DS 6 (just turned 6) tested as gifted last year. We pursued testing because of his struggles in school due to reading and writing. No LD were found but it was advised because of his youth we retest in a year if things had not improved.

After intense remediation over the summer and all last school year, he is performing on target (not advanced) in reading, and writing is still below expected for his age despite working on handwriting all summer.

It was advised after two weeks of the gifted reading pull out to stop because of the writing stress on DS, and not to try the math pull out because it wasn't recommended for him by his K teacher last year. I still think there is a LD. The ed. psych recommended testing in one year if there were still struggles.

I don't think I can wait! It's only been about 6-7 months so far, but already 1st grade writing is such a struggle for DS. And reading is a lot of work too. I asked the school for testing but who knows what will happen? Is it too soon to start the retesting process? If there's a diagnosis and we can get some accommodations for DS I think it would help him and the teacher. But if we test soon, is he still too young to find anything concrete and we'll have to retest again in another few months? So frustrated. Sorry if this should have been in the 2e section.

Can you share the specifics from the test last year?

There is no absolute reason that an LD could not be found at this age. From your description, he appears to demonstrate significant underperformance already. The usual reason we wait until later is because of the antiquated "wait to fail" structure/philosophy of public schools (RTI is an attempt to circumvent that, by remediating first, and diagnosing later).

OTOH, re-testing at this point would create some challenges mainly with cognitive instruments, depending on what is available to the school system. If he was tested on a preschool instrument, then the school-age instruments are still available. (Or the WISC-V, if they've bought one. Mine arrived over a week ago, so I know they're shipping pre-orders now.) Achievement can be re-assessed with the same instrument after six months.

A second issue (probably more important) is that in the absence of data suggesting that the previous testing is invalid, best practice would advise against re-testing, most certainly the cognitive, and probably the academic achievement as well.

I understand your concerns as a parent, but from the perspective of the school, he has only had about 4 months of schooling (and a month of it was rather sketchy end-of-year/beginning-of-year school) since his previous assessment. It is difficult to predict that enough development will have happened to make his learning profile clear enough for effective accommodations to be developed. Was your testing private, or did the school participate in that? Did any concrete recommendations come out of it?

I think that if you ask what age lds are "likely" to be found, many people will have found them around 2nd-3rd grade, when things like underachievement/struggles with learning to read/behavior issues/letter reversals/etc start to stand out, whereas in K-1 there is such a wide range of "typical" child development that outliers don't necessarily stand out.

This is what happened with my kids (2 are 2e, one couldn't see and no one had a clue!):

DS/dyspraxia/dysgraphia - everyone thought he was the smartest kid who'd ever walked the planet (ok, slight exaggeration, but when he talked adults who didn't know him were typically very surprised, because he sounded like an adult - a very smart adult lol)…. until he went to kindergarten. He didn't really stand out in any big way in kindergarten, but he also started throwing fits when he had to do worksheets etc for homework - things that should have been very easy for him. He refused to talk to his teachers (at least it *looked* like he was refusing). When his class was giving written work, he would just sit there until the teacher gave the 2 minute morning and then he'd scrawl an answer out quickly. He reversed letters, his writing was sloppy, and he didn't write much at all in his journal. His teacher thought all of this was normal, and we (parents) didn't have any reason to think otherwise. Except for *one* thing that I'll tell you about in a minute - I'm going to make you wait, sorry

When ds was still having the same issues in the classroom in 2nd grade we were still being told by the teacher it was "developmentally normal" - it wasn't until he started having anxiety so severe that he had panic attacks at school *and* at home that we took him to see a neuropsychologist and he was diagnosed (end of 2nd grade, almost 8.5 years old). Looking back, I can't tell you how many signs I suddenly realized were there all along but I'd been too clueless (because I was uninformed *and* didn't expect it). I will *ALWAYS* always wish I'd known about dysgraphia and dyspraxia way back when ds was an infant. He is doing really really well, but his elementary school years would have been soooo so much easier if we'd known that he was struggling.

My dd with the vision issues: She struggled learning to read. Everyone assumed she was simply meant to struggle to learn to read. I could kick myself over this too - she'd had an IQ test when she was 5 and struggling with anxiety when going into new places, and we knew her IQ. I don't know *why* I never questioned why she was having so much difficulty with reading given her IQ, but I just accepted what the teachers said and we tried to remediate with summer school etc. Then at the beginning of 2nd grade she complained about not being able to read the board in class, we took her to our regular eye dr, her vision checked out a-ok, and I decided it was time to take her to the neuropsych because her reading struggles didn't make sense in light of her IQ. The neuropsych veal is where we found out she had vision issues. So she doesn't have an LD, but she was struggling with reading and we didn't find out why until she was in 2nd grade (7.5 years old).

My 2e dd has a reading LD. Not exactly dyslexia, but an issue with sight-sound associative memory. She has *really* struggled to read, but she looked like she was advanced in reading until she hit kindergarten (she looked advanced because she started trying to read when she was around 4 - I know that doesn't sound advanced around these parts, but in my family, even my EG ds didn't start reading until he was almost 6, so I though 4 was early.) It seemed pretty obvious from her ability to reason and the questions she talked about that she was also intellectually gifted. In kindergarten, she continued to progress in reading but not at any astronomical speed. She did well in school and was at the top of her class. The next year, with the same teacher, she suddenly wasn't such a start student anymore and her reading didn't seem to be progressing anymore. Her teacher still didn't think there was an issue because she was reading at grade level. The next year she fell behind grade level in reading, and that teacher was concerned so she was evaluated by the school reading specialist - who didn't see an issue. So the teacher then believed there wasn't an issue. Midway through 2nd grade it was beyond obvious to me that something had to be up, so we took her to see an ed testing specialist (retired SPED teacher) who found the glitch in her associative memory and made recommendations re how to accommodate and remediate. We tried the recommendations, but by the time 3rd grade happened dd was really far behind in reading level, and her struggles with reading were also starting to impact her other academics because she wasn't reading directions and questions correctly. Her teacher wasn't helpful, the school wouldn't do any further evals, the ed specialist who'd tested her didn't believe she was behind "enough" to be considered truly LD, so we decided to take her to see a reading specialist - that testing was incredibly comprehensive, fell in line with the previous testing, and gave us a great starting point for reading remediation. What it didn't help us with though was understanding how her memory issues impacted her in other academics, and it was clear she was being impacted… so we decided we should take her to a neuropsych… and that round of testing was a disaster. We chose to go to a neuropsych we'd never seen before, who came highly recommended, but he was used to evaluating kids who are apparently much lower on the ability spectrum than our dd. The first thing he did when he reviewed the reading specialist's extensive report was to proclaim it a bunch of mumble-jumble that really didn't mean much of anything. The testing he ran didn't include anything aimed at memory specifically other than the routine ability/achievement - and those results didn't even begin to make sense - her achievement scores were sky-high compared to her ability. The psych claimed she had no issues with reading, and if she seemed to, it was just her pulling our parental leg. My youngest dd is now 10 years old, in her 2nd year of reading remediation, still struggling, and although she has a diagnosis of dyslexia my understanding (from her reading specialist) is that it's not traditional dyslexia, so in some sense, I'm not sure she really even has a diagnosis yet. She's a complicated kid, and I think with complicated kids, highly capable kids, and reading challenges in particular, getting to that place where you understand what's really going on can be a long, twisted, difficult journey.

FWIW, I also have a niece who is either dyslexic or has a vision challenge, but was never given a diagnosis (she was in SPED in her early elementary years to learn how to read). As an adult, she reads very slowly, and finds it extremely tiring as she has to try extra hard to focus. All the standard tests she's had over the years point to a huge discrepancy in verbal/reading vs other types of tasks/academics. But she's an adult, can't afford to pay for an eval, and she's learned how to cope so I don't know that she'll *ever* have an official diagnosis.

Soooo… sorry for that long ramble! The last thing I'll add is - out of the kids I know who have diagnosed LDs…. the ones that were diagnosed before 2nd/3rd grade are kids who come from families where there was already a family member with a diagnosed LD, so the parents and other family members were aware of symptoms plus somewhat watching for it. I went back through and re-read your previous posts, and I think you mentioned family members who are dyslexic. For that reason, I'd pursue testing *now*. Private testing if you need to.

It may not give you all the answers you're looking for, but it will give you another data point, and I don't think you'll regret it.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Polar bear... Maybe I missed it. What was the one thing you were making us wait to read?

Testing last year was done by an ed psych. There was a RIAS IQ and a bunch of other tests as my bigger concern before was dyslexia, so a ton of phonological tests. Sorry I'm not sure what would be helpful?

RIAS verbal 143
Non verbal 118 (officially the number, but ed psych thinks it may be higher because he started not paying much attention and answered the ones wrong to stop the test officially. She continued informally testing after that and he still got a lot right but put the official number as above)
Composite 135
Composite memory 115

Also tested were WJ-III COG cluster, ACH cluster, CTOPP-2, PAT2, Beery VMI.

I'm not sure what would be helpful? The achievement scores are all mostly average or high average. At the time I asked if there's a possibility of just high verbal knowledge and a false + with giftedness. She said she didn't think so but IDK, a lot of the scores report as average or high average for achievement results.

I mean, I feel he's smart and we have good conversations, he talks and understands and communicate what I feel are pretty big things for his age (but DH and I discuss adult topics with the kids too).

We used Vanderbilt for ADHD screen and teacher's was negative. I asked regarding dysgraphia but honestly IDK if she could test for it or not.

This is a good point. Our testing was done privately. We were strongly advised by a teacher that the school would likely not test because as of last year he wasn't "far enough behind". He has had a (an?) RTI since being in his school. The new teacher is starting one for his writing currently. I sent in a school request for testing based on his writing and my concerns with reading. IDK what testing, if any, they will do.

The prior ed psych recommended retesting in one year if there were not improvements in achievement (as judged by academic achievement). We work HARD most days on reading and writing. It's definitely a big struggle and he dislikes it. Reading concerns may be just d/t his age and the funny phonological rules vs what they put in easy readers nowadays.

Writing and spelling are a different story. Physically writing is difficult. But there are still tons of letter and number reversals, mirror word writing (you spelled uoy, chin spelled hcin, etc). I had to argue with him that "ch" sound is spelled c-h because we read and write only left to right. I still couldn't convince him that was how it was supposed to go.

Yes, I'm reading a lot about dyslexia still though the dyslexia testing was negative. I'm wondering if he can/will just grow out of it. The writing, however, is clearly way behind now when it's independent. If I or PT is instructing him, writing is somewhat legible though not great. And only with single letters, not words or sentences.


Thank you for your personal story. This is just like our scenario!



I'm sorry he had to go through all this.


I had DS see an optometrist, we're getting an ophthalmologist exam next month, and pending those results I may still consider a developmental optometrist (seeing last if at all because of cost). I've been questioning DS on vision things and I don't think there is anything there but I guess anything's possible.


Yes, DS's grandfather has dyslexia. I'm wondering if he has dysgraphia as well after reading more about it and it's manifestations. You have an excellent memory! Your posts are always so helpful and well thought and I'm so grateful for your time

We will see about neuropsych testing. I'm not sure if/when school will test, so I'm going to start the process of private testing again but with a new person. She's an academic so I think it should be good, and is listed as a pediatric neuropsych among a whole group of them. The insurance may/may not cover it, so we're going to start with setting up appts, talking to insurance, etc.

I figured it was just hidden in all the other useful information

I thought it was the age the LD is discovered depends on whether you are looking for one.

OOPS!!! I forgot to mention it… after all that rambling *blush*. Thanks for the reminder

Sooo… what I made you wait to read was… after all that went on with ds and having to wait until he was almost in 3rd grade (and so full of anxiety he was scared out of his wits)…. the thing was.. we'd had the basic info we needed before kindergarten but no one thought to flag it as a potential issue. DS was tested for entry into our district's HG magnet, and his ability testing and "math achievement" (WJ-III) were all high enough, but his "reading achievement" (WJ-III) was only at 60th percentile. We (parents) thought nothing of it because we'd never tried to "teach" him to read. The school thought he'd just catch up on that part of the test if he was retested the next year. I no longer have those test results, but I suspect the low score was related to fluency, because the tester told us that we could have him tested privately but to be sure to stay away from any timed assessment - so she'd apparently noticed he was slow with some type of task. Since he didn't qualify via the school we took him in for a private IQ test with a psych who tests lots of kids for entry into the program (Kindy-age kids). On that testing, he had the classic dip in processing speed (timed, handwriting) task. The psych who tested him thought he was just slow because he didn't understand that it was important to try to move fast when being timed. I had absolutely no clue that the relatively low score in processing speed meant anything at all, but that dip was a key indicator in ds' later neuropsych testing.

So, basically, once he was in school and I started wondering about achievement and letter reversals and homework frustration and all that - I already had a big clue in the previous testing, but I continued to think it was simply perfectionism or quirkiness or whatever, because that's all the folks who'd tested him said about it.

polarbear

ps - the other piece of data we had (and didn't realize we had) was ds' developmental history - there are a ton of indications he was dyspraxic when he was very young (late crawling, late sitting, not really crawling, not really sitting, late talking etc)… but he was just so darned cute it never occurred to us anything was not on track. Plus I'd walked/etc late, and the men in ds' family are notorious for not talking. Soooo… we just thought, hey, he's quirky and he's cute. If I'd *known* about dyspraxia or if our ped had once even mentioned how far on the "late" side of developmental milestones ds was, I'd have been more on-the-ball with realizing something was up.

Which brings me to the last "ah-ha" moment. Back up there somewhere I think I mentioned dh's family includes several dyslexic people. Guess what? We didn't know that until long *after* ds was diagnosed - because no one talked about it. I also suspect dh's dad had some type of expressive language disorder because he was known for never talking. When I met him, he was quite elderly, so I thought the "not talking" was just not being interested, but once we found out about ds' challenges with getting his thoughts out, it made me very sad to think that dh's dad might have been stuck not *able* to communicate throughout his life.

Now back to ds - he absolutely knew something wasn't working for him re writing when he was in Kindergarten and beyond - finding out what was up through testing was a huge relief for him. Even if we'd not had any lost opportunities to remediate through early diagnosis, simply being able to let him know it was something other than his "fault" - being able to explain it to him early on - would have made a world of difference to his psyche, and in helping buoy his self-confidence.

Exactly

Given the tests that were given, you would be okay starting a comprehensive assessment now, other than the concern with over-testing as an emotional experience. You did not have a Wechsler or the SBV, which would be the go-tos for either an initial school eval or a private (neuro)psych. If the WJ is common in your area, he would have to have the WJIV COG, as it's too soon for a WJIII COG re-test. (I think the IV will be a better instrument anyway.)

I would be significantly concerned looking at the discrepancy between VIX 143 and average to high average achievement across the board. Even with the instability of IQ measurements at age five, it seems quite unlikely to me that his true ability measurement would be merely average to high average in the verbal domain. As you say, the nonverbal domains are a little foggy, given the signs of invalidity for the NIX, so I can't make much comment on that.

How did he do on the subtests of the CTOPP-2 and PAT2? I'm especially interested in the manipulation tasks (deletion, substitution). A kid with his VIX could very easily score average on the basic PA tasks even with dyslexic traits. Unfortunate that they removed Phoneme Reversal from the CTOPP-2, as it would have been a more sophisticated manipulation task, thus more likely to expose reading disability in a high-cognitive kid.

Look into the PAL-II for dysgraphia, at this age. The TOWL-4 (beginning at age 9) and subtests of the WJ are also useful, but I would start from the PAL-II, particularly for its age norms for a little one. It specifically claims utility in diagnosing dyslexia, dysgraphia, and OWL LD (the last less likely to be a factor here, with this VIX).

I'm going to piggy back a bit on polarbear's personal narrative in case something in our experience proves helpful to someone.

DD was a superstar as an infant - doing *everything* super early. I had never spent time around babies so I didn't see how unusual it was. I thought all those milestones I read about were aimed at concerns for babies who were falling behind, people making "amazing" comments were just trying to make a first time mom feel good, etc. Every time we went to the pediatrician for a well baby check up we got another exceptional added - DD was "exceptionally verbal", "exceptionally social", "exceptionally flexible", etc.

We enrolled her in a Gymboree class around her first birthday and she was a superstar - doing every task as the teacher was explaining it to the adults and repeating it over and over before any other baby even considered trying it once. At the end of these classes they would blow bubbles and sing a song about catching the bubbles. When DD was 18 months old I noticed that every other baby was grabbing the bubbles with joy - she was never able to grab a single bubble. Not even once. She never developed a pincer grasp for eating Cheerios. She did not want to feed herself. She did not want to play with puzzles, sorters, blocks or any other toy that required fine motor skills. She never wanted to color and when she did hold a crayon she "fisted" it.

Starting at her 18 month check up I began asking about possible problems with her fine motor/ hand eye coordination. The pediatrician kept telling me "She's just so far ahead in everything something that is age appropriate appears to be a deficit even when it isn't." It took me 3 1/2 years to get a referral for an OT eval. And that was only because I became adamant at DD's 5 year check up about concerns over kindergarten.

We had her in a wonderful play based preschool that never forced kids to do tasks, didn't do traditional academics, etc. Her teacher noticed that she avoided fine motor tasks, wasn't interested in writing but made up *amazing* stories she dictated, etc. As kindergarten approached she had some difficulty identifying some letters and numbers but teacher assumed DD didn't like being tested and was pretending. We started asking about dyslexia but were told our district wouldn't even consider looking for it prior to 3rd grade.

OT eval showed major fine motor deficits, low muscle tone, upper body weakness and hyper mobility in her joints. OT couldn't understand why we waited so long to bring her in for an eval. She should have been there at least a year earlier - she needed a year of PT before starting a minimum of 6 months of OT if she was going to be ready for kindergarten...

Kindergarten was a total disaster. Teacher not only refused to accommodate her fine motor deficit she actively punished her for it. (ie no recess because DD could not complete the writing tasks). School refused to even consider testing her to see if she qualified for services in school "She'd never qualify for services - she's too smart." Her writing delays were "laziness" and "disrespectful attitude". Her reading issues were her "not being ready". When we expressly asked the literacy specialist about dyslexia she refused to make eye contact, changed the subject and showed us out of her office.

Fortunately the school psych at our district's central office got involved because we were at an interdistrict magnet. She did an amazing job and really saved DD. Since then DD has been identified as 2E with every possible LD. Neuropsych labeled her as "NLD-ish" not because she has NLD but "because its easier than saying super high verbal along with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyspraxia, math disability, etc." She is now in an out of district placement at a spec Ed school where most of her day is spent with interventions (OT, speech, Wilson reading,etc). Fortunately she is learning to use AT (iPad, audio books, etc) as work arounds but it will be tough. I will never know if her path would have been different if she hadn't been so advanced the pediatrician would have been willing to refer her for those early issues.

By the way yes we have family history here too. DH found out he was dyslexic after be became a teacher and he was used as an example of an obviously dyslexic adult during a spec Ed training session. After learning all of this about DD his parents told him they had been approached several times by the spec Ed teacher at his elementary school about providing him services and they declined. "Oh no he'll be fine in regular classes." His 85+year old father cries any time we discuss DD's situation because he was obviously LD at a time when no one understood them. "They told me I was lazy and stupid. But I wasn't. I tried as hard as I could but I just couldn't do it..."

So yes they get found earlier if you are looking for them but only if someone takes your concerns seriously...

aeh -- Thank you so much for your insight. I'll list the whole kit and caboodle in case it may be helpful for interpretation or for us. I'm not sure what should be listed. Sorry it's so long! Because of the achievements being low vs his Verbal IQ, is it possible/likely the verbal IQ was inaccurately elevated?

RIAS:
Verbal IX 143
subtest guess what 77
subtest VR 71
Nonverbal IX 118
subtest odd item out 51
subtest what's missing 68
Composite index 135
90% confidence interval 129-138
Composite memory index 115
verbal memory 44
nonverbal memory 72

WJ-III COG cluster
cognitive efficiency 113
subtest visual matching 94
subtest numbers reversed 115
Long term retrieval 112
subtest visual-auditory learning 118
subtest retrieval fluency 97
Short term memory 114
subtest numbers reversed 115
subtest memory for words 107
Visual spatial processing 108
subtest spatial relations 107
subtest picture recognition 105
Processing speed 106
subtest visual matching 94
subtest decision speed 122

WJ-III ACH cluster
Oral language 126
subtest story recall 118
subtest understanding direction 123
broad reading 100
subtest letter word ID 111
subtest reading fluency too hard
subtest passage comprehension 90
broad written language 113
subtest spelling 109
subtest writing fluency too hard
subtest writing samples 119
broad math 118
subtest calculation 118
subtest math fluency 107
subtest applied problems 111
academic skills 115
subtest letter word ID 111
subtest spelling 109
subtest calculation 118
academic applications 108
subtest passage comprehension 90
subtest applied problems 111
subtest writing samples 119

CTOPP-2
rapid digit naming 11
rapid letter naming 11

PAT-2
Rhyming 106
subtest discrimination 91
subtest production 114
segmentation 101
subtest sentences 94
subtest syllables 99
subtest phonemes 110
isolation 116
subtest initial 110
subtest final 114
subtest medial 117
deletion 119
subtest compounds and syllables 122
subtest phonemes 114
substitution 109
subtest with manipulatives 109
blending 116
subtest syllables 112
subtest phonemes 106
phonological awareness total 114
Lots of graphemes and decoding listed, either 0 for ones he didn't know yet, or range from 112-125

Beery VMI 89
visual perception 100

Thank you so much for your story! I want to reread it more carefully too. I'm glad to hear you had such a knowledgeable person helping out.

Doubtful, at least not enough to make the achievement discrepancies insignificant. It's more likely that something is interfering with his acquisition of academic skills--aka a learning disability of some kind.
I assume OIO is where he reached a premature ceiling?
This verbal memory score concerns me, falling as it does at the lower end of the Average range, especially with those high VIX scores. I'm always on the alert for memory and processing speed issues in dyslexia/dysgraphia situations.
Again, auditory-verbal memory scores have relative vulnerabilities in them (memory for words (short-term), retrieval fluency (long-term)). Also, now we see processing speed relative concerns, especially with symbols (visual matching). Interestingly, decision speed, which uses pictures of common objects, is a strength.

The nonverbal/visual area is a bit of a mixed bag over the two tests (RIAS and WJ), with a good score in attention to visual detail of concrete images, and average-to-unclear results in spatial and reasoning areas.
Oral language achievement approaches the level found on the RIAS VIX, which suggests that the verbal cognitive ability is grossly accurate.
Reading achievement is far below levels predicted either by the RIAS VIX or by the WJ OL achievement. Notably, the speeded, fine-motor involved aspect of reading was untestable, and reading comprehension was even further below expectations than word calling. (Keep in mind that a typical five year old is not expected to have much reading comprehension at all, so a low average result in this area in a child with this level of verbal cognition is quite striking.) Also, at this level, almost all of the words read are sight/high-frequency words, or simple cvc words, so minimal draw on sophisticated phonological awareness or phonics skills is needed.
Same thing happens in the remainder of academic achievement. Untimed skills are slightly low-to-approaching appropriate for this cognitive ability, and timed, fine-motor-involved tasks are untestable.
Rhyming appears age-appropriate overall, but there is a 23 point difference between ability to produce rhymes and ability to hear rhymes.
Overall, did adequately on this level of phonological awareness, but still well below verbal ability in several areas, especially rhyming, segmenting, and substitution.
Fine-motor definitely looks like a relative weakness, in the bottom of the average range, well below verbal cognition, and even aspects of nonverbal/perceptual cognition.

I would be investigating reading and writing disabilities (dyslexic/dysgraphic), with the related cognitive processing areas mainly visual-spatial reasoning, language processing/memory, processing speed, and fine-motor/visual-motor integration. I would consider speech and language eval (especially for language memory, retrieval fluency, and auditory discrimination), and definitely include OT.

While the process is winding its way, do lots of read-aloud, with him narrating back to you, to maintain intellectual stimulation and access to higher-level vocabulary, as well as to exercise auditory working memory. And scribe any written response longer than a word or two.

This is my biggest beef with everything going on. The Kindy teacher was discussing remediation. After testing and finding an elevated IQ, why would such a smart child getting such intensive help still not perform on average levels to peers? Even with a tough curriculum? Even at his age, unless there's something else going on? IDK.

DS was premature by 5 weeks so his development was normal after being adjusted for his prematurity (but barely). Except talking was always great. Dyspraxia was mentioned by a PT as a possibility, but we'll be getting OT help now I think.


I just tell DS that his brain is too smart for his hands and we have to make his hands smarter to write to keep up with his brain (as I strongly suspect dysgraphia). If there's dyslexia as well I'll have to come up with a new way to explain it. He's so easy going. I know he's frustrated too.

Sorry, but what is OWL LD?

Ok. Do you have any thoughts if ADHD could be a cause of the achievement discrepancies? I suspected it last year but the Kindy teacher's vanderbilt survey was basically as negative as could be, me and DH were highly positive, and grandmother was negative (though the ed psych mentioned DS kicked her under the table while testing about 500 times). The ed psych suggested the testing results were a result of his youth/maturity, thinking his skills will naturally improve as he ages. But we're working hard for everything. Is that possible and/or likely for youth to cause the achievement discrepancies?


Sorry I don't understand. Are you asking if that's where the ed psych said she stopped the official testing results? IDK if it was that subtest or not.


Could other things cause that? Or even briefly explain what that test was (repeating a word she said or a string of letters or something)?


OK, even though it's much lower?

This test was done after about a good 1-2 months of me teaching him phonics. His skills in reading by the time this test was done were significantly better than when I did the original consultation before testing. Sight words for DS are getting better as I'm working more on them with him this year. I started more with phonics because for him, logically following the directions worked better than the system they teach at his school (looking at pictures and first letters and guessing words, basically). He still guesses words instead of sounding them out, and maybe I should have focused more on sight words but last year but I taught him phonics so he wouldn't have to guess and can actually have the skills to read.

Per reading comprehension I'm still a little confused. He should have scored higher by your guess? He does tend to do well with comprehension in school and their FAIR(?) testing, and can discuss the books we read if I ask him questions.
IDK if that's significant or just an interesting difference?

Thank you for these recommendations and for all your help with these results and translations! I am very grateful. Can you recommend how I go about finding a speech and language eval (are there special testers for this)? Would a school use them or should I find a private person or a neuropsychologist? I'm setting up a consult for OT (we had an eval last year but in retrospect I think it was by PT) and likely going to start services soon (within a month at the most). I'll continue working on HWT but I'm not certain how much that has helped at all.

Also, I'm not certain if I mentioned in a prior post or this one or not, but DS did have quite a few stutters prior to last school year (5 years old), as well as mispronouncing words (now resolved). I always attributed it to his peers at his daycare because as soon as he stopped going there it stopped. He still has difficulty saying words that rhyme or sound like the /ir/ in bird. They sound like /or/ (sorry can't write them phonetically). Is that another clue or just a normal deviation?


Thank you for these recommendations as well. I do read alouds daily. Usually picture books at a higher level than he can read as he still likes to look at pictures. Chapter books he likes too so maybe I should start a gradual transition as they tend to be more complicated. We also use Myon, a website that reads books aloud on the computer while pages are flipped on the screen. In the car we do listen to audiobooks but only drive together once a week or so. I will start discussing what we read a little more too. And stop making him write so much, instead write for him. I thought it would be good for his practice but maybe not?

I am so grateful to this board. Thank you to everyone giving of your time to help us.

Hi Displaced,

I'm in your shoes to a large extent. Our kids have very similar profiles. We just finished extensive neuropsych evaluation, and my DS6 (almost 7) is very, very similar to yours. I posted relevant numbers in the 2e section and you should check them out! I edited out absolute values, but left in the intervals. Private message me if you want to talk about the absolute values.

I'm no expert here, but I can tell you one useful thing - based on the score spreads and on some additional assessment, DS was indeed diagnosed with dyslexia/dysgraphia. We are jumping into researching therapies, and hope to actually be able to get him some meaningful support.

Also - reading this thread is the first time I've been grateful that DS expresses his anxiety/struggles in school as "fight", not "flight." I see so clearly that his disruptive/rough behavior in school pushed us in a way that a quieter, more internalized struggle on his part never would have done. When I have heard of other PG kids' quieter struggles, I always wished DS would struggle more quietly, too. But now I realize that his spectacularly un-quiet struggles pushed us to look harder, sooner. And I'm so glad we did.

Note to self - Try to keep this frame of mind in place as I dive into the school struggles this year.

We still have a lot to figure out about what DS's assessment tells us. But it feels good to have something to really work on!

Sue

Thank you for your response. I will look at your thread. You don't happen to live in the SE US? I'd love to I meet up (ETA -- oh, your profile says CA. Bummer)

I understand what you're saying about behavior with regards to struggles. IDK which category DS falls into, all I know is at this age school should not be hard but fun and easy, especially for a gifted kid. But everything written is a struggle and not fun for him unless he just writes willy-nilly (not carefully). He can write and write but at least half of a whole page is usually illegible.

BTW, can anyone explain between verbal IQ and verbal index? I don't even know the difference!

It is possible that ADHD might cause achievement discrepancies, but I lean toward dyslexia/dysgraphia.
Yes, that's what I meant.
Many other things could cause this, including anxiety, sleep disorders, attention problems. But learning disabilities are among the top associations, and looking at the overall pattern, that's still where I'm leaning.
Yes. It's a different test, so you have to take into account standard error even more so than within test.
He should have scored higher on comprehension based on his verbal cognitive ability. But he didn't.
Significant. I suspect auditory discrimination weaknesses.
That's more auditory discrimination symptoms. Probably affects his articulation. Yes, schools have speech language pathologists on staff, who are eminently qualified to assess auditory discrim, artic, and language memory/processing.
Scribing is to maintain his interest in written expression and allow him to continue to develop language expression skills without becoming so frustrated by the process that he decides he can't do it, and won't do it in the future. I would separate the handwriting practice from language expression and creative writing tasks.

They are the same.

So a SLP can assist or help diagnose these things, but the concerns of dysgraphia or dyslexia or further testing should be done by a neuropsych, is that correct? I feel like I'm all over the place :P

Yes.

Thanks. I will add SLP to my list of specialists to make appts with. Insurance will cover it and it may be faster to get privately vs waiting for the school, then just request services with the school.

I had some more questions, if anyone's willing/able to answer.

I can start a new thread if necessary but I'm hoping to keep at least some things in one place

If we were to get OT treatments, would that negate the ability to diagnose dysgraphia? Is the SLP able to give diagnoses before treatment (if anything is present), or do they just recommend specific treatments without a diagnosis, just treating symptoms present?

I'm not even sure how dysgraphia and dyslexia are diagnosed. Is it based on the scores from the testing he already had (as in, if it were present it would be numerically shown or otherwise diagnosed?)? If so, are the numbers relative to IQ or other testing results or absolute cutoffs (less than 70 on a subtest for example means a LD is found, etc)?

Is it diagnosed on how he is working during the testing (observations)? Or is it more comprehensive, taking into account multiple subsets during testing, multiple observations, etc?

I don't want to delay treatments that will help him. But if we don't have an official diagnosis before starting treatment, and his symptoms improve and he never gets a diagnosis, then we still have an issue as far as accommodations. Does that make sense?

I don't want to delay accommodations if necessary, but if it's months before testing is accomplished I don't want to ignore treatments this whole time if I can start them sooner.

No, although if therapy were intense and over a long period before testing, it might muddy the Dx a little bit. Yes, and also yes. SLPs can Dx communication disorders, and they can also recommend therapies without a Dx.Yes. And some more. Yes, they are relative to cognition, but yes, some school systems use absolute cutoffs instead.Yes, and yes, ideally, but again, some practitioners stick strictly to test scores, although that is not best practice.I don't think his profile will shift so much that the deficits become unclear, if you remediate for a couple of months before testing. If you have the therapist (or yourself, if you are doing home remediation) take repeated measures, documenting his baseline and weekly progress over the period of remediation prior to testing, you will have collected some good response to intervention data that should be included in the formal testing results.

Ok, now I feel a little silly. I was looking over the testing date, and it was only late March. I thought it was months earlier. Would it be better to wait on retesting and see what happens since is was only 5-6 months ago?

A psych I have been asking/consulting with is recommending the WISC V and K-TEA 3 (after waiting a few more months. Would those tests diagnose dyslexia and/or dysgraphia? I guess I don't even understand how they are diagnosed? Is it based on differences between IQ and achievement or something else? I mean, if a student is able to guess words correctly while reading but they are guessing, is that really accurate information? And IDK at all how dysgraphia is diagnosed still, if it's not purely on writing samples.

Yes. They could be used to Dx dyslexia/dysgraphia. The discrepancy approach could be used for that. Or the PSW (pattern of strengths and weaknesses) approach, which was taken into consideration in the design of the WISC-V.

There are nonsense word reading tasks on the KTEA-3, which are supposed to distinguish between good guessing words from context/memorized whole word reading and actual decoding.

Dysgraphia diagnosis does rely heavily on writing samples, timed and otherwise, which the KTEA-3 would obtain, in addition to deficits in other associated skills, such as fine-motor skills/visual-motor integration, motor speed, and strengths/intact skills in areas such as oral language (in order to distinguish from the combined oral and written language disorders).