Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Visual Spatial - testing differences

Anyone have information about the differences of testing for visual spatial learners?

I would think there are big differences, especially in the early years.

Ren

http://www.dyslexia.com/library/silver1.htm

this may help

Thanks for the link.

I am trying to be more specific, if anyone has experience, in how the visual spatial might perform differently when tested, on the SBV.

Maybe that is a stupid question.

Ren

Thanks Dottie. I am a visual spatial with the auditory-sequential problem, but her father is highly auditory-sequential, so she does have a mixture. But I do not know how much.

We did get more feedback on her gifted level in music. I tried to put her in group piano, delaying the private lessons, due to her schedule, but she had her second lesson today and the instructor told me after the class: , no group, private. So she must have a pretty strong with the auditory.

This is also good news, as I think it will give us the Special Music School as a hedge. But we also not sure if that is a better place for her rather than a gifted school like Hunter.

Ren

Wren-
I have no idea if this makes sense or not because we're new here! But my DS took the SB-V and I would have expected him to be off the charts in visual-spatial. He's an extremely visual kid, I sometimes think he has a photographic memory. He can also put together any set of legos you give him based on the directions. He's 5 years, 5 months. He's very auditory but on Silverman's description, he has ALL the markers for a visual-spatial learner. Noises, smells, huge ability to read body language. His former teacher said it was "nearly creepy" how good he was able to predict what someone might say, just based on their body language. He even interfered in a teacher squabble because he could tell from across the room they were arguing.

Visual-spatial was his lowest score, by almost 20 points and the one I believe skewed the FSIQ the most because of the massive range.

According to the tester, some areas he just didn't have exposure so he couldn't begin to answer the question. In others, he just didn't understand the perspective he was being asked to use. We were stunned because if you'd asked me, I would have expected him to ceiling in that subtest.

I don't know how to answer your question though... I have no idea if we were just way way off or if his visual-spatial skills actually didn't show up well on the test.

We had the same sort of problem with the SB-V, CAMom. Our apparently VS DS7 didn't seem all that VS on the SB-V, but he was off the charts VS on the WISC. Since the SB-V is supposed to be good for VS kids, I was surprised by the results. But even our VERY experienced tester said, "This just wasn't the test for him." He advised retesting on the WISC or we would have just let it go, frankly, and assumed that DS7 wasn't as bright as he seemed. I really dithered a long time about retesting.

The toughest SB-V subtest for him was the "What's wrong with this picture" one. Apparently many kids have trouble with that one. If the pictures show things they never noticed or never thought about, they won't do well on it.

Also, if it matters, DS7 ceilinged or nearly ceilinged (most of?) the other subtests for the nonverbal section of the SB-V. (I'm working from memory here, so I'm not sure...) I know that he was looking like a DYS candidate from the first four subtests that he was given, which are the indicators to the tester about where to begin with the other tests. But his scores dropped off markedly after that. It was perplexing, even to the tester.

I dunno if any of that rambling helps...

Kriston-
My DS actually did well on the "what's wrong with the picture" (thank you Highlights Magazine!) but had a heck of a time giving directions. He said over and over "Just walk to the school!" She said she tried to coax a different response but he just didn't get it.

We may retest on the WISC at some point because he was quite close to making the DYS cutoff and I know the VS section (and a ceiling in Fluid Reasoning) really is probably the only one keeping that from being the case!

Yes, you might find the WISC is actually a lot easier for your DS than you expect. I was rather surprised!

Ren, don't read too much into this. I've been told by a few parents of gt kids not to put my children in group lessons because they would be too slow for them.

DS4 has had 2 private lessons so far and his teacher says that he is doing really great. I attend the lessons with him and to be honest doing great has nothing to do with him being auditory and everything with him being gifted. He is doing great just because he can recognize low and high (I mean one end of the piano from the other not any small differences), can find all the sets of 3 keys, can recognize a half note from a quarter note and knows how many beats each is. He remembers the finger numbers and can read the numbers in his book and press the correct key with the correct finger. There are probably more things but none of them has to do with him being auditory. It's all about being fast learner and getting things almost right away.

DS6 has had 2 lessons so far too and he is NOT auditory, trust me on that. According to the teacher he is moving through the material really fast. Again it's just him being gt. You tell him names of the keys once and that's all you have to do, ect. I am not saying there wouldn't be any difference between being a gt musician and my son but I believe that in the first few weeks it wouldn't make a big difference (if any).

Back to the testing. You've already had your daughter tested once or twice, right? Was it SB-V? In that case you pretty much know what to expect, don't you?

My son took the SB-V and did very well on both the verbal and non-verbal visual spatial subtests.

Here is some cut and paste from our report:
Visual-Spatial Processing (VS) measures the child�s skill in seeing patterns, relationships, spatial orientation, or the gestalt whole among various parts of a visual display.... Verbal Visual-Spatial Processing involves identifying common objects and pictures using common visual/spatial terms such as �behind� and �farthest left�, or indicating directions and position in relation to a reference point.

I always thought DS5 has some tendancies for visual spatial intelligence but since he doesn't like art or drawing I figured he would not test well on this subtest. He does seem to have a photographic memory, he's great at directions and he does talk fast which are two of the characteristics listed at this link:
http://www.wilywalnut.com/visual_spatial_intelligence/visual-spatial.html