Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional gifted scores and severe processing speed issues

Have you ever taken your DS to a Neurobehavioral Optometrist? www.covd.org Visual perceptual issues make writing and visual memory difficult. Just a thought.

We should start a "code 5 club" for all of us with DSs with a 5 in coding and really high GAIs since there seems to be a bunch of us

Maybe this guy can cure the dysgraphia. My DS's fine motor skills, while not great, seem to be within the normal range at this point, yet he still refuses to write or draw.

Does anyone know if convergence insufficiency suppresses any subtests outside of processing speed? 15 points on the FSIQ seems like a lot to promise, but who knows.

We have managed to get OT and part of a recent psycho-edu assessment covered by our insurance. I will have to start negotiating the vision therapy next. Apparently my insurance is unwilling to pay for that, but according to the doctor's office, some of their clients are getting some coverage.

It is unfair. Unfair that we can't get testing and therapy. Unfair that our kids can't get appropriate educational accommodations.

I thought negotiating for my HG DD was difficult, but at least with her, everyone agreed that she was gifted. Her FSIQ reflected, at least somewhat, her true abilities. With DS, I am having trouble getting him accepted into the good gifted program his sis attends because of the affect the low processing speed has on his FSIQ. But this kid has more of the typical gifted social and emotional needs than his older sib and could benefit hugely from the environment there. Sigh.

So we homeschool, which is unfair to me too, because I don't actually want to homeschool. Oh well, at least we are financially able to swing it and have found a wonderful community of homeschoolers to hang out with, and for that I am grateful.

hi, i am the one who started the thread. The responses are complex and interesting. I am trying to find some common denominators.

but one thing is bothering me. I thought i was onto something when i saw the silverman "upside down brilliance" theory of the visual/spatial learner. These kids can't do math facts. And prefer the big picture. Sounds like my son. However i can't find anything to suggest that CODING in particular would be a weak subtest for them. Also it says spelling should be difficult, but he is a pretty good speller (but not great).

So then there is the visual convergence theory that seems to come with poor visual memory. "Master of None" mentioned that her son's Visual Memory tasks were poor but non-visual were ok. Does anyone know what subtests test the non-visual memory? i always thought of my son as being weak with audio processing but strong with visual perception (he got a 19 on picture concepts). Would this rule out the convergence/visual memory theory or support it somehow?

Do any of the moms with kids with low coding scores see their children as visual/spatial learners as well? Visual/Spatials seem to have the following two things in common with our "code 5 club" kids:
a) bad handwriting and writing skills
b) poor memorization of math facts

so just trying to tie some things together. the experience with this board has far surpassed my expectations. thanks

irene

my son is also a very very good reader, both comprehension, word recognition, and speed. So sounds very much like your DS, master of none. I also am not totally sold on the VSL for my DS. Fits most but not all. Actually it fits him more and more every year if i look backwards upon his development. He was diagnosed "on the spectrum" very young. Development very uneven at first, then a huge surge from age 4 to 6. One of the characteristic that silverman lists for the gifted VSL is "late bloomer" so that fits. But i think he hasn't quite "bloomed" at 7 into the full profile that fits a gifted VSL..including his block design score was not particularly high (12).. or alternatively he has some type group of LDs involving convergence, dysgraphia (his handerwriting was very slow to get started but is not that bad now), etc as described by a few of you on the board. His social skills are remarkably typical. He has always had social interest but lacked social skills. but once learned they stick. his eye contact is slow to get going and then fine or even very intense because he is so interested in "everything". Does anyone out there have a good article with a checklist of characteristic to help differentiate highly gifted from Aspergers/Autism? I would like to show it to his teacher.

irene

Verbal memory is working memory as well as sequencing. My son did well on that subtest, in the superior range.

My son definitely has convergence insufficiency, but he hit the ceiling on matrix reasoning subtest and came close on block design. His picture concepts is not as high, but still really good. I think convergence insufficiency affects how the eye team together when they are moving, i.e. reading or marking boxes on a coding test. It is probably less of a problem when they only have to look at a single picture at a time. Also, DS scored in the 80th percentile on the reading achievement test, and this is a kid whose eyes actually cross when he attempts to read long lines of type, so don't discount how well they can compensate for their deficits. They can look like they are doing "great" in a certain area compared to their age peers and still have serious issues. That is what I have found to be so tricky about this 2e thing.

I see my son as a visual-spatial and kinesthetic learner, but I have always thought there was something beyond learning style going on there. In addition to the convergence problem, he stutters and has issues with verbal fluency. His attention is not great, even outside of tasks involving visual-motor integration. So DS has issues beyond the convergence problem.

A poster on another board I read puts it this way, Learning style is a preference. You prefer to learn in a certain way, but can adapt to other styles when necessary. LD is when you can't learn in other styles. And a code 5 indicates something more serious than learning style issues to me.

On edit: I am going to put posters in this thread on my buddy list so I can check your posts and progress in the future, see if they are applicable to my DS

My son fits the VSL to a T. He has poor reading in a sequence, especially the little words that have no pictures (a, the, and, etc) He "sees" the words without all the letters (cuddle would be cddl) He says the vowels don't have any meaning, he can still read the word without them so why are they even there. His letters are incorrect more often than right "b" and "d" especially so he capitalizes them to make sure people understand. He pictures all his math in his head. He does not memorize anything. His teachers, almost of them, said he "thinks outside the box". His handwriting is fine when copying and getting better otherwise. He does have visual tracking problems which could account for all of the above.

master of none- i think you got everything on your list of qualities for these guys. The dysgraphia might be partially a fit for my DS but we've worked a lot on handwriting and its about average at this point for a boy his age. His picture drawing is very good and he does it often. He does not seem to struggle enough with pencil tasks for it to fit, but it might be part of the puzzle. Ditto on the convergence. He should not be a great reader if he has it, so i'm doubting that.

NCMom2- thank you for tracking us wiht your buddy list.

What i did find, and i've struggled whether to post this.. I googled "low coding wechsler diagnosis" and came up with an article on Scitzophrenia (sp??). Seems low coding scores is correlated (weakly but significantly) with this disorder. I'm not great with statistics so if anyone out there who has the background and is interested, pls let us know how strong the correlation is- i did not understand all the notation...While after reading and reading and reading other studies, staying up late into the night, worrying myself sick, and about the disorder in general, my fears are assuaged a bit. Since my son possibly fit the PDD spectrum early in life, i feel that is where the connection lies, as some elements of autism mimic pieces of schitzophrenia (like self-talk, which he used to do) and it does not at all mean he will get anything else later on. I also found the high IQ is rare with Schitzophrenics so that would be a good sign for our group of smarties..Also they tend to decline cognitively, especially from age 4 to 7 , which does not seem to fit our kids at all...mine had a huge IQ gain during that time.and there is a huge environmental influence/impact of negative family situations that i dont' think fits us at all either.

But why I do post this is that these articles contain a lot of really good information on what the coding subtest is measuring. I can't exactly surmise, but its not a simple skill, and Patricia's explanation of the role of "executive function" seems to be right on.

But again, if anyone knows about this connection, and can shed some light on any of this , pls help.

irene

thank you dottie, i am going to continue to look for some links. I'd heard that too (about ADHD) but could not find any studies, not that they're not out there.

Master of none, my tester said, if I understood correctly, that ADHD would probably clip IQ scores across the board. She said my DS did very well on subtests that interested him, but things he didn't like he resisted mightily. I chose a tester familiar with 2e, and she recognized what he was doing and pressed him as hard as the test would allow, but still, a number of the subtests are probably an underestimate of his true abilities, according to her. How far under, she can't tell.

My DS also got 120ish on working memory. However, he does have symptoms of ADHD. I think we need to get his visual processing issues cleared up before we can make a final decision on that. DS is inattentive a lot of the time, but maybe within normal boundaries for a high-spirited, gifted boy. His oppositional behavior and inattentiveness are only off the chart when he deals with written work. I suspect the vision training will help with that.

Renie, my DS also talks himself through tasks. During the most recent testing, the psych particularly noted this. She thought it was interesting that he talked himself through even the most complex non-verbal tasks.