Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Any WISC IV insights for academic achievement?

Hi all-

I have a rising 7th grader who is gifted (though I won't presume to state to what degree!) He was identified as having a high IQ in a neuropsych evaluation through his public elementary school, when he was evaluated in Kindergarten as a result of substantial behavioral problems. He was then on an IEP to support him through his "clinically significant emotional and behavioral difficulties substantially impacting his classroom functioning." Thankfully, that "emotional disability" resolved. However, while he has learned and internalized some great methods of recognizing and responding constructively to frustration in the classroom, he still does experience such frustration. His IEP was pulled after his 3rd grade year, but he has since then had substantive executive function issues that hamper his classroom performance (e.g. organization, taking notes.)

This summer, he left 6th grade a day early to head up to sleepaway camp, where he is electronically disconnected. I know he will be disappointed to learn upon his return that he received a B+ in Math last quarter, when he's working on Khan Academy beyond grade level, and receiving SCAT scores that indicate extremely high quantitative achievement. He received a B+ previously, and tears were shed. On the plus side, he did not respond with anger, and instead tried brainstorm about areas of improvement! On the down side, it didn't actually work.

We are in a very competitive zip code for school performance, and as he moves ahead, I'd like him to be set up for success as much as he can be. No GT programs are offered here. Are there clues in his last IQ test that might suggest areas we might focus on outside of school to better set him up for classroom achievement? He is now 3+ years past that test, but perhaps some insights might still be gleaned by those more knowledgeable than I?

His WISC IV test scores at age 8:11 were as follows:

VCI: 155
Similarities: 19
Vocabulary: 19
Comprehension: 19

PRI: 137
Block Design: 16
Picture Concepts: 13
Matrix Reasoning: 19
(The tester narrated that for Picture Concepts, my son provided explanations for relationships as the the test items increased in difficulty, and "while his ideas were creative, and his explanations were logical, he did not always choose the most obvious categorical relationship." This may explain the state of his dresser drawers I have found as I take advantage of his absence to tidy!)

WMI: 110
Digit Span: 11
Letter Number Sequencing: 13
(The tester noted that my son performed far better on the more complicated task demands, suggesting difficulty in sustaining attention to rote verbal information.)

Processing Speed Index: 109
Coding: 10
Symbol Search: 13

The tester noted that his processing speed is a relative weakness, and such children often know a great deal more than they are able to quickly output in writing. This rings absolutely true- much of his anger as a youngster arose from frustration at being asked to write, and he continues to find that difficult. We enroll him in writing courses outside of school (through CTY), and he is game, but finds it work. Do we continue to challenge him in that way, through sheer exposure to the demands of writing, or might there be other means through which he might start to find the process of writing more natural?

His GAI on the above test was 156, and no FSIQ was offered. From what I've read elsewhere on this very informative forum, the GAI might correspond to a level of performance were accommodations offered. With no such accommodations on offer in school, what resources might we try to provide him outside of school, to help him compensate for relative deficiencies that might be impacting his school achievement?

(And for those handy with such calculations, what exactly might his FSIQ be? I'm curious, though I understand that it was given several years ago at a young age.)

Thanks in advance,

Katee

1. I wouldn't find the FSIQ to be terribly valuable (unless it is required for access to something), as it really isn't a good representation of his overall ability, given the huge gap between the GAI subtests and the CPI (WMI, PSI) subtests). I could calculate it for you at some point, but I don't keep all my tables at home.

2. Did you get extended numbers for the VCI? With 19s across the board, that is likely a low estimate of his verbal ability. If you have raw scores for those three subtests (and we might as well throw in matrix reasoning), you (or I, if you like) can calculate an extended VCI (and hence extended GAI).

3. I suspect that, if re-tested on the WISC-V, his FRI (fluid reasoning) and QRI (quantitative reasoning) would score higher than the PRI did, as they draw more on mathematical thinking than the WISC-IV PRI did. I have seen that profile on Picture Concepts in other GT learners--logical, but not conventional, relationships = unexpectedly low score.

4. The biggest concern is, I think, the one you already know, which is that the gap between age-appropriate production (or even below-age-normative, but compensated with cognition) and far-above-age-level reasoning can be extremely frustrating. Given that this testing is from the reeval that resulted in termination of services, I assume there was other testing, such as academic achievement, and possibly communication/speech and language (and presumably emotional, since that was his classification--but that is probably no longer quite as relevant). Was there diversity in his achievement performance? Even if normatively age/grade-appropriate (and thus, in many states, not eligible for special education), were any areas likely to be personally discrepant? Those may suggest areas to focus remediation, accommodations, or compensatory strategies.

A learner with the extremely high level of verbal cognition he has would be expected to have much higher levels of success with language-related tasks like writing. It may help if you start observing where the break down is. E.g., idea generation, initiation, organization/planning, elaboration/theme development, mechanics (spelling, grammar, punctuation), physical writing/keyboarding. There is some additional discussion in this thread: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....05/Re_Writing_Roadblocks.html#Post238505

4. Re: executive functioning. If you've been on the forum long enough, you've probably seen many of us recommend

Peg Dawson's "Smart but Scattered" (https://www.amazon.com/Smart-but-Scattered-Revolutionary-Executive/dp/1593854455), and
Joyce Cooper-Kahn's "Late, Lost, and Unprepared" (https://www.amazon.com/Late-Lost-Unprepared-Executive-Functioning/dp/1890627844). I also like
Joshua Langberg's HOPS (https://www.nasponline.org/books-and-products/products/books/titles/hops-for-parents)

The first two have excellent general EF suggestions, while the last is a workbook for a parent-mediated intervention for homework organization/completion, and planning, to systematically teach learners school-specific EF skills. There's a school-based version of the intervention as well, if you can sell his classroom teachers/guidance counselors on reinforcing the strategies there.

Thanks so much for your insightful reply. It's of some strange comfort to have someone look at the situation and say, "Yep, that's gotta be frustrating."

1) Gotcha.

2) We got no raw scores. The tester did state that he obtained the maximum possible score in each subtest, but it's not clear to me if that refers to raw or scaled scores (I can't imagine it being the former.) As a qualitative data point, last year we were meeting with his teacher and guidance counselor to chat about him, and the counselor said she'd just chatted with the tester who said he'd never seen scores as high as my son's. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that was the first time I started taking a closer look at them!

3) I don't envision him being tested again, but your insight into the pattern you've seen before is interesting. Thank you!

4) Frustrating- yes! There was no academic achievement testing. Once he moved beyond his destructive classroom tendencies when challenged specifically with writing tasks, he always did reasonably well. Though his frustration with his output remains, he expresses it in a way that allows for classroom function. Other tests given were Bender II (advanced classification, with note "the order in which he placed the designs was rather disorganized", BASC 2 (No significant findings), and Children's Sentence Completion Tests (no significant findings) all seemed normal.

I think we all of us, him included, imagine he would write with greater success. His breakdown is clearly in elaboration/theme development, and as well as in mechanics. He found the physical act of writing uncomfortable for some time, but has been keyboarding to good effect for years now. I will definitely be looking for information specific to these tasks- thank you for the pointer!

5) I have Smart but Scattered (wonderful! though we haven't found a magic bullet). I will be looking at the others immediately, and thank you for the suggestion!

Thanks again for taking the time to put together your response. I will definitely be following up.

Hm. Unfortunate that there was no achievement testing. I assume that means that the school's other measures (grades, progress monitoring data, etc.) found him to be meeting or exceeding expectations for his grade level. Still, that wouldn't have captured excessive effort or time needed to perform at that level, which is in the category of considerations for a 504 accommodation plan. Glad to hear that he has found a more adaptive way to manifest his frustration, but I'd prefer supports that allow him to reduce that frustration. Organization clearly is an issue, which is certainly an ADHD trait.

Do ask again, if you have more questions.

katee564, I have a 2e ds who has a similar score profile on the WISC-IV and who struggles tremendously with slow output and written expression. He has expressive languages issues above and beyond what your ds has, but there are a few things I'd consider based on our experience with the gap in processing speed (ds is in high school now).

Does your ds have a 504 plan at school that specifies he can use keyboarding? If he doesn't, I would recommend pursuing one now even if everything is going well in school and he's allowed to type his assignments. He'll eventually be taking college board exams, and to get accommodations on those as well as in AP classes, it's much easier to qualify for accommodations if you have a record of having continuously used them for both classroom work and testing. Having a 504 plan or IEP with accommodations is the easiest way to prove that your student has continuously used accommodations. There's a bit more to it than simply showing he's used accommodations (he'll also need to be able to show that he needs the accommodations and that they are reasonable) - so you may want to consider having him re-evaluated either through school or privately.

If he is still struggling with slow output of written expression even when keyboarding or scribing, I'd consider an eval by either a speech language pathologist or the TOWL (Test of Written Language); both might be helpful in determining where the challenge is in getting his thoughts out/organized/written down. There's also a lot you can learn about his challenges by paying close attention to which types of assignments are more difficult.

Last note - when our ds was in upper elementary and middle school we focused a lot on accommodations to help him get his thoughts out faster. He made really great progress - for him. He didn't, however, truly keep pace with his peers in terms of output speed. He chose to go to a competitive high school program with high ability peers - which has been great for him in terms of keeping him interested in school, but there's been a downside in that he spends a ton of time on homework, sometimes as much as 3-4 times longer than his classmates. I only mention this because as middle school went by and we saw progress, I think I felt we were hitting some magic place where the gap in processing speed vs intellectual ability would become a non-issue... instead we found that ds made a lot of progress, he adapted to using accommodations, but he still struggles with the gap.

Last note - our ds also had some signs of rebellious behavior surrounding schoolwork when he was young, prior to having a diagnosis and accommodations for his struggles with writing. Once we understood what was going on and he had accommodations, the outward signs of behavior issues disappeared.. but he was still struggling with inner conflict. A lot of what had been showing up as lashing out turned into feelings that ds kept largely to himself. I hope that doesn't happen with your ds - but be sure to keep in touch with how he's feeling as best you can - it's not easy dealing with that difference in processing output vs intellectual ability.

Best wishes,

polarbear

You've offered some substantive food for thought, polarbear.

At the very least, we started, toward the end of last year, to carefully note what assignments are difficult for him. I'm not going to lie- he has a lot going on outside of school (2 instruments, online writing class, sports when it fits in). But when it got to the point of him not having any free time before it was time for him to hit the hay, we got concerned, and started trying to figure what was giving him the most trouble. No clear picture emerged, but your suggestion to seek further testing feels of interest for the first time.

That said, I think he might still just be overloaded- particularly with the online writing class (through CTY). We've continued with the courses with the probably naive view that through sheer exposure to the need to output thoughtfully, he'd start getting it. And he IS doing it, with only limited frustration. I hadn't thought of that being just the tip of the iceberg. I've got a lot of mulling to do over that.

Happily, he's currently in the midst of weeks of summer cavorting in the Maine woods, with nary an academic worry crossing his mind. Or so I think... and I do like to think I'm the only one worrying.

A thought to consider - if your son is in fact experiencing attention difficulties, ADHD can have huge impact on writing (whether or not a child has any writing-related LDs). ADHD tends to hit organization, planning, sequencing - - - all the essential pieces for writing. That said, however...


Very few teachers ever teach writing in an explicit and systematic way, as a specific set of skills and processes which can be broken down and understood. Like reading, it tends to be assumed that most students will absorb it by osmosis, given enough exposure. In reality, even without LDs, a substantial minority of people will struggle with both unless they are explicitly taught how to do it - and most aren't. So perhaps your son would benefit from a course that focuses more on breaking down and teaching the writing skills needed, as opposed to one that calls on skills that are presumed already to exist?

I don't have a recommendation off the top of my head, but would put the question out to those who have homeschooled in LA - can any of you recommend curricula that do a good job of addressing writing skills in an explicit and systematic way?

Among the HSers I know, there is a wide range of curricula. Besides Michael Clay Thompson, others have used and recommended IEW (http://iew.com/) Institute of Excellence in Writing, Write Source (http://www.thewritesource.com/), and Essentials in Writing (http://essentialsinwriting.com/). I feel comfortable with teaching writing myself--and also have a reluctant writer who would melt down if asked to engage in lengthy writing (especially handwriting) on a regular basis--and so have chosen to use more stripped down materials, such as Evan-Moor Daily Six Traits Writing (http://www.evan-moor.com/p/2017/daily-6-trait-writing-grade-1), which prioritizes frequent small (15-20 minutes) writing exercises that break down the specific attributes of good writing, over lengthy long-term, big picture assignments.

I also, as I have mentioned in posts to other threads, de-couple the components of writing for focused instruction. E.g., at different points, handwriting, spelling, punctuation/capitalization, syntax, idea generation, organization, elaboration, word choice, etc. have all been scaffolded so that one of the other components could be the focus of my learner's attention. We generate written products using both handwriting and assistive technology (word processing, speech-to-text, scribing).

And I should note that it took me a few attempts to find a curricular approach that was suited to each child, especially the putative 2e one. We started with more conventional classroom-based curricula from big box publishers, which were not only minimally effective, but reinforced negative attitudes toward writing, very briefly tried, then abandoned, "classical" approaches, which tend to be copywork-heavy, did self-created work on the writing process and the 5-paragraph essay form (that one might have been too ambitious on my part, for that stage of development), and then finally settled on Evan-Moor. (They also have other writing products; I just like this one best for my DC.) Your journey may take a different course, and find a different optimal fit.

Fabulous links and guidance, aeh. Thank you! I'm off to explore myself

Echoing Platypus here- these are great resources, and I'm excited to poke around and see what might be useful! I'll let you know if we start something up from the list.

I think he'll be doing CTY's Writing for an Audience online course, after having finished their Process of Writing class this past spring. The Process of Writing course was not easy, but the challenges were very much around getting him to understand what was going to be required in the assignments, each of which were to be done over a period of 2 weeks. Goodness knows I find such assignments difficult to plan for, myself! He managed, but not without a few situations of realizing he had sort of been fooling himself into thinking he'd done the work appropriately. For this next class, I need to figure out how to not give him rope enough to hang himself on, but not micromanage either.

-Katee