Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment test results and grade accceleration

The first item that stands out to me is the fairly sizable difference between his VCI (which probably should have had extended norms, with two subtests at SS 19) and his PSI, as well as, to a lesser extent, WMI. Although the gap could just be the GAI/CPI difference often found in GT individuals, it is also possible that it represents some kind of 2e. The relative weaknesses on his WISC-IV are often ones that affect or reflect weaknesses in automaticity, which often manifests in academics as, for example, delays in memorizing math facts, or attaining fluent handwriting/spelling/written expression. With year 5/6 demands, teachers are expecting complete fluency in basic skills, so that mental energy is freed up entirely for higher level problem solving and expression. If he happens to be still struggling with making these skills automatic, the pace and volume of school work will be much more challenging, not because he is conceptually unable to master it, but because he has to "waste" time and energy on nuts and bolts.

Retesting might be a good idea, but not for the reasons the teacher suggested. You may wish to spend some time observing him, especially his basic skills, and any avoidance or other clinically-significant behaviors (e.g., preferentially avoiding extended writing, while readily explaining knowledge orally; going to great lengths to avoid showing work on math problems; requiring a lot of time to complete tasks, but coming up with deep results). Formal assessment may be more informative if it includes in-depth achievement and process measures, in addition to updated cognitive assessment, such as in a learning disabilities or neuropsychological evaluation.

Year 4 is often the year that classroom emphases transition from basic skills development to fluency, preparatory to higher-level problem solving and application. It is possible that this also fed into his difficult year last year.

With two different IQ tests showing a highly gifted child I would rule out any concept of overestimation. I would consider that one grade skip may not have been enough. This happened to our DD in year 4. She lost interest and stopped reading. She was in no way challenged. It was only part of the problem in a difficult year but it is hard to come back from that. With a supportive teacher and a better environment it will but just make sure he is actually being challenged.

There are some good books on underachievement that may be useful to review to see if they fit your situation. I read them when we had the same issue. They are all available on Amazon Kindle.

Why Bright Kids get Poor Grades by Sylvia Rimm
The Underachieving Gifted Child by Del Siegle
When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers by Galbraith and Delisle

We also checked for vision problems, general causes of fatigue, 2 E issues etc.

The things that worked for us were a full time gifted class initially and a second grade skip. We now have a very happy DD soon to start year 12.

We also redid the SB V and it came out even higher than when she was initially tested so by all means retest. It may help you advocate with the teacher if that helps her understand his needs. She might also benefit from looking at some of the above books, if you think she might be receptive, so she can see that gifted kids may not look gifted if the challenge level isn't there.

Sounds like your DH may have had similar issues at school!

My (2E) DS12 has similar difference between his GAI and PSI on (old) FSIQ testing. During the follow-up meeting, following assessment, the psychologist explained that the "silly" behavior could be essentially "reaching for the low-hanging fruit" in a desire to amuse (and therefore, fit in) with his classmates, socially.

He explained that the difference between his reasoning ability and speed could cause frustration. He is able to manage sophisticated concepts, cognitively, but not able to respond quickly to performance demands. I'm probably not explaining that very well, but maybe it is similar to what your DS experiences?

I remember DS telling me about that time, that he had an argument with a classmate that went like this:

Classmate: You're odd!
DS: I'm not odd, you're odd!

I wonder sometimes if the class-clowning behavior began as an attempt to appear less odd. If you make people laugh, they are more likely to overlook the "odd" behaviors, maybe.

edit: My DS' PSI was at 50th percentile (although psych said might be affected by anxiety)--yours is quite a bit higher. I don't know how much difference that makes. His other scores were similar to your son's profile (though not as high, if I recall)--fairly even gifted range. FWIW, there's never been any question about his ability to do high level work. I wouldn't question your DS' ability so much as looking for possible learning challenge or poor environmental fit.

Thank you everyone so much for your thoughts. I really appreciate them and they have given me a lot of food for thought.
Indigo: i think you are right that he really wants a real challenge. How you make things 'real' before they are is quite challenging. I teach at a university and i struggle to do if for my undergrads- so not sure how you do it for 10 year olds. I particularly felt he needed more interesting work before he was in the class he is in now. He now come home and is excited about some of the the things they are working on. But still he can't seem to do much with this excitement.
Aeh: some of your comments really ring true with some of his teachers comments. She commented that he is very engage during class discussions and comes up with some unusual ideas. However, when it come to writing it down he doesn't do much. I guess as a frustrated mum i have felt like he isn't 'trying' but maybe he is struggling because the basics are not there.

I am wondering what the best approach is the best approach from here to see if this is what is going on.
We have had his eye-sight tested. Just a normal eye test at the optometrist. Not sure if we should do anything else?
Who would do the sort of testing of in-depth achievement and process measures? Would it be the psych who did the iq testing? What sort of 2E issue could it be?
If we think from observation or testing are there resources or approaches to help him with increasing his automation?

NDW: thank you for the suggestions of the eye test and for the books. I will take a look at them. Thanks for telling me about your daughter-I am glad the double skip helped her to get interested.

Eco: did you find anything that helped your son to deal with the differences in his GAI and PSI?

Wanted to say again- thank you.
HHBella.

For a comprehensive evaluation, a good place to start would be the psychologist who did the cognitive testing. School psychologists, clinical psychologists, and neuropsychologists are all qualified to do this kind of evaluation; their facility with 2e evals is primarily dependent on their individual training and clinical skills, rather than their specific licensure. You could have such an evaluation done at no cost to you by your local public school, or done privately at out-of-pocket cost (depending on your insurance, you may be able to receive partial or full reimbursement by seeking prior authorization through your primary care physician). Some families have good experiences with this route, while others find that the goals and perspective of a private evaluator are more suited to their needs. (Full disclosure: I'm employed as a school psych. I've certainly seen the full range of quality in evals from both school-based and private psychs.)

It's best to start from a referral question that emphasizes his functional needs, rather than searching for (dis)confirmation of a diagnostic hypothesis. However, some exceptionalities that can affect written expression include dysgraphia, motor coordination delays, executive function deficits (e.g., attention, planning, organization), vision (acuity, tracking/convergence), expressive language delays (this can be very subtle, with inconsistent performance often depending on the topic or the nature of language expression demands), or anxiety.

Now this might seem like a really stupid- i was looking at these results again to include in a school application and i became a bit confused. There are 10 subtests reported for my DS. How do you get from these tests to the fullscale IQ- is it just adding them up? In this case his iq would be 146 but his percentile is just listed as 99 (very superior) rather than 99.9??? It may seem a strange thing to ask this long after the testing but i didn't add the numbers up at the time.
I have tried looking to see if you have to do something else to calculate the full scale iq but i can't see anything.
I would love to hear from anyone about how i do calculate this number.
Thanks in advance,
Elena.

The FSIQ is derived from the sum of the scaled scores for the 10 WISC-IV subtests, but is not equal to the sum. You take the sum and use norm tables to obtain the actual FSIQ.

Do you need an FSIQ? Most schools should be okay with the percentile.

Thanks Aeh.