Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help making sense of son's recent eval

It's time for my son's triennial IEP eval process. So the school psych chose to use the DAS-II for my son and declared him to have "average" cognitive abilities (106 SS) based on her results. In passing she mentions this is lower than previous testing but similar to tests from 1st grade. As in 27 points lower than his WISC IV results (GAI 133 SS).

I'm trying to make sense of the change in my son's test results. I don't think the newest results are correct. If they are then it seems to me to have warranted something more than a passing comment from the school Psych. As in a strong recommendation for a neurology eval!

My son is in special ed because he has a Rt. unilateral hearing loss and was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease when he was 10.

So at CA 7-4 my son was given the WISC III; at 10-3 the WISC IV and at 13-3 the DAS II. Here are the results for each test.

WISC III CA 7-4
VSIQ 105
PSIQ 112
FSIQ 109
VCI 113
POI 110
FDI 78

Information 13 Pict Completion 11
Similarities 13 Coding 13
Arithmetic 5 Object Assembly 14
Vocabulary 13 Pict Arrangement 8
Comprehension 10 Block Design 13
Digit Span 7

WISC IV CA 10-3
VC 134
PR 123
WM 91
PS 88
GAI 133

Similarities* 16 Matrix Reasoning* 12
Vocabulary 18 Digit Span 7
Comprehension 13 Letter-Number Seq 10
Block Design* 14 Coding 8
Picture Concepts* 1 Symbol Search 8

*according to report child hit the ceiling on these 4 subtests

DAS II CA 13-3
General Conceptual Ability 106 SS
Composite Scores
Verbal 101 SS 53%
Nonverbal Reasoning 100 SS 50%
Spatial 120 SS 87%
Subtest t-scores (Mean 50 SD 10)
Recall of Designs 65 Matrices 51
Word Definitions 56 Similarities 45
Pattern Construction 55 Sequent & Quant Reasoning 49

Thanks for any input.

Patricia

Hi, welcome, no major insights here, but just wanted to say you are in the right place to get some good info, I think.

My son has very superior expressive oral language abilities. I believe the WISC IV scores were probably valid in that domain. He also has superior visual/spatial skills. Creates massive Lego Bionicle constructions from scratch that other kids find mindboggling (for example). Can assemble a 500+ piece lego set in under 20 minutes after looking through the directions once.

On the other hand I didn't get the "ceiling" comments either. I didn't find out until after I got the report that the neuropsych who did the testing doesn't "believe" in gifted scores above 135. Said she didn't believe in sensory integration problems either - another issue my son struggles with daily.

There are a number of problems with the WISC III assessment scoring, don't you think? As I understand it, that assessment should have had a GAI calculated instead of the FSIQ given the disparity in subtest scores (5 to 14). But I don't know how to calculate A GAI for that test.

And the DAS II scoring seems a little goofy too. 2 SD range in the subtests? Combining 100, 101 and 120 together - again a larger than 1 SD difference in scores. But I don't know much about the DAS II so I'm not as sure of my ground with that one.

No special accommodations have ever been made for his hearing loss. None of the "professionals" ever appeared to consider whether his hearing loss might have affected his test scores in some subtle way. Instead the reports have comments like "he could hear me when I whispered his name therefore his hearing loss appeared to have no impact on his performance". Even when I told the latest school psych she needed to look into this, she didn't bother or didn't have the time. So I got yet another report that says his hearing must not have played a role in his performance and won't bother him at school because he could answer her questions about his dog in her private, quiet office one on one. This from a PhD who is teaching school psych students to do assessments at our local college.

He has obvious executive function problems - possibly ASD but very high functioning. Can't get anyone to assess him for that because he can talk a blue streak as long as you don't try to engage him in truly reciprocal dialogue. Had more than one adult tell me he's a little professor.

Achievement testing ranges from low average to average on WJIII after 2 years homeschooling following his missing most of 5th and half of 4th grade due to Crohn's Disease. His fluency is low in all three domains (reading, writing, math).

Trying to figure out what to do about his school placement for next year is giving me ulcers. I think he needs to go back to some kind of public school setting but I am despairing of getting him the array of supports and accommodations he will need to be successful partly because I can't get a decent, reliable psychoed eval out of the school psych.

Patricia

Hello Patricia! I wanted to comment on the DAS-II.

My son is 2E, with super-high-functioning ASD, and has had the DAS-II with similarly wacky results, especially as compared to the WISC-IV, as well as achievement tests. My son's achievement and WISC-IV scores, repeatedly, year after year, and with different examiners, have landed him above the 99.9% mark in total as well as certain broad or index categories. Consistently. The DAS-II combined score puts him at the 99% overall, 134 I think, which is a respectable score, but nowhere near his normal benchmark.

I did a little research on the DAS-II, and I found an FAQ page:

http://pearsonassess.com/HAIWEB/Cultures/en-us/Productdetail.htm?Pid=015-8338-820&Mode=resource

Though many online sources list the DAS-II as an "IQ" test, the creators of the DAS-II disagree. In fact, they specifically note it is not an "IQ" test.

Also of interest is the use of the DAS-II for diagnostic purposes, which I believe is much closer to the author's intent: "... the DAS�II facilitates the assessment of children of very low ability" and "... the DAS�II provides information on cognitive and adaptive functioning, both of which are required for the proper diagnosis of intellectual disability."

I think the best use of the DAS-II is as stated above, to provide information that might contribute to diagnostics.

I've heard and read of so many stories like yours (and mine), in which the scores gleaned from the DAS-II don't square with those of other established tests, particularly in the gifted population. And what was the norming sample? How large? And how many of those were from the established gifted population? How many from the established exceptionally gifted population?

All the scoring gurus might also note the interpretive elements involved. See "Why should a child have different ability scores from two different item sets?" in the FAQ.

And for you, Patricia, be sure to notice the information on administration of the DAS-II to hearing impaired children: "Is the DAS-II appropriate for children who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing?" It seems some subtests are appropriate for hearing impaired, and some are not....

Hope this helps. And no, I don't believe for a minute your DS's IQ has dropped 27 points!!! Good grief. My biggest vent concerning testing is how many folks are supposedly "qualified" to administer tests, but how few are truly qualified to interpret the scores.

Best wishes to you and your son!

Oops. Just re-read my initial post and discovered an error.

WISC IV
Picture Concepts score was 15 (not 1)

Patricia

Thanks for sharing the information and your experience with the DAS II. It's interesting that your son still scored high on the DAS II even if the scores were lower. That doesn't seem to be the case for my son and I guess that's the issue that concerns me. I don't know whether it's because the test administration was less than thorough/appropriate or because he's really having cognitive decline.

Because of all the stuff he's been through in the past 3 years, it's certainly possible that he's had a cognitive decline. He's currently on 2 heavy duty immune suppressing meds (humira and methotrexate). Nobody really knows the long term effects of these meds on children.

He's been hospitalized 7 times, been on tube feeding twice for periods up to 8 weeks and been on several other meds at various times since being diagnosed with Crohn's 3 years ago. Plus countless invasive medical procedures. I've lost track of the number of sigmoidoscopies he's had.

I seem to know more about the statistical validity and reliability of the tests the school psychs are using than they do and if I question their results I'm told I don't know what I'm talking about (and they usually get mad). As for getting them to correct their results! Don't even go there.

For example, why didn't this school psych just do another WISC IV? She comments repeatedly that my son worked slower than expected and then didn't do the DAS II subtests that supposedly measure this!

I saw all those comments at the Pearson website about the DAS II but can't glean enough specific information from them to really apply it to my specific information. I asked the school psych about the DAS II hearing loss and she dismissed my question with a "Oh, his hearing didn't affect his scores." It was clear that she wasn't going to check the manual after our conversation either.

I guess I should just go buy the interpretation books to go with every test my kid has had so I can haul them to IEP meetings and embarrass these people by opening up the book and quoting from it. Somehow I don't think this will get me what I want though

Personally, I'm not that invested in having him score gifted on all these tests. He comes from an extended family where every single person is mod to profoundly gifted. We all recognize his (and his sister's) giftedness despite the fact that he has struggles. I have a trapezoidal peg and he's not going to fit in the round holes of the world.

What I am frustrated about is the school's insistence on using discrepancy analysis between his "average" IQ scores and measures like WJ Ach scores to contend that my son's academic struggles must just be the result of laziness or emotional problems or "problems at home". His public school teachers have consistently said things like "He's so smart, he should try harder. He's lazy." I'm sorry but when you're talking about a 1st grader who adores his teacher, would do anything for her and he comes home and spends an hour trying to do 15 minutes of homework you just don't know what to say in response to this kind of remark. By 5th grade this was true to some extent, but only because he felt defeated and stupid due to years of failing to meet their expectations.

The possibility that this child IS trying his hardest and CAN'T do the work you're asking of him in THE WAY you're demanding of him just doesn't seem to occur to them. And if you can't prove it with discrepancies that fit their idea of a typical SLD - just forget it. He's left to struggle on his own (with what help I can give him)while his teachers make remarks about how he should try harder in front of his classmates and give him F's week after week after week.

Sorry for ranting but I don't really understand why this is so darn hard. I would think any rational adult would look at my son's scores on even the WISC III and go, Huh looks like some processing issues here. 5 scores at 13 or 14, 2 scores at 10 or 11, 4 scores at 5,7 8. But because the low scores are in the low average range, they just shrug their shoulders and walk away. He "should" be able to do the work well enough to "pass" according to them and if he doesn't then it "must" be because he's not trying hard enough. Blame the kid is the name of the game.

Well, down off the soap box. I wish I had the $$ to take him for assessment somewhere like Colorado. But I would still have to get the school to agree with the outside assessment and I have seen them ignore that kind of information in the past when I've gotten things like auditory processing assessments done.

So, I'm back to square one - is there a significant (meaningful) cognitive decline happening (for whatever reason)? Because, if so, I should be in arguing with his pediatrician about getting a neurology referral instead of arguing with special ed over getting him services at school.

Patricia