Originally Posted by natoliumma
Looking online, it seems that DS's lowest WJ scores are those that were timed which was math fluency and writing fluency. So what does that mean?

The scores on those tests are essentially not valid for showing what your ds knows re math calculations and whatever the writing fluency test tests (I'm sorry I don't remember at the moment!). What it means is that the tests are artificially low because your ds was slowed down by the act of handwriting, which is difficult for him due to dysgraphia. You can use this data to help show his school the impact of his dysgraphia. For instance, you could ask that whoever gave him the WJ-III give him the alternate version of each of these tests (there are two versions, I think one is called version A, the other version B), but this time have him answer the questions orally instead of relying on handwriting. His scores will most likely be higher - so you could then use that to show that handwriting impacts his ability to show the full extent of his knowledge on timed tests, which in turn means he should qualify for some kind of accommodation on timed tests - either oral answers/scribing or extended time etc.

We didn't have the "version B" comparison, but we were able to use the scores on fluency to show the impact on handwriting by making a spreadsheet of his test results, plotting either percentile or standard score against the subtest name, and using one set of symbols to post the results of the subtests that had written answers vs the subtests that had oral answers. It's the same data you have in your list, but organized in a way that make those low scores pop out as obviously tied to handwriting. Remember that in general, you'd expect achievement to track IQ, and that's what you see with your ds' other scores. So once again, a way to show that handwriting is preventing him from showing his knowledge. This particular chart was very helpful to us in advocating for accommodations for us at school - maybe more so than our neuropsych's report which very clearly stated that ds could not rely on handwriting. For whatever reason our school did not want to acknowledge the private eval - I think at times they got caught up almost in an ego thing where they wanted to show they were more of an expert than the experts even if it had nothing to do with reality!

I'm sorry I get really long-winded when it comes to dysgraphia lol, so I'm going to go back and re-read the most recent post and will reply to that in a minute. I'm also trying to clean house at the same time, so it might take a little while for me to get back to it!

polarbear