Ds 7.5 took the wisc-iv last week. His processing score was extremely low, 78. It dragged his FSIQ down to 124. She did calculate the GAI at 139. He also took the WJ-III, and qualified for DYS with his total acievement at 146. I feel like this is not adding up. He took the SB-V at age 4 and scored a 140.

The tester was not concerned about an LD, but I'm wondering if I should look into it. She said she got the impression that he didn't understand the urgency, and he is a perfectionist, so that made him go slow.

This topic comes up a lot, and the "perfectionism" explanation is a common one (assuming it's not a legitimate case of slow processing). I'm not convinced. I think the problem is that you have a task where you need to come up with a strategy to find the right balance between speed and accuracy, and you have no reference point to know how fast you should be trying to go (and maybe don't have the life experience to even think about such strategies) so you simply set about the task most likely at a non-optimal speed.

I just don't think it's a good test where the score depends on whether a child happens to hit on the right balance of speed and accuracy.

So I shouldn't really worry?

I just don't want to miss a warning sign, and therefor put off getting help if he needs it.

The trouble is from this test you can't tell if there is actually slow processing or if a kid was just too slow and cautious in their approach when they were actually capable of going much faster.

DD scored 94 for processing speed (she had just turned 8). Interestingly, her Woodcock Johnson writing fluency score was nearly the same, I think 89. Did he do writing fluency? I think there is some degree of perfectionism involved because DD's handwriting on both the coding section and the fluency section looked over-the-top neat. She was trying very hard to do well with ALL the tests and she's too young to think "Oh, this is timed, they are looking for my speed, not at my handwriting" (even though I tried to explain that to her beforehand). On the other hand, she IS very slow with class, in general, even when she's not trying very hard to write perfectly. It seems like writing is not "automatic" for her, when I watch her do things like write the alphabet as fast as she can. We see evidence of the slow processing in real life. And I can also see how she speeds up when she is medicated, because she's not losing focus as often.

FWIW if his school performance is what you would expect for his IQ I wouldn't worry. Keep it in mind if problems come up but I wouldn't stress.

My DS had similar WISC scores when we tested at 6.5. We tested because he was really struggling in grade 1 with writing, average or below average in reading and his marks were not great because he wasn't doing anything at school and yet we knew he was smart. In his report the tester put "probable LD". He's now 8 and has made great strides with writing and reading but I do think there is something there. He has always been the type of kid that needs time to mull things over, quick thinking is not his thing. Talking to him you can see the gifted side but if you look at his writing samples he looks average at best.

My DS also has a gifted classmate that had low processing scores. His school work doesn't show it at all and it is more likely due to perfectionism or a tester giving poor instructions - he was told to "be careful" so he was. His report doesn't mention anything about a potential LD.

I should also mention that "getting help" in our situation has mostly been things like allowing extra time on tests, scribing written work and some extra patience from the teacher. These things have all helped reduce DS's frustration but it isn't like there is a cure or program we can do to improve it (at least as far as I know.... if there is I would love to hear about it).

I'm assuming you mean the WISC-IV, since Pearson told my secretary a few days ago that they had not started shipping the WISC-V yet. (I thought mine had arrived, but it wasn't in the shipping.)

140 on the SBV and 138 GAI on the WISC-IV are not significantly different. Keep in mind that there is no measure of processing speed on the SBV. His WJIII achievement scores are also quite consistent. So from a global perspective, I wouldn't see any reason to question the validity of the results, nor to be overly concerned about academic progress. I would agree that the place to look would be the fluency measures on the WJIII. If they are equally low, then I would be more concerned. If they are at least high average (110+), I would be less concerned.

Do you observe any behaviors in school or at home that would be consistent with slow processing speed, visual/fine-motor weaknesses, or impaired automaticity?

Yes, I definitely observe behaviors! I should mention he is homeschooled, so we've been working around his speed and attention issues. He's a daydreamer, he has a hard time focusing, unless it's hyper focus.

His fluency scores on the WJ were all over 100, his lowest being writing fluency at 107.

His WJ-III scores,
Broad reading, 144
broad math, 135
broad written 140
academic skills 152
total achievement 146

I guess I was thinking his scores on the WISC (And yes, it was the IV, I must have missed the I when I typed this last night!) would be a little higher, I didn't think it would come out to DYS 145, but I thought he'd get closer. I was planning on doing the portfolio with the WJ-III, but at this point, I don't know that I'd even apply, since he seems more moderately gifted than profoundly according to his IQ. I probably need to read more about the requirements and characteristics of different levels of gifted kids.

Thanks for all of your help everyone! It was suggested that he be medicated for ADD (he's not hyperactive, just spacey. :))when he was around 5, but I felt it was too young, so now I'm just sensitive about this, in case I made the wrong choice!

What was his block design score? Was it much lower than the other PRI scores?

First of all, you clearly have done an excellent job with him, based on his achievement scores. (In fact, there is peer-reviewed research that finds that homeschooling parents can have as good academic outcomes with ADHD and LD children as master's level special educators.)

Secondly, whether or not he is diagnosable as having ADHD, medication is not the only treatment. Nor is it necessarily a bad thing. That's a decision that I would encourage families to make holistically, taking into consideration the needs and well-being of both your individual child and your family system. It's also not an either-or decision. The majority of psychostimulants are short-acting; I know many students who take them only during school hours, but not at night, on weekends, or during school breaks. If his attentional dysregulation interferes with his major life functions or happiness, then it becomes a problem. Otherwise, it's just one aspect of who he is. He's also still very young. Given opportunities to learn and be reinforced for skills in managing his attention, his brain has time to develop the neurocognitive skills further.

To your original PSI question: attentional dysregulation is most certainly associated with low processing speed. These are minimally-engaging rote tasks, without particular intrinsic meaning. Sustained attention for them can be quite challenging for ADHD-ish kids. With WJ fluency scores no lower than 107, I would not be particularly concerned about LD, as the inattention could easily explain the PSI. Were Coding and Symbol Search about the same?

Not the OP but DD's block design score was 16. It was lower than the 18-19 (without extended norms) that she scored on Picture Concepts and Matrix Reasoning, but it seems like with her slow processing speed that score should have been lower. The slow processing speed does not seem to apply to visual spatial tasks (with her). And I'm not sure how to explain why this would be the case. It DOES apply to math. She has a very good grasp of concepts but is very slow with doing actual calculations.

I think I'm going to start a new thread on ADHD and meds on the 2e forum

I'm glad you raised this question. I don't have the answers. I do have a dc with a processing speed issue. I still don't have the answers for my child either.

Background for us:

Based on his Explore Scores which were DYS level two years ago (he was 10), his school offered to give him the WISC IV. He'd been identified as gifted back in Kindergarten based on his math ability. His reading wasn't far behind but at the time he missed the cutoff by one percentage point. The program soon after qualified him in both areas as his strengths flip flopped year after year in the early grades. Before I talk about the results I think it's also important to note why we gave him the Explore. He had begun to show signs of perfectionism to the degree that it was getting in the way of his learning. At the time he was erasing constantly, so much so that he'd erase holes in his papers; he would take SO much time to line up his math equations just so; he would pretend he already knew something so he wouldn't be caught looking less smart (This was the largest red flag for me). He was even a perfectionist with his behavior. He never got in trouble all through school. I started asking his teachers to just "move his bee" a sort of demerit so that he would see what it was like to make a mistake and still be loved, still be respected.
So in order to combat both perfectionism and underachievement (he didn't have to work at all at anything to get a good grade and a good score on grade level tests) I signed him up for a test that he was given permission to fail. He didn't, much to our surprise.

So the WISC IV determined that his VCI was above DYS cutoff, and his GAI was above DYS cutoff. After VCI, his PRI was next highest, still high, his WMI was next but only high average and his PSI index was lowest being only a bit higher than that of your dc. The tester wrote it was because of being a perfectionist. He didn't seem to show signs of being slow with the block design test. Only when he was drawing. Coding was the lowest.

Despite this lower PSI we grade advanced him. At the time he had major issues with timed math tests. He froze up under pressure. Still does a bit. My DH is much the same. Could he benefit from accommodations? Could he benefit from a 504? Perhaps so, but it would be difficult to convince the school we're not just trying to game the system AND, most importantly, our ds doesn't want to appear different in that way. He doesn't want extra time. He'd rather get a lower score. We've decided to respect his wishes. I truly believe he will be fine. He may not look like the best on paper but we know he's extremely gifted, ambitious (in things he likes) and creative, and so will be fine in the end.
That said, I still have doubts. Doubts about not looking into the situation more. (Was at some point hoping to ask aeh about this) Worries that his grade-advancement has given him holes for math in a system that isn't great to begin with. But we're waiting to see how this next year plays out now that he can relax into his new grade. He's not fast in math but he did 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math in one compacted class last year. Some of it stuck, some needs refreshing, but at least he likes math again.

Yes. My ds12 is very similar.

There are most likely many different reasons that could be the case, but fwiw here's one example - my dysgraphic ds has the dip in processing speed scores (for him coding is the severe discrepancy), but he ceilinged block design - didn't miss any of the questions. If I understand the block design subtest correctly, it involves manipulating blocks to repeat designs, and there is no handwriting involved. Processing speed is made up of two subtests - coding and symbol search. Symbol search relies on the ability to pick objects out of a random crowded visual field, and coding requires the student to copy a symbol using a pencil. Coding relies on fine-motor skills, symbol search relies on visual skills. Looking at how the actual processing subtest scores break down can help give a clue to why the overall processing score is low, and depending on the scores might help determine whether or not there's a reason to look further.


I'd want to know here - is she slow with the actual calculations, or is she slow with putting them on paper? My dysgraphic ds is really good at math - it's definitely one of his strong set of skills. He's not a super-fast calculator, but he isn't horribly slow either. However, it *does* take him a very long time to write his math calculations down on paper.

polarbear

I totally understand your thoughts KADmom and respect that you want to respect your ds' wishes I would like to throw a few thoughts out here just for food-for-thought. First, there's a little bit of wiggle room where any of us could benefit from certain accommodations - most of us can type faster than we can write, for instance, and there are going to be some tests that most of us will run out of time on. It's also true that it's tough to advocate for accommodations for a high-achieving student (or actually even for a middle-level achiever in many instances). But if there really is some type of not-so-obvious challenge that is causing the issue, it's a good idea to try to understand what's up and to advocate for the accommodations. It's one thing to be ok with getting a lower score when you're in middle school and even high school perhaps, but what happens when an EG kid takes the MCATs without accommodations trying to get into medical school when the peers he's competing with are also typically HG+/EG? This is just one example, but there are undoubtedly other situations that might occur depending on where a student who is now a middle-school kid might one day find he/she wants to be for the career they decide they want to pursue or for entry into a university program they really really want to be in. I mentioned the MCAT situation because this happened to a relative of mine who is dyslexic but didn't have accommodations while in school. She was more than capable of being a doctor and had professors who thought she should absolutely be in medical school and most importantly - being a doctor was her dream. Yet she couldn't get her reading-associated scores of standardized tests high enough to qualify for the programs she wanted to be in. Her scores were high, just not high enough - and the issue was - she always ran out of time. Trying to get accommodations such as extended time was tough as an adult without a history of having had the accommodations during her early school years.

Re looking different, my ds is extremely sensitive about this - but extended time is one accommodation that really doesn't "look" all that different from other students. It depends of course on the test, the assignment and how it's handled by the school, but for the most part, this is one thing ds never flinched over in terms of thinking he appeared different.

Best wishes,

polarbear

78 is really low - I think that is moving into the single digit percentile category. If that measure is accurate, then it should be reflected in his ability to complete academic work in a timely manner as well as everyday activities. While it is reassuring that the tester thinks that he simply wasn't trying to go as fast as he could, I would check by timing how quickly he completes cognitive and other tasks. As he gets older, a low processing speed will cause increasing difficulties with academics in a school setting even with accommodations.

Deleted his scores.

Can you elaborate as to what this would like like in day to day activities? He's definitely inattentive at times, but once I get him to focus, he seems to be able to perform well.

He is able to complete school work in a timely manner if he focuses.

Given that his WJ was not too low for fluency, is there a chance that maybe he was just off that day? His fluency scores were definitely the lowest however, so maybe he was just really on that day.

ETA: I mistyped his writing fluency, it was 100, not 107. Still 51%. Handwriting has never been easy, it's a tough thing for him still.

She's slow with the actual calculations and takes a long time to retrieve math facts. So if you ask her 7X4 it might take her a few seconds to remember the answer. She has it memorized, but is slow with recall.
Her coding score was 8 and symbol search was 10, so not much better. Those were her two lowest scores on the WISC.

My DS coding was 3!

Amber, that's a really low coding score - I'm guessing his symbol search score was significantly higher (to get the average value you have for Processing Speed, even though it's in the lowish average range)?


I suspect if he's having a tough time with focusing that coding might be very difficult, and symbol search might be less difficult - but that's just a guess - I have no actual training in this so my suspicions aren't anything you should trust lol!

This sounds a lot like possibly ADHD, but otoh, it might also be describing a child who is faced with a task they can't perform easily. Homeschooling is great on the one hand because you can work around issues that arise, but otoh sometimes when you're working around issues you might not even realize something is an issue or that you are working around something - simply because you're responding to your child's needs and he's not faced with the same types of across-the-board every-student-must-complete-work-one-way situation that kids in b&m school are thrown into.

Did this recent eval include anything other than ability/achievement testing? Your ds has been evaluated for ADHD in the past - have any of the evals he's had been through either a neuropsychologist or an educational psychologist who included extended testing such as visual-motor integration, executive functioning, fine motor, a parent interview going over developmental history and a look at his academic work products from school? If you haven't had that type of in-depth review of your ds' academic functioning, it *might* be worth doing.

polarbear

It was just achievement and IQ. As far as the "ADD" diagnosis, it was off a checklist, and at the time, I didn't really think it was that accurate. His symbol search was a 9, which also sounds low. I posted his scores on page 2 of this thread, I just got them in the mail this afternoon.

I wouldn't mind doing a full evaluation. We are within a day's drive of Dr Amend, but now I need to wait a year, unless we just skip the IQ portion.

The psych put in the report that he was making sure every line was perfect, and talking through things out loud, so she thinks its a perfectionist issue.

On the off chance that there's something going on and you might be able to help with remediation early rather than wait, I'd recommend asking if you can pursue an eval now, using the IQ/achievement test results you already have.

It might be… otoh it might not. My dyspraxic/dysgraphic ds had a significantly low coding score the first time he was tested, and the psych doing the testing also noted the very same things - he appeared to be making sure every mark was perfect, moving really slow, appeared to (in the psych's words) "not understand the importance of moving fast for a timed test." That round of testing was for a gifted program, and through a psych who wasn't looking for any type of challenge, and who didn't review any developmental history or look at any academic work or do any additional testing to check to see if it might be something more than perfectionism. At the time, I honestly thought ds was a perfectionist because he moved slowly and carefully and thoughtfully when doing his schoolwork. Two years later when he was tested by a neuropsychologist, his performance on coding was similar to the first test, but the neuropsychologist was looking at his performance through a different lens (was looking for challenges because he was struggling in school with attention and output), was familiar with his developmental history (through a parent interview), and had additional tests she was able to run to tease out what was up vs was it just perfectionism. That made a huge difference in understanding what was really going on.

polarbear

Actually, the index scores are listed after the relevant subtest scores, so working memory is strong, comparable to perceptual reasoning, and not dramatically lower than verbal comp. Processing speed, on the other hand, is most certainly low, and it's so particularly for coding, which is a timed fine-motor copying task. I would be concerned about this, as 3 is in the 1st %ile. Symbol search is not all that bad; at least it's in the average range. The extent of fine-motor demands on symbol search is a tick mark. Really, any mark that is distinguishable from a non-mark will do.

This looks like a fine-motor/visual-motor-integration/motor coordination issue, on the face of it. The poster above (sorry, can't remember off-hand who it was!) who inquired as to the difference between math calculation speed with and without a pencil makes a good point. As several threads have mentioned, attention problems may sometimes reflect motor coordination deficits. In which case, psychostimulant meds would not help. And, of course, sometimes ADHD and DCD are comorbid.

Talking things through out loud sounds more like an NVLD compensatory strategy to me, which would be compatible with something in the DCD/dyspraxic category of things. He has strong verbal reasoning, and may have figured out that he can use it to support areas of weakness, such as, perhaps, visual motor integration/coordination.

On math facts/automaticity: some of the same cognitive processes are involved in terms of attaining automaticity with math facts and with fine motor coordination tasks like handwriting. His working memory is good, but that doesn't necessarily mean that skills are being readily encoded into the aspects of long-term retrieval that have to with automatic tasks (as opposed to interesting, meaningful, informational content). You can't hold things indefinitely in working memory.

On re-testing: You could have him re-tested sooner, if your examiner has the WISC-V on order, as I'm told by the publisher that it should be shipping in October. Can't do the WJIII again immediately, but, then the WJIV is also out this fall. And there's always the WIAT-III or KTEA-II or -III. So if you need a short-interval re-test, this is actually a good year for it.

aeh & polarbear, thank you so much for your help!

I think we will have to wait until the spring, regardless because of the financial issues, as we just paid for these tests.

In any event, I am going to read up on everything you've mentioned, and see if anything jumps out at me, so I can start figuring out how to help him.

He did do a round of therapy at 5 for fine motor delay. He tested at the low end of normal though, nothing too concerning. We went ahead with the therapy anyways because we figured it couldn't hurt.

This makes more sense! The scores printed out weird, thank you for clarifying that!

well, I feel I may have wasted everyone's time. I talked to DS about the test today, and asked him if he thought any parts were harder than others.

He said he didn't like the timed parts, because they made him feel nervous, and that one section at the end, he went slow on purpose because he wanted me to be mad at him. I asked him why he would want me to be mad at him, and the said, "I wanted to see what it would be like to be a "bad kid" like the bullies in the Big Nate books."

He does have issues with handwriting, so I don't know what to think anymore! I'm going to let this all simmer for a while. Thanks everyone for your help!

Well, that would just make the handwriting difficulties even more marked, because the last subtest is not coding, it's symbol search. So if we take what he said at face value, that means his fine-motor reduced processing speed is at least above average, while his fine-motor-laden processing speed is in the extremely low range.

Among the core subtests, there are only three subtests which are timed, and he did well on the first, horrible on the second, and adequately on the last (but he claims that that was an act of deliberate sabotage). Is it possible that he is picking up on your concern with the timed tasks, or simply already aware of his relative weakness, and is attempting to mask his actual weaknesses by disguising it as being "on purpose?" A lot of LD kids, gifted and otherwise, do this. 'Cause one would rather be perceived as being unwilling than unable.

He didn't say it was the last one, just "at the end." He talked about "at the beginning of the test," and "at the end of the test," in general. He said he messed up the block part on purpose too, but he scored the highest on that.

He's 7, so who knows if he's being honest about this or just making it up. He has an active imagination. I don't want to grill him about it either, so I'll probably never know.

My DS said some strange things about his IQ test as well. I wonder if your son was aware of the loadedness/possible importance of the test. Mine was (unfortunately) and I think he thought he needed to perhaps justify any wrong answers. He didn't seem emotional about it, but made comments that things were "goofy" or that he didn't pay attention at X part or whatever. (He did fine, though he did kind of bomb one section.)

He does this though. Last year he tried to reinact Calvin & Hobbes scenarios all the time. I'm not convinced that's what happened here, but I wouldn't put it past him.

I don't think it was a matter of him not doing as well because of the levity either, because he did the WJ and did as expected.

I'm just really confused about the psi and coding scores. Can anyone elaborate on what this weakness would look like in everyday life? The only thing I can think of is handwriting, and even then, it doesn't seem like he's in the 7th or 1st percentile.

Aeh, I did look into nvld after you mentioned it, and a lot of it sounds like him. He's ok with facial expressions, and socially, but the other coordination things were spot on.

I don't know that you'll ever know for sure how much (if any) impact your ds had on his own coding subtest score if he did purposely go slow or whatever.... Until he has another coding subtest or similar test. You can, however, test his handwriting speed at home - have him write the alphabet, upper and lower case, from A to Z and time him while. He does it. To get the most accurate time, I wouldn't let him know he's being timed. Then divide the total number of letters written by the total number of minutes to get letters/minute, then compare that to same-age and/or same-grade level peers by googling "letters per minute second grade" etc.

I don't know your ds, but there are a few red flags I see in your posts that suggest a lower coding score might be real. The thing to focus on though isn't just the coding score and trying to understand what it would look like - but to look at the broad functioning of your ds, any challenges you see him having, and then look at the subtest score s and other data to see what fits. He's been evaluated for suspicions of ADHD in the past, you see some things that look like NVLD, fwiw Developmental Coordination Disorder, NVLD, ASD all share symptoms in common. It's most likely going to take a professional look throu a comprehensive evaluation to really understand what's going on.

FWIW re what a low coding score *might* look like - for one child, with DCD, which in and of itself presents differently in every person who is impacted by it, my ds at 7 years old, prior to diagnosis, delayed or fought doing any type of homework that related to writing. It wasn't obvious to myself or any of his teachers that his handwriting was any worse than any other student in his class. He didn't tell us anything was wrong but he did get mad when he had to do homework and he didn't seem to be working at the level we thought he would be working at based on his verbal communication. We didn't realize his incredibly deep complex verbal communication was one-sided in that there were only certain kinds of conversations he was having. He had a few develop,entail things that we just thought of as cute and quirky - things like crawling late and then not crawling any more, talking late etc, not wanting to out on his jacket, screaming when it was time to go to skiing lessons, silly things that just looked like little kid behavior. In school when worksheets were passed out he acted like the class clown or he daydreamed untl he got the two minute warning to finish them. In second grade, he became extremely anxious and we started getting reports from the teacher that something wasn't right, that he must have ADHD. That's all what it looked like pre-diagnosis. Neither his teachers or us (parents) had a clue what was really going on. And his ped never caught on to anything as a concern at his well-child checkups.

Best Wishes,

polarbear

Low PSI and coding scores have many possible causes, some of which have already been listed here, including: inattention, impulsivity (if high error rate), fine-motor deficits, vision, perceptual weaknesses, anxiety, depression, perfectionism, fatigue, sleep disorders, allergies, psychomotor retardation as a medication side effect.

So how it presents in real life depends on what the etiology is.

If it is something that affects handwriting, you may not see it that easily if he is not doing timed activities, as he may be able to be accurate, if slow.

I completely agree polarbear, that an in depth evaluation is definitely warranted! Thank you for taking the time to type all of that out. You've been a big help!

Thank you aeh! I'm intrigued by the allergy mention. Ds has multiple food and environmental allergies as well as EoE.

There is research that finds that children with environmental allergies display decreased attention during allergic reaction episodes. There are also drags on attention/executive function that occur as side effects of medications for allergies and asthma. For most children, the net effect of med side effects is less severe than that of going unmedicated, especially on a bad day.

What about my suggestion. I don't think it's on your list.

This is indeed intriguing as my ds has several allergies as well and has been treated on an off for years with medication that has affected his mood. I've often wondered if it has affected his cognitive functioning as well.

I worked with 1st through 3rd graders and used a timer for reading fluency pretty much all of the time. Many of them seemed to have no grasp of the importance of speed. They would stop in the middle of a sentence, go back and start the sentence over, yawn in the middle of it, stop and make random comments, etc. It was frustrating because I was charting their progress and once they hit a certain target with their speed, and hit it 3 weeks in a row, they could be exited from the program. I didn't want to pressure them to "read as fast as you can" because that made some of them anxious and they actually slowed down. Personally I think "coding" is just a really dumb test. Too many kids who score brilliantly in everything else get average or low coding scores and it doesn't add up, or seem to mean much of anything about their actual intelligence (or what I would consider intelligence at any rate). I would buy into speed as a factor of intelligence in other sorts of tasks, but coding seems to depend way too much on other factors. Why not just have the person respond verbally, for instance hold up pictures of objects that they already know (like cat, dog, baby, etc), and time their response? Why is "motor speed" even a component of IQ? If it is, then people with disabilities like dyspraxia should have lower IQs as a general principle. All of the subtests should show roughly the same score (give or take), otherwise it seems like it's not really telling us much of anything about their overall ability.

Thank you blackcat! That relaxes me a tad! lol. My husband and I are pretty set on getting a full workup anyways, because there may be *something* there, what it is, I don't know. Maybe I'm in denial, but since I homeschool him, I feel like I'd pick up on if he had some sort of major deficit that caused him to perform worse than 99% of the 7 year olds that have taken that test. I am worried that I sound like I'm in denial, I promise I'm not, we are going to look into this. The tester really made it sound like she could tell by the way he was acting that he just did not understand he was supposed to go fast. I am also confused as to why this isn't apparent in his WJ scores? Are the fluency portions not timed? He did do the worst in writing fluency, but that was still 51%, not 1%. Perhaps I am missing something, I admittedly have not looked into what makes up these tests.

Surprisingly, there is some relationship between motor speed and intelligence. Jensen is very hot on reaction time as a measure of "g". I don't think it's as good a measure (.51, the lowest on the WISC-IV, vs .83 for vocabulary, the highest) as, say verbal reasoning, but it has its value for many kids. Just not a good reflection of intelligence for some.

I just read on the new wisc coding is less heavily weighted. Not that it matters for my ds, because we already know his GAI without it, but I thought it was interesting.

I still think there has to be a better method of measuring that. Some people are fast, sloppy writers, and others are slow and careful. I wouldn't say that fast and sloppy equals "brighter". DD is very fast with other fine motor skills, like making those rainbow loom things, weaving, braiding hair, playing piano, etc. Those are all things where the "slow processing" isn't apparent. Ask her what 9X6 + 8X7 is though and it will be more obvious. So there are big differences between motor speed with her depending on the task. Writing is really the only area where I see a deficit in terms of fine motor.

I didn't know this. What is interesting to me is that this would seem to be more evidence that issues with the immune system affect the nervous system and the brain. (And yet, mainstream medicine seems uninterested in the "side effects" of both the allergy, i.e. immune issue, and the treatment, and looking more toward root causes in cases of attention issues and so forth.)

I've been reading lately about certain immune problems that actually cause handwriting issues, possibly just the sort of motor issues indicated by a low Coding score. (Things that make you go "hmm...")

Yes, processing speed and working memory are both less-heavily weighted into the FSIQ on the WISC-V (2 out of the 7 subtests) than they were on the WISC-IV (4 out of the 10 subtests). Partly to make room for the division of PRI into VSI and FRI (trying to keep the number of core subtests down--7, reduced from 10), and partly because they really don't load as heavily onto general intelligence.

The index scores also will not translate as neatly into the FSIQ, as there will be an additional three subtests necessary to derive the five primary index scores (one more for each of the VSI, WMI, and PSI).

That makes sense, too. Especially with very young children, who have yet to be trained with math-minutes, group standardized testing, etc. But these tasks persist despite that because the development of that balance probably has a sufficiently consistent trajectory over the NT population, such that it is already accounted for in the age-norms.

To be fair, fast and sloppy would be likely to be down-scored somewhat on Coding, too, since one does need to copy the symbols accurately enough to be recognizable.

Another note is that the fluent and dysfluent tasks that you mention are not really the same. The fluent tasks are largely repetitive patterns or sequential patterns, where there are contextual and meaningful threads to follow, once you get going, while multiplication facts involve retrieval fluency, often in a fairly scanty context.

But to your overall point, I would agree. It's just that there are tasks with decent correlations to intelligence, that we use as proxies for whatever direct measurement would be, which may not be good proxies for every person.

Do you know what the alternative would be to coding on the WISC V? I might have to take DS to be tested and don't really think that subtest makes a lot of sense for him, given his low tone and DCD. He doesn't even hold a pencil correctly. Also block design requires motor speed and I don't see him being particular speedy, even though he has very good visual spatial ability. Kind of like the pegboard (the test involves putting pegs in holes and it's timed)--he scored well under the 1st percentile. Meanwhile he was above the 99th percentile for the PRI tests that didn't involve motor skills. I can see how those subtests make sense if you are TRYING to find a disability, but the school districts don't understand that when they're just plugging numbers into their computer and rank ordering scores for g/t services.

I suppose my point is that, on a strategy continuum from slow&accurate to fast&inaccurate, each testee will make an uninformed choice of strategy, and their score will include a "luck" component depending how near of far each testee's chosen strategy happens to be from their optimal strategy. This could add a large amount of noise to the signal that represents their true ability at the task if they had chosen their optimal strategy. It may be possible to quantify this effect on average, but in a population of testees, some may be far more adversely affected than others simply due to their unfortunate non-optimal strategy choice, rather than their true ability.

Agreed, for the individual examinee. But as much as these are instruments used for individual assessment, the norms are group norms.

The allowable substitutions for coding on the WISC-V will be symbol search or cancellation. No more than two subtests can be substituted into the FSIQ.

Oh, and the new Fluid Reasoning Index should be more his style, as it is quite motor-reduced (pointing or naming multiple choice items only). GAI still has block design in it, but conceivably, you could substitute visual puzzles and make it entirely motor-free. So if the FSIQ had two substitutions, with symbol search for coding, and visual puzzles for block design, you could reduce the fine-motor demands substantially.

I don't think his symbol search score was much higher than coding, but he probably had some double vision at the time, due to strabismus from his brain injury. Do both of those tests (symbol search and cancellation) involve writing? If so, what happens if someone has no writing ability due to say, an accident and or severe disability.

I'm debating having him take the CogAT in a few months and keeping my fingers crossed. But with DD it was such a disaster that I don't know if I can bring myself to do it, esp. knowing that he is 2e as well (she was really slow or unfocused and left a lot of it blank, but they scored it anyway).

Symbol search and cancellation both involve some pencil work, but it's just crossing-off.

When someone has no writing ability, you calculate the GAI, and comment that they are physically unable to execute the PSI tasks. (Or block design, for that matter. But it's possible to substitute a motor-free task for that.)

aeh, just curious if you have seen the CogAT. Is it multiple choice where a kid has to fill in bubbles? And how much would they have to write to compute their answers for the math section? DS is in second grade but they give the third grade test which is timed. If a kid left half the test blank (due to not finishing because they were slow), would it be scored and considered a valid score?

I have not proctored a CogAT in a long time, but I believe it continues to be a mc bubble test. Yes, they would be marked down if they left half the items unanswered. I don't believe a great deal of hand calculation is expected.

Ok, thanks. The whole timing aspect of it seems so ridiculous when you're talking about 7 year olds. Why not just give them an untimed test and tell them to take their time. I think I'll try to get specifics in his IEP -something about timed tests, so that if he can't finish it we can easily "spoil" it. He would not color in the bubbles correctly so he'd probably get half of the questions marked wrong just based on that.

Posted this in 2e, then realized I should have posted it here. Hope this is not bad manners for the board.

I want to add another "My kid, too." My DS6 was recently assessed to have a 94 point spread between VCI (extended norms - 188) and processing speed (94).

Amber - I hope you don't mind a little related discussion. Can we use this thread to explore processing speed measurements a little?

Having done a ton of reading - I have a working hypothesis, but can't seem to find research to back it up. I do believe there is a processing issue. But I don't think that's the only thing going on. I'll give a couple anecdotes to illustrate:

Anecdote 1: DS has a whopping difference between processing speed and VCI/PRI. That does not reconcile with his performance on the "name that supercar" game. This is a game with a picture of a supercar (e.g., Ferrari) covered by 20 squares in a 4X5 grid. You click squares to remove them one at a time. As quickly as you can, identify the car from 4 supplied answers. Your score is a function of difficulty, speed and accuracy.

DS routinely kills this game, beating everybody's score - and this includes car nerds from all over the world. Usually he needs to turn over exactly one square, either in the headlight or tail light area. And let me be clear - the answer is not "Ferrari." It has to be "Ferrari 458 Speciale." Very detailed answers selecting from closely related models.

He also does this when we are driving on the highway. A fancy car will flash by. I ask, "Was that a Lotus?" "No, Mom - didn't you see the door handles? That was a Tesla Roadster. That one fools you every time doesn't it?" (It does.)

This is Very. Rapid. Processing. For context, he also does this with sea creatures and gems/minerals.

So - what gives. My working hypothesis is that these HG/EG/PG kids do have processing issues. But it's maybe not just speed. Or not speed at all. They are also processing an enormous volume of information that flashes into their brains when they observe. They gather in waaaay more information about everything, as compared to neurotypical folks. And they do it instantly. This brings me to anecdote 2, which I think illustrates how this volume factor can slow down ANSWERING, even if it doesn't slow down PROCESSING.

Anecdote 2: While working on a budget, I scribbled a sum ($107+$12). Just for grins, I asked DS if he knew the answer. He stared at it for a long while, and finally answered "They should have the euro in England."

As best he could explain, this is because my Dad taught me to write my "7" with a slash through it, like they do in Europe. This appears to have led to a long string of thoughts, naturally leading through Italian super cars (see above), whose price we often see listed in pounds in British car magazines. DS knew about how many dollars were in a pound, and how many dollars were in a euro, but got stuck trying to figure from that how many pounds were in a euro. He found this annoying and decided they should just use the euro in England.

So - exactly what volume of "stuff" is a kid like DS processing when he sees something like "107+12"?

Hypothetical example of how this rabbit-holing could play out: "Wow - this is the third time in a row that the correct answer on an IQ test is 'c'." That's weird. If it was a coin toss then, you might get the same answer 3 times in a row. But there are 4 possible answers here. That would seem to make 3 c's in a row unlikely. I wonder how I could figure out those odds. I mean, how does this compare to the odds of getting 3 aces in a poker hand. I think Max cheated when we were playing poker yesterday. I didn't see him cheat. But he got three of a kind a bunch of times. He must have been cheating. I don't want to play cards with him anymore. Hmmmm - "Max cheats" is not one of the answers to this question. What was that question again"

Maybe this is some variant of ADD or ADHD, if it reflects inability to focus (bad). Or maybe it reflects ability to pull in seemingly unrelated information from multiple sources instantaneously (good). Or both, but we don't want to squash (good) in the interest of improving (bad).

I'm wondering if any of you folks have talked through this sort of idea with your specialists, or if you know of any research on the issue. My gut says it's a big part of the puzzle. It might be mucking up kids' scores on testing to the extent you are really trying to measure "processing speed" versus "processing speed, assuming only this discrete information on the page is processed."

Argh - must stop writing, and thanks if you are still reading by now. But this is really weighing on my mind, and you folks seem like a truly optimal group to discuss this with.