Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Preschool test results

Of course. But it's something to be aware of, since the incidence of ASD is increasing so rapidly...

Buzz-
High verbal abilities are not an indicator of Aspergers, at least not according to the DSM-IV. It is important to determine if the verbal abilities of a child are causing a social impairment or if the "lack" of verbal abilities of an age-group peer are causing social impairments. For example, my HG+ child would use words like disastrous, catastrophic and horrifying if someone stepped on his sandcastle at 3 years old. The other 3 year old would likely have no clue what my son was talking about. that is not an indication of social impairment on his part.

The way verbal interaction takes place that can be a indicator of Aspergers. Children with Aspergers do not show a delay in language skills or cognitive abilities. But they may use their verbal abilities in ways that are repetitive, not intended for interaction or seems socially misplaced.

If high verbal abilities was a clear association for Aspergers, nearly all of the children here would have been identified.

That reminded me of dd9 who, a few years ago, was tired of hanging out with another child and thought that the best way to "break up" as friends without hurting the other child's feelings was the express that it would be preferable if they were simply acquaintances rather than close friends. The other child's mom called me to say that her kiddo came home in tears about how dd had told her that they were now enemies.

After that interaction, dd actively modified her vocabulary when speaking with other children so as not to appear weird.

OK I stand corrected. I have been influenced by several children I have known who had striking language and math abilities, and were later diagnosed with Aspergers. This association is also "out there" on the web...

Hey Buzz,
You might like the book:
"Misdiagnosis And Dual Diagnoses Of Gifted Children And Adults: Adhd, Bipolar, Ocd, Asperger's, Depression, And Other Disorders"

This book provides a good basis for why - for now- Giftedness needs to exist as a lable.

Smiles,
Grinity

There is no pattern of test scores which is pathognomonic or even remotely so for Asperger's -- it is a tremendously diverse group psychometrically. Even the DSM-IV-TR's division of "autism" vs. "Asperger's" (AS has no clinically significant language impairment) is increasingly not seen as a valid way to distinguish, and the field is moving towards saying that these really are just different flavors of the same underlying thing (and I agree).

FWIW, let me orient the original poster to the tests mentioned:

> Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), nonverbal scale.
K-ABC-II is an IQ test (like the WISC-IV, SB-5, DAS-II, etc). However, there is no full-scale score reported here -- the nonverbal subscale is built from I think five (I could walk in the other room and check if anyone cares deeply) of the subtests that have visual stimuli and mostly nonverbal or low-verbal responses (note that the whole concept of the "nonverbal" test is a lot more complicated than most people think it is).

> Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - III (PPVT-III)
This is *not* an IQ test (per other poster's response). It is a test of receptive vocabulary, which is often highly correlated with overall IQ, particularly in younger kids. Shows pictures, you hear a word and you choose the picture that goes with the word.

> Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL)
> Sentence Completion
> Paragraph Comprehension
> Antonyms
CASL is what you might think it is -- an oral language test battery, of which three subtests were given. Sentence completion -- I read a sentence and you fill in a word at the end, using proper syntax. Paragraph comp -- I read a paragraph and you answer questions about it. Antonyms -- I give you a word and you tell me one that means the opposite.

> Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test - Preschool 2(SPELT-P2)
I'm not familiar with this one, sorry.

>Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT)
I show you pictures and ask you to tell me the words for things. It's seen as a counterpart to the PPVT, which is receptive.

>Bankson-Bernthal Test of Phonology (BBTOP) word inventory
I'm not familiar with this one either, sounds very SLP-ish.

Thanks Aimee for the additional information. After having some additional time to read about some of these tests I pretty much concluded that the overall information provided is not very useful (which also seems to be the general feeling of most of the responses).

I am certain that my son's lowest scoring area on any of the true IQ tests (terminology not to be debated) would be in the nonverbal section. I really think that I have a bunch of *partial* testing in his weakest area. Although, his nonverbal may very well be at about the 124 level.

I am anticipating that his actual IQ will come in between 135 - 140 simply based on milestones and my gut feeling. It will be fun to see when we do have him tested if I am right. The psychologist that specializes in gifted children/gifted research that we meet with earlier this spring was guessing (of course without testing) that his *minimum* was going to be 140, which I was finding a little hard to believe. Out discussions with him were very helpful, even without testing, because it gave me the last piece of confidence I needed to go ahead and skip pre-k and put him into kindergarten at our center. Which I should add is working out very well! Of course I still have the battle of the public school system next year, which is why we are planning to get him tested next spring/summer. I guess this gives you a little background for my curiosity about the results from this testing.

Last question: If his nonverbal is really at 124 is it even possible for the full scale IQ to come in over 140? Hopefully this question makes sense, as I have stated before I am still learning!

Thanks so much Dottie - that was exactly the example I was looking for. It gives me a general feeling of how the scores come together.