So, I have been reading the posts about wisc iv and v. I know about the flynn effect. I also saw a post similar to the issue I am having. I wanted further feedback.
When my son was in 4th grade (age 9) I tested him. His GAI was 136. HIs FSIQ was 128. I had him tested this month again - he is now in 6th grade (age 11). His FSIQ is 113. Not sure of his GAI yet. So, he had a drop of 15 points. Any thoughts? He is being diagnosed with ADD inattentive and very mild dyslexia. We did several tests and the WIAT III has great variability (from grade equ 2 to 12).
Fifteen points seems a lot.
1. I assume he wasn't on any medication for either test?
2. How focused was he the second time?
3. Was it just one area that pulled down the FSIQ (like processing speed), or multiple areas?
4. Same tester or different tester? I get the impression that a poor tester could try to race through the test or not be as skilled at establishing rapport or getting answers out of the child. I think that could make a big difference.
no meds. I'm not sure about the focus. That's a good question. Multiple areas seemed to have pulled down the FSIQ (coding was super low -37 percentile but there were 4 others at 50 percentile).
It was a different tester. First test was early in the morning. Second test in the middle of the afternoon. This second test was done as a psychoeducation assessment battery but the IQ itself had a separate day.
I won't repeat my comments from the other thread, as it sounds like you have read them already, but those are all pretty much in play for your DC's situation.
Factors that affect focus are definitely places to look, including the ones already mentioned (medication, time of day, examiner/rapport). Another factor that particularly affects the VCI in dyslexic children is cumulative reduced exposure to deep reading vocabulary, which affects not only the vocabulary subtest, but also the similarities subtest (can't reason verbally if you don't know the words). Not uncommonly, I see small to moderate declines in VCI (mostly in the vocabulary subtest) over historical numbers in my adolescent students with a history of reading difficulties. With the removal of comprehension from the VCI, knowledge of academic vocabulary also becomes even more important.
BTW, 37th %ile is not technically super low (except in comparison to Very Superior scores), as it's not significantly different from the 50th %ile scores (scaled score 9, as opposed to 10). All solidly in the Average range. I'd be interested to know what else was at the 50th %ile. Were they the other CPI subtests? (symbol search, digit span, picture span)
Thanks black cat and aeh. I really appreciate your help.. I am anxious about all this... We have seen issues since 2nd grade and feel that mostly the school has done nothing.
2013 scores- WISC IV
VCI= 134 (similarities 18, vocabulary 17 and comprehension 12)
PRI=127 (block design 19, picture and matrix 12 each)
WMI=104 (digit span and letter number sequ 11 each)
PSI115 (coding 12 and symbol search 13)
FSIQ=128
GAI=136
2015 scores- WISC- V
VCI=121 (Similarities , Vocabulary and information 14 each)
VSI=117 (Block design 16, visual puzzles- 10)
Fri=100 (matrix & figure weights 10 each and picture concepts 13)
Wmi=103 (digit span 10 and picture span 11)
PSI=105 (coding 9 and symbol search 13)
FSIQ=113
Also on the Woodcock Johnson- we did one at age 7 (2012) and processing speed was 17% and now it is 20%.
We also did a Wiat-III.
What has changed:
Si, Vc
BD
What has remained the same:
MR, PC
DS
CD, SS
His GAI is 118, which is about the same drop as in his FSIQ (makes sense, as all of the significant change has been in GAI-related subtests).
I realize that the actual scaled scores and percentiles appear to have changed slightly on some of the ones I've listed as unchanged, but keeping in mind standard error, natural variation, and updated norms, those changes are insignificant. (As is the change in processing speed from 17%ile to 20%ile. That is literally one standard score point difference.)
I think the first place I would look in terms of concern is what I mentioned in my previous post about long-term effects on vocabulary acquisition from limited access to sophisticated vocabulary. How did his reading/writing come out on the WIAT?
yes. You make a very good point. The WIAT III was interesting for me. He has 6 above averages, 2 average and one below average.
listening comprehension- 126 (receptive vocabulary 124 and discourse 118)-- this is above average I think.
sentence building 79
sentence combining 101
reading- 118
math 91
sentence- 89
word reading 101
essay- 126
pseudoword decoding- 93
numerical 99
oral expression-129
orad reading- 93
oral reading accuracy 92
spelling 83
addition 89
subtraction 76
multiplication 73
any others seem okay to me (not that some of the ones above are not okay).
His oral language is quite good, in the above average range, and commensurate with either his old or his new VCI. (Though closer, I think, to his old VCI).
Reading comprehension is above average, still considered commensurate with verbal ability, and consistent with his oral discourse comprehension. Basic reading skills are not as good, though solidly average; well below either old or new VCI. Notice that his decoding deteriorates in performance level as the decoding task becomes more challenging. He can read real words in isolation at a decent level, but starts to slide in the range when reading unknown words, and when reading in connected text. This is a profile consistent with dyslexia.
Writing is even more diverse. His spelling skills are below average (often the one place you can still see normative deficits in compensated dyslexics), and far below his VCI. In composing sentences, I think there are some effects here from spelling. He was able to combine sentences in complex/compound sentence structures, showing cause/effect relationships, but had more difficulty with sentence building, where you are provided one word, that you must use correctly in a sentence entirely of your own making. Often kids who can't spell compensate for that on sentence combining by using only words that are in the stimulus sentences. On sentence building, you can't do that, so they end up being marked off quite a bit for spelling and mechanics. His essay is very good, up in the ballpark of his VCI, but that's partly because spelling isn't as much of a factor (kids self-censor vocabulary, limiting it to words in their fluent spelling vocabulary), and partly because it's scored primarily for ideas and length of written product. His processing speed is okay, so he probably generated a decently-long essay, and his verbal reasoning is excellent, so he is likely to have given sufficient ideas and details.
Math is in the average range for computations and problem solving, which is okay. Lower than his VCI, but on par with his FRI, which is a better predictor of math ability than VCI is. Fact fluency, however, is generally below average. With decent processing speed, this probably isn't because of pure speed reasons; it looks more like the kind of automaticity problems that a lot of dyslexics and dysgraphics have.
(I'm assuming that the first "reading" refers to reading comprehension, and "math" to math problem solving.)
So his strengths and weaknesses pretty much line up with a kid with relative strengths in verbal comprehension, in the (Superior to) Very Superior range, but a compensated dyslexic profile, affecting automaticity of basic skills: phonetic decoding/decoding fluency, encoding, and math fact fluency.
Aeh... thank you, thank you, thank you! you rock!! This was VERY helpful to me.
yest to both assumptions regarding the reading/math.
What should I be doing to help him? Anything in particular?
In terms of remediation, whatever you can do to help him build up a little more automaticity for math facts will probably pay off down the line, in higher math. But he may or may not be able to get those numbers up much more. Kids with this profile need tons of repetition to attain something approaching normal automaticity.
Whether or not he can improve his speed on times tables, you may want to ask for accommodations in school to include extra time, and using the computer for as much writing as possible, so that he can use spellcheck, word prediction software, thesaurus look up (because there are probably words he knows how to use, and recognizes in print, but can't spell well enough even to look up in the dictionary), and typed responses.
thank you. I truly appreciate all your help.
I have another question ...something bothering me that I am hoping Aeh or some of you can help me. I need appropriate feedback (please tell me if you disagree or agree). I had an 504 meeting for my son (scores in previous messages above). The meeting went fairly well. It was said by the school psychologist that "Dr. X (who I privately paid to evaluate my son) seems to think that the ADHD (inattentive type only) is worse than the dyslexia". At the time I did not want to engage on this point but now it keeps bugging me. First, it would be impossible to know which is worse. I think that he never said that in his report but even if he did, how would he know besides observations (which are fallible)? I guess my thought is that what if he is distracted/inattentive because he is dyslexic? How would we know which is worse (inattention due to ADHD or dyslexia) Thoughts?
What does it even mean to be "worse" in this context? I suspect that if he actually said it at all, he probably said something like that one "causes more significant impairments with everyday functioning," maybe specifically in the classroom. But that has no real value for what they should do to remediate. I mean, diabetes is probably worse than a broken arm, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't set a broken arm until after blood sugar is under control. Two distinct problems - treat them both.
Is it possible that what the school psych was trying to say is that the ADHD needs to be "treated" for the accommodations/remediations to be effective? "Treated" isn't really the word I'm looking for, so I"ll use another example. My 2e ds has an expressive language disorder and dysgraphia. If his SLP attempted to have him use handwriting to answer the questions she asked as part of his speech therapy to remediate the expressive language issues, he wouldn't make anywhere near as much progress as he can if he uses keyboarding to first eliminate the dysgraphia challenge.
I'm guessing your school psych was trying to say that your ds' challenges due to ADHD were making it difficult to fully benefit from the remediation or accommodations for his dyslexia - but again, that's just a guess.
FWIW, it wouldn't hurt to follow up by asking the school psych what was meant by the statement.
Best wishes,
polarbear
Usually, these are references either to statistical distance from the mean, or level of functional impairment. For example, he might have meant that inattention (and other ADHD-related symptoms) was (and I'm pulling these numbers out of a hat here) at a level seen in only 2% of the population, but reading difficulty was at a level seen in 10% of the population.
If functional impairment, then he might have meant that your DC is able to limp by more or less with reading comprehension, despite actual word-level reading difficulties, but that inattention is noticeably interfering with his access to instruction, or skill acquisition, or peer relationships.
I agree that remediation/accommodation for both is important, but I would also consider the value of working on the most severe challenge first, as it's probably the one soaking up the most of your child's energy, and affecting his educational experience the most.
Here's an N of 1 story, for what it's worth. Our experience with DD has been that prior to remediation, it was very difficult to separate cause and effect. Is poor attention impairing her reading? Or is inability to read causing her to tune out? We really couldn't tell, but both DD herself as well as teachers were identifying huge problems with focus and maintaining concentration.
Assessment determined that both dyslexia and ADHD-inattentive (and visual processing) were at play. We decided to start reading remediation first, and then determine if attention was seriously interfering with her ability to access the remediation. If so, we would consider medication for the ADHD, otherwise, we were continuing to support through scaffolding etc. Reading remediation was a tough slog, but we could almost immediately see that it was making a big difference, and we could easily see continual progress, so we left the drugs parked.
Now, with her reading program completed, it's very interesting to discover that her teachers no longer see ANY serious attention issues in class. DD is still clearly ADHD-inattentive in real life. However now that she can read and write, I can only guess that these activities have moved into the category of intrinsically-motivating, and so don't trigger the attention problems the way they used to.
None of this is to say remediate dyslexia and your attention problems will disappear - not at all! More to echo the comments above, which is to look closely at the remediation you doing, and assess whether attention issues are in fact interfering with your child's ability to benefit from the remediation. If attention is getting in the way of your child being able to use the supports provided, then it needs to be addressed as a prerequisite. I couldn't agree more with aeh's advice to start with the point of greatest pain - but sometimes it takes a little experimenting to figure out what that is.
Thanks for all your input. So, the school is not doing any remediation. They are only doing accommodations. I went back and looked at the 504 and the only diagnosis they wrote was ADHD. The diagnosis from the private doctor reads like this:
Adhd, primary inattentive type (mild to moderate)
specific learning disability with impairment in reading accuracy and fluency
specif learning disability with impairment in written expression affecting spelling accuracy, grammar and punctuation, writing output.
Previously to this doctor we have a visual processing diagnosis also (from years ago)
At the 504 meeting they gave me the most "typical accommodations" (copy of notes, preferential seating, positive praise, study guide) and I requested they add 3 others (extra time, alternate response, being allowed to take picture of homework assignment instead of having to write it down) and the school psychologist suggested 2 other things: and additional class period to complete work and 30% fewer questions to measure content/skills.
At the time of the meeting he had a D in two classes. But he is not failing anything.
He arrives home from school and takes a break for 30 minutes to 1 hour and then does homework the rest of the evening (sometimes 4 hours)-- the school says it is supposed to take 2 hours. I don't know if I am making more than I need (am I worrying unnecessarily?) or if the traditional school is not for him.
Thoughts?
I would suggest a couple of refinements of the accommodations suggested by the school psych and you:
1. typed response (this should include all the usual word processing supports, such as spell/grammar check, thesaurus).
2. supplementary oral assessment (teachers pull him aside after a test and say, "this is what you answered in writing for this question. Do you have anything to add?")
3. starred items only to demonstrate mastery of learning standards (this is a version of the reduced work load suggestion: teachers asterisk the key items on an assignment that will allow them to assess his mastery of state or local curriculum frameworks. He completes all of those items. If he completes any additional items in the assignment, they have instructional value, but if he doesn't, they don't count against him.)
And yes, four hours a day of homework is too much for an eleven year old. (Personally, I think two hours is too much, but I know a lot of high-achieving schools expect this.)