We finally got the results from the psychoeducational assessment today! Overall, we're happy/relieved. It seems that he doesn't have any disabilities, which is terrific. It seems that his frustration with reading/writing is likely due to the fact that he has big ideas that he can't express well enough yet, and he wants to get the info from the books rather than work hard at reading the words.

Here are the results (strangely, the psychologist only gave us percentiles and not actually scores, so I've requested them but don't have them yet):

[Results deleted for privacy]

So I guess we seem to have ourselves a solidly MG kid with fairly balanced results. Would that be a fair description?

Thoughts? Reactions? aeh, I know we all hope you'll weigh in...

Would more detail on subsets help with interpreting scores, or is that plenty? Thanks, all!

In order of presentation, these are the standard scores. (A couple of them may be a point or two off, as more than one standard score may have the same percentile, especially in the upper extreme. For a few, I've also listed scaled scores, where it appears likely that it was a subtest, for which that is appropriate, rather than a composite score.):

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Yes, I think you are looking at a comfortably MG kiddo, based on current testing, with even development across verbal, visual spatial, and fluid reasoning areas, working memory in the high average range (although are you sure that working memory is 86th %ile, and not 96th %ile? If the verbal and visual memory tasks are what I think they are, the working memory composite should be in the mid to upper 90 percentiles), and processing speed in the average range.

He's young, and a boy, so it's possible the relative weaknesses in fine motor speed and precision are developmental, but I would certainly keep an eye on them, and also take them into account when making placement decisions and generating realistic expectations for the kind of tasks that may feed into frustration. Whether developmental or otherwise, it is reasonable that fine motor skills would affect his comfort level with writing tasks in the immediate future.

I would also not ignore the second-lowest category, which is phonological awareness. It's not clear what instrument she used to assess this, but a score in the high average range in a very young MG child may or may not rule out significant weaknesses in phonological awareness. It depends on the complexity of the PA task(s) involved (and it's still over a standard deviation lower than his other cognitive skills). I do not discount the hypothesis that his reading frustration reflects a gap between the kind of text that he wants to access and his level of reading skill, but I would also not totally discount the possibility of a subtle reading hindrance of some kind (which could be purely developmental in itself).

Just quickly (as I'll check a few things before I respond on a few things tomorrow): I forgot to mention that he's in 100% French immersion this year in grade 1, so she said that she expected that it would impact one (or a few) of his scores on a subset (or subsets). Could that be one of them? Of course, that leads me to wonder whether all of his verbal abilities scores might be slightly depressed since he has spent his entire school year learning in French. Or do the tests somehow accommodate for that?

And now that I don't feel like I'll embarrass myself saying this, I'm actually almost surprised that his scores aren't a bit higher. He does some pretty surprising stuff sometimes and it seems more than just MG. Of course, I wouldn't have stuck my neck out that way before I knew he's at least gifted! Make sense? Or maybe it's just that he's very strong in a few areas (as most GC are, of course).

Oh, and I forgot to mention that she said that she noticed a few times that he had added instead of subtracted and so she had to stop the testing before she tested him to his limits for math. And when she described the math abilities stuff, I felt quite certain that she didn't test to his abilities.

In any case, I'm still relieved that he's now identified as gifted. Now, I can legitimately say that he has a GC's OEs! 😂 Oh, that and we can get him an IEP!

Yes, 100% immersion in a language other than English could well affect all of his verbal-related scores, including, to some extent, phonological awareness. It is well established that young children in fully multilingual environments have slightly delayed language milestones in the short term (and stronger meta-linguistic and executive function skills in the long term).

The tests are normed predominantly on English monolingual North American children (although LEP and multilingual children are in the standardization group, they are usually a small minority), so they should be interpreted with reasonable caution when used on anyone who is not in that category.

aeh,

I just PM'd you.

thx!