Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How does a high VCI present day to day?

So DDs VCI was 142 on the WPPSI (at 4yrs 9mths). I have found myself wondering - but does this actually say anything about the quality of her speach and conversation? Does that make sense? It doesn't seem to me that any part of the WPPSI tests a child's use and comprehension of whole language. So if you have a young child with a high VCI what do you expect to see (hear!) from them day to day.

I am still struggling majorly with finding my way out of denial land...

I have twin girls both with VCI's in the 130's/98% range (can't remember specifically) who are 6 yrs old. Their speech is obviously more complex than same age peers--> both in terms of content and structure. For example, yesterday they were playing a board game with their similar aged cousins but their cousins had not played this game before so they needed to explain the game (believe me the game was simple and age appropriate for all) but the instructions from my two on the rules of the game were indecipherably to even the 8 yr old due to the complexity of the language they used. They use language like "clockwise round the circle" "forfeit your turn" "appoint a referee" " nominate your category" etc etc

I have a dd5 with vci wpssi 99th percentile, and her speech has always distinguished her. From the age of 1 she was using full sentences (not all the time, of course, but capable). By end of yr 2, she was speaking like a 4 or 5 year old. For her, anyway, her vocabulary, grammar and even the way she was able to correctly pronounce words much larger than most kids her age was pretty distinct. Also, in paragraphs rather than sentences at that point.

Most of the 5 year olds we know still have some letter sounds they are still working on, from what I can hear. They are also still very much learning the rules on things like 'I shot' instead of 'I shooted'.
I think 'L' is the only sounds she's still a bit lisp-y on, and frankly I even think that is because she's been at school and picked it up there. There are days when she sounds more like her classmates, but lately this summer she is more back to her regular speech because she's been picking up at home again.
Part of the reason I noticed her speech early on, is that our son, identified gifted in l.a., would speak in complex sentences pretty early, but I was the only one who could usually understand him. He was pretty normal with development of all the physical bits to make the various sounds.

My understanding is that VCI is a measure of 'what the child knows' and strongly associated with 'thinking power.' It's also associated with verbally expressive children who aren't generally shy or acting shy because of feeling unsafe with a particular tester.

So a really outgoing child with speech issues, who is understandable to the tester, will score very high if they are able to share what they know with the tester by talking. It isn't so much a measure of 'how verbal is this child' as a measure of 'how able is this child to show what she knows using verbal communication.'


Mumof3 - That is a very high score, indeed. There is now way to know if that represents an actual LOG, or if the LOG would have been higher except for ceiling issues. You may want to post the individual subscale scores to see if we and help guess at that. Eventually, after age 6, you might consider a WISC just to 'see how things are going.'

Sorry you are having that 'denial issue' - would achievement test help? What about working the 'mom network' to get a hold of 'end of year' tests for kindy, 1st and 2nd grade so you can see for yourself what is taught in schools? That helped me. If school is still in session the best help is to sit in classrooms and observe, both your child's current peers and age+1, age+2, age+3.
Hope that helps!

Love and More Love,

Grinity

Both of my girls had high VCI scores on the WISC at ages 7 and 8, but they present very differently. The only thing that I can say they had in common was early speech. Dd10, whose VCI scores were higher, did speak earlier -- putting two words together at 5.5 months whereas dd12 was only using single words at 6 months, but they both had pretty advanced speech as little people.

I've generally been told that high VCI correlates with school performance. If I only had my one older child, I'd believe that b/c she is a stereotypical high achiever. My youngest is a much more erratic student who really doesn't fit into a school setting well although I must temper that with the fact that she still does well (got the Presidental Academic Excellence award in 5th grade -- you need a reasonably good GPA, etc. -- is a mostly A student and did have all As on her last report card, passed the two tests -- MAPs and a 7th grade math pre-test -- required to subject accelerate in math in 6th grade, etc.). What I see, though, is more a child who has to squeeze herself into a hole she doesn't fit in in order to make that work.

I'd except high VCI to show up in different ways depending on where those strengths within VCI lie. Probably the child would have an advanced vocabulary although s/he may or may not use it regularly (my dd10 doesn't often b/c she is more interested in appearing "normal.") Probably the child would be able to understand plot lines and character motivations well when reading although s/he may or may not like to read (again, my dd10 isn't much into reading).

Grinity - subtests were:

Information 17
Vocab 17
Word Reasoning 16

She hit soft ceilings in at least two of them (she reached the end of at least two, if not all subsections without terminating but made occasional errors or gave vague or "cute" answers). One of the questions she got wrong in word reasoning she heard me talking to my mother about weeks later and first quoted the question word for word, then gave her answer (which was marked wrong) and said "And I was RIGHT" and wondered off. And from a reasoning perspective she had correctly reasoned, but had reasoned out an unexpected answer.

The WPPSI questions were so freaking easy though, it's just hard for me to understand that any 4.75 year old would not have had a similar result.

Flip side - she saw a different psychologist today about possible selective mutism (recovering from) or social anxiety and the conclusion was

a) shy but no pathology
b) very strong willed and non compliant (not oppositional or defiant, simply not a pleaser)
c) "buzzy" / "a bit ADDish" and
d) Clearly underachieving as per the results in the psychometric testing report (which the tester did not identify but instead described as "Academically, CHILD is also doing very well and her literacy and mathematical skills are equivalent to a child who is in Reception." Which is to say her literacy skills were 6 months in advance at the time of testing. Tester described that as "doing very well", today's psych described that as "significant underachievement, she should be two years in advance with that IQ". Which explains my sense of denial.

Cricket thanks for this, it was useful:

That's a relief - at least 50% of you should feel relieved and justified.

I love that book 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo for those 'thorny' 'not teacher pleasing' kids. Of course, I still want you to get her into a 'good enough-fit' school environment.

It is difficult to believe that 'all kids' or 'most kids' wouldn't blow away the WPPSI - but that just shows how skewed our daily lifes are. Sort of reminds me of being a little kid and shopping for a birthday gift.

I helpfully pointed out to my mom that 'the package says: For ages 9-12, and my friend is only 7.'

My mom responded: "Oh those people who make the packages don't know anything! You can't believe what they say!"

So I do know where you are coming from - I come from a long line of 'denialists.'

Wink,
Grinity

Yeah I am quite relieved actually. I feel I know why she is underachieving, I see it as totally reversible - with the right school fit. And she also comes from a long line of late bloomers to boot.

Haha! I have apparently been giving wildly inappropriate puzzles to 2 year olds for some time.

Isn't it interesting how two different clinicians can have such different opinions from the same set of data? The psych who tested dd10 the second time also said that there were no concerns, no hints of 2e, and generally she was doing fine and that she was bright but nothing that far out of the ordinary. This was all despite having repeat 18s and 19s on the WISC (both times she was tested), scores ranging from 8-19, achievement scores that fluctuated all over the place, and with her generally performing like a high avg kid in school. Another psych, looking @ the same data & meeting with the same kid , said that she was seriously underachieving & dx her with ADD and anxiety.

At that age my son just loved learning, asked lots of questions, and he loved to talk about what he had learned. He didn't just want to read, he wanted to read and discuss. He saw humor in things that I never noticed and liked to share. He had a lot of confidence in his ability to speak and was not shy about doing it on stage in front of a lot of people. People thought he was older and they kept asking us where he went to school before he was old enough to go to school. Strangers would listen to him talk and then tell me he talked more like an adult. Some would tell me they thought he would be a politician when he grew up or a professor. It was fun having him around when he was a little kid and it still is now that he is 13 and taller than I am. Now his advanced vocabulary doesn't seem so unusual.

He recently had enough confidence in himself to audition for a feature film.