Woodcock Johnson Results

You really need someone extremely well versed in Woodcock to help you.

From what I’ve seen, yes they are good and well-respected tests BUT all tests have limitations/strengths. That being said, many schools use them as the screening for performance vs. grade level/age to determine sp ed eligibility.

I’ll give you a few examples. In 3rd grade, my dd was showing no writing deficits on Woodcock. Her tutor had advised me to ask for a TOWL, a better writing test - sure enough she showed an LD discrepency there. This year I got so excited - at 9 she is writing at the equivalent of a 17 yo according to Woodcock (after a school year or private writing tutoring and resource room). Then I remembered last year where she didn’t show the discrepency. Also the Woodcocks are normed against averages. In our school district they are clearly not teaching to those averages, in fact well above.

That being said, those are fabulous scores for your son. He is clearly very bright with lots of strengths. But it *looks* like he shows serious deficits in math areas which would explain his test anxiety too - layman parent so read LD In Depth and consider other answers. Overall math may not be showing discrep. but with his other scores so high, deficits in math areas must be really apparent to HIM. Also, overall math might be on age level, but the scores to get there are so damn uneven with some very very low.

Out of my league with any other perspective/advice. GL!

Margo,

Naming what your son has or doesn’t have is not as important as getting him the right help. There are lots of great posts on the “Teaching Math” boards to help with fluency. Use some of them at home and pass some along to the school.

It looks like your son is doing quite well - with the exception of math. However, I agree that I feel some of the test results for my son from the WJ-III weren’t an accurate picture of his strengths and weaknesses.

As a parent of a child with NLD, with other comorbid disorders, I look for the bright side every day. It hurts to have you so nonchalantly say that NLD is a depressing diagnosis. You must have been reading Bryon Rourke - try reading some Sue Thompson and Pam Tanguay re: NLD. They aren’t nearly as depressing as Rourke is.

Lil

Applied Problems score is missing and so is passage comprehension. Age equivalent scores don’t tell much. Standard scores are the best.

NLD is extremely rare. My son fits parts of the diagnosis he definitely has a non verbal as in (visual motor) issue but does not fit the full NLD diagnosis.

He has excellent comprehension on many levels and does do well socially albeit wasn’t always great at that either, is extremely creative which really doesn’t fit, overall he is a flexible thinker which just does not fit.

Non verbal issues are also remediable.

Don’t want to be obnoxious, but I have to speak out. It really bugs me when we treat these labels as if they were truly medical conditions — to a very large degree, they are NOT.

‘NLD’ is just a descriptor for children with similar symptoms. Diabetes is not a ‘spectrum disorder’ even tho you can have a wide range of function. Any of these ‘personality/educational/behavioural’ type labels are quite subjective. I HATE these labels for exactly the effect they had on MargoS, and on Lil, in response to that reaction— defeating and negative. Hurtful. NOT a way to raise children. My nephew has Duchennes MD – now, THAT is a depressing DX, folks! (not that we let it define him, either, tho!)

If Lil’s kid came to my cub pack, it would be helpful to know he was described as ‘NLD’ cuz that would give me a few clues to traits he might have —strengths and weaknesses. Although most of my cubs don’t have such a specific descriptor, that is the only difference. HE IS JUST ANOTHER KID. Not ‘an NLD kid’ — just a kid. All of them come with unique patterns of strength and weakness and that is what makes them all so lovable (even if some are easier to love than others — never have liked the really competent, easy ones as well as the disjointed misbehaving misfits…just my bias!)

We know so much more than we did 50 years ago about learning styles, intelligence, motivation, etc, etc, etc, and that is better than the old days of ‘Bad Kid/Lazy/Dumb’ vs ‘Good Kid/Keener/Smart’, but our focus on ‘diagnosis’ is making me long for the bad old days! When teachers, as a rule, were like Anitya, and although there were bad apples, they were TEACHERS, not program presenters!

OK, I feel better…thanks for listening!

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Take a look at the standard scores, and compare to your child’s IQ; also keep in mind everyone has strengths and weaknesses!

Standard scores are the most useful and reliable.

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Thank you for your post. You’ve articulated what I have felt for the last year since we had my son extensively tested. Our neuropsych. wisely (I now think) didn’t give my son a label. But it was frustrating because I wasn’t sure which direction to go in - medication, OT, speech, tutoring, psychotherapy? There isn’t enough time in a day to do everything that might help so a diagnosis , if it really fits, can be a guidepost.

But like Linda FF’s son, my son doesn’t meet the criteria for NLD or ADD, or dyslexia, despite the fact that he has some of the characteristics of all of them. But it is better for him that we don’t think of him as an NLD kid, or an ADD kid. We do describe him as dyslexic, because he needed a way to describe his academic difficulties, which are the most obvious and concrete of his problems. The other stuff comes and goes and hopefully we can remediate those issues without naming them so he feels as normal as possible.

Margo - glad to hear you made a decision that works for your family even though I was hoping to bump into you in NY.! Keep checking in here and let us know how school goes next year.

“NLD” really boils down to — okay, some things are harder than they should be…. but it’s not the usual reading/language thing. So — visual/spatial issues are non-verbal learning disabilities. Doesn’t mean that the kiddo has the rest of ‘em, though.
THe good thing is that at least it’s being acknowledged that you can be verbally brilliant…. but still need some guidance and help. It would be really, really nice if that eventually translated into disorganized and forgetful kids being less likely to be branded lazy and unmotivated… and even better if teachers wouldn’t just assume that okay, the kid’s smart, when s/he needs to, she’ll figure out hte studying and organization part, and gosh, social skills aren’t that important anyway.
As soon as the label is eroding expectations, though… think hard before accepting that. Think of the scads of research indicating that when a teacher thinks a kid is smart, they are far, far more likely to end up “being” smart — even if they really started with the same raw material as the kid in the seat next to him from the wrong zip code.

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