Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Achievement Scores Higher than IQ Scores and ADHD

Hi All,
I am new here. Was told this is the place to go for answers.
My son's scores are much higher in achievement than IQ and I am wondering what this means. Scores are below. Would really appreciate opinions and insights. He is 6.5 yrs old.
I should also add that the psych diagnosed him as ADHD and a visual optometrist says he has severe tracking and convergence problems. His handwriting is awful.
The psych said in her report that he had to be frequently redirected and was asking when he would be finished.

DAS II
Verbal 129
Nonverbal 98
Spatial 100


WIAT III
Total reading 139
Broad reading 144
Word reading 146
Reading Comprehension 140
oral fluency rate 160
Oral fluency accuracy 102
total oral fluency 135
spelling 124
written language 112
Total Math 132
numerical operations 123
problem solving 137
math fluency 139

At school he took the Iowa Test
His complete composite NPR was 99

What do these results mean? Is there a learning disability involved? Could vision and attention issues impact his scores? What can we do to help him?

Thank you.

The difference between Verbal and both Nonverbal and Spatial on the DAS-II is fairly notable, and does suggest something is happening. A bit of it, though, could be related to the identified tracking and convergence problems, rather than actual fluid or spatial reasoning deficits.

His achievement scores are slightly higher than would be predicted by his DAS-II Verbal (which is likely the best available measure of his cognitive potential, at the moment), in all but oral reading fluency (which I believe you have listed as total oral fluency), spelling, written expression, mathematics composite, and numerical operations. These five are within expectations. (Oral reading fluency includes the two subscores: oral fluency rate, and oral fluency accuracy, which are so different--one above, and one below expectations--that I suspect he raced through it, sacrificing accuracy for speed. Plus this would be a prime place for tracking issues to strike.)

Yes, vision and attention could affect his scores. Also, he's still very young. Being six could affect his scores.

It is possible there is an additional learning difference involved (such as NVLD), but until the ADHD and (especially) tracking/convergence issues are addressed, it will be difficult to tease out whether it can all be explained by those two, or if there is something else going on. The frequent redirection could be a reflection of dysregulated attention, or it might have been because he was being asked to do tasks that challenged his tracking, handwriting, etc. Was there any indication of whether the need for redirection was uniform across all tasks, increased with time elapsed (general fatigue), increased/decreased for certain kinds of tasks, etc.?

There are quite a few families experienced with vision issues, so I'll leave that part of your question to them.

Untreated visual perception issues (like convergence insufficiency) can have a HUGE impact on IQ scores, especially in the visual-spatial subtests. This could explain most of the discrepancy between the IQ and achievement scores.

At age 5 my son scored >99.9th percentile (test ceiling, 160) for WIAT-III math, but low average in visual spatial IQ subtest. One year later, after vision therapy, his visual spatial IQ subtest went up by two standard deviations. This is like going from 100 to 130 on that subtest.

Thank you aeh and electronvolt for your input. Very helpful.
The psych did not mention when he had to be redirected so we are unsure if it was due to inattention or frustration with a difficult task,

How long did you do vision therapy? How often? I think that is where we are headed.

I have a dd who had severe vision challenges related to convergence and tracking when she was in early elementary. I can't help you with an analysis of the scores as I'm not familiar with the DAS II - although I wonder if there are subtest scores provided ever for the DAS II? The subtest scores on the WISC were helpful in identifying my dd as having vision-related impacts on scores.

Are you planning to pursue vision therapy? Are you comfortable with the vision diagnosis? VT and convergence issues diagnoses are sometimes a bit controversial, but for our dd VT was extremely helpful. If you have any specific questions about VT or convergence issues etc, let us know - there are several of us on the board who've had children with vision issues.

Did the psych who diagnosed him with ADHD utilize any behavior surveys or other means of diagnosing the ADHD? If the diagnosis was made on observations during the evaluation only, I'd be somewhat unsure of the diagnosis - the vision challenges our dd had at the same age made her appear to have ADHD, but those symptoms disappeared when her vision challenge was remediated.

Best wishes,

polarbear

There's been a number of threads on the pros and cons and caveats of vision therapy; we can help you track them down if you're having trouble finding them. The short answer is it can be a huge help, if done by the right person, in the right way, for the right reasons. But there's a ton of unscrupulous providers out there.

Standard care is once a week with the specialist (usually in office but ours was actually done over Skype), with at-home daily exercises in between sessions. If your provider is recommending something dramatically different than this, or claiming to fix anything other than convergence insufficiency (and maybe, possibly, accommodative insufficiency) get very cautious.