SaturnFan, you've received great advice above from aeh.
I have a few suggestions - for background info, my 2e ds has an expressive language disorder.
I will wait until I receive the written report and see if there is any of that sort of data there and then ask them about some of those items specifically if not.
I'd suggest asking for what you are interested in now rather than waiting for the written report since you are dealing with the school district. They may be planning to send along what you want anyway, but they might not, and you'll save yourself time by asking now rather than waiting. Just send an email to the team lead and school psych asking for the subtest score report and any other testing data details you want to see. Let them know you'd like to be able to review the data before your IEP meeting.
One other interesting thing is that when being evaluated for autism at 2.5 DS was given a speech eval and scored around a year ahead for receptive language and 2 years ahead for expressive, exactly the opposite of this current test. A 2.5 year old with the speech of a 4.5 year old I'm guessing would be more advanced than a 7 year old with the speech of a 9 year old and if so this would indicate that DS is performing worse over time in this area. Plus the receptive and expressive flip flopped and that doesn't seem quite normal.
I'm not a professional so this is speculation on my part, but based on our experience I'm guessing that the difference you're seeing is due to differences in what the test is looking for in terms of ability - what is expected of a 2 year old in expressive language is much different than what is expected of a 7 year old. Another consideration is that challenges aren't necessarily directly related to an obviously low scores. Large discrepancies in subtest scores can be as much of a clue as a low overall score. Observations by the person administering the test can also play a key role. My ds, for example, scored in the 99th percentile on receptive language and somewhere in the 60th percentile on expressive language on the CELF at 10 years old. If you just look at those scores thinking of baselines, there's nothing remarkable about them - other than thinking perhaps he's a kid who was highly capable with receptive language and capable enough to fit in with everybody else re expressive language. Yet give him a grade-level open-ended writing assignment or ask him an open-ended question and he was completely lost, couldn't respond. The SLP who administered his CELF noticed something that was key to his challenge while administering the test - he took forever to be able to put together two words into a sentence. He completed the tasks eventually and the test wasn't timed, so he hit the 60th percentile - but he only hit it after an unusually atypical amount of time working through the thought process.
FWIW, my ds went on to work with the same SLP who administered the CELF and additional sessions with the SLP outside the standard testing cofirmed and helped define what the challenge was.
There are also layers to expressive language. My ds was not an early talker, but when he did start talking it was in long, complex, complete sentences expressing advanced thinking. No one would have guessed at 3 years old that he had an expressive language disorder because no one in his world was asking the kind of questions or expecting the kind of verbal output that would have clued us in on the challenges he has.
DS does have a lot of ASDish symptoms. But he does not have lack of empathy/theory of mind deficits, lack of interest in sharing or showing, insistence on routine, restricted interests, common ASD behavioral problems like tantrums, etc. He is very socially oriented and wants to be with others all the time.
There are other diagnoses which have symptoms that are shared with ASD. Our neuropsychologist has a chart that shows overlap in symptoms specifically between ASD, ADHD and Developmental Coordination Disorder. My ds has DCD, and in addition to his expressive language disorder he has a pragmatic language challenge. The one thing I would caution against is making an assumption that behaviors that look like ASD (or other challenges) are gifted behaviors. They *might* be but it's really easy with high-IQ kids to overlook or pass off a behavior that we don't want to belong to a diagnosis as being due to giftedness.
I guess I am less concerned about the processing speed. I pretty much guessed this would not be an area of strength for him and it's totally average, so not really a deficit I guess and pretty typical for ADHD and, based on what I have seen on this board, it's totally common for gifted kids to be average in this area.
While we hear every now and then on this board that it's "common for gifted kids to be average in this area" (processing speed), I don't think we've actually seen an abundance of non-2e kids' scores posted showing that it's common among gifted kids. It might be more common than in non-gifted kids simply because there's more room for spread in scores, but most of the posts I've seen on this board that reflect large discrepancies in processing speed vs other subtests are scores from kids who have something causing the discrepancy.
My ds' has a similar processing speed score (around 100), and while it's an "average" score it's highly meaningful for him in terms of representing a challenge. The key isn't the actual score, but the discrepancy between it and other subtest scores - anything above 1.5 standard deviations is considered to be a potential red flag for an LD. I'd recommend that you ask for a copy of subtest scores, as those scores will help you clue in to why his averaged processing speed score is 100. Once you've seen those, you might have more of a clue if there might be an issue with vision or with fine motor or with something else - and if you think you see a hint of any of these, there is additional testing you will want to ask for prior to writing the IEP.
his school psych thinks a lot of behaviors are related to anxiety.
Anxiety can be a huge issue for young children with undiagnosed, misunderstood unremediated or inappropriately accommodated challenges. It's wonderful that you were able to get a thorough evaluation through your school district - I hope you're able to make sense of it and the school will work with you in order to support your ds.
Best wishes in advocating for your ds -
polarbear
