I finally got DD's eval report from the school district (I put in a written request in early October--geez).
I asked the school psych to give her the processing speed section of the WISC IV again. DD had taken the full test 13 months earlier and the private psych said she had "slow processing speed" because her GAI was 150 and processing speed was 94. Her coding score in particular (in 2013) was below average (an 8). So now her processing speed score is 115. I don't have the breakdown between coding and symbol search but sent an email asking about this.
Just curious - did anything else change other than her PSI? There's really no reason I'm asking that, seriously, other than just plain curiousity lol!
spelling: 113
sentence combining 135
sentence building 108
essay composition--word count 106
theme development and organization 114
essay composition 110
Most of these writing/achievement subtests are significantly low relative to her GAI. Did they give you any kind of difference indicating what would be predicted based on her WISC scores vs where she's at on the WIAT?
[quote]She said she wrote an essay that was 2-3 sentences (she was timed for 10 min.), so I find these scores extremely difficult to believe. I wonder if the scoring is very subjective and her scores are inflated.
If you don't get the info from someone here, I'd be sure to ask the school psych who administered the test to explain how each subset of the WIAT written subtests is administered (prompt, what your dd had to do, and how her answers were recorded, as well as - was the subtest timed). Without that info it's difficult to know if her scores are that low because her skills are that low (relatively), or if whatever is driving the dip in processing speed is impacting the written expression scores. You'll want to discuss written work that's completed for her school assignments.
For the WJ-writing she was at 116 for writing samples and 100 for sentence writing fluency, giving her a written expression composite of 110. It says on the report that her score needs to be 110 or below to qualify as SLD, given her GAI of 150
So are they giving her an IEP under SLD/written expression? Is the upcoming meeting a meeting to draft the IEP, or is it a meeting to determine eligibility?
In terms of executive functioning and how she is functioning in the classroom she was very impaired in terms of everything so I think she should at least qualify for services in terms of ADHD (but who knows!).
If you think the team might not qualify her, I'd recommend putting together a list of every example you can think of re how she's impacted in the classroom and when doing homework at home etc due to her EF functioning, and take the list with you to the meeting. If the school staff says testing doesn't show an EF deficit, cite the classroom/etc examples that show how she's impacted re her academics.
We don't meet until next week.
How long ago did the school finish your dd's testing? Was it longer than your district's required time maximum between testing and meeting? Longer than your state's required time between testing and meeting?
I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the large gaps betweeen scores for writing and if we can rule out dysgraphia. She was given the BOT-2 and Beery VMI as well. For the BOT 2 she was at 90th percentile for fine manual control and 79th percentile for Manual Coordination.
For the Beery VMI:
visual: 65th percentile
motor: 94th percentile
visual motor integration: 79th percentile
I really can't help with the actual scores, but there does appear to be a significant difference between visual and motor components of the Beery. I took a quick peak at my dysgraphic ds' Beery scores - his issue is fine motor, not visual, and his visual component was not hugely higher than your dd's, and his fine motor was a lot lower. Not that that means anything at all!
I'm glad you finally got the test report - I hope you'll be able to get the subtest scores, and I hope your meeting goes well.
Best wishes,
polarbear
