I need help understanding my kid's test scores & 2e nature

[Jen Muise]

I have a dd identified as 2e.  Her WISC scores are very high for Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning , but 25- 30 points lower for Working Memory  and Processing Speed.

So, my questions are - should she be scored with the GIA scale instead of the FSIQ because of her learning difference?  and why, if her processing speed is average or slightly above average, does she take *for ever* to do stuff and get her thoughts together?  Is that normal for 2e kids?

Edited by Jen Muise - 3/21/12 at 12:51pm

[moominmamma]

In what sense is she 2E? It's hard to offer perspectives on her dual exceptionality when you haven't described it. How old is she? What difficulties does she have? What strengths?

Miranda

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by Jen Muise 

 Is that normal for 2e kids?

I have a child who is 2E, both gifted and on the autism spectrum. My take is that "normal" is a completely useless word. By definition, a child who is 2E is not typically developing in multiple ways. They miss the boundaries of what is "normal."  The differences between 2 children who are "2E" are more extreme than the difference between two kids who are "typically developing" -- there's no pattern. 

And what does it matter? How is it helpful for you and your DD to decide that something she is struggling with is "normal" or "not-normal"?

[Jen Muise]

The psychologist says she's gifted with learning differences, but they haven't come up with anything else.  Not dyslexic, not Aspergers or other Autism, not ADHD, etc etc.  She's clearly very bright when you talk to her, but she takes 3-4 times longer than you'd think to answer questions and get her thoughts together if it's a new question to her.  Her reading is maybe a year behind, despite her being very motivated to read.  I don't know what other details to give, I haven't talked about this much. 

[Jen Muise]

And, regarding normal vs not normal - if it's normal, maybe someone else has some experience that can help me deal with it, but if it's not a typical characteristic then maybe something else is going on.

[ollyoxenfree]

There are others here who are more knowledgeable than I am about the WISC and they may give you some guidance, but yes, with those scores, I would go back to the psychologist who performed the assessment and ask about the GAI.

The GAI (General Ability Index) does not include the Processing Speed and Working Memory indices that measure processing skills. Processing skills are less associated with gifted cognition compared to the tasks that are measured with the subtests on the other two indices of the WISC, the Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning.  

From the NAGC position statement on using the GAI: 

Testers of the gifted know that abstract reasoning tasks best identify cognitive giftedness, while processing skills measures do not.  Gifted children with or without disabilities may be painstaking, reflective and perfectionistic on paper-and-pencil tasks, lowering their Processing Speed Index scores; to a lesser degree, they may struggle when asked to recall non-meaningful material (Digit Span, Letter-Number Sequencing), lowering their Working Memory Index, even though they excel on meaningful auditory memory tasks that pique their interest. 

......

Use of the GAI takes on special significance with the gifted. Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning tasks are heavily loaded on abstract reasoning ability and are better indicators of giftedness than Working Memory (auditory memory that is manipulated) and Processing Speed (speed on paper-and-pencil tasks).  Pearson, publisher of the WISC-IV, provides GAI tables on its website in support of similar use of the GAI when the variance between Composite scores is both significant and unusual (see Technical Report #4).

That's not to say that processing skills are unimportant. A child with efficient processing skills has to work less to accomplish a cognitive task and has more brain power available to learn new skills. Again, I would go back to the psychologist and ask about the discrepancies that were identified. I'd ask for suggestions on learning and work strategies to adjust for any significant issues and help him compensate. 

[ollyoxenfree]

Originally Posted by Jen Muise 

The psychologist says she's gifted with learning differences, but they haven't come up with anything else.  Not dyslexic, not Aspergers or other Autism, not ADHD, etc etc.  She's clearly very bright when you talk to her, but she takes 3-4 times longer than you'd think to answer questions and get her thoughts together if it's a new question to her.  Her reading is maybe a year behind, despite her being very motivated to read.  I don't know what other details to give, I haven't talked about this much. 

Cross-posted with you above. 

Does this psychologist have experience working with students and the educational system? An experienced psychologist should be able to make some recommendations about learning strategies and classroom accommodations to help with processing speed and working memory. Or maybe she isn't in school? Are you homeschooling? If so, it will be easier to allow her to pace herself and create your own accommodations. Are you seeing issues? Is she struggling or getting frustrated or having trouble with motivation? 

[ollyoxenfree]

BTW, in my earlier post about the GAI, I didn't mention that it's often used to support entry to a gifted program when the child's Full Scale IQ (FSIQ) doesn't meet the admission criteria. If that isn't an option for your dd, then you may find it more helpful if the professionals focus less on test numbers and more on how she is managing, her preferred learning style and various coping strategies to help her out. I suspect, with those scores, that she's a visual-spatial learner and does less well with a teacher who relies heavily on an auditory teaching style. Right-brained visual learners may struggle with early reading and writing, particularly in a program that emphasizes phonics. That's a total guess though, and her psychologist and teachers are really who you need to talk to about this. 

How old is she, anyway? There's also an aspect of maturation that may be in play here too. 

[Geofizz]

We were sent to have evaluations for auditory/language processing disorder for my son after an audiologist noted that DS took a long time to respond, or even just to repeat words.  He has passed the screening available to him given his age, and if we're still noticing issues, we're to go back after he turns 7 to access tests that are fully normed to diagnose LPD.  His working memory and processing speeds are super high (98 and 96th percentile IIRC), and yet we're still seeing massive delays.  The other working hypothesis we have from both the school psychologist and the SLP who did the first round of testing is that he is working through all possible responses before answering.  We see some evidence of that, but it doesn't seem to explain why it seem to take a century to answer "Do you want banana on your oatmeal this morning?"

As Olly explained, the processing speed and working memory are things that help a child access and produce what they can figure out, but are not strong markers of giftedness.  I think that they make the giftedness more evident to outside observers, however.  My DD's working memory and processing speeds are similar to the ones you quote for your DD.  We have had to struggle to have her teachers see her giftedness, whereas everyone seems to see it instantaneously with DS. 

However, you are having reading problems, with no diagnosis of dyslexia.  How was dyslexia ruled out?  Do you have AIMSWeb or DIBELS testing?  Any signs of visual processing issues?  Have you done a full developmental eye exam, checking for tracking, convergence, etc?  (not just acuity).  Have you done a full audiology exam?

Knowing your DD's age and grade would help.  Any other struggles?  Social skills?  Old or young for grade?

[KCMichigan]

Originally Posted by Linda on the move 

I have a child who is 2E, both gifted and on the autism spectrum. My take is that "normal" is a completely useless word. By definition, a child who is 2E is not typically developing in multiple ways. They miss the boundaries of what is "normal."  The differences between 2 children who are "2E" are more extreme than the difference between two kids who are "typically developing" -- there's no pattern. 

And what does it matter? How is it helpful for you and your DD to decide that something she is struggling with is "normal" or "not-normal"?

I have 2E DDs and they are very different even between themselves.

DD1 is suspected gifted with mild  physical disabilities. DD2 is also suspected gifted with sensory/Asperger-ish differences as well as some auditory processing trouble.

We look at 2E as different than the standard in the classroom....but for my DDs is is 'normal' for them to feel/act/think that way.

You would be surprised at how many kiddos are 2E

As far as your case is concerned....if she is gifted and behind grade level in areas, I would really look at a learning disability, vision difficulty, ADHD, Non-Verbal Learning Disability, dysgraphia, or other area. Gifted kiddos can have strengths and weaknesses, but often if they are below grade level- there is more to it than just interest or area of strength.

I would sit down with the tester and talk about the scores specifically and what they mean for your DD in the classroom.

[moominmamma]

I suspect they have already considered the GAI or looked at her scores informally through a similar lens if she has been designated gifted, as her scores overall would not allow her to meet the gifted cutoff, at least not in my area, yet with the WMI and PSI eliminated, her scores are considerably higher.

My ds (15yo) has considerably starker differences in his scores than your dd (his PSI is on the 13th percentile, WMI on the 50th, and his other scores are a bit higher), yet he has never been below grade level in reading nor had the kind of profound slowness to respond to questions and tasks that you describe in your dd. Which is to say that from my perspective I don't see anything in her test scores that would explain her learning differences. 

How old is she? If she is still very young and coping pretty well in school it could just be immaturity that's accounting for some of the delay. If she's older than 5 or 6 and is really struggling in the classroom, she probably needs further evaluation looking for specific learning disabilities or cognitive gaps.

Miranda

[Jen Muise]

Wow, lots to think about here!  She's 9 currently, born in October so always one of the youngest in her class,  in the public system and struggling. Her grades are OK, some As in math and french, C's in reading and Bs everywhere else.  Not what she's capable of for sure, and have been slowly declining despite significant effort on her part.  Her organizational skills and ability to process information are probably her biggest issues.  She has a very hard time working on her own and needs hand holding to get started on just about anything, especially if it requires reading.  We are incredibly frustrated with the public system and are moving her to an LD focused school, but she's going to have to go back to public school in a couple years because we won't be able to afford to keep up the tuition.  So, I want to make sure we've got our bases covered.  

The psychologist we saw has come highly recommended and has 25+ years experience with the school board, so should be familiar with the processes here - although she has suggested that dd would not do well in a gifted class even if she technically qualifies for it.  I don't want to have to pay for all this again tho, so if there's a way that the test can be scored so that the system has a piece of paper that will let me opt in or opt out of gifted then I'd like that choice.  She said that dd's presentation is very unusual, that she had consulted with her peers (in fact one said dd must be fictional!) and made a number of recommendations but also admitted that she was kind of throwing a bunch of stuff in there because she wasn't entirely sure what would help. 

She is definitely strongly visual, and struggles with decoding words and especially blending sounds together. The test she was given for dyslexia was the dyslexia determination test, and she struggled but came up borderline - normal for results.  I don't know what AIMSweb or DIEBELs is, so I'm guessing we haven't done those.  Her sight has been checked thoroughly, but not hearing.  I wonder if she's got an audio processing thing sometimes - she has said to me that sometimes she tries to listen, she's looking at the teacher and concentrating, but she doesn't understand what is being said.  I'm not sure how to get a test for that, tho.

What geofizz said about taking time because she's going through all the possibilities rings true; sometimes if we ask her if she wants toast she will launch into a long and incredibly specific description of just how she wants her toast ( ie, 2 slices of brown toast, butter put on after it's toasted, crusts left on, each slice cut diagonally into 2 pieces, on any plate except the Pooh bear one, must be toasted enough to stay crispy when the butter is put on, butter must melt etc) which always makes me wonder what is going on in that head of hers!  She is shy, but has several close friends.  She has a weird way of viewing the world that I don't know how to describe, it makes me think she's got Aspergers or something but the psychologists say she doesn't.  She's very rigid and literal in her thinking, and often misunderstands subtleties in human interactions.  For instance, she reported someone for bullying because they told a rude joke.  Or another time, she was concerned about the welfare of some kids at a park because their parents were letting them break the no socks rule, and therefore clearly negligent.  She will answer a question like "What did we learn from this experiment?" with nothing, because she knew that stuff already.  Her sister wrote her a beautiful love note the other day, and dd very politely said "no thanks" and handed it back to her.  But she looks you in the eye when she's talking, has empathy for people, and can identify feelings on faces etc.

Ultimately, I don't care what score she has on what test, but I need a way to be able to talk to professional people to figure out how to help her.  I can see that she's brilliant at times, but the amount of work and effort that she's putting in on a daily basis to manage school is destroying her confidence and is painful to watch.  She's in tears some mornings because she doesn't want to go, not because she doesn't love learning and want to learn more, but because she doesn't know how to do what they want & finds the place noisy and impossible to concentrate in.  I'm seeing all kinds of grumpiness and anxiety after school, and she's starting to dig her heels in and refuse to complete certain projects because she finds them overwhelming. 

I think that answers everything!  Thx to everyone for your responses :)

[joensally]

DS is 2E, so we've been through a lot of assessment processes.  It's exhausting.

It's more typical for gifted kids to have scatter, particularly low WM and PS, than it is to have consistency among scores.

PRI is pretty dependent on visual and fine motor skills, whereas VCI is pretty reliant on listening/responding.  I would look at auditory processing issues.  And it's always good to rule out vision issues via a developmental optometrist.

A psych doing a psych-ed can't definitively rule out ASD.  It may be worth further investigation, although lots of things are autistic-type behaviours but don't actually add up to autism.

Some books you might be interested in:

Webb's Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults

Eides' The Mislabeled Child  (they also have great info on their blog and website)

Bright Not Broken 

Tony Atwood's Asperger's book

The Oasis Book of Asperger's (also have a website)

The Davidson Gifted Forum is also good.  And hoagiesgifted.org

Some of these you can get with preview on google books.

Welcome :).

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by Jen Muise 

She is definitely strongly visual, and struggles with decoding words and especially blending sounds together.

These are hallmarks of dyslexia.
 

If she came out borderline on that test, that's probably about 1 standard deviation below average.  Her verbal abilities are a standard deviation above average.  That 2 sigma difference is huge, is a marker for dyslexia, and will surely be a huge source of frustration for your daughter.  Read the DSM-IV on the diagnostic criteria, and one of them is more than 1.5 standard deviations between verbal abilities (IQ index) and performance. 

My DD now carries diagnoses of dyslexia and dysgraphia, both based on the difference between her IQ and achievement testing.  Indeed, her writing scores are average, but since they're 3 sigma below her VCI, this qualifies as dysgraphia ("disorder of written expression").  Her reading disorder is marked by difficulty in segmenting words into syllables, reading nonsense words phonetically, and recalling nonsense syllables.

The other things you describe are really consistent with Asperger's, but I don't have direct experience with it in my family (though I see a lot in my some friends' kids I see often).  Let's let Linda answer that one, but I understand it's really hard to diagnose in girls. 

My DS was evaluated by a SLP specializing in language processing disorder at the university speech, language, and hearing clinic.  The other expert in this part of the state is at the university hospital's autism clinic.  Considering what you're describing, if this were my child, I'd take her to the autism clinic expert to be able to tease apart the "sound salad" issues from any possible autism.

[Jen Muise]

To clarify - we saw a Developmental psychiatrist who specializes in autism about the possibility of Aspergers, and she says that's not it but she can see why we'd wonder.  She had a psychologist run a bunch of tests and dd scores were typical for her age, although on one extra test (facial recognition) they did she scored low because she needed to come up with 2 stories for a picture of a person and she could only give one story. 

That info on dyslexia is interesting Geofizz, thx!  Dd definately sees words and letters differently than other people, it took her a long time to see them as symbols.  Watching her write is like watching someone do a still life painting of the alphabet.  I don't know if she can separate words into sylables or not, but she certainly can't easily read names and such that are unfamiliar to her.  She's very good at covering and using context tho, so her teachers often don't realize how far she is behind. 

I'll have to research SLPs in my area, and see what we can come up with. 

Thx for the welcome and  book list joensally, I'm a sucker for research.  :)

I feel like I need a degree in psych just to navigate all this!

[joensally]

Originally Posted by Geofizz 

These are hallmarks of dyslexia.
 

If she came out borderline on that test, that's probably about 1 standard deviation below average.  Her verbal abilities are a standard deviation above average.  That 2 sigma difference is huge, is a marker for dyslexia, and will surely be a huge source of frustration for your daughter.  Read the DSM-IV on the diagnostic criteria, and one of them is more than 1.5 standard deviations between verbal abilities (IQ index) and performance. 

My DD now carries diagnoses of dyslexia and dysgraphia, both based on the difference between her IQ and achievement testing.  Indeed, her writing scores are average, but since they're 3 sigma below her VCI, this qualifies as dysgraphia ("disorder of written expression").  Her reading disorder is marked by difficulty in segmenting words into syllables, reading nonsense words phonetically, and recalling nonsense syllables.

The other things you describe are really consistent with Asperger's, but I don't have direct experience with it in my family (though I see a lot in my some friends' kids I see often).  Let's let Linda answer that one, but I understand it's really hard to diagnose in girls. 

My DS was evaluated by a SLP specializing in language processing disorder at the university speech, language, and hearing clinic.  The other expert in this part of the state is at the university hospital's autism clinic.  Considering what you're describing, if this were my child, I'd take her to the autism clinic expert to be able to tease apart the "sound salad" issues from any possible autism.

This is a great post.  Geofizz, you do a great job of distilling all the information into usable stuff.

[joensally]

Originally Posted by Jen Muise 

To clarify - we saw a Developmental psychiatrist who specializes in autism about the possibility of Aspergers, and she says that's not it but she can see why we'd wonder.  She had a psychologist run a bunch of tests and dd scores were typical for her age, although on one extra test (facial recognition) they did she scored low because she needed to come up with 2 stories for a picture of a person and she could only give one story. 

That info on dyslexia is interesting Geofizz, thx!  Dd definately sees words and letters differently than other people, it took her a long time to see them as symbols.  Watching her write is like watching someone do a still life painting of the alphabet.  I don't know if she can separate words into sylables or not, but she certainly can't easily read names and such that are unfamiliar to her.  She's very good at covering and using context tho, so her teachers often don't realize how far she is behind. 

I'll have to research SLPs in my area, and see what we can come up with. 

Thx for the welcome and  book list joensally, I'm a sucker for research.  :)

I feel like I need a degree in psych just to navigate all this!

That's great that you've seen someone so experienced.  It's really hard, because when you've got a kid who's a double outlier, lots of clinicians just haven't seen it before.

All of these diagnoses share processing issues.  I have found books about ASD very helpful in terms of addressing processing issues for my son who does not have an ASD.

If you like research, you may love the Eides' book.  They deal with processing issues of every variety, and they make the information accessible.

[ollyoxenfree]

You are getting a huge amount of information and it's a lot to digest. I hesitate to add too much that may confuse things. In case it is helpful, though, a few things that you mention in your last post make me wonder about sensitivity issues too. If she has auditory processing issues and is supersensitive to sound or other distractions, then it's no wonder she struggles at school. 

I really hesitated to write this post because I suspect you are feeling overwhelmed yourself right now. It's one thing to ask for information, it's another to sort through a tsunami of ideas and suggestions, no matter how helpful it all is. So I hope you are feeling okay and I haven't hit a tipping point. There are lots of parents who have been where you are right now, so you are not alone. Deep breaths help too  . 

[Geofizz]

...and a marker for dysgraphia is drawing letters instead of writing letters.

Edit:  Segmenting words -- a fun verbal activity is to do things like "if I take the /tur/ off of turkey, what do I get?"  (answer: key).  We've done stuff like this just when riding in the car.  You can make them harder once she gets good at them, e.g., if I replace "the /b/ in bat with /c/, what do I get?"  It will help her hear the different parts of the word and she'll get practice playing with them.  Hopefully you can teach her to take advantage of her perceptual abilities to begin to visualize the syllables and sounds.

[Jen Muise]

olly - it is a lot to take in, but I feel better having lots to investigate than being at a dead end not knowing what to do!   Its hard not having the right words to describe what's going on; so many LD things seem to look like one thing but could be something else.

I would describe her as super sensitive to sound, she is very good at concentrating but noise disruptions really bother her - she seems to be able to hear *everything* or nothing at all.  Like she's missing a filter or something.  She's like that with visual information too, she seems to see every detail and isn't always able to pick out the important information in a timely fashion, but it seems easier to deal with most of the time.  She is unfortunately in a split grade this year, and the noise is really making her nuts. She is expected to quietly do her work independently while the gr 3s are being taught their lessons, which she is pretty much incapable of doing between not being a strong reader/writer, not always knowing what to do or how to organize to do it, and having someone talking while she's supposed to be working. 

That thing about drawing letters is interesting, I've always said that dd draws letters as tho they are pictures - we have pages upon pages of " A a " " B b " etc written hugely and decorated beautifully with polka dots and rainbows and such.  and, she seemed to need to copy letters *exactly*, there was no flexibility for the minor changes we all make when we're writing.