Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New here! WPPSI and other assorted q's, sorry long

Hi everyone
I have been lurking for awhile now and have really enjoyed the discussions and have learned so much. I'm finally joining in because I have a bunch of questions I hope you can help with and because I find that I want to chime in and respond to other people's posts - I've been nodding a lot to the computer!

Sorry this will end up being long, not sure there are short stories with our kids! My ds is 4.5 (in 2 weeks) and exceptionally verbal, always has been. He talked early although not super early, but had multiple word sentences really early and it was always grammatically correct, we were always blown away by that. His vocal grew by leaps and bounds. He read sight words at 3, I almost fell over at target, at valentines day, he points up and said ox, mommy, I looked up, we came in under the xo, xo sign for kisses, it was facing the other way for people going out, so coming in it did say ox. Then it was exit signs, we knew he was reading when he knew the restaurants exit signs and the exit signs on the highway were the same words. I read early so we thought it was cool but this last year has blown us away. Before 4 he was doing Clifford sight reading books, then books with more complicated words and then this explosion, I felt a bit of guilty because i didn't notice how desperate he was for information, and now just 8 months after first reading sentences on his own he is reading consistently somewhere between the 3rd and 6th grade level, but often higher than that. So I started obsessively reading hoagies and here, and we live in NYC so thinking about testing so we decided to find out what he was up to, not exactly prepared for the results, but also not sure we understand them.

The report gave him a 149 verbal iq, 127 performance iq, and 138 full scale iq, 150 general language composite

He hit ceilings on 6/10 if I am understanding hoagies right.

Verbal
Info 18
Vocabulary 19
Word reas 17

Performance
Block 14
Matrix 12
Picture 17

Processing (speed quotient 110)
Coding 11
Symbol search 13

Gen language
Recep voc 18
Picture naming 19
The tester talked to us after and said we need him get him OT because of the differential between his physical abilities and the rest, basically he was a snail and can't hold a pencil well enough to really do as well as she thought he could. We knew he was having trouble and attributed it to his perfectionist stuff - he can't make it look like the way he knows it should. So we have an appt with our pediatrician and are investigating OT, the thing that really sunk in is when she said he was just going to get more frustrated not only seeing other kids do it easily but also in terms of what he wants to do, like write down all the fabulous stories he tells.

She seemed to be suggesting that his scores would be much higher if he could hold the darn pencil - she really got him - said he started staring off into so space and wouldn't focus like he would on the verbal tests. Don't think it's visual though he seems to have great vision, can see in the dark! But really weak hand strength.

We knew he was bright, and as he sucked down more and more books and as I got into the ill program at the library just to find more and more space books, but this report threw us. And what is that 150, is that YS qualifying 150, or something else? Should we get him an achievement test when he is able or wait and see about the writing. And now we are all worried about where he will go to kindergarten and whether he will be super bored in his pre-k.

Sorry so long! Thanks for any help!

PS Also on the board, next to the my stuff column , there is a flashing letter, what does that mean!!!!

we are having a similar problem when we think of k placement for ds. he is also 4.5...and way too smart to wait another year to go to k to learn his alphabet. lol. we are working with our school district in an attempt to get him an IEP that would service his gifted abilities. if it doesn't work...our only choice will be homeschooling him as i believe he will be so bored in a year when he will be old enough to start k that i think i would be doing him a disservice to send him at that point. the principal of his school wants to see him start now, with support for his most advanced areas.

i often joke that if i sent him in a year with no support the teacher would say, "eli, what are you doing? come to the floor and learn the letter q with the rest of the class." and eli would say, "i was just reading your teacher plan book. i noticed that at 11:30 language arts is over and we were supposed to switch to math to learn to identify the number 4, and it is now 11:45. you are off schedule."

Hi, DeHe, and welcome! I am no testing expert at all (there are several very knowledgeable people here, though), so this is more a welcome and good wishes message than anything else! It sounds like you have a terrific little guy there, and that you have lots of exciting adventures ahead of you.

The flashing envelope means you have a private message; click on "my stuff," then click on messages.

Hope some of the testing gurus will be along soon!

peace
minnie

Hi Dottie�
Thanks so much for the response, we actually have an an appt with our pedi tomorrow for her assessment of fine motor and where we go from there. I don't think we will do an achievement at least until he is old enough and has his writing together enough to do it. I have to admit after his scores I am now wondering about it and I keep chewing over this idea that he would have shown more without the writing issues, because then I think wow, more!!?? And thanks for explaining about the optional section, I didn't understand why it didn't seem to factor in to the overall.�

Hi momma2many
LOL completely! I don't know if my ds would comment on being behind schedule but would absolutely go for her books and might even suggest moving on to more interesting topics! You are lucky to have IEPs, I hope it does work out. I used to shudder at the thought of homeschooling not understanding how people did it, now I get it and I realize I am already doing it between brainpop and all the science books!

Hi Minnie
Thanks for the welcome! I thought it meant a PM too but I don't seem to see one, I am not usually this dorky with this stuff!! �

Have you tried 'handwritting without tears?' I really like their materials on printing. I particularly like their 'The Print Tool.' I just used it with an 18 year old 2E friend of the family, as part of his 'get ready for College' makover. To me, it really helps one focus on the individual parts of the very complex activity of printing.

Hi DeHe

I think I have a carbon copy of your DS living at my house. My DS 4 was tested a couple of months back on the WPPSI at almost 4.5 becasue we were having some behavioural issues and wanted to pinpoint if his smarts were causing the problems. His scores were very similar to your DS - super high on verbal and performance and resoundingly average on processing speed mainly due to fine motor. We were blown away by his scores but in hindsight it made so much sense of the 4 years of exhaustion we had trying to keep up with him.

The psych commented that the gap is probably causing him a lot of frustration - we had the exact same comment on writing his amazing stories down. She didn't recommend OT yet because as Dottie says pencil issues are very typical for 4 year old boys. I've also read that something like 70% of highly gifted kids test as average in processing speed - there's a lot of debate about whether it is a true measure of giftedness.

The psych did give us some suggestions (and there are lots of excellent ones on this board) such as getting him to type up his stories on the computer, spending 10 minutes a day doing pencil practice (he holds the pencil in a peculiar way and is so stubborn about changing it). Not necessarily practising letters if he doesn't want to - drawing maps is a favourite. I think it still comes down a bit to his perfectionism - he can put together lego kits designed for 10 year olds without a problem and that requires pretty good fine motor skills. So we've also been taking him to the art gallery and talking about how not everything is perfect, how people represent things differently and he's certainly far more comfortable with how he draws now. It has also fed into that thirst for knowledge - he's becoming quite the expert on art genres.

On pre-K we had similar worries so we shared his testing with his teacher. We agreed that school would focus on his fine motor skills and some social skills - he was struggling with other kids 'ruining' his creations. He's really loved it but it's only 2 days a week and play based learning. I'm really worried about K though.

I have a detailed description of one way to get a correct pencil grip, and a pretty far out experiment for teaching it here:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....er_training_for_pencil_gr.html#Post80665

let me know if it works for anyone, ok?

Grinity

Hi Grinity
I hadn't��heard of it until I saw it on the website of the OT place my friend recommended. We were aware of his issues and his frustration so got legos which he likes but has such difficulty pressing the pieces together that he doesn't last long, but he seemed to be get better at it. We also got stencils figuring that if he could make the letters look right he would feel better�about doing it, and that gets him doing it and he likes the result, did a nice b-day card for my mom. But it's not improving his grip, I can't even seem to position his hand correctly. All the things that would help he rarely does, doesn't paint, or playdoh much. I did read a bunch on the hwt website about strengthening like squeezing a water bottle. And a bunch of people recommended the pencil grip holders, which now I feel hugely guilty for not getting! It's amazing what you can feel guilty for!�

I just saw your post on grip while writing this so will check it out - thanks!!!!

Hi Freya
Maps - ds loves maps - but my verbal guy always has an answer - you do it, you do it better. Love the idea of art and showing different perspectives. Have tried, I'll do this but you do that. Prior to the test I think we weren't as aware as we are now how much we feed what he is good at and let him brush us off of what he isn't as good at. I saw what you were talking about with the debate about processing speed, and I agree, although I feel we need more info, which is why in think we will at the very least do the OT eval.�

We feel a bit like we have to move on this because of K. We have citywide gifted and local gifted programs and the difference between them is tremendous. I worry greatly about him not being in a class of his peers. I see what its like now. �And now I am wondering about how far he could potentially be ahead by next year in terms of reading and science. His 138 FSIQ I believe meets the 99% criteria, rumor has it at 130, but it's - combo test, OLSAT and the Bracken school readiness (I am starting to hate that term), I don't want him to miss out on what he needs because of fine motor, but then I don't want to subject him to undue pressure - you have 6 months kid to get it together! �

Those are great scores unfortunately like Dottie said they are just short of DYS requirements.

Both of my children didn't do that well on WPPSI coding. I believe they both scored 13.

I am not sure about our older son but the psychologist pointed out that our younger one could have done better. His pencil grip wasn't correct but like she said it would have been an issue for an 8 year old, but it was age appropriate for almost 5 year old boy. It just made it hard for him to work fast.

Our older one has a beautiful handwriting and DS6 can write pretty well when he wants to. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to want to too often

The bottom line is that it's most likely nothing to worry about.