Hi all, this is an update to my previous thread. I'll repeat some stuff just to have it all together.

Basically we are concerned about DS7's much lower VCI in comparison to his other cognitive scores. He has shown weaknesses in reading and writing at his gifted school and we are trying to determine if he has a disability that can be treated/accommodated to help him do his best, what additional tests might help us to determine that, or if he just has a perfectly normal (for him) cognitive profile with personal strengths and weaknesses. I already got some good suggestions on the prior thread, but with sub-test scores now available maybe something more specific will stand out? DS is diagnosed with ADHD, Tourette's, and (contested by me) ASD. Well, on to the numbers:

Wisc V

VCI_____________118____88th%ile____High Average

Similarities_____11____63rd%ile____Average
Vocabulary_______16____98th%ile____Significantly Above Average

VSI_____________151____>99th%ile___Extremely High

Block Design_____18____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average
Visual Puzzles___19____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average

FRI_____________155____>99th%ile___Extremely High

Matrix Reasoning_19____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average
Figure Weights___19____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average

WMI_____________155____>99th%ile___Extremely High

Digit Span_______19____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average
(Picture Span)___19____>99th%ile___Significantly Above Average

PSI_____________100____50th%ile____Average

Coding___________12____75th%ile____Average
(Symbol Search)___8____25th%ile____Average

FSIQ____________144____>99th%ile___Extremely High
GAI_____________143____>99th%ile___Extremely High

(Nonverbal Index Score=158)

WIAT III

Reading Comp____141____>99th%ile___Superior
Word Reading____127____96th%ile____Above Average
Pseudoword______134____99th%ile____Superior
Decoding
Oral Reading____136____99th%ile____Superior
Fluency
Basic Reading___137____99th%ile____Superior

Math Problem____160____>99th%ile___Superior
Solving

(Of note is the fact that the entire reading portion was based on 1st grade level reading and would not have found any relative deficits because it was so far below his level)

The school then went on to do their gifted eligibility matrix in which DS did qualify for the gifted program, but with no help from his own mom! He got 0 points for the GERRIC scale that they had me fill out (which I thought was full of questions that had little to do with giftedness, such as early motor milestones and leadership abilities). As I was totally honest on it he got a 44/60 and 0 points towards the gifted matrix. I find it interesting that even a kid with an IQ below 120 can get into the gifted program with enough points on the matrix... especially since a kid can get 3 points just for having parents that rate them highly on the GERRIC. His teacher also filled out a CHUSKA scale for which he also received no points. I'm gonna guess these scales aren't very helpful for determining giftedness in special needs kids

DS scored at clinically significant levels for Executive Functioning problems (79 parent, 74 teacher on the BRIEF 2), at risk or significant all over the BASC 3, very elevated for the vast majority of items on the Conners 3 (ADHD), and average (59) by parent rating and slightly elevated (60) by teacher rating on the ASRS (autism).

CELF 5

Sentence Comprehension_____Raw: 25___Scaled: 12___%ile: 75
Word Structure ____________Raw: 31___Scaled: 13___%ile: 84
Word Classes_______________Raw: 25___Scaled: 13___%ile: 84
Following Directions_______Raw: 27___Scaled: 16___%ile: 98
Formulated Sentences_______Raw: 27___Scaled: 10___%ile: 50
Recalling Sentences________Raw: 60___Scaled: 16___%ile: 98
Core Language Score _______118_______%ile: 88
Receptive Language Index___123_______%ile: 94
Expressive Language Index__118_______%ile: 88
Pragmatics Profile_________Raw:143___Scaled: 07____%ile 16

It was noted that pragmatics language deficits primarily fall in the area of following conversational rules. Pragmatic strengths were noted in giving/asking for information, awareness/use of prosodic cues, and sharing/responding to reactions. Also noted was that for some items on formulated sentences he took more than 5 minutes to come up with a sentence. He asked questions such as "What is the right answer?" and "Are there more or less than 50 right answers?". This did not affect his score as the test is not timed. Throughout the evaluation he had a hard time guessing or accepting that he did not know an answer. He became most upset during Formulated Sentences and Word Classes, presumably because they were hard for him/he did not feel like he was doing well. No articulation problems noted.

On the Pragmatics checklist DS had 11 items checked as follows (9 or more out of 32 is a deficit):

Did not maintain appropriate eye contact
Did not look where speaker pointed
Did not look at object/person named by speaker
Did not coordinate gaze with speakers gaze and ongoing talk
Did not use gestures to identify person or object
Did not point to distant object or person when appropriate
Used too much non specific language
Repeated things that listeners were already aware of
Talked repeatedly about topics he was interested in but others were not interested in
Talked even when no one was listening
Responded but did not extend the conversation to offer further information (unless related to topic of interest)


Beery VMI 6th edition

Full Form___________________Raw: 25____Standard: 123 High
Visual Perception Subtest___Raw: 23____Standard 112 Average
Motor Coordination Subtest__Raw: 21____Standard 104 Average

(it was noted that he would have performed better at visual motor integration had it not been timed)

BOT 2

Fine Motor Precision______Scale Score: 24_____Above Average
Fine Motor Integration____Scale Score: 17_____Average
Manual Dexterity Skills___Scale Score: 20_____Average

Fine Manual Control_______Standard Score:62___Above Average

Test of Visual Perceptual Skills

Visual Discrimination__________18____99th%ile High
Visual Memory (short term) ____19 ___99th%ile High
Spatial Relations______________19____99th%ile High
Form Constancy_________________15____95th%ile Above Average
Sequential Memory______________17____99th%ile High
Figure Ground__________________19____99th%ile High
Visual Closure_________________19____99th%ile High

Overall_______________________140____99th%ile High

SPM (sensory processing measure, teacher report)

Social Participation: Some Problems
Vision: Some Problems
Hearing: Definite Dysfunction
Touch: Typical
Body Awareness: Some Problems
Balance and Motion: Some Problems
Planning and Ideas Definite Dysfunction

Some other things noted by the OT for writing and in general:

Mature grasp
Fair line adherence
Legible
Letters not always fully ascended
Irregular bottom up letter formation
Decreased writing speed
Extra time to initiate writing
Wrote with minimal details
(When asked to write 2 sentences about his favorite animal, wrote "My favorite animal is a cat. Her name is (omitted).")
When engaged in tabletop tasks DS was observed to sit on his legs and bend over so his face was close to the paper.
He also wanted to turn his body instead of adjusting crayon strokes when coloring in a simple picture.
Cutting skills were good, but he incorrectly donned the scissors and cut while holding the paper close to himself.
In the classroom he was slow to respond to teacher and peers when spoken to.
It was noted that he also sat on his knees at school when seated and on the floor and leaned over his desk when he worked.

My favorite thing in the evaluation, because it is so DS: He hid under the table at one point when he perceived the evaluator had given him the answer. He stated "You ruined the test, I can't go on." He's so ridiculously dramatic sometimes! It also mentions that he demonstrated awareness to minute details and had difficulties filtering out things that were not important.

At the end the report determines that "overall his academic skills are commensurate with his ability." I can see how reading and writing are commensurate with a verbal IQ of 118, but I kinda think that such a huge disparity between verbal and nonverbal IQ might mean something?

I know that it is already causing difficulties at his current school placement (6 gifted kids k-1) and this is causing us to reconsider gifted school for next year.

OTOH I am not seeing how public school could accommodate him academically. He's pretty much done with elementary math so he could not go to a higher class. And even with his reading weakness he is still way above average and would potentially be bored with 2nd grade reading. He already knows a lot of science and social studies just from car conversations to and from all of the therapies over the years. And even if the material is new, he learns so quickly he would likely be annoyed at the slow pace.

Well, I guess that's it. Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. I want to come up with a list of additional ideas to run by the school before we finalize everything. Thanks

A couple of notes:

Actually, his achievement scores really are commensurate with his nonverbal ability. Regression to the mean is one of the concepts that can be hard to grasp. The predicted achievement in all areas of academics, based on his nonverbal ability, falls largely in the mid 120s to upper 130s. It's actually his higher math problem solving score that approaches being above predicted levels (though not by much). I agree that the large difference between verbal and nonverbal is worth keeping an eye on, but it isn't that surprising that there is no apparent impact on academic achievement at the primary grade levels. Expectations are low for this age, especially for the high-level, abstract, inferential verbal reasoning that is likely to become more of a relative challenge for him down the road (possibly quite a long way down, and possibly not at all, since he has exceptional fluid reasoning).

We've already discussed ADHD, and I think someone brought up the fine-motor/dysgraphic category of learning differences. I think, whatever the etiology, the OT testing pretty clearly demonstrates fine-motor delays, which are sufficient to explain challenges in reading and writing, and the speech language eval documents pragmatics delays, which are likely to contribute to social and behavioral presentation, and may even impact reading and writing performance (because of the inferential aspects--though not so much at this grade level). Writing for obvious reasons, and reading because many teachers assess reading comprehension through written products. Unfortunately, your final eval report confirms that no norm-referenced assessment of written expression was done.

Granted, the OT data should be sufficient to stimulate an occupational therapy and a writing goal, and classroom accommodations to provide access to demonstration of skills in a variety of academic areas (including reading comprehension) without being gated by handwriting. If the school can be flexible about letting him use, for example, a variety of oral and visual presentations instead of purely written products, then he might have some other avenues for accessing ELA instruction. I would want to separate working on handwriting and mechanics from working on language expression, reading comprehension, social studies and science content areas. So don't grade for spelling (except as it impacts intelligibility) unless spelling is the instructional objective. Allow speech-to-text for writing longer than a sentence in length, and oral assessment in content areas and for demonstrating reading comprehension. Extended time. Items only sufficient to demonstrate mastery (graded on starred items only). (By the way, this would actually serve a dual purpose of helping with his slow writing speed, and, as a side benefit, reducing boredom from repetitive drills.)

He sounds very similar to my DS who is now in 4th grade, except DS has very obvious issues with motor coordination. He had the same gap between verbal and nonverbal ability. But achievement testing shows reading/math both above the 98th percentile. His pragmatics profile showed some of the same deficits. He is NOT diagnosed w/ autism, we had him evaluated several times and he just doesn't meet the critiera. But he definitely has something else going on that is causing his issues (doctors note something is probably going on w/ his cerebellum because his motor skills are also really poor and he has hypotonia).

He does much better with written expression when he types and the same was true of my daughter, who had similar writing issues. the TOWL wasn't even scoreable because she didn't write enough words for the story. Now that she is 11 she is doing much better with her writing. Her issue wasn't linked to verbal ability (which scored 99th percentile on the WISC), it's linked to her executive functioning issues and ADHD. She uses keyboarding and speech to text as needed but the problem seems to be diminishing now that she is getting older. Even though she didn't have any obvious motor deficits she also had very slow handwriting. She would trace over and over letters practically ripping through the paper.

Thank you both so much.

aeh: Interestingly the OT report says no fine motor concerns and writing problems are not motor based. Is there something specific in the testing I could point to to try to argue otherwise? Also, given this data, which norm referenced assessment of written expression would you recommend I ask for? I feel like I already got a lot and for free, so I don't want to burden them with a bunch of additional requests, but if there is maybe just one more measure that would really give us useful info I'd love to have it done.

blackcat: I find it interesting that ADHD used to be called minimal brain dysfunction, because I find that a much more accurate way of thinking about my DS. Nothing is so far off he can't function, but most things seem to be at least a bit off. DS has been assessed as low tone in the past. He has qualified for PT at various points. He does have poor coordination on many gross motor tasks. He has the ADHD. The TS. Emotional and behavioral regulation issues. Various mild sensory issues. I do often wonder if just one part of his brain just isn't working right. I am very happy to hear of another kid with a similar pragmatics profile who is not autistic. I don't think we will ever shake that diagnosis now that we have it, but any little bit to help me feel more confident really helps

One really funny thing about DS is that his verbal skills seem to be at their highest when he is angry/fighting. He can reason and scream out the most amazingly complex and vocabulary rich things when he is mad at us. Which makes it really hard to stay mad at him! I wonder if he does it on purpose? Maybe I should suggest to the school that they work him into an angry frenzy and then ask him to come up with a story?

He's just so variable in general. Last year he wrote some beautiful poems and he used to dictate huge stories to us when he was 4 that often had very creative elements (and totally crazy ones). His art teacher says he is a very talented painter, but I haven't seen him paint at home in years (in fact I was convinced for quite awhile that she must have me confused with another mom). He hates to write, but he will happily draw and solve mazes for hours. Just a very inconsistent and strangely amazing child

You received great information above. I'll just add a few quick thoughts -

Is your child a Davidson Young Scholar? With WISC-V scores of VSI 151 and FRI 155 I believe you could apply to the DYS program; The DYS Qualifications are listed here.

Pearson provides some general background on WISC-V scores here, showing how the various scores relate to each other.

You mentioned "variable" and "inconsistent". Are you familiar with the concept of Asynchronous development of gifted kids?
- Link to NAGC description here.
- Link to book "Asynchrony and the Gifted Child" here.
Beyond the 2e diagnoses, asynchrony may help explain some of the variability/inconsistency that you see.

You might want to delete the score detail from your post(s) to help preserve your child's anonymity (consistent with this post and board rules).

Don't quote me because I'll probably come back and delete, but DS has a dx of developmental coordination disorder. I think he may actually have a more serious issue like a mild case of ataxic cerebral palsy. His "motor coordination" score on the Beery VMI was like .02 percentile. So that's pretty bad. Yet I saw him do a game on the ipad yesterday where he had to press squares in order as they ran quickly across the screen (to play a song) and I think he did that as well as I could have which didn't make a lot of sense to me. His handwriting looks like preschool writing and never seems to get much better. Anyway, everyone thinks of the "cerebellum" as just having a motor function, but it goes far beyond that, it controls social skills, speech, hyperactive, inattentive or immature behavior, etc. I was reading about a kid who had damage to one part of his cerebellum and he developed speech issues that are very specific and rare that sound like DS's issues. It also controls things like eye contact. If you don't have a well functioning cerebellum eye contact is impossible. I think there is research showing ASD involves an underdeveloped cerebellum but other disorders are linked to it as well. DS was just run through a 3T MRI scanner to try to get a better look at it, so far all that we have found is a mild chiari malformation with a quick 5 min. scan. There are so many disorders that can cause some ASD type symptoms but the question is are there enough of those symptoms to warrant a diagnosis of ASD or is it something else. Have you ever seen a genetcist? There is all sorts of testing that can be done now that couldn't be done before. I was just reading our policy and it looked like testing on kids with ASD is covered.

edited to add, this comes from wikipedia. "They reported that patients with injury isolated to the cerebellum may demonstrate distractibility, hyperactivity, impulsiveness, disinhibition, anxiety, ritualistic and stereotypical behaviors, illogical thought and lack of empathy, aggression, irritability, ruminative and obsessive behaviors, dysphoria and depression, tactile defensiveness and sensory overload, apathy, childlike behavior, and inability to comprehend social boundaries and assign ulterior motives.[5]" Sounds like autism, right? But they are describing injury to a specific brain part.

I don't have much time to reply at the moment, but there are different types of root causes of dysgraphia - one is fine motor, the other is related to visual motor integration. I don't have the knowledge to tell you if either of these is an issue here, but fwiw you might want to google "types of dysgraphia" or something like that and see if any of the symptoms of a specific type line up with what you're seeing in your ds.


This really isn't atypical for dysgraphic children - my ds is a talented artist and can draw amazingly well. He's also able to take one look at a complicated maze and draw the solution with no mistakes. He can't write. There are very different processes in the brain controlling each of these - drawing is free-form, figure it out as you draw, every drawing is new and unique, the pencil rarely leaves the paper while drawing. Usually when you're drawing your head can be totally in it and doesn't have to be thinking about things like spelling, capitalization, grammar etc. Handwriting involves (in neurotypical children) the development of automaticity when learning how to form letters, and when that automaticity doesn't develop, forming the letters takes up all of a child's working memory to the extent that they can't focus on those things.

My ds also has Developmental Coordination Disorder... and it has symptoms that overlap with ASD.

Re asking for further evaluation etc from the school - one thing I'd seriously consider is seeking a professional evaluation outside the school. With the testing and data you already have it wouldn't have to be as extensive and costly as a full eval, but being able to review the results and ask for recommendations from a professional who has no ties to the school might be helpful both in terms of reaching an up-to-date diagnosis, and in terms of understanding what therapies/remediation/etc could be useful, as school evaluations are going to somewhat limit that information based on what they are required to provide and what will help in the classroom at this moment in time. An outside professional can help you provide a long-term plan and understanding, as well as provide references for outside help should it be necessary to add additional remediation outside the scope of what your school district is willing to offer. Please know I'm not knocking schools at all in saying this - just think that sometimes when a parent has unanswered questions an additional review from a professional not tied into what the school is capable of offering can help with clarity and a plan forward.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Thanks so much for everything guys, I am keeping track of all of these ideas for all of the meetings we have had (and will have). I have also been doing lots of research! We have an IEP meeting scheduled for Monday and I am reviewing all of this again as well as my other thread just to make sure I am totally ready to advocate!

One thing I am not sure about is how much to emphasize his academic needs vs the average learner or even the average gifted learner. Since his scores aren't very uniform it makes it harder for me to think of him as highly gifted (or whatever you might call it). Does it make sense with his scores to bring up the fact that the gifted program alone may not be enough for him (it's a weekly pull out)? I'm guessing we would advocate for subject acceleration in math and maybe sticking with his age mates for language based stuff, but what about science and social studies? He loves complex concepts and I anticipate he will be really bored learning lists of facts (what schools call history) and really basic science concepts. Do I go into the meeting thinking of DS as standard gifted or should I make it clear he has needs beyond what they are used to accommodating? How many kids with his abilities are they likely to have at the school?

I got an email from his current (gifted) school today about how great DS is doing on the current unit on thermodynamics. His teacher says he is able to understand and explain very difficult concepts, such as the idea of the universe as a closed system and that all energy that ever existed or will ever exist came from the initial singularity of the big bang. She was particularly impressed with his ability to come up with examples of the second law of thermodynamics, including putting an ice cube in a glass of water and waiting for it to melt before the glass of water achieves equilibrium. On the car ride home today he talked about entropy and some ideas about absolute zero and asked some questions I couldn't answer until I was able to consult with Google. I'm not sure what the public school is doing for science in first grade, but I doubt it is anything this interesting.

DS is really into the conceptual stuff and the big ideas, especially in math and science, but also in history. He loves learning about the evolution of humans and how the early people developed and spread throughout the world. I am pretty sure he knows more about these concepts than many adults. He also loves chemistry and genetics and anything to do with math theory, especially infinities.

With the IEP next week I'm totally freaking out about what it might actually mean for his education if we can't afford the gifted school next year. We don't hear about our financial aid for a few more weeks and if it isn't pretty significant we won't be able to use the gifted school again next year (tuition is over 26k with no aid). We had to sell our second car and have a strict budget (that only includes food) just to send him this year. If we end up getting less aid I'm just not sure we will be able to make it work. The fact that we are also paying over 7k in school taxes doesn't make the situation any easier to swallow. DS's happiness is our number one concern and he loves his current school, but realistically we need to consider all the options at this point.

So, a lot may or may not be riding on this IEP meeting and I need to treat it very seriously. I have multiple Google docs going with lists of ideas/concerns and important information about DS, much of which has come directly from the very helpful people of this board I guess what I still need the most help with is how to present his giftedness and what to push for academically. Based on conversations I have had with the people involved with the testing it sounds like they are quite willing to accommodate his areas of weakness (mostly writing), so I don't think I will have a battle there. I might also want to ask for adaptive PE, or to at least have it as an option if regular PE isn't working out. I'm pretty sure they won't have coding (his favorite subject) and if he wants to continue learning to read music we will have to do that at home as well. And obviously no Mandarin (and that's something we can't teach at home, lol!) This is getting scary, I hope we get the financial aid decision soon, I'm going crazy here

In answer to your much earlier question about fine motor: while it is true that all the scores are at least within normal limits, there is a huge disparity between his average motor coordination and fine motor skills and his very high visual perceptual skills, which suggests that there is some impediment to his demonstration of his exceptional perceptual skills when fine motor output is required. Perhaps this is a more nuanced interpretation, and one that some OTs would not accept as justification for supports, since they tend to see relatively narrow slices of a child's functional profile.

On additional writing assessments: I like the PAL-II for this age, as it distinguishes between various levels of writing complexity, including fluency.

The good thing about his interest in the big ideas of science and history is that these are relatively easy to supplement, with educational videos, books, and fun science websites. Coding and reading music actually aren't that hard to do for fun, either (don't know his level of coding, but Scratch is fun and age-appropriate). Reading music is just a matter of practice. If you can find middle C between the staves, you can figure out everything else. Rhythm notation is simple fractions.

The hardest thing to accommodate outside of school (without going full home/after school!) is probably the level of math instruction he'll need. My personal inclination would be to prioritize (among academic needs; obviously his holistic happiness is more important than any one academic subject) appropriate math instruction, and let the other chips fall where they may. He's only going to be in second grade, so there's plenty of time for higher-level structured science and history instruction in the future, just as long as the current level is not so low it frustrates him. At his reading level, he has access to a pretty rich range of books on any topic that interests him.

Hold on to your sanity...I think you'll all be fine!

Thank you so much aeh. It turns out I had the date wrong for the IEP meeting, it's on Thursday, not Monday. On Monday we have a parent teacher conference with the current school. For that meeting I am going to continue to advocate for reduced writing requirements (but I'm not expecting to get anywhere, it's pretty obvious they are not going to budge on the issue).

I definitely don't want to after school. I want DS to have a lot of free time to pursue his interests and to play, especially after spending 7 hours at school already. It's a little hard for me to work with him on things like programming, math, and reading music, because those are all weak areas for me (well, I've never tried programming, but it doesn't look particularly interesting). DS has already passed me in all 3 of those areas, but whether it's because he is exceptional at them or more because I have some sort of serious deficit is hard to say. Probably some of both. I am the one who still adds on her fingers, hasn't memorized multiplication facts, still has to say FACE to figure out what the treble clef notes are and can't even remember the mnemonic for the bass clef (despite years of playing piano and good ability to memorize songs), has poor handwriting/horrible pencil grip, can't spell even a lot of extremely common words correctly, took over a decade of practice to learn to type, and am entirely unable to learn another language (except, oddly, sign). I don't feel like I make a very good teacher

He has already seen all of the science videos I am familiar with, he's seen Cosmos, Bill Nye, and Magic School Bus. Are there any other good educational videos? I'd love to show him nature programs, but for some reason people seem to think the most interesting thing animals do is mate and we have not had that conversation yet. DS also loves everything I've told him related to anthropology and I'd love to hear of any resources for that as well.

I will definitely ask about the discrepancy between visual perceptual skills and motor output. They may not be willing to address it in any way, but it certainly doesn't hurt to bring it up and see what they have to say. I will request we do the PAL-II to better place him next year and to allow me to address weaknesses over the summer (hopefully that will get them moving, as me addressing concerns over the summer could potentially save them money in the long run.)

I'm also wondering if I might be able to convince them to give the optional verbal subtests in order to figure out if verbal areas in general are a weakness or if it's a weakness just in similarities. Right now I don't know if similarities or vocabulary is the verbal outlier for him. I also noticed that he scored similarly on word classes to similarities and I think they are measuring about the same thing. As much as I hate to say it, as a person who worked many years with autistic kids it makes me think about the weakness a lot of kids on the spectrum have with FFC's.

I'm also curious about the coding score. This was the only section of the IQ test I sat in for (I was trying to convince DS to squeeze in one more subtest as he wanted to be done for the day) and I noticed that DS quickly memorized the key and no longer looked up by the second row. I suspect that if he hadn't done this his coding score would have been much lower. I'm wondering if it is expected that the kid will memorize the key? The lady who did the test noted he made no errors on the processing speed tests and when I was there she commented that his symbols he drew for coding looked as perfect as the printed material he copied from. Just watching the coding test it was hard for me to understand how it could relate to intellectual ability. It seems to reward fast and sloppy writing and memorization of the key as well as an aggressive approach to timed material. DS appeared calm as could be and didn't appear to rush at all (not that DS has ever rushed, I think he has a congenital lack of ability to understand time constraints.) Plus I'm sure I would do terribly on it, so of course I'm not going to believe it is a good measure of intelligence :P

"Are there any other good educational videos? I'd love to show him nature programs, but for some reason people seem to think the most interesting thing animals do is mate and we have not had that conversation yet."

Highly recommend the BBC series' Planet Earth and Life, the ones with David Attenborough narrating. Planet Earth 2 is out now, but we haven't seen it. They are great especially on BluRay on an HDTV, and you not only see the magnificence of nature, you learn about how things grow, interact, change. Life does have mating rituals but ultimately it's by topic and shows plants, birds, oceanic life, and so forth, and isn't really focused on reproduction.

A few thoughts:

1. I agree that it would be interesting to see if his other WISC verbal subtests were more similar to the higher score or the lower score, but I think you already have information in that area, in the form of the CELF-5 results, which are generally consistent with the VCI, with a core language index identical to the VCI, and individual test scores across the same range as the VCI subtests (from Average up to the beginning of the Extremely High range--though on the CELF, these typically would be described only as Average and Above Average). Your observation on the relationship between Similarities and Word Classes is generally accurate, though the big difference is that there is no expressive language requirement for WC. Students only have to identify the words that go together, not describe how two provided words are related. The two tasks he did particularly well on on the CELF both derive significant benefit from his exceptional working memory.

2. I think Coding may have benefited from his memory as well. Typically, students of this age look up and down between the key and the response rows. Memorizing them quickly saved him a lot of time, and reduced any possible effects from getting "lost" while scanning up and down. I wonder a bit if that (scanning) was a factor in his lower SS score.

3. On another note, SaturnFan, I imagine that you may have considered that you yourself might be 2e? And -because- of that, much more capable of teaching the child that you know better than anyone else does than you might think.

Longcut: I'm pretty sure Planet Earth is on netflix, so I will start previewing that tonight. Not sure about Life, but I will look into it as well, thanks

aeh: As usual everything you say clarifies things a lot

1. It makes perfect sense that the CELF scores back up his WISC verbal score. He did get a 13 on Word Classes vs. an 11 on Similarities, which isn't a huge difference, but could reflect possible greater difficulty with expressive language. One thing that is difficult to account for is his medication situation at the time of testing. He was unmedicated (more accurately meds wearing off) for much of the CELF and some of the OT stuff, but he was fully medicated for the IQ test as I recall. This ended up being the case because we did the cognitive testing in the am and most of the other testing after school so that he would miss less class time (DS is only medicated for the hours he is at school). The lady giving the CELF said she has never had another student get all the way to the end and get every item correct on Following Directions, but she could not give him credit for a bunch of them as she had to repeat the directions (because he was not listening the first time). I was actually in the room for much of the CELF to help manage behavior.

2. I definitely think the Symbol Search result was accurate. DS loves board games and card games, but there is one game he has always hated and does terribly at: Scene It. We gave the game away years ago because he refused to play it at all. OTOH, he can beat all of us at SET, which is a visual and speed based game as well. As far as coding goes, maybe the fact that he wrote so slowly and perfectly made up for the time he saved by memorizing the key and his score ended up being a good indicator of his ability anyway? Overall I'm not especially worried about processing speed, DS seems to be a pretty quick thinker for the most part (except he sometimes is slow to formulate responses or follow through on directions).

3. I don't know that I have any special intellectual ability myself. I was labeled borderline MR and ADD in elementary school and shipped off to the IU to be educated. I got a poor education there because most of the kids had academic challenges and there was a lot of disruptive behavior in the classroom. I did get to be top of the class for academics and behavior though (I still have all of my two dollar bills and awards for grades and behavior). When I finally got out of special ed I was pretty far behind, but by 11th grade I excelled at writing and I qualified for a program where I got to go to the local community college for 12th grade based on my verbal SAT score (my 530 on math almost kept me out of the program, but they made an exception because my verbal was so high). I ended up loving college and graduated with honors (so pretty sure my IQ results way back when were wrong). I was good at art, writing, music composition, poetry, history, sociology, psych, and science. Mostly I was the opposite of DS! I read very fast and DS reads sooo slooow. But so does his dad (who was ID'd gifted and who is amazing at math and programming, I swear he thinks in formulas). I've never considered myself to be especially intelligent though and I can't do the amazing stuff DS can do. I don't have any working memory to speak of, if you list 3 numbers I'll forget the 2nd and 3rd trying to recall the first. But I am a fast thinker. I may not be good at math, but I can calculate what 6% off would be was faster than DS's father can and just today his dad was determining what portion of our med dose to send into school and I told him 17 plus one to offset rounding and he took over 5 minutes to determine that 18 was the right number to send. I keep trying to explain to him that I am bad at math calculations, not bad at thinking! He kept asking how I could have figured it out so fast. I kept wondering how he could have taken 5 minutes to figure it out! I do think we all have some pretty weird brains in this family!

Back in the day, ADHD was called minimal brain dysfunction, which I think captured some aspects of the profile fairly accurately, but also gave people the mistaken impression that people with this kind of cognitive style weren't truly educable. (In some communities, institutionalizing persons with ADHD was a serious consideration.) I suspect that the lack of access to quality math instruction, on top of a likely untreated math disability (dyscalculia), probably kept your math achievement lower than it could have been. I bet you're better at math than you think you are.

And not just in your family!

Well, we had the meeting last week and I've spent some time processing it. I learned that the gifted services include twice a (6 day) cycle pullouts where DS will get to do fun projects that are supposed to challenge him. Other than that the teacher will be differentiating in the classroom. I did ask what they would do for math since DS has pretty much mastered 2-5 math (the school is grades 2-5)... they said it was a good question but that they don't have an answer right now. They offered OT consult of 15 minutes per month (we upped it to 30) and a social skills pullout with peers with similar needs. They were also very pleasant and seemed quite willing to work with us. They said how much they enjoyed DS and how polite and kind he was during the testing. Oh, and they also wrote up a section on using keyboarding and dictation to show knowledge in subject areas due to his difficulty with planning and producing written work. Overall we were very happy with the meeting and with the district.

That said, I am concerned about differentiation within the classroom, especially if the general ed teacher is in charge of it. I can see it would be all too easy to not do enough, even if intentions are good. And I am very concerned about math instruction, not because I care a lot about math progress, but because DS really wants to push himself in math and very much hates practicing mastered skills. We did discuss him using Khan Academy at school to do what he wants during math class, or even just letting him do code.org during math and get any additional math instruction he wants at home. The fun projects they proposed for him to do over the course of the year in the gifted pull out seemed pretty easy for DS. There were only two and one of them was the zones of the ocean and what lives there, a topic he was into and exhausted a few years ago. I let them know he would rather do chemical bonding/electron shells or genetics and heritability or something related to space. They seem willing to consider our suggestions at least. Overall, I think maybe we could make it work?

OTOH, DS is so happy at his gifted school and wants to go again next year. Unfortunately as he is moving up to the next class and his 2 friends are not. I am concerned about him going into the school year with no friends in his actual class. He will see them at lunch and recess though. Obviously we don't much care for the cost of gifted school either. But lately I have been in heated arguments with them on two very important issues: Academic and behavioral.

First off, they want us to continue with his aide next year as a condition of his attendance and we can't get the insurance to pay for the aide unless he shows need. Which we can't show if he can't attend without the aide. He has an aide now, but all data shows he doesn't really need one. He is not engaging in behaviors that warrant insurance covering the service. Which is good. But also causing us a problem, obviously. His current authorization is up at the end of the school year and I have already been informed he will not qualify for the 1:1 service anymore. The school wants us to consider paying out of pocket for 1:1 support. This on top of tuition is so unreasonable for us that we just lolled at the idea.

Issue number 2 is academics. I have stated here many times that the school refuses to budge on writing requirements and that DS really struggles in this area. Just yesterday he came home upset and told me he was supposed to do a writing assignment and he couldn't even get started because it was too hard. I talked to him about the basics of a story and how to do an outline and gave him some ideas for how I would write a story using the given criteria. He asked me to open up google docs and he dictated to me a very well thought out story in under 5 minutes. It was actually quite clever and creative. I sent it to his teacher and she had him share it with the class today and his classmates really enjoyed it. I think this makes it obvious that he can do the written work with a little support, he just can't be creative and perform the motor skills at the same time, it's too much for him. He has nice handwriting, they do HWT, we practice functional writing at home (notes for dad, thank you notes, greeting cards, etc.) I just can't see why DS if forced to write out every worksheet answer at school in addition to being unable to show his composition talents because he has to physically write everything down. Grrr.

And item number 2 academically is that, while they won't give him a break on writing, they won't accelerate him as much as he wants in math! They have him doing 3rd grade Beast Academy (which he already completed over a year ago when we homeschooled grade K) and he just started (at my insistence) 4th grade in Khan Academy. They keep saying they base his placement on his MAP score, but his MAP score is 230, well above 3rd grade! They keep tellin me performance at home and at school are often different and that even if he is doing higher level stuff at home he is not able to transfer the skills to school. I didn't know math was a skill that was difficult to transfer? Oh, and that 160 on his WIAT probably means something too. I'm getting very frustrated as I'm being treated like a parent who doesn't understand the real science that they are basing his math placement off of. Ironically he gets a special math pullout where he has learned calculus basics, early algebra, higher level stuff with fractions, etc. But he doesn't go to that class every day and is stuck practicing math basics when doing math in the classroom. How can they teach him 7th grade stuff if one class, but say he is at 3rd grade in another? I'm hesitant to even have him take the spring MAP as it takes him days to get through it and they don't even seem to use the data properly anyway. Oh, and DS is complaining, otherwise I wouldn't care one bit. I don't like sending my kid to expensive private gifted school and still get complaints math and science are boring/too easy!

So obviously we have a difficult decision to make. Some aspects of his current school are wonderful and won't be replicated at public school. How this particular public school will handle him is also a complete unknown at this point. I just wanted to update anyone who was following our story and also reiterate how thankful I am for all of the helpful advice. I'd go crazy without this board and all of the help I have received over the past year!

Edit: I just remembered, I had asked about additional testing due to verbal discrepancy and the tester said that similarities was the first test she administered to him and she feels that he wasn't really on board with the testing at that point. She thinks there is a good chance that it is low for that reason. Obviously this answer gets the district out of doing any additional testing, but if this is the reason it is low there may not actually be that big of a discrepancy after all. I had asked if there was anything I could do with him at home to tap into the skill that is being measured on the test to see if he struggles with it, but she couldn't think of anything. Is there some online resource or subject workbook that would use these same skills (or just questions I could ask), specifically something that is by age so that I can see if DS is performing above agemates? I want to make it clear that I don't want to practice the skills for the purpose to increasing scores, just assess where he is at to see if he is weak in this stuff. For instance, I know that DS is terrible at find the difference pictures or what's wrong with this picture type challenges, but I don't force him to practice these skills so that he will excel at them in case they are ever on some test. It's all about finding out for sure if the low similarities score is accurate or not.

After reading and reflecting a bit, here are some thoughts...

If I understand correctly, your post weighed PROs and CONs of two schools... the first, a public school, based on a recent meeting... the second, a private school, based on your son's experiences so far this school year.
- Has your son shadowed at the public school?
- Have you reviewed and printed your State laws and school policies for gifted education?
- Are you familiar with wrightslaw, a great source of information on disability?
- I'll just add the advocacy roundup here, too.

Public School
gifted pullout:
social - A great benefit of the gifted pull-out may be for a child to be in the company of academic/intellectual peers (or near as, depending upon the mix of kids which the school has to offer as peers). That said, a child would need to have the social skills to leverage this opportunity and make a connection with these academic/intellectual peers.
academic - What would he miss in the regular classroom at this time? Fun, challenging projects during two pull-outs of unspecified length each 6-day cycle sound like a very weak "gifted" program or service. Especially if only two topics are offered, and your child exhausted one of them years ago. You might wish to follow-up to see if you get a firm commitment from the school to expand offerings to include projects in chemical bonding/electron shells or genetics/heritability or something related to space.

As for differentiation in the classroom, you may wish to ask some gently probing questions as to what your son's experience would consist of.

Because the school only goes up to grade 5 and does not presently have an answer as to what math differentiation would consist of, you might want to follow-up on the school's response to your suggestions of Khan Academy and/or code.org, and get a firm commitment on logistics. Would attending the local middle school for math be up for discussion?

The OT consult of 30 minutes per week and social skills pullout with other children having similar needs appear to address 2e needs or deficits, not gifted/talented strengths. Do you also teach and reinforce social skills at home?

Private School
social - A child's happiness at school is an important factor. That said, does he understand that he will not be in class with his 2 buddies next year? When you say he is moving up to the next class and his 2 friends are not... do you mean he is skipping a grade... or his friends are repeating a grade?
academic - Although you mention that your son is happy at his school, you also mention that he reports that math and science are too easy.

Is it possible that in insisting on an aide for next year as a condition of your son's attendance, while also taking steps to preclude financial assistance by your insurance company, the school is establishing circumstances contrived to inspire your family to place your son elsewhere?

If the school refuses to budge on writing requirements, is this possibly indicative of a poor school fit?

In light of the discrepancy between your son's level 3/4 math placement and level 7 math enrichment pullout, you may wish to have further discussion with the school regarding the MAP score, your son's placement, and performance expectations.

School Fit
A small roundup of links on school fit:
- School consultant for elementary aged child
- What kids don't learn
- Roundup of Tamara Fisher blog posts
- Article about poor school fit (includes findings by Miraca Gross)
- roundup of links on "educational fit"
- roundup of discussion threads on full-grade acceleration (pro and con)
- advanced curriculum with same-aged intellectual peers

Applying for your child to join the Davidson Young Scholars (DYS) may be advantageous; If your son becomes a DYS you may be able to gain some additional advocacy support/information.

Lastly, be aware that with extensive data collection and the Longitudinal Student Database, schools may readily review your child's records from other schools.

Thank you Indigo, for helping me clarify my concerns/pros and cons and for the helpful links.

I do have to say I can't see DS in a middle school for anything. He is a rather small 7 year old, only 45 pounds, and with no awareness of his surroundings. I think he would get trampled and not even notice it happening! The middle school is also a distance from the elementary school, so it would involve bussing and missing extra class time. I can't see it being a feasible option right now.

As far as his two friends go, they are both in K and will stay in the K-1 classroom for 1st grade next year. They will be in class together again the following year in the 2-3 class. The whole class was only 5 kids this year (later 6) and there was only one other boy in 1st grade and he and DS really clashed. The 2 girls are both the type who have no interest in a very adhd kid like my DS (quiet and studious types). But maybe some of the current 2nd graders or some new students would appeal to DS as friends next year? Right now the class size is looking like 6 again per 2/3 classroom, so out of 12 kids hopefully they group them so that DS is in with a likely friend.

As far as DYS application goes, I have been considering it, but I'm a little hesitant to send in the entire 36 page evaluation report including all of DS's medical information. I did ask the school psych if she would be able to type up a report with just the cognitive and academic testing for the purposes of applying to special programs and she said she will need to ask if that is permitted and get back to us. Otherwise I guess I just send in the book of DS? It says no pages can be missing, but can I ask them to only look at the relevant pages?

DITD are absolute tigers about their privacy policy, and I'm not sure DD's consultant even knows what was in her application. The information is certainly not going to be disseminated outside the DITD, and my guess is probably not outside the admissions committee. You could probably email them and ask about privacy before you apply and get the straight story from them. But I would try not to let this dissuade you from applying.

While a child's relatively smaller size may be an issue for some in keeping an accelerated child from mingling with kids 3 years older, I would only see "no awareness of his surroundings" as the show-stopper. The transportation logistics also appear to present an impasse. Do the schools have technology to facilitate distance learning, such as participation in the middle-school-level math class via skype, etc?

In my observation and experience, DITD is very respectful of privacy and does not share info. Personally, I would feel confident sharing the full report with DITD for the DYS application.