Do you see any 'discorrdination' or 'LD' in day to day life? Is she normally physically active? Do her weaknesses interfere with her daily life.
I'm a bit skeptical of the 15 points = LD rule when applied to kids with scores in the 3rd DS. It's the old 'association/causation' question.
Here's the main points I'm getting:
1) Will the gifted school accept your dd with the scores she has (getting the idex that leaves out the Processing speed and WM?)
2) If they won't: At what age does DD4 have to get a score so she will be allowed to go to ODD's school?
3) At that age, when you get the WISC IV, make sure to go to someone who is really getting PG kids, so you can get 'real' advice about if DD4 has a LD.
4) In the meantime, consentrate on the handwritting and hand strenth in a 'balanced push' way. I picture it as the Mom standing behind the kid, with one hand pushing from the back, and another hand bracing in front so the kid doesn't bust any metaphorical teeth.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
I'll try to address each of your questions/points above:
1a. We don't believe she has an LD, but I thought I would ask since I remembered reading that on this forum.
1b. No, the school requires a FSIQ of 140 just to apply, and then they narrow it down from there. Last year less than 10% of those who applied got in, and a friend tried to talk them into accepting the index that leaves out PS and WM to no avail.
2. If we want to spend the money on the testing each year, we can try for the next 5 years to get the right score to apply. Of course, the sooner the better for many reasons. If we want her to start there in 1st grade, she needs that score a year from now.
3. Good point. We actually chose the best Psych. in town for this. She is on the board of all the gifted associations in the town and state, she only works with gifted, her daughter also goes to ODD's awesome school, etc., so I would choose her again. Of course, I didn't think to ask her about LDs at our meeting, but I'm sure if she were concerned she would have brought it up (and I'm not really concerned at this point either). She believes it is normal development that caused the lower PS score, but that since one point makes all the difference for our application, she recommends hiring an OT to speed up the development process so that we are sure it won't make the difference between 139 and 140 next year when it really counts.
Of course, if DD4 had gotten the 140 this year, we could have applied early and potentially gotten her accepted now to begin 1st grade there two Falls from now (they don't have K). We were not doing the test for that reason though; it was to decide whether to do early entrance for K since DD4 barely misses the cutoff and just to know sooner what we're dealing with since we felt so clueless with ODD and didn't realize we had a HG kid until late in 2nd grade.
So, while we are not concerned about an LD, we are inclined to spend a bit of money to 'speed up her development' only focused on pencil grip in hopes of ruling out being foiled by Processing Speed next year. Does that sound crazy, or have others done something similar, and if so, how did it go?
