DS7 scored very well in Working Memory on the WISC (scores below) but the psychologist reported that he “seems to be struggling with using visualization as a way to remember auditory information (as evidenced by his weakness in repeating numbers backwards on Digit Span)”. She noted that he was able to repeat up to 8 numbers forwards, but only 3 numbers backwards (on one trial). It seems strange to be worrying about this when he scored a 144 on Working Memory, but I am seriously wondering if his difficulty with Digit Span Backwards is related to his difficulties with spelling, handwriting and drawing, and whether there is something we can do to address this.
Specifically, he can easily read Dolch sight words when he sees them in isolation (he often misreads or skips them when reading sentences), but he is horrible at spelling them. He still has trouble spelling words like ‘was’ and ‘what’ and only starting spelling ‘the’ with confidence a couple of months ago. He also has very poor handwriting and he often asks me things like “How do I make a ‘t’ again?” How can a seven-year-old with an FSIQ over 150 not know how to make a ‘t’ ???
We homeschool and I’ve been using a method to teach sight words that asks the child to stare at a word until he can see it in his mind and then look at a blank wall and see that word. He says he can’t do this. Is there a way to teach this skill? Is this the primary reason why he is such a poor speller and can’t remember how to write his letters?
Here are the relevant WISC Scores (hard to believe there could be a hidden problem in here):
Working Memory 144 99.7th percentile
Digit Span 17 99th percentile
Letter-Number Sequencing 18 99.6th percentile
I would appreciate any thoughts on what this all means. Thanks!
