So we finally got our daughter's test results, from last fall (she was almost 8). She was initially referred for ADHD testing but they came back with an assessment that she was gifted, rather than having ADHD. The written report they provided has me now questioning their previous assertion of her giftedness, she definitely doesn't qualify for DYS and I'm not sure she'll get into CTD if they average the scores out.

I have the results of around 15 tests here, I'll give the WISC-IV as a start:

Verbal Comprehension 126/96%ile
Perceptual Reasoning 133/99%ile
Working Memory 123/94%ile
Processing Speed 88/21%ile
General Abilities Index 135/99%ile

She scored 18 in Matrix Reasoning but only 7 in Coding.

Any thoughts are gladly received!

I took a quick look back at your original post about your dd - you'd mentioned there that the psych who assessed her recommended sending her to a school for gifted children, and she was testing to get into a public gifted school. Did she get in? If she did, send her! She doesn't have the scores required to get into DYS, but that doesn't mean she's not gifted and it doesn't mean she won't thrive with accelerated work/pace at school. That's my first piece of advice.

My other bit of advice, fwiw, is to try to figure out what's up with the low coding score. Did you the psych have any thoughts behind it? Did he feel it was a valid score? There are quite a few of us here who have kids with large discrepancies in processing speed subtests vs the other WISC tests, and sometimes that discrepancy is an indication that a challenge exists that your child can benefit from either accommodations or therapy etc. Dysgraphia is one of the possible reasons, but there are others too. FWIW my ds with developmental coordination disorder and dysgraphia has a very large discrepancy in coding vs his other subtests, and he absolutely needs accommodations in school *but* he thrives in accelerated classes and is bored to tears in grade-level regular paced classrooms. He's doing really well in school with access to his accommodations (laptop, extra time on tests, etc). The two things that are his largest challenges are organization (which is improving with maturity and a heck of a lot of work) and it takes him longer to complete his homework than it takes kids who don't have the low processing speed bottleneck. It's really important to recognize though that the bottleneck and slow speed are in the *output* not in thinking/reasoning ability - and that's what you need to take into consideration in putting together a plan for school subject level.

Back to your original question, yes, your dd is gifted. But I find it helps to not focus on the term as much as it helps to look at your whole child, how she's functioning in school, is she having challenges, figure out why they exist and then figure out how to either work through or around them etc.

Best wishes,

polarbear

GAI at 135 is absolutely gifted - it is 2.3SD above the mean. Remember, DYS cutoff scores are for the profoundly gifted. Most gifted kids aren't that "severely" gifted. This doesn't mean that they aren't truly gifted or that they don't need special programming.

Low processing speed can be a flag for a number of different issues, including problems with attention, visual scanning, and fine motor control. Determining which of these, if any, might be a problem for a given person requires looking at more than IQ numbers, although subtest scores can sometimes be useful in givng an idea of where to start.

Did they use any other evaluation instruments that may have included fluency measures (especially written fluency) or measures of motor or visual-motor skills?

She is doing great academically in school, it's socially where she falters. She also has a lot of trouble with organization, time management and remembering/following instructions, all of which the dr relates to her low processing speed. She also has poor fine motor skills.

Some of her test results:

WJ-III Achievement
Reading fluency 126/96%
Applied problems 134/99%
Writing fluency 119/90%
Writing samples 106/65%
Brief Achievement 137/99%
Written expression 113/80%

WJ-III Cognitive Abilities
Pair cancellation 105/63
Visual matching 97/43%
Decision speed 114/83%

Beery VMI-6
VMI 121/92%
Visual perception 111/77%
Motor coordination 98/45%

The report mentions that there are clinically significant indicators for ADHD, but because she is doing well in school it should be ruled out. The recommendations he gave mostly revolve around developing her social skills. He also suggested having her take outside enrichment classes at CTD, as well as allowing her to pre-test for each new unit of work in the classroom and allowing her to skip areas she already is competent in. He didn't give any real recommendations on how to deal with the processing speed unfortunately.

We had her tested for the Chicago Public Schools gifted schools last year and while she scored just over the minimum required, she wasnt offered a place, I presume because they don't get too many 2nd grade spots opening up and there were better scores ahead of her. I had her test again this year, I believe they get more spaces in 3rd grade so there may be a chance for her. I didn't get any of the report back in time to ask for any accommodations in the testing unfortunately. I will be sending a copy in to them though, in the hope that they'll give it consideration.

We live in a small single school district right now, and while they do have enrichment within the school (she's been in reading since day 1 of K and in math since this year), they don't really have an official gifted program. A downside to living in a wealthy suburb is that almost all other parents in our situation go ahead and send their children to one of the private gifted schools rather than keep them in the public school, something we can't really afford to do. The school district in the next town has a more established program, but it's still pull out rather than dedicated classrooms. The only public gifted schools in the state are the Chicago ones and the private ones start at $17k p/yr, which is about double our mortgage.

kikiandkyle..
district 54 in Schaumburg has a self contained gifted magnet which begins in third grade. Also, in the Elgin area and Palatine there are schools that aren't 17k but closer to 10k.

Are you talking about Quest and DaVinci? Their sites say they are both $17k. The only private schools I've seen for less as religious schools.

She is a couple of points off qualifying for the magnet in D54. Do you think it's worth applying anyway?

There is the elgin academy and einstein academy both in elgin. For some reason I thought Quest was around 10k. Guess I read that wrong.

There is no applying to district 54 magnet. They invite the kids. They don't take outside testing either. We are in d54, ds6 , with the scores we have from private testing, should qualify when he is old enough.

Elgin is $15k for k-4, but Einstein is $11k which is a bit less. Still, a lot of money.

D54 might be worth looking into, although I'm not sure my husband would agree with moving in the hope that she makes it for 2013-14. He works in Lake Forest so it's quite a trek, at least with CPS he could commute fairly easily.

How have you found them so far outside of the magnet? My younger one is only coming up to 2, but he's showing a lot of the same signs she did already. If I'm going to have two gifted kids to educate it will definitely have to be public!

I'll send you a pm

Those scores are definitly gifted...only a tiny percentage of gifties qualify for DYS.

Read the DSM on ADHD....google it.....there is nothing there that says a child hs to have poor school performance to have 'real' ADHD. Talk to your pediatrician about the social and organizational difficulties and ask dor a second opinion. Many doctors will do a chart review of testing done else where. Adhd can cause slow processing speed but so can several other challenges. Read a few books on girls with adhd and organizational stratagies for kids with adhd.

Read Friends Forever by Frankle ro figure out how to coach her.

Take a few days of notes to notice exactly which organizational issues are having the biggest impact on her daily life. Teaching organizational skills requires time and patience but it can be done.

Love and more love
Grinity


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Thanks Grinity, the Frankel book looks like a lot of what we've already tried (and failed at) but I'll pick up a copy anyway. I'm going to talk with her regular pediatrician too.

I really appreciate all the great suggestions. It's so isolating to be in this situation with nobody that understands to talk to.

I have ADD and did not have poor school performance in grade school, it wasn't until junior high that I started struggling due to organization issues, and it wasn't until college that all hell broke loose,and I ended up failing out my junior year. I did however end up going back to school a few years later and graduating. I would still look into a possible ADD diagnosis.

I had my own doctor tell me virtually the same thing about 6 weeks ago, that I can't have ADHD because I'm a calm, functioning adult who isn't bouncing off the walls. I think the over-diagnosis for whatever reason is doing a real disservice to those who may truly have it.

'm wondering about the social question....
1) Do you ever see her act in ways that would scare off the other kids?
2) if so is does it look like a poor fit or like poor skills
3) Does your dd wish people liked her more?
4) Has your dd been able to positively modify her behavior even a little?
5) Does your daughter have a view of what friendship is that age appropriate to the people who are availible to her?
6) Does your child actually like the other kids?

We love to hear you think.
Grinity

1- yes
2- hard to say - she shares interests with some of the kids in her class, but doesn't understand that they dont always want to talk about them, and she doesn't have good listening or conversation skills
3- absolutely
4- if she is drilled beforehand she can modify a little, but as soon as she becomes engrossed in her activity it all goes out of the window
5- I'm not sure. There are kids in her class that have been friends since preschool, and a lot of SAHMs in our small town so there are lots of playdates and extracurriculars that they take together. But I don't know if she sees the differences between how they interact and how she interacts with other kids.
6- she really wants to be friends with a few of them.

There was one girl she became close with at summer day camp last year, we really tried to help grow the friendship by having play dates and letting them take tumbling class together, but at the playdates my daughter would just do her own thing and get upset when her friend didn't want to do what she wanted to do. At tumbling her friend turned out to be really good at it, whereas mine put virtually no effort in and stood around trying to chat to the other kids the whole time (about stuff they weren't interested in).

We haven't had a playdate in a while as the mom seems to be avoiding me and the tumbling teacher kind of made it clear that she wasn't welcome for the second session of classes. I think that as the other girl is growing up and realizing my daughter's behavior is kind of immature and annoying she is less interested in being friends with her. I think the other parents also thought she was pretty rude in their home and didn't appreciate it.

I, too, have a girl with inattentive type ADD who I was told by many could not have ADD. She, too, performs well above average in school and has some areas even on group tests where her performance is outstanding (got 800s -- as high as the test goes -- on a few parts of the CSAPs [Colorado NCLB test] such as vocab, algebra, etc.). We even had one of the psychs who saw her say that it wasn't ADD and she was someone w/ experience in LDs. The one who recognized it was a psych with experience in giftedness and higher levels of giftedness.

I have two thoughts based on what you've posted thus far. Was comprehension a low outlier on the Verbal index of the WISC? It definitely was for my dd. I've been told that a low comprehension score is more common in ADD as well as ASD. My dd is very, very socially aware -- to the point that she trims herself to fit in so well that almost no one knows the true kiddo -- and I am pretty confident that she is not on the autism spectrum. However, your last post in which you mention that your dd's behavior appeared young and that she does things that scare off other kids had me wondering if you'd considered aspergers.

I found Dr. Webb's book, Misdiagnosis & Dual diagnoses of gifted children & adults, to be really helpful in seeing whether my dd was 2e or just underperforming due to poor fit. She was the opposite of every single thing he listed for a gifted child who didn't have ADD. I believe that book also has a chapter on ASD if that is something to rule out as well.

I was coming to post something very much like this. (Actually, I was coming to see what the answers were, because thought I had posted questions about it last night, but apparently not...my post must have vanished into the ether.)

Did the evaluator administer the GADS or ADOS?

This isn't the same as liking her friends, sadly. Wanting to be friends is, to my mind, like wanting the the coolest cell phone. Humans enjoy social status. Then there is wanting the be included, again a normal drive. Actually enjoying the company of a potential friend, though, that's a different story, yes?

If you told me that she get's frustrated with agemates but plays very interactivly and loves spending time with older kids, I'd think, 'oh typical gifted kid'

But telling me that she parallel plays, expects the other kids to join her particular style of play, sort of makes me think of other sorts of social difficulties. MisDiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis is a good book to help you sort out your thoughts.

Diangosing any social difficulty in girls is so much more challenging. Girls tend to be less noisy about their deficiencies than boys. ((shrug)) And there is that reality that 100 doctors might have 100 individual opinions.

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Verbal comprehension on the WISC was 126/96%. In the report they described her as very articulate, and having complex and mature vocabulary skills. But this was when she was talking to them, rather than to other kids. She is very happy with older children and adults, or with younger kids, but not kids of her own age. I think it's because older children and adults make allowances for her, and younger kids don't know better.

I saw Dr Webb at a lecture in the fall and he talked about 2E and misdiagnosis. I'm definitely going to have someone look into this further I think. We also discussed autism with the dr because I have a brother with it, but his is from FragX and I am not a carrier. Perhaps I will have the pedi take a look at this too.

We're not looking for the "Verbal Comprehension Index" score, but the score on the particular subtest called "Comprehension".

The WISC-IV subtests are:

Similarities
Vocabulary
Comprehension
(Word Reasoning)
(Information)

Similarities, Vocabulary, and Comprehension together make up the Verbal Comprehension Index.


Block Design
Picture Concepts
Matrix Reasoning
(Picture Completion)

Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, and Picture Concepts together make up the Perceptual Reasoning Index.


(Arithmetic)
Digit Span
Letter-Number Sequencing

Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing make up the Working Memory Index

Coding
Symbol Search
(Cancellation)

Coding and Symbol Search make up the Processing Speed Index.

()= optional or substitute subtest

We were asking about the breakdown of these individual subtest scores.

Ok:

Similarities: 15
Vocabulary: 14
Comprehension: 14
Block design: 14
Picture concepts: 14
Matrix reasoning: 18
Digit span: 13
Letter-number seq: 15
Coding: 7
Symbol search: 9
Cancellation: 5

Digit span forward: 12
Digit span backward: 15

No GADS or ADOS, I have

GORT-5, TOWL-3, TOWRE, TORC, CELF-4, WRAML-2, CPT-2, VMI-6, TOPS-3, NEPSY, ADHD rating scale IV, CBCL, TRF, BASC, BRIEF and the Easy CBM reading test and Hale-Denckla cancellation test, as well as the WJ-III for Achievement and Cognitive Abilities.

Good for you for persuoing this further. Ill be interested to hear what you thing of the Frankle book.
Smiles
Grinity

There were a few other books recommended by the psych too - Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom, Teaching Your Child the Language of Social Success and Inside Out: What Makes a Person with Social-Cognitive Deficits Tick. I'm heading to Half Price Books in the morning with my fingers crossed!

inside out ang language sound good. Tgkitrc is a manual for teachers and while I loved reading it it also made me furious that these simple soundiing ideas weren't used with me. I walked around crying and angry for 2 weeks. Then I wasted a lot of energy trying and failing to get DS's teachers to use the techniques. Big waste of time and effort. It turns out the book is not really accessable in a practical way for many elementary teachers. I didn't believe it at first but since then I have come to. So the book playeed an important role in my evolution as a 'gifted ex-child' but if your energy is limitef it may be one to wait on.

Love and more love
Grinity