Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WISC IV scores interpretation

Hi all, I'm a new poster, and fairly new to trying to figure all this out. A little background - my DS8 was recently IQ tested as part of a full evaluation at school that was authorized due to suspected (and confirmed through the OT part of the eval) sensory processing issues.

Anyway, I'm trying to make some sense of his WISC IV scores. I do not have raw scores, just scaled and composites. What is hard for me to figure out is what to do with them given the large discrepancy between the verbal and others... I have done some reading up, and realize he's "gifted" but don't quite know what to do with the "not meaningful given significant discrepancy in domain scores."

Here they are:
VCI - 150 composite/ 55 scaled
subtests:
similarities = 19 (she stopped when he 'maxed' out, was not given the extended)
vocabulary = 19 (same as above)
comprehension = 17

PRI - 115 composite / 37 scaled
block design = 14
matrix reasoning = 12
picture concepts = 11

WM - 120 composite / 27 scaled
digit span = 11
letter-number sequencing = 16
arithmetic = 14 (*note, this is a timed test, and he has repeatedly demonstrated problems with timed activities, both in regular classwork/homework situations and in his WIAT testing)

PSI - 97 composite / 19 scaled
coding = 8
symbol search = 11
cancellation = 9

FSIQ = 129
(I've calculated his GAI based on the online forms, and its 92)

Given what I've read, and given his other physical processing issues, the processing scores don't really concern me. Its just a question of how to interpret the scores overall given that the verbal is at least 23 points (could be higher if allowed the extended testing?) higher than the rest of the categories.

Thanks in advance!

The 92 is the sum of his scaled scores from the VCI and PRI, that is then used against a lookup table to yield a GAI score of 139. But between processing issues, timing issues, and a failure to use the extended testing, I'd think you'd presume it's higher and he is highly gifted with strong verbal orientation. At the bare minimum I'd think he needs access to any level of book he is interested in reading, and to be saved from reading/book assignments at or close to grade level.

That verbal score is extremely high. Did they do any achievement testing? Clearly you have a kid with some significant strengths, and those strengths should be addressed as well as any weaknesses. What were you looking for with the testing? What things were you hoping to have addressed?

Hi - thanks for your replies! Zen - he does have access to tons of books, and whips through them so fast I can't keep up :-) Lovely problem to have, I know!! His teacher is wonderful, and working with me to keep him motivated in class, and he has a special project folder that he can read from (and will have to do a follow up project on; I should note this is brand new) and I printed articles for him on his current interest - the rate of expansion of the universe (I can't even wrap my head around it!!).

Colomom - Long story short - sensory-motor interventions were my primary concern, but learning strategies/challenges were also something we wanted to look at, and I wanted to rule out any hidden learning disabilities (they didn't identify any). He's seriously under-challenged which may be combining with his sensory issues to cause a lack of self-esteem. I do hope that addressing both together will help. I should add that his sensory issues cause him to not focus on the work well, BUT that he's never fallen behind (or even been at risk for it). He's never really liked school, and a big part of that is that he is under-challenged ("Mom, when am I actually going to learn at school?!" - I'm sure you've heard that too!). He'll be officially on an IEP for the sensory processing (and speech - purely articulation) issues, and that may help - its causing a whole team to take note of him. At this point I am now wondering if I need to be concerned about some of the score discrepancies too though - does that relatively low processing time leave him frustrated? He just doesn't move as fast as his mind does? Or is it just a function of a very thought ful mind? Don't really know what to do with that!

I've also subsequently found out that the district is starting a new g&t program; remains to be seen what that is, but anything is a good start, and hopefully having test scores (and some accommodations for future testing) will help get him into whatever that is.

He did the WIAT III test as well, but I'm not sure how much stock to put in any of the results. Some correlate closely with the WISC, others are radically off. But the main reason not to put too much stock in them is that the tester said he wasn't always willing to be there - he was being pulled out of class to go, and this was later in the whole battery of testing. Toward the end his classroom teacher was noticing it was impacting his overall behavior at school, so it isn't surprising he was not doing his best in testing either.

His scores were:
Early reading skills - 103 (58%)
pseudoword decoding - 141 (99.7%)
spelling - 110 (75%)
alphabet writing fluency - 114 (82%)
reading comprehension - 117 (87%)
word reading - 140 (99.6%)
oral reading fluency - 136 (99%)
oral reading accuracy - 108 (70%)
oral reading rate - 160 (99.9)
overall sentence composition - 133 (99%)
sentence combining - 144 (99.8%)
sentence building - 109 (73%)
overall listening comprehension - 142 (99.7%)
receptive vocabulary - 140 (99.6%)
oral discourse comprehension - 131 (98%)
overall oral expression - 148 (99.9%)
expressive vocabulary - 159 (99.9%)
oral word fluency - 101 (53%) (noted by tester that she thinks he was not paying much attention)
sentence repetition - 151 (99.9%)
math fluency - addition - 83 (13%) (timed test, noted by tester he was not paying attention)
math fluency - subtraction - 96 (39%) (timed test, noted by tester he was not paying attention)

Were you given any total scores on achievement? I am just wondering if anything would be at DYS level, because the verbal score certainly is.

You can see the highs and lows on the achievement testing, where certainly anything that is timed, he does not do well on, but that is to be expected. Does he seem frustrated? It isn't unusual for gifted kids to have a lower processing speed and/or working memory. Your son's WM is quite strong, so that is good.

Do you see perfectionist qualities? Sometimes the lower processing speed can also be due to that. So, I guess what I am saying in a round about way that that lower PSI could be due to a combination of factors....his sensory issues, as well as gifted perfectionist qualities.

It is good that he is on an IEP. Make sure that his strengths are being addressed, though and not just by giving him additional work and/or boring worksheet packets

I wasn't given any total achievement scores - is that something I should look for?

My son is definitely frustrated by timed stuff, now I'm wondering if some of his other issues could be attributed to the processing speed as well. Math that he's done since he was tiny (even super simple stuff like 6+1) he really has to think about the second a timer is involved. So there is high anxiety, and the frustration that comes from not being able to think fast enough. But more importantly (more important because its not so easy to identify and not already being accommodated) I wonder how much of what we see as him "spacing out" or being not on task with assignments in class is really him looking over the sheet (and because he can read exceptionally quickly, we may not be noticing him look it over) and then spending time processing it in his head? According to all the in-class observations, he gets an assignment then spends a chunk of the allotted time not on task, the does the assignment very quickly right at the end. None of these tasks are the ones he is interested in or engaged in, or challenged by, I should note. Asked to write a poem, he sat right down, whipped it out and handed it in (and left his teacher speechless).

I do not see perfectionist qualities in my son, although its something I should look for (my DD is SUCH a perfectionist, that its hard to remember perfectionism has variations). In many ways we see him doing his work very carelessly (sloppy writing, no capitals/punctuation, etc.). Some of this is sensory issues - the poor pencil grip, difficulty with fine motor. He's never upset (or at least not visibly or at the time) by the fact that he's not done work neatly -- although he does occasionally become very upset by the idea of having to do assignments that do have to be done well and carefully (like a final copy of a bigger assignment), and I wonder if its an acknowledgement of his inability to do it as quickly as he can think about it. He verbally expresses it more as a resentment of homework, and of having to do something perfectly, but...

This is just a guess - so take it fwiw, I'm not a professional, but I have a child with a large discrepancy in PSI vs other WISC scores. I'm guessing that perfectionism is not the reason for the lower PSI scores, because you see the dip in subtest scores consistently across the three PSI subtests and also - more importantly - you see it consistently in the timed achievement tests (the tests labelled "fluency"). I think if the issue was perfectionism you would see more scatter in these subtests, rather than consistently lower scores.

I have more to say, but want to quote, so I'll be back with another reply!

polarbear

Are you sure the frustration is that he has to think quickly and can't, or is it possible that the frustration is that it's difficult to get the information *out* of his head (and onto paper or into words) quickly?


This sounds VERY much like my dysgraphic ds prior to his dysgraphia diagnosis. His teacher also described his classroom behavior as "spacing out" and attributed it to not being engaged and not paying attention. When I observed him in class he would often sit and just not do any work when worksheets were handed out, then rush through it when the teacher called the "2 minute warning". I attributed a lot of that behavior initially to giftedness - because the worksheets should have been easy for him to complete (I knew he knew how to do what he was being asked to do). What I was missing was that he was challenged by handwriting.

The scores you have are consistent with the types of gaps I see in my ds' scores between VIQ and PSI, and your ds also seems to have a gap between VIQ and PRI (I am not as familiar with what that type of gap might present as).

You mentioned that this was a "full evaluation" given by the school - were there additional tests given to determine why there was a discrepancy in scores? A private evaluation by a neuropsychologist would most likely have included visual-motor integration tests and executive functioning tests etc to tease out whether or not the challenges with processing speed were due to fine motor issues, vision issues etc.


While there may be a sensory component to this, these are also symptoms of dysgraphia. Did the school make recommendations re incorporating alternative methods of having your ds show his work (scribing, keyboarding etc)? Did they do any type of OT eval? Did they make any comments on handwriting such as - is his spacing even, is he spelling consistently, does he use punctuation and capitalization correctly, is he forming his letters consistently and in the way the school teaches how to form them, is his handwriting speed at grade level, etc.


I have two children with challenges (dysgraphia, dyslexia) and another child who had severe vision issues when she was in early elementary. I think it's really important to realize there is a huge difference between how an 8 year old and adults - or even a middle school child - communicate frustration and emotion over challenges. As parents we try to interpret what's up by our children's actions and visible emotions and what they tell us, but I've found with all three of my children, at 8 years old, they simply were communicating frustrations, upset, etc in ways that I didn't really see or understand. Getting a *complete* evaluation that included a look at *why* the scores were what they were on ability and achievement testing was the key in understanding what was going on for my kids. Now that my dysgraphic ds is 13, it's a whole different world because he has several years of life experience under his belt as well as years of adults helping him through accommodations, remediation, etc so that he understands what's up. When he was 8, he didn't come to me and say "handwriting is really painful and difficult". He was quiet in school, he "spaced out", he threw tantrums over doing homework etc. It took a neuropsych eval to put the pieces together. Once we had the knowledge of what was up, we were able to learn a lot more about how our ds was feeling and processing things, but we had to know the questions to ask first.

I hope that makes sense. It sounds like your school is trying to be helpful, which is great!

Let us know if they included any more testing with the ability/achievement testing.

polarbear

Hmm. I think the OT at school ruled out dysgraphia, but I'll double check with her, and will mention it to the private OT we're going to go see as well. I've - just now, after reading this :-) - done a tiny bit of looking it up, and while he has some of the symptoms, others he does not (he does take pride in his artwork, unusual as much of it is; he loves and does very well with Legos and such; his spelling is fairly good, although actually better spoken than written, so that may not count!; does well with some forms of creative writing, especially poetry; and *can* write neatly when he is watched and regularly reminded to focus on it). All that said, there are a lot of things that suggest he might have that problem. Certainly worth looking into!! Does typing work for dysgraphic kids?

I think you are right about there being a difficulty of getting words/thoughts out of his head rather than just frustrated b/c he can't think of the answer. While he very clearly has timed task issues, he also has trouble getting things out of his mouth when it isn't timed, and again, its clear that he knows the answer. It just doesn't come out quickly.

As for testing that looks at why there were such discrepancies, they didn't do that, no... I didn't really know enough, I guess, to push for that. Wish I'd done this research before the IEP meeting!

FYI, it doesn't work that way. The way it was explained to me is that there are no extra questions for the extended norms. There is just a broad range of scores that come in at "19" (the ceiling if the tester does not calculate the extended norms). If the school will give you the raw scores (instead of the scaled scores), you can figure out if he went higher than "19" by looking at the tables in the WISC technical report #7 on extended norms. There are different tables based on your son's age.
http://www.pearsonassessments.com/N...C-8E4A114F7E1F/0/WISCIV_TechReport_7.pdf