Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Big Discrepancy in Siblings' IQ Scores

Hi! I'm kinda new here with a question.

I have three kids. My middle DD8 has tested HG+ and my youngest DS5.5 has tested MG. I know that I am MG and my husband, though never officially identified as such, certainly is. Also, virtually everyone in our families has been identified at some level of giftedness. That is, except for my DS11.

When DS11 was a toddler, he was advanced. He walked at 7.5 months, knew basic shapes and colors at 12 months, was good at concepts, etc. He didn't actually speak much (although he was not a late talker, and used 2-3 word "sentences" at 12 months) until he was almost three, and thus was evaluated by a speech pathologist. (Also, chronic ear infections treated with antibiotics and not tubes.) His receptive language was years above his actual age so that they stopped testing when he was three years above actual age and so that his receptive language offset his expressive delays.

Anyway, come time for school, DS11 had trouble learning the letters and their sounds and rhyming didn't come naturally. He did read, on time and at grade level, but only with considerable effort and practice. By 2nd grade we knew he was having to work too hard for what we were expecting given his early development. We thought for sure he had dyslexia. The school, at our request, gave him the WISC and scored just 106. We were floored. They just said he was normal, and we felt stupid.

Now, DS11 is in 6th grade and does okay in school, but it is a ton of work for him. He reads and comprehends at an 8th grade level, but I no longer have him read outloud because it is just too painful. He misses a ton of words when he reads aloud, mostly little words like "the," "and," "then," "when," etc. He was diagnosed in 3rd grade with eye tracking problems, but after a year of vision therapy, and what they called huge improvements, he's still having issues.

Finally, to my question. I have read that if any two siblings' IQ scores are more than a standard deviation different (i.e., 15-16 points) that you should have your child further evaluated. My oldest and middle kids are more like 3 standard deviations different, and my oldest and youngest are almost two sd different. Is my DS11 just not gifted and I should accept that, or is a full workup warranted?

What tests should we consider if any?

Thanks for reading my LONG message and thanks for any help or input!

Do you still think he is gifted? Yes, he has difficulty with reading and such, but how do you feel he does in general? Does he understand complex concepts when explained to him aloud or seen through TV, for example? How is his expressive vocabulary? Do you see a big difference in what he can show he knows orallly about a certain topic versus in writing?

There are a couple of things. IQ tests can be wrong. We had DD tested at 4.10, and she came out in the gifted range. However, we felt it was not really a good depiction of her true abilities (while nothing went horribly wrong the test day, it was far from ideal). We just had her retested (6.7) and are awaiting the full results; but I was able to get a peek, and she tested MUCH higher than before.

Now, he could very well be "just" bright. My 2 brothers and I are gifted, probably MG, maybe HG. Our youngest sister, I am pretty sure is not. She does have dyslexia and maybe other undiagnosed LD. However, I don't think that she is 2E (gifted with a LD). My dad, for example, also probably has dyslexia/dysgraphia; however, he is clearly gifted.

ALL of what you describe sounds strongly like dyslexia to me. Given that he is bright enough (and possibly gifted), he has been able to keep up/be slightly ahead. However, as you mention, he was to work for it. I suggest you take a look at the "Mislabeled Child" book by the Eide's. Also, take a look at their description of Stealth Dyslexia (how dyslexia combined with giftedness can look like).

http://mislabeledchild.com/html/Library/DyslexiaReading/Stealth_dyslexia.htm

Thank you so much for the link. The article in many ways describes my son.

You asked if I still thought he was gifted. That's actually hard to answer. I know this will sound terrible given the relative merits of IQ tests, but hearing that he had an IQ of 106 and having lived with so much academic difficulty for the last 7 years really colors our perceptions. Especially when compared (although we try very hard not to compare) to the experiences of all the other people in the family. Still, he absolutely understands advanced concepts of history and science(his favorite subjects) and social studies, and, like I said, he's reading and comprehending a few years above grade level. If I read to him, by the way, he has an excellent memory for details that even I don't remember and he always seems to know what's going on around him even when it seems like he isn't paying any attention.

His handwriting is not great, but certainly improves when he writes in cursive because joining the letters in a word together means that he automatically leaves spaces between words. In print, spaces and capitalization are inconsistent at best. He can study a spelling list for a week and get 100% correct, but otherwise his spelling is atrocious, even the basic words. He doesn't like to write at all and when he does write he tries to say it in a way that uses as few words as possible. He tends to speak this way, too, and seems to often have great difficulty pulling the words he wants out of his head. However, when I ask him questions, and I'm patient and ocasionally prompt him with words, he can answer them with complex thoughts that show definite understanding. Also, by the way, he has always had an advanced vocabulary. He seems to be able to learn by listening quite well (when he is not distracted, see below) and watching a video is like speaking directly to his brain.

Another trait of his is that he is very easily distracted. He is definitely not hyperactive, though. Very tactile (can't keep his hands off things), yes. Can't sit still, no. I always thought of it as him having all his feelers out and that he was very observant of everything around him. My nephew says he has a party in his brain, which is so true. But, when it comes to working quickly and efficiently, it is a problem. It usually takes him 1.5-2 hours to do his math homework -- not because he doesn't understand the problems, but because he keeps getting distracted. His work on even the simplest problems is often peppered with careless mistakes. Math word problems, on the other hand, are usually pretty difficult for him, which makes sense given their short written format.

Anyway, his whole educational experience has been quite disheartening and I have shed many tears. I just want to figure out if there is a way to help him so things at school aren't so hard for him. Everyone has always told me that when he gets older and school is more about thinking and theory that he will thrive, but he still needs to be able to show his knowledge.

Thanks, again, for listening and for any other thoughts anyone else might have.

Should school be that hard for a child of average intelligence? I would think not. He clearly has some LD, and from my non-expert perspective, it sounds very much like dyslexia. For a kid with (not mild) dyslexia, to be able to keep up with age peers would be really difficult with no accommodations. Thus, and from what you describe, I do think he could be gifted. My guess is that at least he is very bright. The 106 doesn't seem like a good depiction; but it might be.

I would look for extensive testing (IQ, achievement, and batteries to test for dyslexia and other LDs).

Have you read The Out-of-Sync child? If he is very tactile and easily distracted then he may have some hidden sensory problems. Given how he was as a baby it's pretty surprising that he has problems now. I would definitely look into the possibility of him being 2e.

Good luck

Have you looked at dyslexia? The bad writing, bad spelling, difficulty reading could be a ld, not a reflection of his IQ.

Dottie,

I do have his WISC-4 breakdown.

Verbal Comprehension: 79th %ile
Perceptual Reasoning: 61th %ile
Working Memory: 47th %ile
Processing Speed: 42nd %ile
FSIQ: 66th %ile

The Discussion of the results says this: "[DS] was very cooperative during the testing situation. He put forth reasonable effort and appeared interested in the tasks presented. At times, he was somewhat fidgety in his chair, but was easily brought back to task with verbal prompts. It is felt that a valid estimate of intellectual functioning was obtained."

He was also given the WJ-III with these scores:
Broad Reading: 71st %ile
Broad Math: 77th %ile
Basic Reading: 80th %ile
Reading Comprehension: 69th %ile (10 %iles different from WISC)
Math Calculation: 67th %ile
Math Reasoning: 71st %ile
Written Expression: 57th %ile.

They also did a communication fluency test that showed 64% to 78% speach fluency. In the Fine Motor evaluation it was said that "He was interested in all the different things in the room. During [the evaluation] he ould jump into topics of conversation that were not relevant to what we were talking about. He seemed to need encouragement to contiue on when he became tired after about 25 minutes. I could say to him look at all of the possibilities when I felt he was just always choosing the same answer time after time."

Other possibly interesting results:
Visual Motor Integration Test: 70th %ile
Visual Perception Test: 90th %ile
Motor Coordination Test: 68th %ile
Visual Discrimination: 99.9%
Visual Memory: 84%
Visual-Spatial Relationships: 91%
Visual Form Constancy: 91%
Visual Sequential Memory: 95%
Visual Figure-Ground: 25%
Visual Closure: 98%
Overall Visual: 98th %ile

Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

One other thought:

Those visual scores stike me as interesting, although I never noticed it before. He's generally scoring in the 90th percentiles and above (even at 99.9% for visual discrimination). Does this suggest that he's a visual learner rather than a sequential one and that he might be having all the educational problems that can come with that in a standard school setting? Also, would his much lower visual figure ground score indicate something? I'm thinking maybe along the lines of this might be why he immediately decides he can't do something when given an information-cluttered test or homework assignment or why when he's reading chapter books outloud that it stresses him out and he makes so many mistakes.

Visual discrimination is described as a child's ability to match or determine exact characteristics of two forms when one of the forms is among similar forms.

Visual Figure-Ground is described as a child's ability to perceive a form visually, and to find this form hidden in a conglomerated ground of matter.

Googling on "figure-ground, reading problem", I found this page, and some info on that sort of ability -

Visual Figure Ground--the ability to perceive and locate a form or object within a busy field without getting confused by the background or surrounding images. This skill keeps children from getting lost in details. Children with poor figure-ground become easily confused with too much print on the page, affecting their concentration and attention. They may also have difficulty scanning text to locate specific information.

http://www.childrensvision.com/reading.htm

I think Mam's comment, 'Should school be that hard for a child of average intelligence?' is on the mark. Something seems off, all the circumstantial information about the ear infections, the serious effort needed to read. I would have him checked out more thoroughly - even if he does have average iq, he is still struggling, right?

Chatting with a couple clinical neuropsychologists to see what tests they would suggest could be a place to start.

I do wish you and your ds the best of luck!!