Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Twins and schooling

Start on the district web page, look under "student services" or "special education" or something along those lines.

I've only heard the 23 point split as qualification criteria verbally (both to me and to at least two other sets of parents I've spoken to) in IEP-qualification meetings. I've not seen it written down, and I suspect that this is because they don't want to have to live by this as a hard and fast rule.

In all cases I'm aware of in our district, both the parents and the teachers also had ample additional evidence that it was affecting the child's academic progress or social/emotional state. In our case, that's too bad, because the phonemic awareness problems were evident long before then, and now we have to do both intervention as well as emotional repair work.

Not sure I would agree that he has no issues with processing speed, despite average scores. His orthographic processing (orthographic mapping? phonological processing?) and rapid naming (key cognitive processes underlying the acquisition of fluent decoding skills) are also substantially lower than his verbal comprehension, despite being in the average range, which makes sense at they feed into the even lower phonetic decoding score (or is this phonetic coding, in which case it's a phonological processing cluster?). (Did he take the WJIV or III? If these are their actual names, some of your tests/subtests don't match up with the III.) (I know tests are very confusing!)

Anyway, I think it's clear that he would benefit from direct instruction in phonological processing, such as one obtains through OG or Lindamood-Bell.

BTW, 23 points is a 1.5 SD difference. It may be written down in district policy in that form.

Yeah, I know, I was translating for funtimes. Nope, not written down in any way, shape, or form.

Just checked. It was WISC4 and WJ4 (not 3)for both boys. Then DS2 did a few extra tests (1-bc he actually finished early and 2- bc we went into this with low pseudo word decoding from WIAT3 over the summer)

Btw DS1 had PS only 66%.

I guess I'm trying to figure out what makes my kids' achievement less than ability, esp for twin 1. Twin 2 maybe we already have the answer? And what is their current school willing to do? Very worried both boys will be left out of gifted programming, but I'm not even sure that's the right solution, for us anyway. They both seem to learn exponentially fast 1:1.

Okay, that explains it. In that case DS2's WJIV results definitely indicate deficits in phonological processing, not even in the average range (that's phonetic coding, not decoding, and refers to two of the specific phonological processing skills that are necessary precursors to attaining fluent phonetic decoding skills). There shouldn't be a problem qualifying for phonemic awareness remediation (aka Orton-Gillingham) on the basis of the 19th %ile score, as that is not just a personal weakness, but a normative weakness, in most states (except for the ones that insist on <16th %ile).

I expect the extra tests were the phonetic coding subtests from WJIV Oral Language, since that's what I would give (out of the WJIV) based on low pseudoword decoding. And maybe phoneme/grapheme knowledge (I assume that's what orthographic processing was), for the associated encoding (spelling) skills.

I think you do have the answer for twin 2. Fortunately, it's one that has a body of research with a clear remediation path.

How's twin 1's achievement testing? Low PS can be indicative of a number of things, including dyslexic/dysgraphic category profiles. Or ADHD, or perfectionism, or motor impairments (like DCD), etc. More data might help.

Thanks aeh,

WJ4 for DS1 ranged mostly from 70-90%

some highs and lows below

sentence writing 50%
passage comprehension 67%
reading fluency 64%
mathematics 95%
math calculation 65%
math fact fluency 33% yikes !
applied problem 98%
word attack 98%

Hmm. These are surprisingly low numbers for someone with DYS level cognition, except in mathematics reasoning and word attack. So this tells us that, like his twin, his mathematical thinking is exceptionally strong, but his basic skills are not. Calculation skills and fact fluency are in the average range.

In reading, he is ahead of his bro in his phonetic decoding skills, by quite a bit, with word attack more like what one would expect for his cognition. Unfortunately, neither his reading fluency nor his reading comprehension are at the same level, which suggests that, although his phonological processing is probably okay, problems with automaticity are factors for him, too, so that he still has to approach reading decoding as a cognitive exercise, not a second-nature skill, which doesn't leave enough attention and cognition left for the level of comprehension of which he is capable. You had noted that his processing speed was a relative weakness. This is the kind of matching academic profile I was thinking of. Not surprisingly, sentence writing fluency is also relatively weaker than cognition, in the average range. That's a timed fine-motor task, in addition to being a written expression task. Double whammy of general speed and decoding/encoding automaticity/fluency. Is his spelling at the same level in isolation vs in extended writing? Or about the same?

Tough question.

His spelling on spelling tests is almost always 100%. When spelling while writing he misspells but uses phonetically correct substitutions. Kight for kite. He just loves that igh makes the long I sound. He was taught in K to just write and not worry about spelling and now we are backtracking trying to undo that idea. He remembers that he was told not to worry about spelling and tells me its ok. Or at least he used to. He is just now asking for correct spelling. When he texts or emails ( with the help of computer spelling) I can't always tell if its him or my husband texting. He uses advanced vocabulary. He starts to type the word he wants and when he sees it he knows which the correct word is.