Some background: DS (7) scored 81st percentile on the OLSAT (88th verbal, 62nd non-verbal), administered to all first graders, which didn't qualify him for further eval for the school's gifted program. Surprised by his results, I requested further testing and he scored 137 verbal and 124 non-verbal on the KBIT-2. He then had an achievement test which he had to score 95% or higher on (I don't have the name or results of that test other than I know he scored 95%+).

I just got his WISC-V results from the school psychologist and he didn't qualify for a GIEP. Scores are as follows:


VCI 127 96th percentile
VSI 117 87th
FRI 115 84th
WMI - (not administered?)
PSI 80 9th
FSIQ 111 77th
GAI 120 91st

Subtests
SI 14 diff 2.4
VC 16 diff 4.4
BD 10 diff -1.6
VP 16 diff 4.4
MR 14 diff 2.4
FW 11 diff -0.6
DS 11 diff -0.6
PS -
CD 5 diff -6.6
SS 8 diff -3.6

I have no idea how to interpret these results. He needed a 130 in any area or FSIQ to qualify. He really was only close in VCI, but more importantly, should I be concerned about his processing speed? I'm guessing even if his processing speed had been higher, his FSIQ still wouldn't qualify him. Regardless, I'd like to meet with the school psychologist to get more information and see if we should be trying to help him in any way. Any suggestions on what questions I should ask?

Thanks!
Emily

I would have questions about the PSI as well. A related notable pair of numbers is BD and VP, which are the two subtests that comprise the Visual Spatial Index. He scored in the center of the Average range on BD, which is a motor-involved task, and in the Very Superior range on the related motor-free task (VP, 98th %ile). That is a two SD difference between the two, with the weaker performance on the motor-involved task, suggesting that the VSI is not an accurate reflection of his perceptual skills, in the absence of motor interference. If there is a challenge in the fine-motor area, the tasks that would be expected to be impacted are BD, CD, and SS--which happen to be his lowest three subtests.

There is no WMI because Picture Span was not administered, which would have been necessary to compute WMI, but is not necessary for the FSIQ. I'm guessing that SS (the second PSI subtest) was administered because of the low CD score.

He probably did better on the KBIT-2 nonverbal because it is motor-free. It's more in line with his VP score. The KBIT-2 verbal is most like the VC subtest from the WISC-V, as it is mostly vocabulary and general knowledge, and is also consistent across the two tests.

In your place, I might want to know if the lower BD score was because of accuracy or speed (bonus points for speed can be a factor for some students, though it's not as much of an issue for seven-year-olds), and what kinds of errors he made on BD, CD, and SS: reversals, distortions of the figure, breakdowns in the overall form of the structure, etc.

Do you otherwise have concerns about his speed or accuracy with fine-motor tasks, like drawing, writing, tying shoelaces, etc? Has his vision been checked? An evaluation by an occupational therapist might also give you more information.

Thank you for the insight into correlation of the subtest scores. That helps a great deal since this is all new to me.

DS performs well in school, but his teacher noted that he could "take more initiative," and we have also found that he doesn't seem motivated to perform quickly or with perfection on most tasks. He certainly isn't lazy - quite the opposite - he loves to ride his bike, walk in the woods, build/play with legos and playdoh, and he enjoys pretend play, among other things.

He learned how to tie his shoes at the beginning of this school year, and I do feel like it takes him longer than it should to tie them. He spends more time on his homework than I think he should need, and on a recent timed math paper, it took him 8 minutes to complete 56 addition problems, which again, is longer than I would expect. He doesn't enjoy writing, although his handwriting has improved this year, no doubt due to his his teacher being a stickler for neat handwriting. He has never enjoyed coloring, and still doesn't color neatly.

He has difficulty focusing; i.e. during martial arts class and when doing his homework. He was banned from sitting on the floor during circle time this year because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. His teacher says things have been better since she moved him to a chair.

He hasn't had an eye exam, other than the school vision test and reading an eye chart at the pediatrician's office. He doesn't seem to struggle with his vision, but are there other issues an eye doctor can check for?

Others who have more experience with this with their children may expand on this, but some families have found that evaluation by a developmental optometrist may identify deficits in visual tracking and convergence, as distinct from visual acuity, which is what a standard eye exam usually checks.

There are a number of families on here who have children with DCD (developmental coordination disorder), which also has some overlap with the behaviors and testing profile you report.

If vision of any kind doesn't appear to be a factor, then the OT direction might uncover fine-motor issues that can be worked on with therapy. If you had asked him to complete the 56 addition problems orally, would you have seen a different result? The focusing issues reported in martial arts and homework might actually be related to motor challenges, as those are both heavily motor-involved activities. OTOH, sometimes difficulties with sustained attention are the cause of slow performance.

These are questions to investigate with the original evaluator, and possibly with additional evaluations (fine-motor with an OT, vision with a developmental opt, attention with a psychologist, esp. a neuropsychologist, or with a neurologist).

Thank you aeh. I will be contacting the school tomorrow to setup a meeting with the psychologist. I doubt they will offer much assistance, since he is performing well in school and isn't exhibiting gross behavioral issues.

I appreciate your input and will look into additional evaluations if necessary after getting clarification from the psychologist.

Is he in 2nd grade or 1st grade? I'm asking that because the processing speed subtests have relatively low scores, and I wonder if it's possible that with his strong verbal scores he's perhaps compensating in some way at school or hasn't hit an area where processing speed-type skills are required - *IF* something is up with his profile.

Were the processing speed scores more in line with the rest of his scores, I probably wouldn't think twice about anything since he seems to be doing well in school. I have teens, one of which has DCD, and one of which had a severe vision challenge (double vision, lack of peripheral vision, and tracking issues) when she was in early elementary. I have a few thoughts for you re the things you added about your ds based on my DCD and vision-challenged childrens' experiences and testing:


The not taking initiative and moving slow are possible signs of DCD. DCD impacts everyone in different ways (it's also referred to as "dyspraxia"), and even though a child might be proficient at riding a bike, for instance, (which my ds is very adept at), the same child might be impacted severely in a different way related to brain-motor connectivity which isn't always really obvious, particularly when children are young. On the WISC, my ds' DCD shows up primarily in a large gap in processing speed scores, although in his case, the coding score is much lower than his symbol search. The coding subtest relies heavily on fine motor coordination; symbol search involves more visual input. (My dd who had the visual challenge, for instance, scored average on coding but very low on symbol search).



This could potentially be DCD, although I also think that learning by the beginning of 1st grade isn't really unusual, particularly in the age of velcro (our elementary school required velcro shoes up through first grade).


To get an idea of whether or not this is slow, you might ask his teacher. 7 problems per minute (I'm guessing they are add/subtract or multiply if they are timed) would have been a little slow in my ds' 2nd grade class - the students in his class were required to write out 10 correct equations in 1 minute (20 in 2) to move up to the next level of calculations. If you want to know why I remember that # so well, it's because my dysgraphic/DCD kid couldn't write out that many and I had to advocate so hard to get him placed correctly in math I will probably never forget those numbers lol!


It's really hard to know what a "doesn't enjoy" and "doesn't color neatly" really mean for a student, but if you google dysgraphia, look at the symptoms, and then look back over your ds' work and see if any of it seems to fit, that would be helpful in knowing what is up. Look for things like uneven pencil pressure, uneven spacing when writing, starting letters from different locations (top/bottom/etc) each time, not forming letters consistently, still reversing b/d p/q etc in 2nd grade, holding the wrist while writing, poor posture etc. Poor posture, sloppy handwriting etc can also be symptoms of a vision issue.


Our vision-challenged dd was much like this - she literally couldn't sit still and her drs were always convinced she had ADHD, but the ADHD-like behavior disappeared after her vision challenges were remediated.


Most eye doctors check for the accuracy of eyesight in each individual eye, but that vision can be a-ok and the eyes still might not be working *together*. Some regular eye drs will do simple tests for this - our eye dr used to not do this, but does routinely now check for tracking and double vision. When our dd was diagnosed, we were referred to a developmental optometrist for an evaluation, and a dev. op's eval will be much more thorough for how the eyes work *together*.


It's possible you won't get much further in terms of understanding from the school psych. You might - especially if aeh was working in your district! The limitations though, that many of us have run across, are that the school psych is there only to address academic impacts, and with high-achieving students in early elementary it often looks as though there's no reason for concern (or action) on the part of the school - which doesn't necessarily mean your child is functioning ok in "life" or that the challenges (if they exist) won't start impacting your child as the level and amount of work increases at school as he/she moves up in grades. When you see a private neuropsych or educactional psych you'll typically get a look at the whole child, a look at the child's developmental history, and an extended parent interview, with follow-up testing that typically goes beyond what the school will offer, and referrals for follow-up therapies and remediation as needed, whether or not the child will qualify through the school district. And it's quite possible that while not qualifying for school services, a child might still be signficantly enough impacted by a challenge that therapy/remediation/accommodation really is needed and a parent will want to seek it out privately.

Please note - I'm not suggesting your child has any challenge at all - but there's a suggestion in his WISC scores that something might be up. You've noted a few things you've wondered about. Think through what you've observed, and if you think there is something to look into, look - through school or private.

The one thing I'd ask for certain though during your meeting with the school psych - does he/she have any ideas re why there is a low score for the processing speed subtests, and I would request follow-up testing to try to determine if there is either a fine-motor-related or vision-related reason for the low scores.

I'd also look back through writing samples before going into the meeting to see if he shows any signs of dysgraphia. And think through - is his verbal retell much more detailed than his writing?

Hope that makes sense and helps a bit!

polarbear

Polarbear, thank you for all that info. There are some characteristics of dyspraxia that seem to fit, so I'll be sure to continue researching that.


I have had this thought as well. DS is in 1st grade where they don't do a lot of timed activities, so I am concerned that any problems, if present, will become increasingly detrimental as the work gets harder and greater in volume in higher grades. I have also noticed that he has picked up some tricks; i.e. using his finger to make sure he leaves enough space between words. I wouldn't be surprised if he is using other methods to try to compensate on his schoolwork.

I briefly tried rocket math with him at home, but his writing is so slow, even just copying numbers without doing any calculations, that it was causing him a great deal of frustration.

I have to say, I really do appreciate all the information the two of you have shared. I feel much more confident going into a meeting with the psych having at least a basic understanding of what the results mean. Thank you.

I spoke with the school psychologist who administered the test, and he explained quite a bit, including his assessment that the slow processing speed isn't a concern at DS's age.

Re: coding and symbol search, DS completed 5 and 8 problems, respectively. All were correct. The psychologist indicated that his score would not have been greatly affected had he completed additional problems. I don't understand how completing additional problems correctly wouldn't have resulted in a considerably higher score.

He suggested that we request a re-test after 12 months, and if the slow processing speed persists, it may be prudent to dig deeper at that time.

I also had DS to an optometrist, whose staff indicated that he was well versed in tracking and coordination issues. After conducting a routine eye exam, with no tracking tests, he indicated that there was no concern, based on the eye exam itself, and if the slow processing speed persists beyond a year or two, we could look into visual perceptive testing. From my research, it seems that a routine eye exam wouldn't identify these types of issues. Polarbear, from your experiences, is my understanding correct? I'm not looking to chase a problem that may not exist, but I would like to rule it out without any uncertainty.

I'll have to check the norms when I get back to work, but, assuming the communication was clear, that explanation of coding and symbol search performance seems off to me. I'll follow up on this when I get a chance.

Re. Using his fingers to space words. Both my kids were taught to do this at school. Year 1 (K) kids are taught to use two fingers and y2 (first) to use one finger. They were also taught to count on their fingers.

As the parent of a child with DCD, I"ll respectfully disagree with the psychologist's statement that processing speed isn't a concern at your DS's age. I would re-word the statement to say that "a challenge related to processing speed isn't as likely to be noticed in 1st grade as it will be in 2nd grade (or whatever grade applies), due to the nature and amount of classwork. *However* - just because parents/teacher/psychologist don't notice it "mattering" at this point in time, doesn't mean that the child who's living with it hasn't already noticed the impact of it. Our ds received his DCD diagnosis from a neuropsychologist at the end of his 2nd grade school year. We didn't go to the neurospych looking for the answer to fine motor challenges, we went to the neuropsych because our ped referred us to the neuropsych when our ds became so severely anxious about school he was having panic attacks and not sleeping at night. The severe anxiety had resulted from having to cope in school with an undiagnosed LD. If everything is going well at school and your ds is happy, then it's probably ok to wait a year - but if there are any signs he's struggling in any way, I'd want to follow up on the possibility that the dip in coding represents something meaningful.


This sounds odd. It's been years, and our ds' test was the WISC-IV, so I don't know what the coding test looks like specifically on the WISC-V - but fwiw, when our ds was first tested for a gifted program in kindergarten, we were shown the marks he had to make on the coding test, and if I remember correctly there was space to make quite a few marks. I wonder if what the psych's statement meant was that he was assuming with extra time your ds would only have been able to add a very small number of answers, and hence it "wouldn't make a difference" when the slightly improved coding subtest score was averaged.


Yet if the processing speed is reflecting a challenge, wouldn't it be better to know *now* and give yourself that full extra year - *early* to help your ds learn how to use accommodations and to help remediate where possible? Time is precious in so many ways. If we'd known a full year earlier about our ds' challenges we could have spared him a school year that was beyond frustrating for him. We could have had that extra year to work on his accommodations and learning how to us his technology. At 7 he would have been much more willing to use a laptop in class than he was at 10 when he finally had an IEP in place.

You have one set of indications already that the dip in processing speed might be real - you also see a dip in his Block Design score, which is timed. One other thing you might be able to do is to request a full report from his achievement testing (including subtest scores). If he's taken a test like WJ-III or WIAT, then you might see a discrepancy in scores on timed vs untimed tests. If you see a discrepancy, then that backs up the notion that the dip in WISC processing speed may be related to a real challenge, rather than an external factor such as fatigue when taking the subtest etc.


No, although some eye drs (including our dr) are now incorporating a brief screen which may show issues with tracking and brief screens to check for double vision and peripheral vision. Although these brief screens aren't as thorough as what a Developmental Optometrist will do in an eval, they would have caught my dd (who had double vision as well as tracking issues). Our eye dr would then have referred her to the DO for the more thorough screening.

Best wishes,

polarbear

So I looked up the norm tables, and, as I thought, the explanation of coding and symbol search given is, at best, incomplete. Given the scaled scores you reported, it is impossible that the number of correct items could have been 5 and 8, respectively. (Scaled scores would have been much lower.) So something became garbled in that communication. The grain of truth is that processing speed is weighted less heavily in the FSIQ on the WISC-V than on the WISC-IV (1 out 7, vs 2 out of 10, previously), so that a low score on coding (the subtest that contributes to the FSIQ) should have less impact on overall performance. That being said, I would seek clarification from the psychologist. Or another psychologist.

Coding and Symbol Search both involve significant visual tracking. Especially Coding, which usually requires constant visual referencing, up and down on the page, in addition to horizontal scanning across the lines. And there are no visual frames at the age 6-7 level.

A quick comment re vision exams. You need to see a developmental optometrist. Because of different issues, my DS (then 8) saw two optometrists and a pediatric ophthalmologist. None of them caught the significant issues that th dev opt found, which included double vision, convergence and divergence insufficiency and tracking, among others. If you can get a referral within your local community for a developmental optometrist who is great with gifted kids, that would be preferred.