My 5 1/2 yr old son is being tested for possible LD’s. His kindergarten teacher noticed he is not recognizing letters, she started to realize there was a problem when he wasn’t recognizing a letter that is in his name.
He has already had a speech and language eval, brigance, and Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence.
My questions is this, his teacher wants to understand what type of learner he is, visual, auditory, both, etc?? Will these test determine that?? I am not entirely sure on the Wechsler? It seems more of an IQ test, I have been searching the internet trying to find out what it is exactly and how it will benefit the teacher?? I have been having a hard time so any input would be greatly appreciate!! What type of eval’s would help??
Thanks
K.
Re: Questions from a Mom
Can children his age be given the Woodcock Johnson? Would that be a better test?
Re: Questions from a Mom
Just a parent’s comment,
How great for you that the teacher is taking the initiative to solve this puzzle. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT AND APPRECIATE IT! We battled for so long just to get our son tested. Our teacher kept suggesting retention, we said no and finally had to come to an ugly battle to get him tested. His testing revealed significant learning disabilities and we are still constantly going back and forth to get the proper testing to get the whole story on him. Good Luck to you! You have a great advantage over most parents who post here, lucky you.
Re: Questions from a Mom
Children his age can be given the Woodcock, it is normed down to Kindergarten age, but unless his IQ is significantly above normal, it may be difficult to meet the LD qualification, which needs a significant discrepancy. I think there are other tests that go lower, I believe the PIAT (Peabody Individual Achievement Test) is one. You could also ask for the CTOPP, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, it goes down to age 5, is a fairly new test but many school psychologists can get access to it. Your son is young, so it may be hard to get real good results, but keep trying, and don’t be shy about asking for outside testing if you don’t agree with what they come up with, school district tests are often notoriously limited. Good for that teacher for moving ahead anyway, early intervention is always a plus if you can get it!
Sharon
www.angelfire.com/on2/thepuzzle
A look at subtests on the Weschler can usually give good clues about auditory and visual strengths and weaknesses. So, it is an “IQ” test — but intelligence is a very complex and changing thing. If he has specific problems wiht some of th ose tests, the teacher may be wanting to do some auditory processing or phonemic awareness tests.
If you try to teach a child to sound out “mat” by starting with the mmm sound… but the kiddo doesn’t realize that mat has three sounds, he’s not going to learn from the task what the kid next to him who intuitively realizes that the difference between Mmmmat and ssssat is that little chunk of sound — the phoneme — at the beginning, but the rest of it is the same. Most people never think about that stuff — the connections happen intuitively. Other kids need to be taught.