Aimee brings up an important concept - the Matthew Effect. Sally Shawitz addresses this in "Overcoming Dyslexia" - specifically as it relates to vocabulary. Since after about age 7 or 8, most of us learn new vocabulary through print, those with dyslexia are at a huge disadvantage. They are not exposed to as many new words simply because they are not reading.
It is important that if a child has significant LD"s that impair access to the school's curriculum, great literature and new ideas in traditional ways (reading), parents should work hard to find alternative modalities. For us, audio books are a part of our every day lives, experiential learning such as visits to museums, other cities and national parks are the cornerstone of our vacations and free time and even things like the Discovery Channel and History Channel can help expose reading impaired kids to new ideas.
That said, most of the subtests on the WISC are not effective by this kind of knowledge. My son's IQ scores have actually gone up (and now leveled off) as he has matured. The only exception would be the subtests that have a time element or a motor element. He has actually lost ground in this area and his processing speed has declined each time he has been tested.
