Thanks for posting the additional info! Here's my latest set of rambling thoughts
Aside from the WISC, the school also did a speech/language eval where she is borderline low on 3 of the tests. Meaning if she had scored 1 point lower it would be a concern for those tests.
I wonder if what they really meant was if she'd scored one point lower, she would have qualified for school district services? Just because she doesn't fall low enough to qualify for school district services (technically speaking) doesn't mean the scores aren't a concern, particularly if you're seeing difficulties with academics and if those difficulties make sense when compared to the test results... which it seems like you have happening with your dd. My ds12 who has an expressive language disorder didn't have any speech test results that came anywhere near as low as our school district cutoff, yet the discrepancy in the tests combined with his intellectual ability absolutely qualified him for an expressive language disorder diagnosis by a private SLP, and the work he's done in private speech therapy has helped him soooo so very much. So considering a private eval and possibly therapy might be worth it.
Next thing - if it's a question of qualifying for school services, 1 point above the cutoff is very very very danged close to the cutoff! You might want to consider pushing for speech services through school. The school will try to tell you they can't qualify her based on her scores, but ultimately the decision to find a child eligible for services under IDEA is supposed to be a team decision and the team can decide together that a child qualifies - the trick is how to convince the team to agree with you... in our case for our ds we were able to get an IEP for written expression where the test scores the school used to determine eligibility were not quite low enough to quailfy by showing the preponderance of evidence that he needed the services. For instance, the school had their one number showing ds was close but not low "enough" to qualify under their formula, so we showed very specific examples from his schoolwork, from informal "tests" to show ability we did at home, and we just kept showing the test results that did show his challenges - because even though he didn't quite qualify using the one-number school calculation, he clearly had other testing that showed he needed help. I suspect that you probably have that for your dd too somewhere in the various tests she had privately.
And the low scores had to do primarily with short term auditory memory. Currently she is 1 year behind in reading, her biggest difficulties being fluency and accuracy. And now she is falling behind in math, which I believe is mostly due to her difficulties in directionality, transposing of numbers, and math fluency.
This is really interesting to me, since our dd8 whom we'd suspected of having dyslexia tested as having a challenge with associative memory - in her case auditory memory is a strength and visual memory is the challenge, but fwiw we have a long list of suggestions re how to accommodate and remediate from her private eval which we've been told will be very important to put into place in school particularly as the academic demands increase with grade level. We've just not been able to get the same type of info through school, but once we had the info, her school was willing to let us try out the suggestions at school. I've found that the memory deficit is much harder to get info about just through my own research online and in books - either I don't understand where to look, or its' not as clearly defined or well documented as the types of challenges such as dyslexia and dysgraphia etc.
They have no clue as to how to stop the reversals/transposings of letters and numbers. They tell me that kids sometimes do this even into 4th and 5th grades.
I'm surprised to hear that... but I'm just a parent, not an education expert... however... just because something happens with some kids doesn't mean it's not significant in another student. So some kids may still be reversing letters into 4th/5th grade... if a child is reversing letters and is showing signs of struggling with reading etc, you have a combination of reasons to look into what's happening, as well as potential to know how to either accommodate or remediate... so when the school tells you "some kids do this until 4th or 5th grade" hold your ground, and politely but firmly point out, you aren't there to talk about all those other kids, you're at the meeting to talk about your dd's needs, and your dd is not only reversing letters, she's ____ (fill in the blank), and you have outside testing showing ____ (fill in the blank)___. Put the emphasis back on your dd and her challenges.
My next step is to request the IEE and perhaps we can get a full neuropsych eval.
That's a good next step! I'll be sending you lots of good wishes that you'll be able to get a thorough and unbiased eval - good luck!
polarbear
