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I'm so sorry Jennie72, that you are in this position. Are there any other parents of gifted kids that have been on the road you are on that can give you advice for the school that you are in?
A few years ago, when I was looking up some things about my DS, I stumbled on this site www.qagtc.org.au which is based out of Queensland and did seem to have some good resources and intersting chat rooms as well. I haven't spent much time there lately, but if you haven't given it a try it might be worth a look.
You poor thing! I know it can be really isolating when trying to deal with the issues faced by our children due to their giftedness. When schools don't appear to have the slightest level of understanding as to the complexities involved it's completely disheartening. These people are the professionals, right? But don't lose hope. Sometimes it just takes talking to the right person to have things start to move, the trouble is it often takes a long time to find out who the right person is! Do you mind me asking what state you're in? Some of the states have quite active Gifted Childrens' Associations who would be a good first point of contact & could give you an insight into how things work in the education system in your state. They also provide an opportunity for you to meet with other parents if you're able to get along to some of the organised activities. You do really need to have people to share with, which is why boards like this are so valuable. I don't often get to contribute, simply because I feel like with the time zone lag I'm joining a conversation when it's already finished, but I'm always grateful to read of other parents experiencing the same sort of trials & tribulations (& joys) as I'm facing with my children, and have learned a lot from the advice offered. Don't be afraid to keep pushing the school until you have a situation that suits your child. Sometimes that may just not be possible at that particular school & you might need to consider other options, but your child's happinness & achievement will be your guide. And what works this year will not necessarily work next year, so be prepared for change!
Wow, small world! I'm also in Adelaide!!! Definitely get in touch with GTCASA. My younger three have recently started going to their Saturday Club sessions after a hiatus of a few years & they're loving it. PM me for further details if you like.
In terms of follow up testing, the OT guy we saw pretty much repeated all the visual and auditory processing tests that the psych did. From his report "visual processing is in the highly gifted range (more than 2 SD than the average) but auditory processing is five times slower than the average. His advice was just to let Max be. Let him be Max, and in his own time and space he will compensate for any difficulties he may have. He used to have HUGE issues staying on task in class, but his teacher recently gave him an oven timer and now he finished first all the time - she told him to try and beat the timer and that was enough of a challenge to get him to stay focussed. We are just not sure whether to be further testing. As further background, Max was critically ill 2 years ago (Encephalomyelitis) and has had so many tests and probes stuck on him, that as long as he seems healthy and happ, we are loathe to examine these WISV - IV results too much. I guess I don't really know what a VCI score of 144 is - does this alone mean he is gifted or is not enough ? The school has always ascertained that he is gifted as he is very differen to the other kids academically - how many other 8 year olds are reading Blainey's "A short History of the world" for fun ? In terms of an indicator of general ability, how does VCI scores stack up against the others ? Are they weighted at all ? I seem to remember reading something that not all gifted kids have great processing speeds. But what could have brought down his PRI ? Are some of these subtests processing based ? Sorry, too many questions. I shall stop !
I believe 144 corresponds to the 99.8 percentile. So your son scored in the top two tenths of a percent for verbal abilities. Definitions of gifted differ but usually a score of 130 or above on the WISC-IV is considered gifted.
I couldn't hazard a guess about the PRI score. My daughter also scored significantly lower on PRI than on VCI. In her case, she has trouble with visual/motor integration.
I would think that in SA that qualifies him for a Gifted NEP. (There may be no special funding, but they are still required to provide certain things) My son was formally approved for a Gifted NEP with a Verbal IQ at the 99.8th percentile on the WPPSI, & the Dept. psych only administered 1 subtest on the Performance scale as the Verbal was enough.
Jenni, What visual and auditory processing tests did the OT perform? I wonder how those differ from those on the WISCIV/PRi subtests? Did he conjecture about the discrepancy (high gifted range vs above avg on WISCIV)?
I've read similar things to Dottie online that VCI is a better predictor of academic ie success in school. My best guess is that a strong PRI may mean visual-spatial learner and typically, that is not how schools teach.
The WISCIV was overweighted for WMI and PSI compared to earlier tests and WMI and PSI are poor predictors of intellectual ability. However, I did read in the WISCIV Technical Report that two kids w/ identical GAIs but one w/ lower PSI/WMI values will look very different in the classroom.
Here is what I found on the block design subtest of PRI: Block design: a pure test of perceptual intelligence, BD is the only PRI subtest that factors heavily w/ overall intelligence. BD will give you a good clue to innate intellectual potential. However, BD is a visual-motor task and peformance may be developmental or related to motor deficiency.
That's why I say you really need the scaled scores to get much info from the testing.
Another Pearson document easily found online (14 pages) discusses WISC-IV clinical interpretation and looks in detail at FSIQ, Indexes, Subtests, Items, and Task Components:
