34 percentile isn't considered poor, right in the heart of average. GAI exists because working memory and processing speed don't correlate well with general intelligence.
While 34th percentile does fall within average, it's on the lower end of the average range (which goes from 25th percentile to 73rd percentile according to the WISC charts I've seen), not "right in the heart of average". There are also a few of our kids on this board who have dysgraphia and other fine motor of visual motor integration challenges that cause *significant* challenges for them yet have processing speeds as high as 90-110 (maybe higher). My EG ds has a PSI in the 65th percentile on his most recent testing, and he is considered to have severe fine motor challenges.
A 34th percentile score in and of itself might not be an issue for a student, but you can't look at just that one score and say it either does or doesn't indicate a challenge, it's the combination of results of different tests taken with classroom observation, work samples etc that leads to a diagnosis. It's important though not to just brush off an "average" score on an ability subtest as "ok because it's average" when the child who is being evaluated is on the high end of their other subtests. Discrepancies that large in subtest scores do, in my limited experience, usually mean *something* is up.
Best wishes,
polarbear
polarbear
