Looking for some input on test results!

Could be that he has executive functioning problems which in other words ADD-Inattentive. He could be tuned out part of the time and that is why he is struggling so much to stay on task and having to repeat classes from what appears to the school as a lack of motivation. Te language scores are depressed and this could also be because of inattention or CAPD co-morbidity.

Concepts and Directions he was given a set of geometric shapes and he has to do what the clinician instructs him to do by pointing to items, first last, middle, after, etc. This takes a lot of attention and auditory memory.

Semantic relations he was given a sentence like An elephant is bigger than a…
and he would have to listen to 4 choices, 2 of which are correct and he would have to respond by giving both of the correct answers. This takes a lot of auditory attention and he scored low on it.

Word Associations: He was given one minute to name as many animals as he could in one minute, or another subtest is naming food that people eat, or different jobs they have. He scored low here which means he may have trouble with organizing his thoughts and getting them out when he is timed, again people with ADD have extreme difficulty with word retrieval when they are under pressure and timed..

Listening to Paragraphs. He was read a short paragraph, 5 sentences in length and at the end of the paragraph he was asked questions and he would have to supply answers to these questions. Again it takes a lot of focus and attention, he scored low.

I would suggestdoing Continuous performance tests on his auditory and visual vigilance to see how long he can sustain attention. Also, did they do an IQ test? What was the processing speed and freedom from distractibility score? He appears to be a fluent reader, but is he more of a word caller and doesn’t get the comprehension? The story recall is very low and that requires sustained attention another sign of ADD-Inattention.

Is ADD the only cause of executive function issues? This is a question that has always confused me.

There was an Iq test requested but we were told that the Woodcock Johnson had enough cognitive information and an IQ wasn’t neccessary. I realize now that was a mistake and that it was listed on the consent form and was requested by the parents but still not done.

I am sure the school will not agree to more testing. It took 4 months to get this testing complete and since one of the examiners said there was no disability just laziness, I am sure they will not do anything.

I am really at my wits end. Who can I take these to get a “formal” diagnosis, at least one that will qualify the child for services?

The family has no insurance and limit personal funds??

Thanks
K.

The Woodcock Johnson III cognitive battery is an IQ test. There is no problem there…

I have to disagree with Pattim on this one. This is a kid with weak language understanding and sort of allover low average functioning-based on what you have here. Not necessarily LD-because I am not seeing the sort of processing deficit that indicates that- but absolutely a child who acquires new info slowly and only with lots of repetition. That isn’t lack of motivation (I hate it when people say that grrr) but it isn’t LD either.

The Story Recall Delayed score is a standard deviation (it iscalled a z score if you asre into statistics) and is the only way it is reported. It is not low. It actually means that based on what he remembered from the stories the first time his performance after a delay was pretty much exactly as expected. For an explanation of these tests I would refer you to edcs.com for an article entitled Use and Interpretation of Delayed Recall tests by Barbara Glick Read. She is a contributer to the support stuff Riverside publishes and a highly respected diagnostician.

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For adolescents functioning in the low average range, school is hard! I would look to an assessment of mental health issues in any adolescent who wants to drop out of school, including depression, anxiety, ADHD and peer group relationships. Just because the student isn’t classified as LD doesn’t mean he/she can’t get and use support services. Dropping out without a diploma is closing the door on too many opportunities.

The student would’t be dropping out, they would be transfering to the online school.

I have no doubt that the student is depressed. I would be too if 2 weeks before my junior year started the vice principal sent a letter home announcing that I was going to be reclassified as a sophomore. I was going to be given study halls and not be allowed to take the extra classes I needed to come back as a senior. I couldn’t find the classes at the only community college available, since the school will not accept summer school credit, only college credit is accepted. Finally, the vice principal tells me that I can not graduated with the rest of my class I can either take more college classes and get my diploma in the mail or I can come back the following year and finish with the class of students I don’t know!!

As you can see I am very annoyed with this whole situation. The only school is offering her two different degree option, a diploma for students going on to a 4 yr university or a diploma for students goingon to a community collge. I just don’t see how she can succeed in the enviroment she is in now!

K.

What about the scores on the CELF, that are that are open ended and timed? The Peabody isn’t that low, but I will agree that there are definitely deficits in language. I didn’t realize that the story recall was in z scores…what you said does makes sense but I still wonder if attention is a big missing piece due to the described behaviors at school and home. I have seen this type of profile over and over again in middle school and high school students.

His receptive language score was 78- with specific weakness in word understanding… This is more language than attention to me- though it probably wouldn’t hurt to try and tease it out further it in general requires a lot of very tiring work for kids with profiles like this to learn anything approaching abstract…especially if they are only listening. That is enough often to make for inattentive behavior.
Robin

What I have found is that years of inattentive behaviors have a direct impact on an individuals proficiency of language. By the time an adolescent hits middle school and high school the vortex is really wide, they have trouble with pragmatics, they respond inappropriately, they have trouble understanding what is expected of them, they have not been picking up on the vocabulary that surrounds them in conversations of their peers, their vocabulary is depressed, In a classroom they are physically present but their mind is some place else so it is no wonder why they are struggling with language usage, reading, writing and and comprehension.

I have seen teens and adults who have scored low average to average overall on language tests. But there is a certain profile that you will see on these kids…they will score lowest on language tests that require attention, organization, memory recall, and abstract reasoing…all areas that have to do with executive functioning. They can parrot back thing for sentence recall but they will have trouble with picking out the main idea in a paragraph and recalling supportive statements. Their responses are ambiguous…and they get easily frustrated because to them their answer was “enough” but in reality they were missing the details. There is a correlation but what causes the other and which is more of a problem??? I don’t know

What I have seen as I have worked with this type of profile is that when they are on meds they are on task, they are interacting responsively and understanding, comprehending and enjoying learning… I can see that their “brain” is literally “turned on”. Off meds the spark is gone, they are just going through the motions, they have a lack of motivation and desire, their mind is on something else they would rather be doing than what they are supposed to be doing. They just want to get the work done and don’t want to bother really learning or thinking things through because they are just “enduring” the moment they are in the classroom.

Presumably this student has been functioning this way all thru their school career, maybe low-average or even average cognition with learning issues thrown in; at age 17, without motivation to work VERY hard at tutoring, catching up(earning credits to graduate) and succeeding in hs seems remote; BUT, this student still deserves at look at the issues that more commonly affect teen behavior, and a chance at intervention. What about an alternative high school or vocational high school?