test scores

Lisa,

When one does an assessment and tries to give their “gut” feeling the day they give the assessment sometimes something “pops” up when they are calculating the data. From the scores that you have given us the lowest ones are the ones that “center” around reading. Passage comprehension is low and could be that he is not “focusing” when he is reading becuase of ADHD. However his spelling and letter word ID are low too in comparison with the other scores.

Do you have the subtests on the WISC the scores on coding, picture completion, symbol search, digit span etc? This would help us help you too.
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There’s a discrepancy between his abilities — those strong, average IQ scores (100 would be 50 percentile) the reading scores, down in the 20-30 percentile. Especially when math is average and above average, that reading lag sticks out.

It’s important to note that his comprehension is lower than the letter-word I.D. — so both accuracy and comprehension need the intervention. When a kiddo has a significantly higher comprehension score it says to work on figuring out what those words are (since that score would probably be even higher if he weren’t missing words), and it’s more common with kiddos with auditory or visual processing problems, as opposed to attention problems. And that’s consistent with having better calculation than applied problems (though there doesn’t look like there’s a problem there) and having that good processing speed. He can learn a procedure and do it and get it right — but quite possibly the ADHD keeps him from focusing and prioritizing the information enough to know when and how to apply it at a more sophisticated level.

Academically he’s got an achievement lag — and sometimes people interpret any specific lag in skills as a “learning disability” especially since basically he’ll need extra help in that specific area. HOwever, if attention is the real issue then that needs to be scoped out — could be that if he could focus, that comprehension (and math application) ability would move on up.

This is pure speculation — but in general, if you want to get help for your kiddo, the more problems that are documented, the better. There are schools who wouldn’t give help in reading to a kid who didn’t have a “reading disability.” So the psych may have included that strictly to give you more options — or it could have been something that came up after reflection.

It’s tricky because the help works best if it really targets the problem, and a problem with the mental information processes in reading is different than a problem sustaining attention to a (any) cognitive task. And, of course, a rather mild reading disability could turn into a much bigger problem if that’s what pushes the task beyond the kid’s ability to hold his attention to the task.

Thank you so much for your input and help. On the WISC-III he scored the following in these subtest: Digit Span: 8, Picture Completion: 8, Coding: 12, and Symbol Search: 12.