Can anyone help on these test scores and comments I received for my son’s IEP? Son is 10 yrs. 9 months and in fifth grade. We’ve spent years privately addressing language and auditory processing issues. He also has a neurological disorder, which he has become more self-conscious and bothered about as he has gotten older. I particularly don’t know what to make of IQ scores relative to achievement scores and some of the written comments.
Results—WISCII information:13 similarities:12 Arithmetic:8 Vocabulary:10 Comprhension:10 Digit Span (12) Picture completion:11 coding:14 picture arrangement:11 block design:17 object assembly:12 Verbal IQ:104 Performance IQ:120 Full scale IQ:112 (Note: These last three are all 13 points higher than they were three years ago in a private testing.)
Results—WIAT basic reading:101 Mathematics reasoning:88 spelling:115 reading comprehension:94 numerical operations:113 listening comprehension:85 oral expression:104 written expression:80 (Tester noted that last score may not be accurate as it was the last subtest and he had difficulty motivating himself to complete task and did not respond to encouragement. My note: son definitely does not have dysgraphia.)
Written comments: “His variation in academic performance as measured by the WIAT appears to be due to anxiety and language based weaknesses and does not appear to reflect a learning disability.” Recommendations are psycho-social counselling, after school athletic or social activities. Also “He may benefit from individualized instruction such as tutoring to assist him in improving his academic skills.”
Concerns: Listening comprehension seems very low relatively and I would guess that is contributing to the low WISC arithmetic and WIAT math reasoning, which I understand are given orally. But the tester seems to conclude this is merely a language based weakness, not a learning disability. Is the tester blowing off his listening problem—none of her recommendations seem to address it? Why does she attribute depressed scores on WIAT to anxiety, but not attribute same to lower scores on WISC? Most important: I have little faith in school system and am willing to address issues privately, either at home or with a professional. Son just started LMB’s visualizing and verbalizing intensive. Is this the right track for addressing issues that can be picked up from these scores or would something else be helpful? (For example, many people here suggest Audiblox. Would that be something to pursue?) Thanks for any light you can shed on the scores and comments.
Audiblox
My dd has a similar type profile- big split(30pt) between PIQ and VIQ - PIQ being much stronger.
We did Audiblox for about 6mo. and did see gains with it(my dd is 7) . It primarily addresses visual memory/discrimination issues, but does have an auditory portion to it. It also addresses fluency issues with reading.
Your son sounds like my dd, in that she has poor auditory memory- she does much better if information is presented to her visually vs. auditorily - my dd would have scored low on those oral tests too. Although, my dd has some very good strengths visually (like visual spatial skills), her visual memory was not that hot and I think this impacted her visualization (creating the picture in her head) abilities.
She progressed very quickly with the visual exercises- and her visual memory ability increased quickly. I think this helped her spelling memorization skills in the process - which she had difficulty with at beginning of year. She did not progress as fast with the auditory exercises- we needed more work on those. The Auditory exercises are memory related - there are no auditory processing/phonological processing exercises - which I think is lacking in the program.
We stopped after 6mo (you are suppose to do for a year), because the reading fluency exercises I felt were hurting her decoding ability- it was inforcing her tendency to memorize words. So we started back using reading reflex and practiced blending/segmenting skills.
We may start it back up again - or we are considering doing PACE this fall. Right now, she is doing pretty good- she is reading above grade level, so I’m holding off our decision until/if we start seeing struggles again.
Net: It’s a good program if your child has visual memory or visual discrimination issues. Also good if child does not have any serious decoding issues, but needs help with fluency. There is an auditory memory exercise and a logical reasoning exercise - both of which are problems with my child. Audiblox wants you to address your visual issues first and they increase the auditory and logical exercises later in the program - we probably stopped too soon to see alot of benefit from these.
If it were a $1000 program, I probably would not recommend it for our profile of kids, but it’s inexpensive enough that it’s worth trying - you just have to invest the time.
Re: Audiblox
Dea, Thanks—that was the most complete description of audiblox I’ve seen. Is it possible in the program to accelerate through the visual exercises and get to the auditory/logical ones? My main concern is overload on the therapy as he is getting increasingly restive about it.
Kind of
When we started, I had sent an e-mail to the audiblox people and gave them a complete profile of my dd. They in turn, customized a program for her. With the standard program, you would not do any auditory exercises until the 2nd phase. They started us on one auditory exercise in the beginning, but we didn’t start the logical reasoning until the following phase. There were still many more visual than auditory. I too wanted to speed up and get to the auditory ones, but they said I needed to ‘establish the visual plane first’.
It’s not a piece of cake - the program takes 60min. a day - ideally 5 days a week. We usually got 3-4 days in. They will also customize your program for you, so say you only want to do it 3days a week - you can do that. It was hard to get my dd motivated to do it (me too), but once we got started I thought the exercises were kind of fun (and they are somewhat mindless for parent to do) - kind of like puzzles. I thought about hiring a high school kid to come in and do them - would a cute high school girl motivate or de-motivate him? :)
Oh yes, they also have a math segment, and I think this helped my dd alot too. If you do the reading, make sure you supplement with a good ‘decoding’ program like Reading Reflex.
Since he has some visual strengths, I think he will zoom thru the visual exercises as well and the positive accomplishment may motivate him to continue?
Remember it’s a cognitive exercise program - so your intensity, duration and frequency are very key to getting success. The more you can do it a week, the better.
If they are language issues in comprehension then LMB VV is a good choice. My daughter tests out higher on the PIQ than on the VIQ as well and tests out with a “normal IQ” but she definitely has a language based learning disability compounded by ADD. I don’t trust school districts either. My daughter has made the most gains by my own intervention and LMB training..