Hello,
I have been a lurker for a while trying to gleam what information I can from these boards. We just got DS9 WJIII results. I am looking for help interpreting them. We suspect him of being 2E, we the numbers from his results seem to be all over the place. If I am reading it correctly, he did poorly on all the processing speed items. He also seem do score lower on timed fluency portions. He score poorly On the numbers reversed sub-test scored well on the Auditory Working memory. I thought both of these sub-test measured short term memory, how could they be so different? We have pre-meeting tomorrow to go over the results, and then a meeting Friday for IEP. Any help is much appreciated! TIA
Clusters
GIA 125
Verbal Ability 117
Thinking Ability 132
Cognitive Efficiency 96
Long Term Retrieval 109
Processing speed 98
Phonemic Awareness 132
Working Memory 107
Cognitive Fluency 90
Delayed Recall 113
Sub-tests
Verbal Comprehension 117
Visual- Auditory Learning 109
Spatial Relations 95
Sound Blending 133
Concept Formation 140
Visual Matching 99
Numbers Reversed 95
Incomplete words 113
Auditory Working memory 122
Visual- Auditory Learning 107
Retrieval Fluency 103
Decision Speed 98
Rapid Picture Naming 86
Clusters
Broad Reading 108
Broad Math 121
Broad Written Language 113
Oral Language (ext) 118
Oral Expression 124
Listening Comprehension 108
Sub tests
Letter- word Identification 113
Reading Fluency 96
Story Recall 130
Understanding Directions 93
Calculation 124
Math Fluency 89
Spelling 99
Writing Fluency 115
Passage Comprehension 106
Applied Problem 120
Writing Samples 121
Story Recall-Delayed 117
Picture Vocabulary 117
Oral Comprehension 116
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This is interesting. My son has a very similar profile... His processing speed and working memory are very low on both the WISC IV (last year) and this year on the SB-V.
Similar to your son, he did/does very well on all of the auditory processing tests and quite well on the digit forward subtest but depolorably low on the digits reversed subtet! It's been a big mystery for me, too!!!
He has dysgraphia and hypotonia in his hands. He also has a vision disorder for which he receives vision therapy. Please update us with any info you get on this b/c I am trying to figure it out as well!
Ditto master of none's advice. I'd also suggest googling something like "WJ-III Tests of Cognitive Ability" + subtest description (or WJ-III Tests of Achievement for the achievment tests) to find a detailed description of each test and go over that before your meeting. Also be sure to ask for details about each at your pre-meeting tomorrow.
Did your report include a list of which subtests go into each cluster group? If not, ask for that info too. For example, on the cognitive tests, which subtests are used to calculate Thinking Ability etc. Each of my kids has had the WJ-III Cog test and if I recall correctly, some of the subtests are used in calculating more than one cluster.
Re why would one memory-related task be a lot higher than another, the subtests are all very *very* specific re what the student is asked to do, so what you need to do is understand exactly what the subtest requires the student to do (what type of prompt is used, what type of response from the student, oral vs written etc, and what skill is the test measuring). Ask the school psych tomorrow at your meeting. I don't have a description of the subtests with me at the moment, so I can't help you with test specifics.
It might also help us here, if you could tell us why you're suspecting 2e - what type of struggles is your ds having at school? What prompted testing specifically?
Also, and this is just a fwiw - I have two 2e kiddos, and they had lower scores on their "low end" when tested with the WJ-III... so this is just a guess, but I wouldn't be all-out surprised if your school psych told you that your ds' scores are all "within normal range". That doesn't mean the discrepancies aren't significant or aren't impacting your ds, it's just that schools are often looking for much lower "low end" scores to meet the cut-off bars for services. If the school staff start saying "it's all average and good", rather than pointing to discrepancies from low-high on testing, we found it was most helpful to bring the conversation back to our children's actual schoolwork samples to illustrate the problems they were having (but that's just our experience in our one school district).
Best wishes,
polarbear
Thank you all for the responses!
DS has been having behavioral issues in school recently, we had a private evaluation done on him. He received a diagnosis of ADHD and is also mildly affected by aspergers. He claims to be very bored in class. he score in the 97th percentile for math in and 95th for reading on his last 2 MAP tests (the school district just started using these this year).
In first grade we asked them to screen him, although the enrichment teacher did not initially think looked like gifted kids she had encountered before. He scored a composite of 125 She mentioned that because of his age when he took the K-bit II his results could not be considered stable, and that it may not fully reflect his abilities.
In second grade he missed the OLSAT scored needed for the pullout program by 1 point. But after further classroom frustrations and boredom his teacher recommended him to the program.
He used to love school, but encountered a difficult teacher in 1st grade who unfairly singled him out and has since displayed behavioral problems in the class room. Interestingly he does not have these difficulty anywhere but the classroom. His behavior improves greatly in the enrichment classroom for the pullout sessions.He spends about 3.5 hours a day in a before/after school program where he a completely different child. This led us to ask for the evaluation.
We specifically asked about dysgrapghia at his private evaluation because of problems with writing.While he scored low there it was not low enough to indicate that as a learning disability. They did select testing from the NEPSY and he scored in the 6th percentile for design fluency. They also did the WIAT III written expression portion only. He scored SSI/PERCENTILE :
Alphabet fluency 88/21
sentence composition 106/66
Spelling 91/27
Essay Composition 94/34
"within normal range". That doesn't mean the discrepancies aren't significant or aren't impacting your ds, it's just that schools are often looking for much lower "low end" scores to meet the cut-off bars for services. If the school staff start saying "it's all average and good", rather than pointing to discrepancies from low-high on testing, we found it was most helpful to bring the conversation back to our children's actual schoolwork samples to illustrate the problems they were having (but that's just our experience in our one school district). "
Thank you for this advice! We just came back from a pre-meeting with the school pychcologist, and this is exactly what we have been told. She also said that at this time he does have a disability and therefore does not qualify for an IEP based on that. But also that we can discuss if he qualfies under other health impairment with his full IEP team. We have a meeting with them tomorrow to determine if he needs an IEP.
We specifically asked if it was possible that DS could be 2E. She explained they use different testing to determine that, and that she could not conclusively rule it out with the tests result we have. But she really doesn't think that he is 2E either. Just bright. But this is confusing to us because of he thinking ability cluster scores.