Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment So do ALL GT kids have lower WMI and PSI?

Kriston,

My DS took the DAS_2, but they tossed part of the test (theres a story)Maybe they call it something else.

That's the biggest gap I've ever heard of! But then I've only been addicted to this board for a few days now...

Does your son seem to have any issues related to this gap? How do you see it play out in his life?

BronxMom,

Ds was tested with the WISC IV. His scores define him as gifted. The WM and PS scores are 35-40 points lower than his verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning. That difference FEELS very frustrating (for ds and for ME interacting with him). From what I read here it isn't uncommon.


Kate

Thanks...
Now I am wondering, do people outgrow these gaps to any extent, or is "processing speed" as constant as other aspects of intelligence?

I believe my dh also has a lower PS than his general intelligence, but he's never been tested so it's just observation. This may be genetic in our case as ds seems to take after his father in this way. Dh hasn't grown out of it. He's brilliant in many ways, so it makes the (probably average) PS very noticeable.

I'm no expert, but from personal experience, DS7 is faster at processing now than he was at 6, just as most 7yos are faster than they were at 6. I doubt his PSI would test higher, since he would now be normed against 7yos...who also improved in the past year... But I see a year's worth of growth in his abilities.

You can often improve memory and processing speed significantly if you really work at it. We do a little work on it, but since DS7 is already above average in those areas (though they're well below his PRI and VCI scores), I don't feel like spending great chunks of our time and effort there. We have other things to do.

He *was* turning fractions into mixed numbers in his head today, though not as fast as I might have liked. That's certainly progress!

Well, fwiw, DS's speed is improving in many areas. Wonder if the vision therapy has anything to do with it, or that he's willing to do schoolwork, or more importantly written schoolwork now, so has practice doing things more quickly. He definitely had a pen and paper weakness that appears to be going away.

thanks G3. Yes it's difficult to know what is cause and effect or correlation or something other animal entirely. My DS had PSI 109 and WMI about 125. the only thing I see is possibly math computation yet he can reason through basic algebra problems, has had abstract thought, makes leaps in thought very quickly as far as chemistry and physics...I really only see slower processing in computation. I tend to think it's laziness on his part b/c he doesn't ever want to practice. He sees no reason to be quick on computation so he won't practice. He's a stubborn boy.

Interesting. I think we're all talking about the same kinds of things, although my DS8 "got" multiplication right away. Still, he is slow with computation whether addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. My impression was that it was "boring" to him, so he didn't bother to learn it. My opinion is that comprehension is so easy for most things that he has/had an aversion to "work." Computation is work. Watching the science channel and having advanced discussions about nuclear physics (I made that part up) is fun. But I also find that basic math facts go out of his head without constant repetition. Same thing for parts of speech. He can figure it all out when he has to, but he pretty much just zones out when doing it. Next time he's asked to identify the adverb he'll just say "huh," until he remembers oh yeah, that's the one that ... And that's the problem I found he had in school. The stuff that didn't interest him or was hard put him on autopilot and the teachers saw good enough and that was good enough for them. Now that we're on our own, he's engaged, learning and doing, and I'm seeing improvement b/c he's actually doing the work, and for the most part concentrating when he does. Is it practice makes perfect or something else? I have no clue...

Wow, the above describes my son exactly. Add super stubborn.

I just learned that his teacher stopped trying to force me to answering his "reading comprehensive" questions in September.

The world's youngest underachiever?