Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Is my daughter 2E??

I'm hoping that someone can help me with trying to wrap my head around all this. My daughter is 7.5 and is in second grade. We just moved this year to a new school which is a million times better than our last school!! Last year in 1st grade was awful, she couldn't read, didn't know most her of her phonics, was very anxious and didn't want to go to school. We begun to suspect a learning disability like dyslexia (my MIL is dyslexic). So we requested that the school test her. They did the WPPSI-III test:

Block Design 11
Information 9
Matrix Reasoning 15
Vocabulary 14
Picture Concepts 12
Word Reasoning 13
Coding 19

Verbal 110
Performance 116
Processing Speed 97
Full 123

Then the Wechsler Test:

Word Reading 98
Reading Comprehension 104
Pseudoword Decoding 98
Composite 97

Numerical Operations 90
Math Reasoning 112
Composite 100

Language Comprehension 114
Oral Expression 130
Composite 127


Based on these scores the school told us that she didn't have a learning disability and that she was smart and would catch up.

Now we have moved and started a new school. This school administers the CogAT test to all second graders at the start of the year. Her scores on this were:

Verbal 124
Quantative 125
Nonverbal 104
Composite 120

She is currently on an IEP for speech and she has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, she is high-functioning like aspergers. We have been told she has ADD but I disagree. She gets pulled out to the resource room for extra reading help..she is just about at grade level.

Well then this week I get a letter home saying that the school wants to test her for their gifted program. I'm so confused!!! Firstly I thought her scores were not quite high enough to be considered gifted and secondly she is struggling to keep at grade level. We have even considered holding her back a grade but never have. Any insight would be very helpful, thank you :-)

Hi Louise. Welcome to the forum, you've found a great resource. I'm afraid I'm absolutely no help with your questions, but I'm responding to bump this up in the threads. In the meantime, until someone comes along with more to offer, I'd encourage you to search through other posts on the 2E forum to find out more about aspergers, ADD and misdiagnosis of ADD, dyslexia, and testing scores as they relate to 2E kids. Sending you good wishes as you start your search for answers.

Our school district generally evaluates anyone who scores 125 or above on the CogAT, so it sounds like your school does something like that as well.

As for the learning disability, there are others on here way more knowledgeable about test scores etc., but I don't think an IQ test is an appropriate way to assess an LD. Schools will often not recognize an LD unless the child is lagging a grade or two behind. This means that LDs in gifted kids are often missed because their "lag" may only put them at grade level. I would seek further evaluation for an LD, personally, just to be sure.

My son's dysgraphia / dyslexia was diagnosed by a neuropsychologist. Had we waited on the school to do further testing than the IQ tests, he still wouldn't be diagnosed or receiving appropriate accommodations and services. If you can at all afford it, I'd highly recommend private testing.

At the beginning of 2nd grade, he was a year behind in reading, could not write legibly, had a speech disorder, and had difficulty holding a pencil appropriately. Because he was not "far enough behind" in academics (needed to be a full 2 years behind), the school refused to test, despite requests from us and his teachers. After we had a private diagnosis in hand, the school accepted the diagnosis and we started the process to get him admitted into special ed with an IEP and appropriate services. We started speech therapy privately until the school finally had it as part of his services.

There will be others who will be able to speak directly to your scores, but I did want to chime in with what our experience was.

Did your school do any tests specifically designed to assess reading skills? Here is a site that mich recommended which lists tests that you may want to consider or possibly try to get the school to administer http://www.concordspedpac.org/Whichtest.htm

You mentioned that your DD didn't know her phonics. This can be a red flag for dyslexia. I would recommend reading up on dyslexia in general. The Sally Shaywitz book, Overcoming Dyslexia, is a good resource. You also can get a lot of good basic information on some of the dyslexia websites
http://www.interdys.org/

You also may want to search this site for past threads on dyslexia. You also will see the term "stealth dyslexia" used a lot to describe how dyslexia can manifest in gifted kids.

As others have said, if your gut is telling you that something isn't right, don't wait for the school to figure it out. I have a gifted dyslexic. The testing that your school did would not have caught my DD's issues.

As always, have you had an audiology exam to make sure she has normal hearing? The hearing screen at the pediatrician's office is completely inadaquate and frequently misses hearing loss in children.

Very good advice.

Funny enough, when my son's hearing was tested by the audiologist, my son asked me to go first because he was apprehensive of the closed booth. I told him I'd show him how after the audiologist agreed. Ended up finding out I had permanent hearing loss although the kiddo's was fine.

My third grader is deaf in one ear. We didn't find that out until I asked for an audiology exam- he passed for 3 years in a row the hearing screen at the pediatrician's. He is very verbal and has no speech issues, so you would never dream that there is anything wrong with his hearing.

The point of IQ tests is that they are good at identifying intellectual ability in most kids. Most isn't all. It sounds like your new school system is working well, so I'd allow them to test for giftedness, and to give any accomidations they think will be useful to her.

My guess is that it will take a few more years and repeated tests to figure out your daughter, but she appears to be heading in the right direction!

It is entirely possible to be both gifted and learning disabled. It's possible to be gifted in some academic areas, and average or below average in others. Sometimes disabilities will make it difficult to detect giftedness, and sometimes giftedness will make it difficult to detect disabilities. People are complicated creatures.

It's possible that your DD is better described as 'bright' than as 'gifted' but 'bright' is intelligent enough for almost any career your dd might turn out to be interested in. I've heard a lot of the parents here say that motivation, drive and character matter more to life success than the exact spot on the bright-gifted line, and I think that's true.

Smiles,
Grinity