Understanding the Results

Sorry about the tight reading on the WISC III results - had it spaced out and then it pushed together when I posted.

From the scores you have posted, your child is not eligible for learning disability. For starters, look for a 22 point discrepancy between IQ and achievement scores. Thus, best case scenario would be using the higher verbal IQ and looking for reading, written language or math scores at 88 or lower. You son did not meet that discrepancy. I do not know how they determine eligibility for OT. The majority of his scores are “right on” with his full-scale IQ, and mimimally (nonsignificantly) discrepant from the higher verbal score.

Did an OT test him? You don’t typically base OT eligibility on psychological testing, in fact, I have never seen it done. However, based on those scores, he wouldn’t be eligible for specific learning disability.

Cheryl,

Yes he was tested by an OT. We just haven’t spoken with her directly like we did the psych. Our knowledge is 2nd hand thru psych on what the OT is going to be saying at meeting. We were told that yes they have other students in OT who tested at the same levels our son did, but their cases presented differently than our sons and she doesn’t think one on one therapy will help him.

I guess my questioning is more with the scoring of the WISC III. I understand that the current scores do not make him eligible, but if the Performance subtest of Symbol Search was used how good/bad would that have to be if all other factors were “as is” to show a

WISC III
Verbal 110
Performance 91
Full 101

Verbal Subtest

Information 11
Similarities 12
Arithmetic 10
Vocabulary 14
Comprehension 11
Digit Span 12

Performance Subtests
Picture Completion 4
Picture Arrangement 12
Coding 7
Block Design 10
Object Assembly 10
Symbol Search 1

I am concerned from that point that the pscyologist is saying there seems to be a visual discrimination problem - and note, that is the test which was set aside for the scoring. If the Symbol search test had been scored in at the 4 or 7 in comparison to the other two subtests which dealt with looking at pictures - what would the scoring for performance been. Guess I need to find out how the scoring is computed from the subtests to give the Performance #.

your son has a 19 point spread between IQ and preformance, the wisc protocalls state that if their is more then a 15 point dicrepency between the two it is not an accurate measure of the childs IQ.

In addition to this you have sub test scatter on the preformance section of the wisc- that is more then 3 points between the different subtests 12-4=8point descrepency. (you have it on the verbal side too but 14-10=4 is far less of a concern.)

we normally see this in reversal, that is the preformance is higher then the verbal- then we know the child needs a non verbal IQ test, In the past when I have seen it this way all most all the kids turned out to be dyslexic. you might want to have your child tested for dyslexia.

The only thing I can say for certain about these scores is that they do not accurately represent the childs IQ.

The other thing I can say Is something has to be wrong to cause this split, so more information is needed.

Whatever is going on it isnt affecting your childs achivement scores to badly, yet. But you will need to stay on top of it, your child is somhow compensating for the low preformance ability right now but as kids get older its harder and harder to compensate, and eventually it begins to effect achievement.

I imagine allready its very difficult for your child to copy things, eigther from a board, overhead or book. As your child gets older and is expected to take notes and study from them it looks like he will have greater difficulty.

I suggest you send your childs compleate ETR/MFE to a advocacy agency, I am sure they will reccommend futher testing.

I believe “Symbol Search” is one of the optional subtests. I may be wrong, however there are two subtests, one in verbal and one in performance, that are optional. Symbol Search is not an intelligence issue, so it does not have to even be given. If I am wrong, anyone, correct me.

I have never heard anything to the effect that when there is a discrepancy between the two scores, more than 15 points, that this is not accurate. Never. Where did you ever encounter this? We have children who show spreads between verbal and performance IQ. I am afraid I disagree with you on that call and if a parent walks into a meeting informing the psych. that the test is not a valid measure of IQ, this parent may be misinformed. Our psych. will be coming around today and I will ask her if there is any statement to this effect in the protocols. If I learn anything more or if I learn that I am wrong, I’ll sign on during recess and post thusly.

From my understanding of the test what it means is that the full scale IQ is not a unitary construct if there is a significant verbal/performance IQ split. It does not mean the IQ test is invalid. What has been explained to me is it means that if this split does exist that the higher score is more likely closer to the individuals true potential and that that score is used to compare against achievement tests to see if a ablitly/achievement discrepency exists. For example my sons performance IQ is 104, his verbal is 82 with a full scale of 92. Due to obvious verbal difficulties it is felt is performance score is a better indicator of his potentional. His performance score was measured against his WIAT results to determine if a discrepency existed between his ability and achievement. His reading composite was 68 his writing composite 75 and math composite 101. When compared to his performance IQ he met the significant difference in both reading and writing, had his scores been compared to his full scale he would of only met it in reading and then just barely. Hope this helps.

I think the definition of a SLD may vary from system to system and state to state; in my son’s case, his FSIQ of 122(V125,P113) and WJIII standard scores in the 90’s(average) did not qualify him for special ed(in Mass.) The psychologist said a split of 12pts, which was what my son had, between V and P is not uncommon. We have chosen to obtain private tutoring, and will continue this. It is my feeling that above average LD kids aren’t well served by the sped system.

12 points is not statistically significant, 15 points is.

and since some people want to be horrifically technical I had defined subtest scatter as a difference of 3 points (which is a common method to use) but per the manual subtest scatter is 3 points away from the statistacal mean of the subtests in eighter the verbal or nonverbal section of the test.

so you would add up all the scores on one side of the test, devide by the number of items, then if any of the origional scores were father then three points away from the mean, then you have subtest scatter. which means the I score is not an actual reflection of the childs ability and another test is needed.

all of you have the right to see the test protocals yourselves, the school can not legally give you a copy, so you have to go in and read them there.

Anitya, all psychological tests are only accurate within their statistical boundries. All phychological tests that compile more then one score, are suseptable to both intertest and intratest scatter. (one is within test scatter the other is between test scatter) Each test has different numbers regarding what is and isnt statistically significant. these are found in the test protocalls, every test has them, they are the rules for administering, scoreing and interperting the test results.

the wisc, is only accurate within statistical boundries, a 15 point discrepency between verbal and nonverbal IQ exceeds these boundries, for this test, a discrepency of greater then 3 from the mean in eighter section of the test (verbal or non verbal) also exceeds these boundries.

below is an article, it has a “general” section on subtest scatter, it will help you understand. but it is speaking in general, each test has its own statistical boundries.

http://www.ldonline.org/bulletin_boards/pld.html

Sar I think you should read the article I linked below. Schools can be rotton, they may not want to serve your child because he is doing well, but that dosnt mean the disability dosnt exist and isnt affecting him, or preventing him from living up to his ability.

please read the section labled “serving children with non verabl learning disabilities” carefully.

http://www.ldonline.org/bulletin_boards/pld.html

you should also read this, it is clairification from the federal government about serving students who have IQ’s above the norm.

http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/gt_ld/lda_advocacymemo.html

Dana,

He would not qualify for services in my state either. There certainly are many children who are borderline who could benefit from therapy who do not qualify for services in the school. Anitya and Lisa are correct that the full scale score is the one that would not be used when there is a wide discrepancy between the verbal and performance scores. It is very important to look at the subtest scores when there is scatter. The scores do indicate some visual problems just as your psychologist has suggested. You can either pursue private therapy and/or further evaluation for that, or you could go ahead and try one of the home training programs to strengthen those skills. An inexpensive home therapy program with strong visual training that immediately comes to mind is Audiblox (some parents here at LD Online have used it):

http://www.audiblox2000.com./

As far as the OT goes, it’ll be great if the OT can give you exercises to do with him at home. It is not always necessary for an OT to provide direct service to improve a writing problem. Sometimes being pulled out of class for so many “special” services causes a child to have even more academic problems!

Janis

According to our psych. the scatter has nothing to do with the validity of what the test is measuring. The statistics will tell what percentage of the population has that particular spread. A 15 point spread, as our psych. could recall is generally found in 25% of the population, for example. This makes this kind of spread happen in about 1:4 people. This does not make the lower score invalid, it simply points to uneven devlopment within the individual. Within the normal range of human abilities/strengths/weaknesses it is totally typical for people to have relative strengths and weaknesses. It is totally possible to be a great swimmer and an mediocre basketball player. There is nothing abnormal about this, statistically most people have more consistent talents, but some people’s talents are notably greater in one area than another.

Now if you have firsthand experience with this test and if you can post the quote from the protocols, I’ll be happy to return to our psychologist with this information.

Good point, thanks for explaining your understanding. But, I want to say something that is, perhaps, not what everyone will want to hear. As a teacher of about 12 years experience, I have followed children across years (6) who have had this split. I have seen a performance score of 98 remain about 98 and a verbal of 72 remain 72, even despite therapy and the gradual, annual increase of language scores of very specific language tests. But, when the verbal IQ is retested, it remains in the same range. I also have found this this kind of child, depite good nonverbal intelligence, has significant and serious difficulties understanding the language around him or her. This child remains several years below in all language comprehension. Thus, concepts that are taught in upper grades and secondary grades become increasingly difficult. To the extent that pictures can be used to teach, great, but there is much we teach that cannot be thoroughly taught in pictures. So, this very low verbal IQ seems to be a lifelong pattern. When something is a lifelong (th e 6 years I am familiar with, anyway) I have trouble calling the 99 the true potential.

We need to move beyond this notion of a single unified intelligence. Intelligence is multi-faceted. The multiple-intelligences theory is on the right track. A child can have lowish ability in one area of intelligence and superior ability in another. I also like the way Gardener likens all human abilities to intelligence. I look at intelligence like this (over simplified):

Intelligence = raw “spiritual” power or universal “intelligence”

Spirit, if you like a more religious term. This “universal intelligence” or “raw spirit” is the lifeforce of the universe. You can plug in whatever religions connotation you subscribe to to explain the origin of this force.

Because this force or raw intelligence permeates the universe, it flows through us. To whatever extent we are open in different ways to this flow, we manifest “intelligence.” So, a great ice skater like Sarah Hughes has a particular kind of body/kinesthetic intelligence in genius proportion. She can sense the whereabouts of her body in space and in relation to what is around her and use that feedback to execute difficult maneuvers and to improve her maneuvers. Another person manifests a great deal of intelligence via visual arts channels and is a gifted painter, yet another is a gifted musician. There is no rule that says all humans must have almost equal ability in all human endeavors and outlets.

But, ability on one area is genuine ability. A deficit in an area may well create a lifelong challenge for the individual.

Thanks for letting me expound. I appreciate it and welcome feedback.

My, I am all over this topic. I am compelled to tellyou that we would have qualified your child in my district, most likely. We just qualified a child with a Performance of about 117, verbal of 106 or 111 (I am not sure) and standard scores in the upper 90’s (some even over 100!). But, I tested her and felt there was an LD. So I informed the psych. thus and she went on a hunting expedition to find a way to explain a processing deficit.

See, we are not all bad people who try to keep all youngsters from getting services. We are not required, in most states or districts, to educate all children to their potential. The districts that have made these statements in their mission statements need to change them, now. “Potential” is not an agreed upon, concrete concept that can be proved in all cases.

I for one am not inflamed by what you said. I agree with the theory of multiple intelligence. I feel we all have our strengths and our weakness and that we should build off these strengths and not squelch them just because it is not what school is about. I do feel therapy helps these kids though maybe not increase their IQ but live up to that potential that is there. A good example is my youngest son who is PDD. Before he started therapy at the age of 2 he was completely non-verbal. He communicated by dragging me by the hand and placing my hand on what he wanted. He would rock, spin, bang his head ect. It took a long time but he eventually got to a point he could communicatte. We started with sign language, after he learned signs to get his basic needs met he seemed to relax. This relaxation seemed to help him develop speech. He communicates very well now. He is learning to read and his express his ideas on paper. He no longer routinely rocks, spins or bangs his head. I don’t think he would of been able to get this far without therapy. I am not saying he will be able to do high school work—but we use to think he would never learn to speak, read, or write. I quess what I am saying is that an IQ is just a number and yes it may provide valuable information but……..

Anitya- I will point parents in the right direction, I will assist them to find help, If I have information on hand I can share I will, But I will not break the Law by posting copyright material on an open message board for a teacher who dosnt care to do the work herself.

If I had a copy of the protocals I could post a page number but I dont, as I said you have to go into the office to read them. Even the psychologist can not give out copies of the protocalls they are part of secure test materials (none the less parents still have the right to read them). So if you have a child who you think is being cheated out of his education because the school is useing a test instrument inappropriatly, then it is worth your time to go read the material. If however you are a teacher who is getting paid by the district to gaurd the school wallet then I guess its not worth your time.

3. Check for verbal/performance scatter.
“The normal range difference of scores between the two test levels-verbal and performance-should be under 15 points so as to indicate a more consistent pattern of performance. A 15 or more difference between Verbal IQ and Performance IQ is considered by many to be an indicator of scatter and uneven performance that could be the result of,for example,emotional problems,language difficulties,or processing problems.”

From “Special Educators Guide to 109 diagnostic tests.
written by Roger Pierangelo,Ph.D and George Giuliani,Psy.D.

Symbol search: measures visual discrimination

Coding: Measures ability to associate meaning with symbol,visual motor dexterity(pencil manipulation),flexibility and speed in learning tasks.

The scale scores can range from 1 to 19 with 10 being the midpoint Any score less then three points either way is or should be considered and investigated by the psychologist.

Please note that this completely confirms what Anitya is saying. Subtest scatter is a sign that there are significant strengths and weaknesses..it does not invalidate the results! The subtest scores are very valuable in helping to identify various problems…scatter is the red flag that one must examine the individual subtests as opposed to just looking at composite scores.

Janis

Ohio,

I am sure Anitya does not need me to defend her, but I just have to say that you might in the future want to think about the tone of your messages before you click on the post button. Anitya is one of the most caring and knowledgeable teachers on this board, and to speak to her in this manner is totally uncalled for. The competent teachers out there need encouragement, not sarcasm and personal attack.

Janis

I thank you all for your inputs, thoughts, beliefs, and am going to be spending my weekend really trying to decide where to go from here.

The psychologist has said in essence something is happening. It’s very similar to his dad - dad has learned to compensate, therefore, dad is probably the best teacher. Dad on the other hand firmly believes there is

The Sp. Ed. has a program which deals with morphemes which he feels our son could benefit from, but he (psych) doesn’t see him as eligible for Sp. Ed. and therefore, not eligible for the class either.

As parents, we don’t necessarily agree with pulling from general class, but are looking more for accomodations and modifications for him. It’s pretty obvious he is a VERY verbal learner. I think it’s interesting that he his Reading Fluency is 4.5 GE, yet the Spelling is 1.8 GE.

It’s also frustrating to see that his teacher’s comments included a statement that she doesn’t believe he studies for spelling tests. Ughhhh. Verbal drills at home are almost always correct spelling. It’s when he goes and puts in on the paper that it gets lost. Verbally he has vowels in words, on paper many vowels will get left out.

Anyway, again I say thank you. I love the fact I was able to get so much dialogue. The more I get, the more I learn, the more I understand!!!

Janis,

I have been fighting with anitya for several years now. I assure you I do think before I click and I ment every word of it.

If you dont like what I have to say feel free to ignore me and my posts. I wont be offended. I am not here to argue with teachers or parents. I am here to assist the parents who want assistance and I will even ask others for assistence when I need it.

I will not however watch my tone, if you dont like it, skip my posts.

Dana,

I think I already mentioned Audiblox to you earlier for the visual perceptual issues, but you might want to look at AVCO spelling, too. http://www.spelling.org/Default.htm

There are also people here that recommend developmental vision exams. Rod has given the web-site to find a developmental optometrist before, but I don’t see it at the moment.

Janis

My oldest son did not have an IQ split or discrepency between achievement and ability and did not qualify in one state but did in another due to “slow Processing speed” interefering with ability to learn. His verbal IQ was 92, his performance 100, his achievement scores ranged from 78-97. The new school reviewed the test results and qualified him on the spot. He received LD math, writing, and reading. They also did language testing on him and found him to have a language disability (scored a ss of 75), they seemed appauled by the old district. He has made great progress with his new placement. He is looking forward to taking some non-LD classes next year. I think each state and each district for that fact interupts things a little differently. Kind of reminds me of how our military AFI’s are interputed—you can get a different answer from different people reading the same thing. Life is like that.

Anitya,

A population with 25% with a split in in PIQ/VIQ of 15 or higher seemed high to me. I came up with the following:

Introduction and History of Intelligence Testing (from Kamphaus, 1993)

http://www.coe.tamu.edu/epsy/faculty/CRiccio/Riccio-SPSY612(Master).html

Determine if the Verbal Performance Discrepancy is statistically significant
Overall values for V-P IQ discrepancies are 11 points (.05 level) or 15 points (.01 level)

*********

This would indicate to me that having a 15 point difference is 1%, Correct?

Helen

Here’s a thought- your son’s basic writing skills are on the weak side- but his basic reading skills seem to be adequate for his age. It is hard to tell because they didn’t do the supplemental battery tests from the WJIII that give those clusters. Irf you want more information regarding this- ask them to do the Editing, Spelling of Sounds and Punctuation/Capitalization tests, along with Word Attack. This will give you a couple of things.

1- You will have a basic reading skills and a basic writing skills score that will give you/the teachers more detailed info on what happens as he tries to produce mechanically correct writing-especially compared to his reading.

2. Spelling of Sounds- along with the other scores- will produce a clinical score called Phoneme/grapheme knowledge which is exactly what it sounds like- knowledge of how letters and sounds fit together in words.

This should not be a big inconvenience for the school- we are only talking less than an hour of testing and five minutes to run the sres through the scoring program. I don’t know that it will do anything regarding eligibility- and it doesn’t sound like that is the foremost issue for you anyway- but if you are looking at accommodations and possible help at home then more info is better:) I can’t imagine that they would give you too hard a time about it. Good luck.

Robin

Ohio, are you the same person who posts under “Mama Maria” on another board? If you are, we have plenty of reasonably good-natured agreements and disagreements. This is about getting accurate information to parents and educators, not about trying to be the person who is right. I had an understanding that was in conflict with your understanding. This particular information could be useful to a parent, but the parent needs to take the correct information into the IEP meeting, not hearsay. I do not specifically accuse you of hearsay, I am also susceptible. If you are “Mama Maria,” than I have found many of your posts to be very “right-on,” whether or not I agree with all of them.

I have read, over the last several years, information here and there, posted by parents and sometimes teachers that is just plain incorrect. We cannot do this job unless we have our facts straight. I merely wanted to clarify this question. We still don’t have it clarified, as far as I can tell.

Helen, I think you are right that 25% is high. I think our psych. was using an example. It is not at the 1% level, however. I have not myself had statistics, so I don’t know that this means that one percent have this split. I do know it is a statistical term. When I read studies I read this all the time, there is some statistical level where results are considered significant. So, if a study is looking at a particular treatment for dyslexia and the researchers have a control group and an experimental group. They administer the treatment to one and no treatment or innocuous stuff to the control, then they crunch the numbers to find whether or not their results have statistical significance, they use this kind of language. I don’t think in these cases it directly translates to percentage. You know what, I’ll ask again next week. We should understand this.

The criteria for placements does vary from state to state. This is one possible explanation.

Generally we cannot qualify based on a processing deficit alone. Consider this scenario: a person has a specific processing deficit in an area. However, this person is progressing at a rate commensurate with ability and is thus compensating for the deficit.

My personal current theory is that many of us do have uneveness in processing skills. If we are strong enough in some processing areas, we have the tools to compensate for a weakness and still progress. I don’t think most of these kinds of students should be in special ed. If they suffer from poor teaching, they may end up in special ed.

In my opinion, the majority, if not all, of the LD students I teach have multiple processing deficits. They have poor phonological awareness, weak rapid naming, memory deficits, sequential processing………. this places these students in a particularly risky situation. They don’t have enough processing strengths to compensate for their weaknesses. These students truly need SPECIAL education.

In the case of your son, the first school district may have been blatantly WRONG, for any of several reasons. Or, the criteria may have been just enough different to permit placement in the new state.

However, I am glad to hear he is doing well in his placement. It was a good call!

Thanks for your interesting posts. I am glad your son is progressing so nicely. Clearly, therapy is very much inline for many youngsters. Even when the IQ is split and I may argue against the rather abstract idea of suggesting the true potential is the higher score, we still often have a child who needs special education.

My concern that i have stated to our psych. (we do use the higher of the two WISC scores for eligibility cases) is that we not mislead parents into believing that the lower score was just a fluke or a mistake and that special education will fix this fluke, the discrepancy will vanish and the child, the parents and the teacher will live happily ever after.

When the tests were valid (sometimes psychs. have a good reason to state right in the psych. report that there was something about the testing situation or the child that day that makes them use caution in interpreting the results) the same pattern will probably be evident three years later at the triennial. To the extent that I have seen these kinds of patterns in my job, the discrepancy really does not change.

I tend to think, I am really keen on neurological research, that there are areas in the brain that process certain kinds of stimuli or data and that it is quite possible for basically normal people to have specific areas of the brain that just don’t work as well as others. Research sometimes finds more or less chemical activity in certain parts of the brain (ADHD), unusual size of a part of the brain (dyslexia), unusual patterns of cells, etc. The current questions seems to be what can be changed via external therapies and what may not change appreciably, even with intensive therapy? I think the future of special education will require greater understanding of that very complex organ we call the brain.

Thanks for “listening” to my tirade and for sharing the discussion.

Thanks, Socks. This is exactly why the WISC is a really good instrument to begin a psychoeducational assessment with. You are correct, I believe, that areas that come up as unusual are those very areas that should be investigated very specifically with a processing instrument that hones in on the specifics. A good psych. will use this as the “jumping off point” in the assessment and this data will start the process of selecting the remaining tests to be administered.

In my school a low verbal relative to performance will generate a language assessment. Other low subtests will generate certain tests of subtests. The psych. I work with (whom I respect and find to be very thorough and to oftentimes rival private assessments) will not use the same instruments on every child. She has many instruments at her disposal and will select those that can give more indept information on certain areas of processing.

On my, not all private psychs. give you what you pay for crusade, last year we received a private psych. report from a parent who was enrolling her daughter. The psych. had given a minimal number of tests and had diagnosed (totally unsubstantiated by any test results) a language disorder and recommended services. When the language specialist started to talk to the child, she found a child who was quite responsive, totally comprehensible and able to speak to a topic. The private quack had found average language scores on one test and had gone on to “diagnose” a language disorder based on the child’s complete inability to respond to basic questions and tendency to give bizarre responses. All in all, a worthless eval, unless what the parent wanted from the private quack was eligibility, she got it but we didn’t buy it, based on our more complete assessment.

I am off topic……… this is a classic example of why school districts can be persnickety about private evals. We don’t want quacks drawing conclusions from incomplete data, we need thorough evaluations. Even in my resource room my informal assessments of reading usually involve the administration of several measures. To rely on one test to draw a conclusion would be irresponsible.

Finally, am I chastising all private evaluators? Absolutely not, many private psychs are not quacks and are reputable and competent. Am I endorsing all district evals? No, I have received horribly incompetent looking evals. from other districts over the years. I am fortunate to work with a person who believes in being thorough and fair.

I probably mentioned last week’s case. We had a child who at first did not meet eligibility. I e-mailed the psych. that my additional informal assessments looked suspicious and I thought we might want to place the child. She worked her tail off last week, giving several additional instruments, checking and cross-checking certain processing areas (I suspected “rapid naming”) to find a processing deficit we could hang eligibility on.

Finally, even when we can find a deficit in an area, if we cannot link the deficit to learning deficits, then we won’t establish eligibility. If there is not a significant discrepancy, we cannot usually argue that the identified deficit is negatively impacting educational progress.

My educational evaluation experience for my two boys was a nightmare. The public school system in which we live has never done an adequate job of taking the WISC and expounding in it. I am glad yours does. I will also say ,after two independent evals,that private evaluators can be just as poor about doing the evals.

When doing the eval, simply for reasons of eligibilty, is where I think the biggest problems lies. The very best educational eval. my kids had, was psychological along with classroom based assessments,and achievment testing. When we could clearly see what strengths they relied on and what weaknesses hurt them in the classroom specificly, is when we had the best assessment of what ,when and how to accomodate their learning styles. Aside from finally coming up with a good assessment,this private evaluator finally understood the criteria the public school used. VERY important,because there is a difference,even terminology, from private to public sectors. Ie: my boys are diagnosed dysgraphic,in private school,but were called written language disability in the public school,neither tell you how to accomodate them or teach them,it is as valuable as the teacher who understand the person behind the label.
They are not numbers and scores,they are individuals,they have potential,they can go way beyond the scores,because statistics are just statistics.

Thanks for your response. I would also like to add that I think the best evaluators have taught the population the most frequently evaluate If you are evaluating LD, having taught LD over time for several years permits an indepth understanding that you cannot get with just an advanced degree.

I certainly agree with that! The Neuropsychologist we use was a special ed teacher before she went back to school for her PHD. She did that specifically because she sat through too many IEP meetings where people brought in reports that said waht was wrong with the child, but gave no practical suggestions how to help the child in the classroom. The report she did for us was not only thorough in terms of testing, but very detailed in terms of exactly what he needed in the classroom.

Karen

I found the following article:
Psychological Report Writing
The 7-step Approach to WISC-III Interpretation
http://www.byu.edu/~psychweb/bnc/assess/a1note9.htm

Take a look at the article because it looks like it is saying that 15% of children have VIQ-PIQ discrepancy of 19-21 points, 10% have 22-24 points, 5% have 25-29 points, 1% have discrepancy of 32+ points.

Helen

right,having a first hand understanding of what the classroom is doing and what needs to happen is extremely helpful. Besides giving practical suggestions.

In the long run all the test results in the world didn’t adequately reflect neither the depth of my kids problems or the extreme strengths either. Labels aside THIS is what helps a kid learn and enjoy learning.