Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Not Gifted, but need help with WISC IV scores

Hi

I hope its ok to post here. I don't think my son in gifted, however, he has AS and we are currently investigating some visual-motor problems.

It has been a huge battle to get him what little support he has and we are currently trying to get our heads around exactly where his strengths and weaknesses lie and what that means in terms of how we can help him.

He recently had the WISC-IV done by the Ed Psych at school with the following results:

IQ Index Percentile Confidence Interval
Verbal Comprehension 124 95% 116-129
Perceptual Reasoning 102 55% 94-109
Working Memory 113 81% 104-120
Processing Speed 85 16% 78-96
Full Scale IQ 109 73% 104-114


Score
Verbal Comprehension (VCI)
Similarities 14
Vocabulary 16
Comprehension 12

Perceptual Reasoning (PRI)
Block design 8
Picture concepts 11
Matrix reasoning 12

Working Memory (WMI)
Digit span 13
Letter-number sequencing 12
Processing Speed (PSI)
Coding 9
Symbol search 6


All we have been told is that he is very capable but will need longer to process instructions and complete a task than his average peers.

We know that he has much better verbal than non-verbal skills (obviously with AS, non-verbal communication is very much an issue) and that he has some gross and fine motor issues comorbid to the AS.

We have just this past week discovered that he has some sensory problems relating to his sight, that we were unaware of when he took the test. We are also aware that he has poor convergence and therefore impaired binocular vision.

My gut feeling is that his visual-motor problems are dragging his scores down and muddying the picture a bit.

I don't know a lot about it, but I was wondering if a GAI score would shed some more light - or am I barking up the wrong tree completely there?

We are based in the UK, if that makes any difference.

Thank you in advance to anyone who is kind enough to take the time to read and/or try to help us.

Just realised, I didn't put his age. He was 8 years and 8 months old when he took the test.

First we have to say that scores are just one snapshot of a kid's performance on a particular day under a specific set of circumstances - and quirky kids can give quirky performances that don't reflect their overall life very well. Does this seem to be the case or do these numbers sound like the kid you know? Is your family tree chock full of gifties? It's ok to be suspisious of numbers. But sometimes you just have to put the doubts aside and trust them - you have to start somewhere!

Let's assume for a moment that the numbers are accurate. In that case, here are my thoughts:

I've seen the GAI be really helpful when working memory and processing speed are much lower than Verbal and Perceptual - but since his perceptual index is right in line with his WM and PSI, I see this as a situation where GAI won't help that much. Of course the number will be higher, but even with that strength in vocabulary, can your son really use that strengh?

I'd just call it a vocabulary strength, and use it for all it's worth. ((Does 'I'll teach you 5 new words if you brush your teeth right NOW!' work in your house?))

What kind of advice would be helpful? It sounds like the school isn't very forthcomming with supports you feel might help. Is AS 'on the list' of recognized disabilities in UK schools? How is he doing in his academics? Do they seem too hard? too easy? Does he just need more time? Is he having problems with anxiety?

***
The general cultural expectation is that strong vocabulary is a sign of intelligence. How does your son's general problem solving ability seem to you? Is it more in line with his strength of vocabulary, or more like the average Peceptual Reasoning score? Does this confuse you or other significant adults?

Hope that helps,
Grinity

If you feel that his actual intellectual ability is higher than this test shows, you might try having him take the RIAS. It has a reduced emphasis on visual/motor skills, processing speed, and social comprehension, and the non-verbal items are typically less visually cluttered than the items on the WISC-IV.

Hi Grinity and thank you for responding to my post.

To be honest, I don't think the scores I see are a good reflection of the child I know. He is (and always has been) top of the class in every subject in school, in a very high performing cohort with only one or two children in his year (who are recognised as gifted) exceeding his academic achievements to date. He has a reading age of 5 years above his age and is able to retain a phenomenal amount of facts and information - not just in terms of his AS 'obsessions' or 'specialist subjects' but pretty much across the board. In general he tends to find schoolwork too easy, not at all challenging and often pretty boring as a result.

It has taken two years to get him a diagnosis, as in the UK you really need the school on side and despite us raising concerns almost as soon as he entered the education system, they were reluctant to see his issues. This is common in the UK due to the way Special Educational Needs Support is funded.

He got his formal diagnosis of AS in January this year and they have put in some support to help him with social/non-verbal communication problems, but nothing academically, as they say he is already achieving well, so we shouldn't worry about that.

We are worried though, as we are starting to see him stall in mathematics. He's always been pretty much a natural, getting top marks without having to try - particularly in mental maths, but now the emphasis is on recording his workings and explaining how he got the right answer, he is tending not to even produce any work for marking, as he doesn't even know how to start explaining how he arrived at his conclusion. He just knows the answer - not how he knows the answer - if you see what I mean.

We are also seeing a slide in literacy, as he is expected to have more understanding of different perspectives and emotional aspects of literature. This is of course in line with his AS.

I guess what worries me is that an essentially bright boy is going to end up failing academically, because his strengths lies in his verbal ability, rather than being able to express his knowledge on paper.

His Ed Psych did tell us that in her opinion the problem solving elements seemed to score low compared to what she would have expected for him. She has worked with him on a weekly basis for a whole term and her opinion is that he actually extremely good at problem solving and this is supported by a strong determination to see a problem through to its satisfactory conclusion, no matter how long or how much effort that takes. She was concerned that his visual issues and to some extent processing speed might have skewed the results. She said that one of the tests in particular - I assume it was the block design - may have been affected by his problems with visual tracking.

As I said in my title, I don't for a minute think he is gifted, bright yes, gifted no. I do however think that his disabilities are starting to hinder his strengths and am desperate to help him make the best of the skills/strengths he has to support his weaknesses. Unfortunately, the education system in the UK has no place for children who are primarily verbally skilled and this could lead to him leaving school with very little evidence of his skills.

I ended up at this forum whilst searching for a better understanding of the meaning of his scores and was directed here, by someone on another forum who said there are people who are very skilled at interpreting WISC scores here. I do understand that my son's profile is very different to the other users and that perhaps that might mean that there wouldn't be anyone who would have experience of his type of strengths and weaknesses, but thought it might be worth a try.

Any advice that anyone could offer in terms of how we can help make the most of his strength/s (I suppose that would be verbal skills) and/or mitigate his weaknesses, would be gratefully received, but of course I will totally understand if there's no-one here that can offer such guidance.

Thank again for responding to me.

Aculady,

Thank you for responding to my post.

I have never heard of the RIAS, but will definitely investigate further.

I've been reading and watching a lot of YouTubes by Temple Grandin, and she is also very concerned that a lot of bright spectrum kids are in educational environments that don't bring out the best in them. Have you found her thinking to be useful?

On one hand you note but on the other hand

So if schoolwork is too easy, I would advocate for harder work. If it's too hard, I would encourage you to tutor him (or find a different person to tutor him.) In Math, in particular, there are really only 5 stock answers that they are looking for that you can train him to parrot back to them if he is eager to please.
1) I used placed a group of 3 buttons next to a group of 10 buttons and counted the whole group to make 10 buttons, so I know that 3 +10 equals 13.
2) I used a number line, starting with my eraser over the 3, and walked 10 paces, and found that my eraser was over the 13, so I knew that 3+10=13.
3) I used a math fact table to see the intersection of 3 and 10 is 13.

I forget the rest, but they aren't looking for creativity, just a formula of words that lets them know that the child understands. Even if the child is just parroting. It's a bad system, but we are stuck with it.

I would also keep working with him outside of school on the problem solving - really following his interests.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thank you for replying master of none.

He has recently been equipped with a basic lap-top like device for typing longer pieces of work at school.

This has helped with his fine motor skills issues around handwriting, but so far hasn't helped him to organise his thoughts and get them down on paper.

I find it hard to get my own head around why/how he can know the answer to a math question but then not be able to explain how he worked it out. Its certainly not a lack of verbal skills, we've established that and if he's able to do mental math so quickly that he can't actually break it down into the stages of how he reached the answer, then surely that would call into question the fact that he has reduced processing speed?

I have to admit, I am more than a little confused by this sort of contradiction in his abilities.

Grinity, thanks again for your time and thoughts on this - I do appreciate it.

I suppose the first quote relates to how he has always been at school, high achieving and essentially finding it all a bit too easy and dull.

The second relates to what we are starting to see now. I think this is essentially to do with a shift in learning focus from infant to junior school (infants in the UK are from 3.5 yrs to 7 yrs and juniors 7 years to 11 years).

At present, we are only starting to see the stall or slide in his work, but I'm concerned that if we don't find a way of intervening and supporting him now the decline will accelerate and by secondary school (age 11-16) he will not only be failing, but have lost confidence in himself as well.

I have to admit, I haven't read a lot of Temple Grandin, although I have seen plenty of quotes and references to her in other texts and papers.

The education enviroment is far from ideal for children like my son in this country. We have the choice of so-called mainstream 'inlcusion', which basically means putting them in a state school and if they are lucky giving them some support to help them muddle through - or a 'special school', which in most cases are for low-functioning children or those with profound mental or physical problems. The fact is that most children with high functioning autism or aspergers tend to slip through the net, as they don't adequately fit either category. Of course there is always home-schooling, but then we have the problem that these kids will never improve their social and communication skills if they are isolated from their peers. There's no easy answer really.

With regards to the maths. I think I could 'train' him to be able to state the facts for more simple calculations such as those set out in your post, the problem seems to have arisen from them now covering more complex mathematics, with several stages to complete before ascertaining the correct answer.

At home I tend to sit with him and break an example down into stages, which he then calculates, but we literally have to do this together for every single sum. If I leave him to do it himself, he will produce a sheet of 100% accurate answers, but has absolutely no idea how he got those answers. Its very puzzling, particularly for me, as someone who likes to see and understand how things work and the different stages involved.

Another more recent problem has been word-based maths questions, as in his mind maths = numbers and he seems to blow a fuse if the question is presented using words rather than numbers (eg a train departs at x o'clock has to travel x number of kilometres to reach its destination. It is due to arrive at the destination station at x o'clock. How fast would the train need to be travelling in km/hr in order to reach its destination on time?)

Anyway, I'm rambling now.

Thanks again for your suggestions. We will keep on supporting him and working with him at home and using his interests as way of firing his enthusiasm. We will get there I'm sure. He has such a lot to offer this world, I'm not ready to give in and let his weaknesses cancel out his strengths. I just need to carry on trying to fathom out exactly what his needs are and then make sure they are met both by us and by the educational system.

What I especially like about Temple Grandin, is that in the movie it shows how non-verbal she was as a toddler, and how her mother basically worked with her - against all advice - and when you see how smart Grandin is now, it's inspiring.

What I've heard about AS is that it is a developmental delay in social communication. Delay means that with enough work, the person can reach a very high level, it just takes a lot more effort and time all around.

Smiles,
Grinity