Ok. I had previously had my daughter tested in 2nd grade using the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scale. She scored FSIQ 140.
Just had the Wisc IV done(start of 5th grade)
VCI 146 99.9%
PRI 121 92%
WMI 107 68%
PSI 85 16%
FSIQ 123 94%
GAI 140 99.6%

Her processing speed is so slow compared to everything else. It really only affects her when she has to "write". The dr. seems to think that it stems from her "ocd" and need for perfectionism. They do not think that it is a ld or sensory issue as her writing is beautiful.
Any insight? Any ideas to help with the processing?
Thanks.

Hi, while you wait for Dottie
here is a thread to read if you haven't found this one yet...
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/38776/1.html

My son's scores were much like your daughters's - tested at end of 6th grade, VCI of 162 but PSI of 91. We are considering requesting an evaluation from the school to see if there is an issue that we should be addressing, and as I find out anything else I'll post on here too because there seem to be a lot of us dealing with the same issue!

Unlike your daughter, for my son handwriting does seem to be his issue - he doesn't have good handwriting, won't do cursive writing, and just doesn't enjoy it. When he can type it is much, much easier for him. Heading into the upper grades typing becomes more and more the norm, so hopefully we are heading into school years where he will have better success.

So I don't have anything to offer yet, but wanted to say hello and encourage you to post whatever you find out too!

Grif

Hi Gatorgirl,
I'm also curious to know what you find out. My son has a low processing speed and also has had difficulties with writing, typing is a little better. He has been diagnosed with dysgraphia, even though his handwriting is not terribly messy, but your post makes me think that the PSI may explain more than I'd thought.

I thought that the processing speed was supposed to be recalculated in gifted children and that was one of the main reasons that you are supposed to be tested by someone who is specifically familiar with gifted children.

I thought that the processing speed was supposed to be recalculated in gifted children and that was one of the main reasons that you are supposed to be tested by someone who is specifically familiar with gifted children.

Maybe this will help...

try this link and then read more below http://books.google.com/books?id=Zb...ifted%20children%20on%20WISC&f=false

The Increased Emphasis on Processing Skills Measures as Part of the FSIQ *Perhaps* the inclusion of more processing skills measures is appropriate for lower functioning children. If the child's processing speed on paper-and-pencil tasks is so slow that he or she cannot complete work in a reasonable amount of time in the classroom, processing speed may be such a limiting factor that it should be included in IQ scores. Likewise, if short-term auditory memory is so poor that the teacher's instructions can't be retained at all, this is a significant problem. However, gifted children rarely perform extremely poorly in these areas on an absolute scale. It makes much more sense to identify them as gifted based on assessments emphasizing reasoning, provide them gifted learning experiences, and then add any accommodations based on relative weaknesses to the gifted accommodations. A Full Scale IQ score that averages gifted reasoning and average processing skills fails to identify either the giftedness or the relative weaknesses.

Test authors have wrongly assumed gifted children are fast processors. Some are very quick; others are reflective or perfectionistic, slowing their speed. Gifted children also show a preference for meaningful test materials, and may not perform well on short-term memory tests or other tasks that utilize non-meaningful material. They usually perform so much better with meaningful material that their scores with non-meaningful material are difficult to interpret.

If a strand is added to an IQ test that identifies a different group as scoring the highest than was identified by the other strands, there will be a confounding of the Full Scale IQ score. The newly revised and renormed tests do exhibit confounding in the Full Scale scores (note the fact that the gifted group in the WISC-IV normative sample scored a 124.7 on Verbal Comprehension and a 120.4 on Perceptual Reasoning, but only earned a 112.5 in Working Memory and a 110.6 in Processing Speed, according to the WISC-IV Technical Manual, p. 77). Given these issues, it will be a challenge for testers of the gifted to choose tests appropriate to document gifted strengths and diagnose weaknesses, without eliminating children from gifted program entrance requirements.

I believe this is why where there are big discrepancies they use GAI in addition to FSIQ - it gives a picture of the kid removing the lower processing score. In our case the difference between the FSIQ and the GAI was 21 points!

Great Link BH14! I even read down to the part about Ceiling on subtest, although my eyes did glaze over a bit...
Anyway - welcome! It's great having you here. You are really well informed on Gifted, for someone who's oldest child is only in 2nd grade. Let me know when you go on tour, ok? Did you apply to Young Scholar's Program for your DD?
Smiles,
Grinity

If she isn't having a problem then there is probably nothing 'wrong' with being average a processing speed. The assumption that all kids are gifted is a myth, and mostly talking about Moderatly Gifted kids who don't have so much to say or think about as more unusually gifted kids. (Sure, it's a lot compared to ND kids, and still a myth, but LOG is still a new idea for most people, and not having that key piece of info confuses folks.)

Has she started to learn to keyboard? Learning to touchtype set me free to express my thoughts much closer to the rate that they occur! Really, I type faster than I talk!

Smiles,
Grinity

Thanks Grinity LOL! Believe me, I have been researching this since the kid was a baby! HAHA! She had me quite stumped and just found it to be so fascinating and that I find myself having to be the one to "teach" the teachers what it means, so I am well researched and armed with information.

No, we haven't applied. We never had her take an IQ, just have all the state standardized test results (though we knew LONG before those). I could apply by portfolio, but haven't....yet . There is NO WAY I am having the school psych. test her as she seems a bit clueless. So... it is what it is. I have bigger fish to fry with getting her what I feel she needs in school and that's where I focus all my energy at this point. SIGH!

My kid was also tested with slow processing speed. At school and although he is only in K, they are addressing this issue is an odd way. I don't know if it is effective yet. They are teaching him how to write in cursive because cursive is supposed to be faster than print. At first, I was just wondering why they were torturing my child with more fine motor skills. But, they had a reason and claim that it has worked with other children. I'm anxiously waiting to see.

Good luck.

Um, Based on your learning curve, I would have to guess that your daughter would benefit from the YSP. I jokingly state that you can estimate a child's IQ from the number of books a mom reads during her first pregnancy. Your situation is a bit of a twist, but I think that the idea still holds. So crank out that application!


If money is at all an issue, it can't hurt to have the school psych give it a try - a) it get your child out of the classroom for many hours, and b) with a little luck you will have at least a 'low estimate' of your child's IQ. The Achievement testing could help with your advocacy efforts.


I agree that the main focus has to be about getting DD's needs met in school. Go bh14! All of the above is just 'nice extras'

Smiles,
Grinity

Good luck Wei-l
Nice that they are willing to do something, typing can be a long way away in kindy...
I think that a little 'torture' of this kind can strengthed this weaknesses - one nice thing about sending one's child to school is that the teachers tend to have a little more stamina for this sort of thing than I would at home.
Maybe your son will 'turn a corner' and start loving cursive - I hope so anyway.

My son got fascinated with a game called 'wall ball' during recess and his depth perception went from 4th percentile to 60th percentile - that's a big jump. I think his Intensity helped him there!

Yeah Grinity, I only wish our school psych. knew what she was doing

I know of several others who went that route and then had to take their results elsewhere and were told, she tested wrong. SO.... that won't happen. I heard the best time to test is after 5 anf before 8, so.... we are newaring our window. I know you can still test beyond that but....

Perhaps I will look into applying at some point. Portfolio may be my way to go then. I have plenty of scores (not sure if they are 99.9% as the tests only tell me 99% not any higher. She has to be at least within .9% of that though with what I do know. The school does not give copies of tests such as the CogAT. We get ITBS, but it's the basic of all basic results. You don't get the grade equiv. or any of the additional info that the school has. The downside is my whole state pretty much stinks for gifted. They are only required to identify gifted, not service them. This year has been our best one with the school so far, though we have a LONG way to go, but each step is a step in the right direction. I don't keep quiet though.... I let my needs be known without being too much a pain that they shut me out. I'll see how conferences go next month and go from there.

Also, I don't want the record of the IQ test from an inadequate tester going in her permanent record file at school (that's why I haven't gone that road.) I think she is more familiar with testing for remedial children than anything.

Wow! That is so sad. I do see your point now. Do you have a private tester picked out?

We paid for our private tester out of pocket, and he still was clueless about LOG (level of giftedness) and misdiagnosed our son at age 7 on the WISC III. But at least it was 'enough' to get us into YSP. The school repeated the WISC IV a few years later when they turned him down for his gradeskip. Now DS13 is better served by above level testing like the SATs.

I love how every move in the right direction has been so important to DS13. It's great to see those good results even when the steps are small and slow.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

I don't have the time to read the other thread linked - wow, 9 pages! - so I don't know if this is addressed there. But my son had a significantly lower processing speed, too, and a 'significant weakness' on the picture concepts subtest, despite having scores quite similar to your child's. our tester told us this was common, not to worry about it. it niggled at me for a year, before I finally, just to stop the niggling, took him to a behavioral optometrist and discovered his right eye flickers on and off, his eyes are mis-aligned top to bottom (one sees half an inch higher than the other), they turn out, he has double vision, and is slightly farsighted. It was shocking - she'd say, look at the dot on the wall, and he'd say, which one? Now we are looking at doing the vision therapy. It feels very weird, b/c, as he says, he's already the best reader in the class! How can his eyes be bad? But I hear tell that it can really help their processing speed not to have to make such an effort to do that reading, and that many kids make great leaps after therapy. Makes me feel bad, imagining the poor kid. He was a late walker/jumper/etc, and I read around in developmental delay books and thought he had some sort of a motor planning problem...well, no wonder, when he sees two of everything and not at the same level! No wonder, too, he makes what seem like sloppy errors adding columns...the numbers are doubled and jumping around!

so maybe maybe there's something like this pulling the speed down in your case, too?

Maybe I should get her eyes checked. It has been awhile. I had her eyes checked in Kindergarten because the teacher said that she squints alot. I really didn't consider it again because she does read all the time and it doesn't seem to bother her then. Like I said, it is only when she writes that the slow speed becomes an issue. Trying to get her keyboarding but she isn't that interested.