Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment About to share scores with school

I think i mean underachieving from what i know he is capable of. He learned to read in a week just after his 5th bday. I mean no reading and then reading books. He did 100 piece puzzles at 3. He's always been curious and inquisitive and very polite.

With each year of school he just seems less unique? He's not at the very top of the class for sure but he does very well. He's a little tangential, a little sloppy, a little careless. He could easily slip under the radar and could definitely annoy a teacher who doesn't want him asking so many questions.

We are in a very good public school system with many bright kids.

So here's where he's actually underachieving, even in individual testing:

1. academic fluency: reading, math, and writing fluency (this suggests low PSI is a real thing)
2. reading comprehension
3. untimed written expression (writing samples)

These are borderline, for his ability:

1. word reading (of actual words)
2. spelling (of actual words)

I would suspect that the two borderline basic skills are the reason the corresponding higher-level skills are even weaker (reading & writing).

Given his excellent phonetic decoding skills, the - 1 SD drop to calling real words, his generally slow fluency (not only for fine-motor-involved tasks, either), and downstream effects on higher-levels reading and writing skills, the picture looks much more like there is something significant behind the lower PSI, most likely something that affects not only (or necessarily) motor speed, but actual processing speed, mainly via challenges with attaining automaticity for basic skills.

My suspicion is a form of dyslexia/dysgraphia (even though he reads well, and has excellent phonetic decoding, which is usually the trouble spot for dyslexia), but I would encourage you to seek out a comprehensive assessment (perhaps using some of this prior testing, if it is recent enough, as a starting point).

ETA: Another possibility is that language is the actual interfering factor for reading comprehension and written expression, although that still doesn't explain the relatively weaker word reading/spelling, or the fluency scores. But it might be an additional factor. (The WISC-IV VCI could still be high, under these circumstances, as two of the subtests can successfully be answered with comprehension and expression of only one or two word-length utterances.)

Thank You AEH.

Very helpful and insightful.

I do worry that his group testing at school will be even lower than these scores effectively squashing my advocacy efforts. He seems to do much better the harder a task gets? Is that something frequently reported?

I'm surprised to see dyslexia mentioned. What type of comprehensive assessment would you recommend?

As far as academic fluency, what are they actually asked to do during testing?

And how do I ask for more challenge when in many areas, he's right in the middle of the pack? I'd leave it alone except he tells me he does a lot of waiting around to learn and seems to be losing his spark.

Thanks all.

Great point. I know you have a lot of experience in this area!

[If you have concerns or are seeing issues at school, I'd want to pursue the neuropsych eval before spending $ on educational enrichment. JMO, but if you have questions, it's better to get answers when and where you can, as soon as you can.]

Best wishes,

polarbear[/quote]

Thanks for your input polarbear.

I'm feel so torn as what is the best way to proceed. I also have the school telling me he's fine. I'm just not so sure he's fine or that fine is ok with me. He should be happy, engaged, and actively learning at school just like he is all summer long.

I feel like we've spent a lot money already with little change seen. Our tester said ASD
unlikely, poss mild inattentive add but couldn't say for sure without full neuropsych eval.

It's frustrating to spend $ on different evals only to come up without clear answers, but it's worth taking a step back and look at what's going on - until you have that clarity that comes with a neuropsych it's often easy or tempting to throw small amounts (ok, relatively small amounts - not truly small amounts!) of $ at different things trying to hit on what's up. A neuropsych eval is likely to give you a much clearer understanding of what's up by looking at the big picture, not just one thing here or there at a time.

It's sometimes possible to get neuropsych evals partially covered by medical insurance. If a neuropsych eval is completely out of reach financially, have you tried requesting an IEP evaluation by the school (in writing, with specific reasons mentioned)?

polarbear

funtimes, I have a dyslexic dd who flew under the radar for quite a long time - her dyslexia presents differently than typical dyslexia, and she was able to compensate for it because of her other strong abilities. I regret not digging into what was up with her reading earlier in her school career, because even though she was compensating she was consistenly losing ground and by the time she was diagnosed she'd developed a very healthy dislike of reading as well as lost a great deal of vocab development that her peers who were reading for fun were gaining. She's been through several years of reading tutoring now and is above grade level in comprehension, but the differences in vocabulary are still huge.


Academic fluency on the WJ Achievement tests is a combination of scores of reading fluency, writing fluency and arithmetic fluency. Each of the fluency tests is timed.


I'd first try to figure out what's really going on with the differences in test scores. If there's a learning challenge, you need to remediate and put accommodations in place where appropriate. It's most likely very real that he's bored with the intellectual level of what's being presented in the classroom, but he also might in fact be very challenged with some of the tasks required of him in the classroom. Once you've figured out what's up with any challenges, and made a plan for remediating and accommodations, then you should be able to successfully advocate for appropriate intellectual placement and challenge.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ditto everything polarbear said.

The significance of fluency scores is that they provide a bit of quantitative information on how much effort/time he has to put into work, mainly at the basic skill level, in order to achieve the high-level results of which he is capable. In the case of reading comprehension and written expression, fluency challenges (possibly among other things, such as expressive/receptive language) may actually be preventing him from demonstrating higher level skills. At this level, he is probably recruiting cognition to compensate for the lack of automaticity (most notably in mathematics), which allows him to generate pretty high-quality work, especially with unlimited time. As academic demands increase, if these basic skill weaknesses are not remediated, they will progressively become greater and greater obstacles to success on higher-level reasoning/problem-solving/application tasks, because he will be devoting a great deal of mental processing power to skills that other students will use negligible energy on. This can be extremely frustrating, as one ends up using a lot of work, with little to show for it.

So the fluency deficits are not necessarily only about speed, but about efficiency.

How does one diagnose expressive/receptive language issues? is that a part of dyslexia?And if thats the case, is this treatable or just managed??

I feel like we've spent so much $ already. I this something the school would or should test for?

Expressive/receptive language disorders usually are best evaluated by a speech language pathologist. It is not really part of dyslexia. Speech language therapists can helpl. Yes, you could request that your local school district evaluate him.