Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Testing question re: DAS-II

My daughter, 4y2m, was just recenlty tested for issues not related to being possibly gifted. I do not have the full report yet but the psych gave us her scores:
Verbal: 143/145 (99.9%tile)
Nonverbal: 94/145 (25-50%tile)
Spatial: 109/145 (just under 75%tile)

She used the word gifted to to the verbal and said an overall score is ineffective in this case.
My questions:
Is this just an average child with a really great verbal skill?
Is this a gifted child with problem? Dyslexia runs in the family and she was being evaluated for autism and SPD. She has the SPD. I suspect she has visual issues, strong ones but they are not yet identified. She cannot copy shapes without great difficulty and they often go wild before she completes them.
Will these scores even out with age?
TIA!

Welcome AtSouthD!

I think it's going to take a while and plenty of observation to sort out these excellent questions. Just the fact that you are asking them will be very helpful.

Was Autism ruled out, or are further tests planned?

My son in particular was found to have visual problems from a Developmental Optomitrist, but not by his Opthamologist, that did go away with time and experience, but no treatement. Over the years the eye development - for my son - seemed to catch up. DS says he went on a 'wall ball' kick during 4th grade and that taught him depth perception. I watched the testing and it was a remarkable difference over a few years.

Some OTs who treat SPD will test the visual system.

I'm not very familiar with this particular test, but any score of 99.9 percentile is quite unusual, so she's probably verbally gifted 'for sure' and maybe 'quite unusually verbally gifted.'

I'd be interested in the Nonverbal Scale when the full report comes. Is it 'rather average across the board' or is it a combination of spiky highs and lows?

Meanwhile, a good book on giftedness to get some idea of 'what gifted kids can be like' at various ages, is Deb Ruf's '5 Levels of Giftedness.'

Do you have personal or family experience with giftedness? Does your DD have anything going on in her daily life that suggests giftedness?

Some gifted kids who are at 99.9 verbal have an expecially difficult time in preschool or day care with kids who can't talk. This leads sometimes to behaviors that look odd or immature - clinging to the adults (who can talk!) or acting out.

Love and More Love,
grinity

Thank you.

Autism was ruled out. The psychologist does think that verbal score is a huge contributing factor to her antisocial behavior, she just doesn't "get" other 4 yo. She is starting Speech Therapy as well as she is only 75% intelligible, which the psych thinks is also a large part of the problem, she likely knows she isn't speaking correctly and gets frustrated when people can't understand her.

Personal giftedness... Only one member of my family was ever tested, my brother, and he was high enough on the charts that they said the numbers were unreliable, 160-170's. Every child on my side of the family has been in a gifted and talented program, though.

DH's side is definitely smart but are coping with a slew of issues. Dyslexia, ADHD, bi-polar just to name a few. None of them have been tested. MIL said many of her test scores looked much like my daughter's. MIL is severely dyslexic, hence my concern.

As far of signs of gifted in her; let's say the results came as a complete shock. She can't write her name, does not know any letters other than the one starting her name, didn't potty train until 4. I was the mom at the playgroup looking a bit sad as all the mom's talked about the great things their kids did. Occasionally she would surprise me; "how may fish are on this diaper?" "Three, a whale is not a fish." at three years or singing a song she altered appropriately "I can ride my bike with one handle bar..." but for the most part I could tell she was struggling with a lot stuff, like dressing, drawing, memorization, etc.

They didn't figure out the eye contact thing though. She can't talk or listen to complex sentences and look you at the same time. Simple directions she looks away while you talk then stares briefly at you then does it. She is very quiet.

Wow, that is quite a bit!
Thanks for helping me with my questions. I am waiting impatiently for the full report and reading whatever I can before I bombard the psychologist with more questions. I want to be sure the questions I ask get the right answers

My son got complaints in 2nd grade that the teacher didn't see his eyes while she was talking to him, and she percieved it as disrespectful. I just taught him to make fake it, and practiced that a few times, and then he was able to. I think that for a child who is really taking in a lot of the world every second, it can be distracting to look at faces while concentrating on a complex task of any kind.

When she is a bit older you can teach her to fake 'eye contact' by looking at the corner of a person's eyebrow while they talk.

I think she's too young to introduce the concept now, perhaps only to start teaching her to 'spot' like a ballarena while doing things that are really 2nd nature to her. When I learned to spin around in Ballet class I was taught to pick a spot on the wall to focus on while I turned so I didn't get dizzy.

Example: 'Lets sing Happy Birthday song, can you do it while holding your eyes on that kitchen chair?' Not on people or anything scary or moving.

It sounds to me like she is trying very hard to comply with what you ask of her, and is doing what she needs to do to give her full attention. Cool that she figured out how to limit the distractions. Is it a bad sign that she needs to do that? Maybe and Maybe not - it's really hard to know at this stage.

As for the antisocial behavior, how many hours a day is she expected to be with other 4 year olds? How does she do with 5 and 6 year olds? Must be very tough with the expression difficulties. Two things that are often tested as part of IQ are 'Working Memory' and 'Processing Speed.' You DD is almost certainly showing you bottlenecks in either or both of those qualities.

Processing Speed is how rapidly her brain puts the pieces of a mental puzzle together. One steriotype of gifted people is that they are the first one to put up their hand and blurt out the answer - and some gifted people are like that(like me) - but by no means all (like my DS and DH)and it's wrong but common to mistake speed for intelligence.

Working Memory is how many pieces of a mental puzzle can be 'kept in mind' while problem solving. This one is a bottleneck for me and I have to write everything down or -whosh - I get to watch it fly off the mental worktable and have the nagging feeling that I was supposed to be thinking about something. My DS's WM is strong, and he can visualize glucose molecules being metabolized as if he was reading the reactions off a blackboard. I'm so jealous!

This will at least give you something to think about while you are waiting for your DD to swivel her eyes back to you and do what you've asked.

I'm wondering how your brother and sibs and MIL and DH's rest of the family 'turned out,' although it may be too personal to post - be sure to at least journal about your self assessment and judgements about the folks on both sides of the family. We Gifties are great at being picky,(perfectionism can be directed outward as well as inward) and worrying. Often we have excellent reason to worry as well. It's a funny mix. And we almost never get a chance to talk about it with anyone who 'gets' where we are coming from. So try to get some venting done here or somewhere.

Hugs,
Grinity

When you say, "autism was ruled out," do you mean that the evaluator said, "This kid definitely does not appear to be on the autism spectrum at all?" or that autism / Asperger's / PDD-NOS was listed as a rule-out diagnosis (often written "R/O"). That second meaning is actually the *opposite* of the first -- "I think this child may very well be on the spectrum but it's really hard to tell right now." From a developmental-milestones and social-interaction perspective, you're describing a kid where a lot of folks would be likely to use "rule out PDD" in the sense of, "I think there's a problem here but I'm not quite ready to make the diagnosis yet."

It's really quite difficult to be certain of a PDD diagnosis in a GT 4yo, either to say for sure, "Yes, this kid is definitely on the spectrum," or "No, this kid is quirky but is definitely not on the spectrum." Hence the use of a rule-out -- it's a way to tell another professional down the line that this professional was concerned about this possibility.

"I don't think she is autistic. She has looked at me and given honest smiles." Well, yeah, you were helping her sort the animals and playing with her. But most of the eye contact you got was after you asked a question. She rarely spoke during the actual testing. She said she saw no problems with my daughter's eye contact, which I don't understand because I saw my child look anywhere but the psych's face when she was talking on and on and on about whatever. So I am curious to how the actual report will have it listed, if at all.

AtSouthDam, "looking and giving honest smiles" does not in the least rule out autism, especially in a bright girl. Girls on the spectrum know they're supposed to make eye contact, and they try, but it often has an odd quality, the timing of their glances is unusual and/or short. The looking away while listening is one strategy some of them use (though that alone is not diagnostic of autism, it's a feature that should be considered).

If it were my child, I'd seek a second opinion with someone who has seen a LOT of girls on the spectrum, and a lot of gifted kids. There are tons of misconceptions about what it means to rule out autism, and the statement about eye contact is a red flag for me if it's the main evidence they used.

Did they give the ADOS or any other autism rating scale?

HTH,
DeeDee

We got to fill out a questionnaire "does you child ever..." type thing but we never saw the results. I think she mostly based it off the fact the she can now play pretend and hold conversations with between the toys. She can do this because she has a very nurturing older sister who spent most of the summer telling her "now say this..." I'm happy. It is better then the animal sounds her play consisted of before.

The did not do the ADOS, from what I read on that test just now. None of it looks familiar. I am surprised now because they told me more than once they were certain they were dealing with an autistic child from the submitted paperwork. I was unsure what test evaluated what.

All I can say for sure is she is a complicated child. I really hate seeing her so frustrated. And I'm tired of being pinched, climbed on and head butted

AtSouthDam, what an awesome sister she is to do the play training for you. It's great that your DD's learning-- those skills are important.

But the ability to learn those skills by rote with lots of practice is not enough to rule out an ASD. I'd find a specialist for a second opinion. You should not be pinched or head butted, so something has to change...

The ADOS is a very good test that evaluates social and play skills; our practitioners use it as the main test to decide if someone is on the spectrum or just quirky. It is a good test for teasing out how many subtle symptoms are present or absent.

HTH,
DeeDee

I agree with DeeDee -- it is devilishly hard to suss out young female gifted Aspies. Anyone who thought "good eye contact and smiling and something vaguely resembling interactive and imaginative play" plus a behavior questionnaire could easily prove it wasn't AS doesn't have a clue.

Remember that "imaginative play" can include some not-very-imaginative things. And I know some gifted female Aspies who have *tremendous* capacities for imaginative play and elaborate paracosms (fantasy worlds), including with other children.