some other test scores

Ana, you’ll need to also post the achievement test scores as IQ alone is very limited information.

Janis

Thanks, Janice!

Here are the Woodcock-Johnson achievement sub-tests

Letter-word ID: 95
Reading Fluency: 94
Story Recall: 112
Understanding directions:89
Calculation: 98
Math fluency: 81
Spelling: 85
Writing fluency: 88
Passage comp: 90
Applied problems: 107
writing sample: 116
Handwriting: 96

I’m not sure about the math fluency one- he did well on the KeyMath test with an overall score of 110.

word attack was low at 86

He also worked very, very slowly.

Thanks again,

Anastasia

Ana,

Processing speed (PS) is a major factor for him (SS and CD) and this has impact on BD score, too. (However, a 6 on the BD is really low and likely affected by more than just PS. Fluid Reasoning is likely a little less developed.)

Kids with PS issues have a really hard time in school. They just think more deliberately, take more time. Your son also shows issues on PS tasks requiring motor tasks—CD versus SS). Writing is probably more slow and labored than verbal responses.

The “area” scores on Key Math are more helpful than the overall score.

The cluster scores on the WJ-III are better than individual subtests. Looks, though, at first glance, like he probably qualifies in Basic Reading (if using the VIQ as the “ability” piece of the measuring stick rather than full scale score) with Letter-Word ID and Word Attack scores posted. Not sure if word recognition/word attack is holding up comprehension, but that is a common thing.

Math fluency is also a processing speed thing involving math problems.

Remember that testing is only one piece of assessment: history and observation are equally valuable in the overall data gathering. I just don’t have time for all that in on-line discussion.

More tomorrow if needed.

If you post them, I’ll give you brief summaries of what the subtests are designed to evaluate.

In a post above, Ana, you asked something like, “where is the thinking score?” I know that was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but here’s a pretty serious answer:

Thinking is not linear, like drawers of a file cabinet. It has a lot to do with how neurons fire *together*. As scientists have measured brain activity during reading tasks, for example, they find that many neural connections are simultaneously producing energy. Writing ‘fires’ some similar, but some different, neural connections in various areas of the cortex.

Human thinking and learning behaviors are so complex that many in the psychological community no longer believe that one “g” [italics] score can explain intellect. Scientists also believe that when one neural connection is damaged or malfunctioning, the brain creates a new pathway. That new connection is going to be slower until the neuron sheath hardens to allow faster energy flow—and it will never be as efficient as the original connection. [Testing with stroke victims has helped them learn alot about how the brain rewires itself.] That *might* explain processing speed deficits in otherwise bright children. *If* the damage is to the corpus callosum region, it could slow down processing between the left and right hemispheres. That could have mega effects on lots of things—like visual-spatial processing, writing, eye-hand coordination, and much more.

As a parent, however, don’t go out on a tangent [like I would have done] and try to find out which neurons are inefficient. The technology just isn’t ready for individual case study yet—probably will be 10-15 years more until the procedures will be more common-place. Still experimental.

Marian Diamond, one of the scientists who dissected the brain of Albert Einstein, has a nice (very parent friendly) book called “Magic Trees of the Mind: How to nurture your child’s intelligence, creativity, and healthy emotions from birth through adolescence. [I guess we give up nurturing them at adolesence—or this author has no ideas for us during that period. LOL.] Published in 1998 by E.P. Dutton, New York.

Pardon my grammar errors in the post from last night. I was tired. Really should have waited until this morning to respond. Clearer now. Rechecked my information and cannot see any errors, fortunately.

Hi,

Thanks so much for your comments, Susan. After a long meeting with the psych. I have a better sense of what the different sub-tests are like. But, now I have a question that was raised in another post. Do you think it’s better to try to work on processing speed or sequencing problems themselves (I guess this is what IM and PACE try to do) or do you think that it is better to attack the problem by working on the academic skills - ie, focus on the reading and writing?

Also, here’s a general question. I’ve been told that OG isn’t really effective for kids my son’s age (10yr) who have a grade 3-4 reading level because it slows them down and gets very frustrating for them. Is this the general wisdom?