Blackcat, I apologize - I misread (misunderstood) your note about the discrepancy between subtests, plus... I hadn't had my morning caffeine yet when I answered! 3 pts = 1 SD on a subtest... I was thinking VCI vs PRI vs PSI cum scores, not subtest scores when I made my totally incorrect remark!
9 point differences on subtests are significant. Absolutely
And the difference between his VCI and PRI is really large. I am guessing that, like many of us 2e parents, what you are embarking on is a journey that isn't going to be magically resolved or understood overnight (as you have already found out!). It usually means simply moving forward, making the best decisions you can with the data you have, advocating, seeing how it all works out, then tweaking and advocating all over again.
I'm not sure if I should bring up this issue with the school or demand any other testing because of this gap.
(VCI vs PRI)
If you are seeing impacts at school or at home in homework etc that may potentially relate to the gap in PRI vs VCI, then yes, bring it up as a concern - but don't just mention the IQ, bring up the concern via the academic examples and then have the IQ scores as the backup for your concern.
The school pretty much dismissed the IQ testing and the entire neuropsych report. They do admit that he is 2e, and are now looking at the recommendations because of the special ed director getting involved.
Our school also did their best to dismiss the neuropsych report, and there are a ton of different reasons school staff might appear to be dismissive of outside testing -from not wanting or being able to provide needed services to needing to validate what they do provide within the school to egos to not understanding to simply not wanting to bother to read it. And lots more. Not one of those reasons means that it's not a valid data point and it isn't a reason to not keep mentioning it whenever you find it's a good backup for what you are advocating for at school.
But at ths point they are totally focusing on the disability and not the giftedness.
While this may not sound encouraging, this has been the experience of many of us here with our 2e kids - and even though it's not what we see as ideal, it can work out ok. The reality is often that our kids *do* need to focus more time and energy on remediation, learning how to use accommodations, getting used to being comfy in their own skin, during those first years of elementary school. It's tough to race ahead in math or whatever when you can't easily use handwriting to show what you know (this is just one example grabbed out of the air, that impacted my ds in a huge way those first years of school). Try to focus on knowing that all the hard work you put in now advocating for accommodations etc and all the hard work your ds is putting in now just going to school and getting by and learning how to use his accommodations, going through OT/PT etc - that hard work *is* going to pay off in a large way once he's further along in school and able to more easily show/share his knowledge. Our ds really didn't get any type of true differentiation until he was in middle school, but the flip side of that is - if our primary focus during elementary school hadn't been on understanding his disability and how to accommodate for it he would not have had access to accelerated courses in middle school, and if he'd been allowed in, he most likely would have fallen hard and quick due to lack of being able to keep up with *output* (not lack of ability to comprehend). So yeah, it was beyond frustrating and yes, we after-schooled a bit, but it is what it is. It sounds like you are way ahead of us in success with at least getting your ds' school to acknowledge he needs differentiation, so keep at it!
Best wishes,
polarbear
