Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Huh...

Well, had suspicions about DD and possible LD including Apd so school did testing. Scoring on WISC is showing absolutely average...101 FSIQ. Low score on WMI (80) and high on processing speed (128). Did they miss somthing or am I expecting something different from her in comparison to her brother. I did not think she would score as high as DS but certaintly closer to him and to me frankly. OTOH it eases a lot of anxiety about fighting for an appropriate education for another child. Third tester/therapist to recommend ADHD dx however so we are off to the pediatricians next week.

We had something similar happen with our DS11. We suspected APD or dyslexia or ADD, but were expecting much higher results on the WISC when he took it, given not only his history (before he started school, primarily, but also in flashes that we see now) and the fact that I am gifted, DH is gifted, and DD8 and DS6 are highly gifted. DS11 tested more than three standard deviations lower than DD. The psych thought the results *may* be the long-term results of undiagnosed ADD (inattentive) so we've been trying Adderall and it seems to be helping a little. We still partly think dyslexia, and he does have a long history of ear infections. The WISC result, to be honest, really threw me for a loop, but at this point (6 months later) I'm feeling a bit more zen about it. I'm not sure that the tests show who he really is and he is doing well in school (all A's in the academic subjects) even though he has to work hard. I still wonder, though, about the huge discrepancy between his previously shown behaviors and how hard he is having to work and between his tested IQ and that of all the rest of us.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone.

Thanks mnmom,

I am not upset by the result but puzzled. I guess I am still not sure if the WISC score is accurate or a result of ADHD. I did watch her take the WJIII and she refused to do things she knew and gave up the second it required more than a moments thought. The tester thought she got a reliable scoring but she does not really know my DD or our family. If the test is accurate that is okay as well since it means there is no LD or APD to address and I can concentrate on the ADHD so she does not eventually fall behind.
Thanks for your note though mnmom. It IS always nice to know we are not alone.

Dottie - I still highly suspect APD and I will continue to try and figure this out. :-)

Gosh. Can I add our names to the list of puzzleds as well. DS7 had a GAI of 160 on the WISC IV last year (FSIQ was 151). In conjunction with a battery of tests for attention this year, his Kaufman Brief Intelligence index was ... 79! Some of the tests for various types of attention couldn't even be scored up because he just plum didn't reply. Increasingly though, I'm less inclined to believe he has ADHD, however mild. He told me that during that period, he believed that if he kept saying "dunno", he'd still do well no matter what. Since I've never said anything to him about his tests and they had "no relevance" to him, he might as well not bother.

Breakaway4, perhaps you can check with your daughter about her attitude and general thinking during the test? it makes a HUGE difference!

Breakaway, I was wondering about your daughter's personality and whether that might have affected her answers. You said she refused to do things she knew and gave up the second it required more than a moments thought. I was thinking that my son, who is extremely shy, usually tries to answer with as short a response as possible (even though he could give a really complete, thorough, thoughtful answer if you ask him for more). Of course, if three different psychologists have suggested an eval for ADHD, that really could explain a lot. Our psych did say that in the past he has tested a child with ADHD when he was unmedicated and then again later when he was medicated and the results were much different. Which is not to say that she has ADHD or that meds are the right answer for everyone . . . .

Well I do think that something is going on...ADHD or anxiety or a combo. Also although she is not the least bit shy she is also not the least bit interested in anything academic or "test-like". I think some of this is personality and some of it is an extreme reluctance to put herself in any situation in which she may be compared to her big brother.

Blob - her attitude was pretty negative. The first day of testing we went home because she flat out refused to even participate. The next day when she managed to take the test she was reluctantly cooperating to make up for her behavior the day before. How unsettling it is to think of the impact so many things can have on the results of tests that are then ultimately used to determine so much. Can't believe what a huge discrepancy your son's results were because of attitude!

On a side note re: ADHD - Has anyone tried or have information about the effectiveness of neurofeedback on ADHD? Perhaps it is another post?

Thanks!
Breakaway

A former colleague of mine left academia to set up a practice doing neurofeedback (as she called this kind of thing where they are detecting some kind of brainwave pattern from the scalp, as opposed to the kind where they are using heartrate etc. - it may be that neurofeedback is the thing to google.) She was pretty open about it being something that's not terribly well supported by research at this point, but she was optimistic that it has real potential beyond placebo: I'm not in a position to judge. In her practice it sounded as though there was software that would translate different patterns into different behaviour of something on a screen. E.g., if you wanted to encourage some particular pattern of brainwaves, then when that pattern was detected an icon on the screen would move; when it wasn't, the icon would stay still. Thus what you try to do is move the icon, and in the process of learning to do this you learn to alter the brainwaves to the desired pattern. It's apparently clear, and unsurprising, that people can learn to do this with practice. The $64K question is whether that learning actually helps with ADHD or whatever. It seems biologically plausible that it conceivably could, but if I were planning to use it, I'd certainly be looking into the research and interviewing the practitioner carefully.

We have used neurofeedback (*not* biofeedback) VERY successfully for my bipolar, PG dd19. In fact, she is going to return for additional sessions this summer once her college ends for the year, along with EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) given that she has had some traumatic events since she had neurofeedback (including the death of her father, so we're talking major trauma). We've read very positive results for this with ADHD, more so than with bipolar even. And, my little scientist (dd19 is entering her senior year of college as a bio major with a special interest in genetic research) is pretty critical of these things. It's actually weird that she is the patient, but also loves to research these things (she was just talking to me today about the GABA connection between her bipolar and her deceased father's epilepsy :))...
Anyway, I am very surprised by the poster who said her friend going into neurofeedback couldn't find a lot of data to support its success, because we found quite a bit before we did it. Anyway, I'm sure everyone's experience is different and I'm not a researcher and can't turn a critical eye to these things, but I definitely think it's worth a try!
Theresa