom placement. If your DS has Asperger's, being placed in a classroom with ED students can make things worse instead of better.

They can put an informal behavior management plan ("building plan" or "intervention plan") into place while you are waiting on the neuropsych. You do not need to consent to the ED label in order to get this done.

I would plan to bring an advocate and/or the neuropsych to subsequent school meetings to ensure that the school develops an understanding of what is really going on.

DeeDee

Amy - your ds has quite a bit of scatter in a few of his scores - did the psychologist address it? I'm not familiar with the K-ABC so I don't have any clues re what it might mean, but fwiw I wonder if the dip in short-term memory scores - if it's a real dip, not due to being uncooperative with testing or some other reason - might not be a source of some frustration for your ds. My dd8 has a significant dip in associative memory and it can create situations where what she thinks she's been told or knows is very different from what the other people around her know and it leads to some very challenging behaviors at times. Her dip is a little larger than your ds but not hugely larger (otoh, she was tested with a different ability test).

polarbear

ps - another thought, when the psych said that they very rarely see test results like this - granted, they are high test scores that aren't going to be "usual" for any psych... but otoh, I'm guessing that as a school psych, the psych is in a position where he'll see even less high IQ kiddos because the bulk of his work may be with kids who are struggling with learning challenges. Please know I'm not a school psychologist and am only using personal conjecture so I could be entirely wrong about that! I just know that when our ds went through the IEP eligibility review process for Specific Learning Disability, we were constantly being told "we've never seen scores like this" for all sorts of things from IQ test to state testing etc - and it wasn't a statement so much of "Your son is a once-in-a-lifetime amazing genius" as much as a statement of "we don't usually evaluate and offer services to children with such high ability". It was also a convenient phrase for the school psych to throw out in a team meeting to imply that our ds didn't need or qualify for services. Anyway, our experiences with school psychs haven't been encouraging or helpful - we've had to rely on private evaluations to really understand our ds' challenges.

I should add that my DD's KABC scores also had a large span in the "short term memory" area from all the other categories, and the psychologist who tested her, her current school and a couple of doctors I have spoken to don't see it as a problem since the short term retrieval is "high average" at 79th percentile. She does what polarbear describes for her DD8.

She's getting updated tests over these few weeks so we'll see where it leads.

My DD's never been diagnosed with anything because though she's obviously different she eeks along, nothing rash. I wouldn't really feel good about the "emotional disturbance" diagnosis when a child is so different from the others in the environment. And not taking a real close look at what that short term memory difference can mean to a child.

It makes it seem like there is something inherently wrong with the child but really they're suffering from a poor fit and are acting upon how that feels to them day after day...

The therapeutic riding is a good fit for my DD but I can see that if a child isn't thrilled with horses to begin with, it might be counter-productive...better to start at a strength of theirs than adding more stress!

FWIW I'm posting this here, about Twice-Exceptional.

I don't have an opinion on it, it just came in the LD online e-mail.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/08/30gifted.h31.html?tkn=WXOFio5f0hJXppiuyCS%2FnVsN9oRNid4nF6wB&cmp=clp-edweek&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mrss

Do you think I should create a new post in the 2E thread also?

@aculady - DS is the same was regarding eye contact. He *can* but it seems like an effort for him. If I don't prompt him to look at me, he will actively avoid looking at my face... especially if he is upset, or believes he's being lectured/punished/corrected. I could also "ditto" everything you said about the friends... DS appears to now have kids he plays with at recess, and sits with at lunch without any teasing or fighting. I've only heard 2 kids names (and one it was phrased like "so-and-so is being nice to me now!") and he's not been invited to any parties, playdates or anything outside school since kindergarten. The only kids he plays with outside of school are his cousins, and rarely the 4th grade boy who lives a couple of houses down.

My assumption on the whole asperger's thing with the neuropsych is that if the school accepts and asperger's or autism spectrum diagnosis the kids are automatically required to receive a whole list of services (as require by state law) - I can see how a cash-strapped school would want to push back on asperger's diagnoses specifically because it's such a borderline-type of call. I would imagine other parents, being aware of the issue with getting services through the school sought out a neuropsych.. and this one we are seeing just so happens to be the only one in the entire county!

@DeeDee This is so good to know!!! DH and I are both leery of the ED label and it following him through his school career.

@polarbear - We haven't met with the diagnostician who did the testing yet. She just forwarded her report to us. I will certainly ask her about the scatter when we get to meet with her. I wondered about the memory score myself. And I didn't figure my kid was off the charts or anything, it kind of made me laugh to hear how the school psych acted about the scores.. like 'omg! he's the smartest kid in the school probably.' From that I can tell his score (if we accept that K-ABC is a valid measure of g) has a rarity of about 1/600. Clearly he's a bright kid who learns fast, but he's not exactly one in a million here, either.

Thank you guys so much! I'm going to be reading the wrightslaw page quite a bit between now and the 17th!

No, diagnosis does not determine services. There should be a detailed process of evaluation that determines your DS's educational needs, and then for each need a strategy is determined to address that need. You should make very sure all the needs are identified during the school's eval and written in their report, as without that documentation you can't get the services.


Except often it isn't. I hope your neuropsych will do the ADOS-- there really are standardized tests that identify autism traits.


I am not actually usually leery of labels, or the "following through school career" thing. A label is sometimes helpful in spelling out what the challenge is and why-- it helps teachers and school staff understand what they are dealing with, and helps you know what you are working on and why it's hard. Knowing the true name for a challenge is better than not knowing.

Here my real concern is that an incorrectly applied label can cause new problems. Everything you've said about your DS sounds more like AS than like ED to me; if I'm wrong (internet diagnosis is worth zero) and he's ED, you'll get him the help he needs, but you definitely want to know what you're dealing with (correct label) before you start making major treatment and placement decisions.

DeeDee