aeh - would those scores raise potential questions about visual processing to you?
Not exceptionally so. Most of this child's visual processing-related scores are solidly average. The ones that are not are all related to speed. My working hypothesis at this point would be that the speed/fluency deficit is not so much fine-motor speed, as a more cognitive process, like retrieval fluency/efficiency. I base this on the pattern of weaknesses, which includes many different tasks affected by retrieval fluency, including ones that are completely absent visual or motor demands (like the one tagged ideational fluency). There is not a marked additional drop when fluency tasks add fine-motor or visual tracking demands, which suggests that whatever impact they may have is minimal.
I'll also take this opportunity to clarify that, if this child is actually on the autistic spectrum, it is possible that cognitive scores will go up over the years. In my experience, the test-taking process is not always a best fit for autistic students, especially in their young years. As they mature, and learn the rules of school and social interactions a little better, they sometimes become better test-takers. I had a student whose triennial testing rose gradually, from the upper end of Average in elementary school, to High Average at the beginning of high school (when I first tested him), to Very Superior by his last eval, at the end of high school--with that last measure still a likely low estimate.
So when I say "the scores do/do not support", that's all I mean. Children with exceptionalities, by definition, do not test just like NT children. This is a snapshot of how this child performs under standardized conditions, at this point in time, on these specific skills.
