Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Mismatch IQ/Achievement

Yes, Cricket...the post you quoted was mine. I'm just trying to put the pieces together.

Polarbear:

Information 15
Vocabulary 15
Word Reas. 17

Block Design 16
Matrix R. 16
Picture C. 19

Symblol Search 13
Coding 15


Whomever mentioned rich environment: I get and agree completely w your point. She has definitely had that.

Thank you all so much for your insightful comments.I will be sure and let everyone how testing goes.

I'll add one more note: She was referred for a dyslexia screen in third grade by teacher d/t poor spelling. The screen didn't pick anything up. But due to punctuation and spelling and reading issues, I'm afraid it's there, but she was bright enough to compensate for a third grade screen, but as the material has gotten more difficult and reading dependent (she is in private college prep school), she is slowly circling the drain. Anyone else had a screen not pick it up to later have it dx?

Bella, your dd's test scores as well as your description of her teacher suspecting dyslexia but the screening not picking it up is very similar to my HG dd's experience (my dd is 8). She appears to have dyslexia, and she has the same spelling etc challenges - but the educational testing revealed she has a weakness in associative memory (not dyslexia). It's every bit as much of a challenge as dyslexia and definitely impacts her ability to complete schoolwork without accommodations. Most of the recommendations for accommodations she received are very similar to accommodations for dyslexic students, but remediation is different. I have no idea what's up with your dd, but wanted to mention her experience simply because different challenges often share similar symptoms. You're doing absolutely the best thing to do at this point - having the psych ed testing. I imagine it will help tremendously in understanding what's up.

Hang in there!

polarbear

Yes and no again. My dd11 had a psychoeducational eval that was semi-useless in 3rd partially due to the psych insisting that she had nothing wrong with her despite wildly erratic scores within IQ tests and some strange achievement pieces and partially due to teacher feedback that insisted that she was "nothing special" - ouch!

The report at that time said no LD, no ADD, nothing out of the norm. On the other hand, that same set of testing had things like the GORT (Gray's Oral Reading Test) on which she was in the lowest quartile for reading speed and highest for everything else (comprehension, etc.). All discrepancies like that were explained away in the report as pressure from parents, reading at a speed similar to what she heard when teachers read aloud, and so on. She didn't even try to explain IQ scores that ranged from low average to profoundly gifted within subtests. She just said that dd was somewhat gifted, but nothing out of the range of typical.

A year later, I brought her for a consult with another psych who looked at the same set of testing, school achievement test scores like MAPS, feedback from us and a different set of teachers, and diagnosed her with ADD and who felt that she was likely HG-PG. We never knew how to know for sure how to dx dyslexia in a HG+ child although I wish that I had seen that link that someone else posted on your other thread before we did all of these consults and testing!

FWIW, of those pieces the ones that I could see being the most influenced by enriched environment would be vocab, info, and possibly word reasoning, but less than the other two tests in the verbal realm. The three ones on which she had those really high scores really shouldn't be highly influenced by environment unless you were doing something like playing games with tantrix blocks or mosaics a lot.

I can't say that my kids haven't have enriched environments either, honestly. I mentioned that earlier not to indicate that you've hothoused in artificially high scores, just to explain how the scores can be artificially high when they do turn out to be legitimately lower later.

Good luck with the eval.

Thanks, Cricket.
I didn't think you meant hothousing. I just agreed w you that kids raised w involved parents, taken to museums, read to, talked to, listened to, etc., would certainly fare better that children raised in an impoverished environment. I can see how those children might have artificially low scores, while an attended to, bright (tho not necessarily gifted) could have artificially inflated scores at such a young age.

Beckee, thanks for sharing your experience.
It got me to thinking, and I pulled out her WIPPSI results. She was also administered WJ-III and TERA-3.
She demonstrated a discrepancy even then. But it was attributed to the fact that she had been in a MOntessori environment.

She was right around grade level w WCJ-III. High point: Story Recall, 4.2. Low point: Passage comprehension,K.5. (She was in Kindergarten at time. She was 5yrs 3mos of age)

But the most glaring difference:the TERA-3.
alphabet 13, 84%
conventions 11, 63%
Meaning 9 37%

Thanks for your post. It gave me even more to think about.

What is associative memory? What subtest score shows low associative memory (on the WISC IV if you know)?

Mary, my dd with the associative memory weakness was given the WJ-III Test of Cognitive Abilities, not the WISC. I am on my way out of town for several days, but when I'm back I'll pull out her testing and compare it to the info I have about the WISC from my other kids' testing. The way it impacts her ability to read is that she has a difficult time remembering things she learns visually - so one of her accommodation recommendations is to have her textbooks etc on tape/dvd/etc so she can listen to them instead of relying on reading. For learning to read, she is supposed to listen and follow along in audiobooks, and we have recommendations for learning to spell too. We were told that we need to have her repeat back to us when we've told her something she needs to remember to be sure she remembers it, because otherwise she will *think* she knows it but she might not really have it ingrained in her memory - we see this kind of thing (now that we know to look for it!) in our lives at home when we give her instructions to do a task etc.

polarbear

Hmmm interesting, thanks! Enjoy your time out of town!!!