Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Woodcock Johnson and WISC to diagnose LD?

The psychologist did the WRAML-2 after the WISC-IV to get more info about his memory functions. According to the report it is used to evaluate his ability to learn and memorize both verbal and visual material.

There were 3 main categories and then lots of subcategories -
1. Verbal Immediate Memory
story recall - ability to recall meaninful information
story delay - ability to recall information following delay
story recognition - recognize target amongst presented choices
word learning recall - immediate recall for non-meaningful verbal words repeated during several series
word learning delay - ability to recall information following delay
word learning recognition - recongnize tarte amongst presented choices
2. Visual Immediate Memory
design recall - ability to recall spatial information
design recognition - ability to recognize presendted design amongst choices
picture memory - recall of meaningful visual information
picture recognition - ability to recognize presented photos amongst choices
3. Concentration
Numbers - visual recall task requires working memory
sequences - requires ability to mentally manipulate and sequence auditory information quickly manipulating numbers and letters

For each sub-category and category the results were given as a range (low average, average or high average) and a percentile. An overall General Memory score was also given in the same format.

TBH looking at his results they were ALL over the place, lowest was 9th, highest was 91st often within a single category so I'm not sure how much the tester got out of it. Looking at the paragraph that was wrote after it it doesn't illuminate much but maybe it helped her piece together other things (or maybe she was just hoping it would have clearer results). DS was only 6.5 when the testing occurred and wasn't the most cooperative so that might have had an impact as well. I'm not sure which day that particular test was done but there was one session that was a complete disaster and he was under the desk for most of it. I later found out that he had had a substitute teacher all week (the testing was done Friday morning). He doesn't deal well with transitions so it was probably his worst behaviour all year. On the plus side, the tester got to witness exactly why we were there (we were there more for behavioural issues, suspected ADHD and/or LD - the gifted result was a pleasant surprise (although not completely shocking)).

chay--thanks for explaining that test. Sounds like it may be helpful, but maybe not.

The neuropsych with the U who saw DS emailed me and gave me a name. She is a psychologist and past president of our state's council for G/T. She has an interest in twice exceptional. I talked to her on the phone and she said she can do a WISC IV and report for $400 and can assess the ADHD aspect during testing. I don't know what kind of answers we'd get about DD's speed issue from the WISC but for $400 it may be a place to start, I'd have a report for DD to apply to the gifted/talented school(if she scores high enough to qualify) and if there are discrepancies with the scores, we can figure out if she needs additional testing. I don't know--just thinking out loud.

polarbear--DD just asked me to read some words to her in a certain order, she located them on a list, and then copied them (too complicated to explain why she was doing this). It took her about 10 seconds to write each word and she kept erasing and erasing. I said "Ok, let's try it without copying". She spelled everything correctly (even though the spelling words were 4th grade and she is in 3rd) and her speed was a little faster but not great. She has been bringing home spelling tests with some words completely blank, saying the teacher goes too fast. It just seems to me like an overall processing speed issue that translates to many different tasks...for instance she is slow with math fluency on the computer as well. She can see 7+8 and answer it right away, then it comes up again 3 seconds later and she stares at it like she has no idea what she's looking at. But yet my unofficial testing of her digit span seems good--even going backwards she can repeat about 5 numbers. You'd think she'd get hopelessly lost with something like that. It really doesn't make sense.