Woodcock Johnson interpretation

What is your son’s exact age?

Jan—

50 percentile is considered average, but it doesn’t mean that your child isn’t having a tough time in school. The grade equivalent of an average score will be close to a student’s actual grade.

If you think of percentiles like the results of a race, they’ll make better sense. If 45 of fify kids finish the race within ten seconds of each other, the child who came in 45th wasn’t that far behind a child who comes in 1st. (academically, GE and AE should be close to actual grade or age)

On the other hand, if the first forty come in very close together, but the last 10 come in way behind them, the child who comes in 45th might be quite a bit behind the child who came in first. (you’ll see a lower GE or AE score)

This is why you see the apparent discrepancy among the scores.

Different scores give us different bits of information, and only when we put them together do we get the whole picture. I like to look at percentiles along with the RPI score— relative proficiency index. You might look on the report and see if the psychologist included these scores. This score gives a view on how the student’s proficiency compares in the classroom and tells you how the scores bunch together with a typical group of students at your son’s age or grade. If the two RPI numbers are close together, and the percentile is low, the scores bunch together and your son probably doesn’t struggle too much on this material when compared to his peers. If, on the other hand, you have a low percentile, and the two RPI numbers are really different (one is much lower than 90), then the scores are NOT bunched together and your son’s performance is more significantly different from his peers. Does this make sense?

(RPI means that the student would be expected to achieve X percent on a task that his peers score 90 percent on, when RPI = X/90) IMHO, RPI is one of the best parts of the WJ3.

You can see that your son’s processing difficulty shows up academically when you look at the overall academic fluency (speed) score. He’s right at the bottom of average (standard scores between 85 and 115 are considered average), so the IEP team may say he’s not significantly affected, so he doesn’t qualify for services.

I’d be interested in seeing the individual fluency scores: reading fluency in particular, since his overal reading score was low. Speed isn’t a factor in this overal reading score. If his reading fluency score is very very low, he’s going to have a very tough time both reading for homework and studying, and for writing.

Incidently, the writing struggles don’t show up well on the WJ3. This isn’t unusual. You may see the difficulty in writing fluency, though. Many psychologists actually suplement the WJ3 academic tests with a test just for writing.

I don’t know if this answers any of your questions.
Michelle

Michelle, What I don’t understand is that Michael is in 6th gr. and 11 yrs. old. On the test he scores much higher than that in both groups in many areas. Why is the % so low if he is scoring this high in AE and GE? Thanks, Jan

Michelle, Sorry I forgot to tell you we didn’t receive the RPI scores. We will be seeing a neuropsychologist 9/11.Maybe she will be able to give us some answers. There is no doubt in my mind that Michael has significant problems in written expression. He doesn’t seem to have a reading problem but maybe he does! He has read all the Harry Potter books, “The Hobbit”, and “The Chronicles of Narnia” books. He might be somewhat slow reading but I’ve never seen a problem, really.Thank you so much for responding. Jan

Not sure about the scores. All the books he has read, maybe he has a specific learning disability to non-fantasy books. :-)
Seriously though, he could have more trouble with comprehension, say, when the content isn’t quite so filled with imagery.

Written expression and reading aren’t necessarily tied together. Written expression requires other types of skills and processing.

—des
when can we get together and talk Harry Potter? :-)

to the original poster: why was your son tested in the first place and was this the first eval? Yes, definitely wait for the interpretation of results from the evalulator; look at http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/woodcock_index.htm for info. on the test and results; also look at this site for info. on why AE and GE scores are the LEAST useful and accurrate for diagnosis-use standard(average is 100) scores or the RPI index scores; this test is compuiter scored and the evaluator can run all sorts of result-programs for you.

Well, my opinion is that there is something WRONG with those scores!!! They can’t be correct.

Janis

Look at this, for example. You said he is 11 and has problems with written expression???

Written Expression AE>21 SS 114 PR 83

That score says his writing is at an age equivalent of greater than age 21, but the percentile is 83??? No way this is correct.

Look at this one:

Math Cal Skills AE 17-3 SS 100 PR 51 GE 12.0 SS 114 PR 82

No way age equivalent of 17-3 is AVERAGE (SS 100, 51%) for an 11 year old!!!

Every score is wrong. Who on earth gave you this list of scores? If it is someone at the school, I’d be making an appointment with the special ed. director. This is unbelieveable that such errors would be handed to a parent. I’ve seen typos before, but this is the worst case I have ever seen of a messed up assessment, assuming you have typed in the scores accurately. I’d be very concernd that this test was not administered correctly as well. Whew, I think you have BIG grounds to request a school financed independent evaluation!!!!!!

Janis

Janis wrote:
Math Cal Skills AE 17-3 SS 100 PR 51 GE 12.0 SS 114 PR 82

No way age equivalent of 17-3 is AVERAGE (SS 100, 51%) for an 11 year old!!!
***************

I agree with Janis these were the scores that made me ask your son’s age. With a SS of 100 and an AE of 17-3 then I would have guessed he was 17 years old. Something is very wrong here. Could be that the computer program they entered the scores into had a heart attack or some untrained assisstant was entering things and didn’t know what they were doing. Garbage in Garbage out! Keep us informed on why they are so off.

Thank you, Helen. I’m glad someone else noticed the craziness of those scores. What’s very scary is, how many moms actually have the scores checked out by others? How many kids have had wrong scores determine whether they qualify for services???

Janis

Jan, AE and GE can be confusing, but not this confusing.

The scores are clearly not those of your child. It may be the computer scoring error, since one cannot score the WJ3 by hand, but I’m more inclined to believe these are simply the wrong child’s scores.

I recommend calling the school psychologist and saying “I believe the scores I was given are inaccurate because scores saying my son is at the 50th percentile also say he is grade level 11. Is it possible that there was a computer error?”

I would make sure you say it all in one breath, because the psychologist may assume you just need help interpreting the scores, and that is NOT the problem. Then make sure you request a correction before the next IEP meeting.

Hope this helps.
Michelle

Janis and Helen,

take a look at www.diagnosticprescriptive.com/understandingtestingand tests.html

AE and GE are very unreliable to use for diagnostic testing; what they mean is that the child who scored at the GE of 11.4 on some test achieved the same score on that test as a child who is in the 4th month of 11th grade, NOT that the child tested knows the info that an 11th grader knows. The best way to look at standardized tests is the SS, average is 100 at the 50%; a SS of 85 is 1 standard deviation below the mean and is at the 16th% level; a SS of 115 is 1 standard deviation above the mean and is at the 84% level.

I hope this helps; I am a big believer in at least allowing the original evaluator to sit down with the parents and explain the testing because they know the background and referral info.

SAR,

I am very familiar with test results. But I am not sure you read my posts or really looked at these scores. A child with written expression problems at age 11 did NOT score an AE of 21!! Look:

Written Expression AE>21 SS 114 PR 83

Are you saying you think an 11 year old scoring at 21 yr level is only at the 83rd %ile and standard score 97?

Broad Math AE 15-10 SS 97 PR 41

And an 11 year old scoring at 15-10 would be at the 41st %ile, standard score 97?

Either this test is scored VERY wrong or these scores belong to someone else entirely. These scores are NOT correct for this child.

Janis

At the same time, Jan’s problem is NOT a misinterpretation of these scores. For her son to receive a GE of 11.4 would mean that her son was doing very well— the same score a typical 11th grader would likely get would be a good thing for a sixth grader.

The problem is that Jan’s test scores indicate that her son’s GE of 11.4 is AVERAGE— SS of 100 or percentile of 50. This is CLEARLY an error.

I agree that AE and GE are problematic, but in this case they are not the problem.

Michelle

I agree the AE are perhaps wrong and I would ignore the GE; perhaps the whole thing was missed scored and or maybe the original poster misinterpreted the dark band on the Grade band profile-the band is a range, not one score it goes from easy level to difficult level, with a line at the mid-point. The RPI is really one of the better ways to interpret this test. We were told that the writing samples part of this test was not the best to look at writing probs, that the WIAT II was better; our son when given the WJII in 5th grade(and he struggled with written exp) achieved a SS of 127(GE range of 6.3->18)…he had failed our state’s high stakes language arts test, which told us more about his abilities than the WJIII.

Ladies, I’ve put a call into the private psychologist that gave Michael this test. I would like you to read what she said in the summary and see what you think.

Michael’s performance on the WJIII indicated that he is functioning above grade level in many areas however, he continues to have significant difficulty with written expression achieving a grade equivalent of 4th grade 4 mos. and Academic Fluency achieving a grade equivalent of 5th grade 5 mos. Michael has a significant problem in speed of working as indicated by the discrepency between his Math Calculation scores which resulted in a grade equivilant of beyond high school and his Math Fluency score of 2nd grade 7 mos. The same was true with Michael’s writing where he achieved a grade equivalent of post high school on his Writing Samples after a significant amount of time but Writing Fluency grade equivalent of 3rd grade. Michael demonstrated significant strengths in Oral Lang. achieving a grade equivlalent of 13, and Academic Applications achieving a grade equivalent of 12th grade 3 mos. and in Story Recall achieving a post college grade equivalent.

Maybe one of you can help me make sense of this. I SURE hope so!! Thanks to everyone!! Jan

Jan, I vote with others these are not your son’s scores:

if you take:

Academic Application AE 17 SS 100 PR 50 GE 12.8 SS 102 PR 54

it clearly illustrates that the child whose scores are listed is performing acadmically as a 17 year old finishing high school (GE 12.8).

Ewa

Jan,
Did you look at the site I listed in my first post that describes the WJIII? I am very surprised to hear a psychologist using GE or AE scores; they are the least accurate and least helpful; please ask the psychologist to run the compuscore program that provides SS and RPI and then sit down with you and go over it. The trouble with GE scores is that they are not equal intervals, ie the distance between gr1-2 is larger than the distance between gr10-11; take a look at http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/age_v_grade_based_scores.htm

My take is also that the tester put in the age of 17 and then the raw scores and got the printed results.

The summary does not match the results. The summary may have been based on the actual scores.

People make mistakes and I’m sure the tester will admit they made one in this case.

The psychologist is WRONG. Either she printed out the scores of another child, or she has entered some information incorrectly, or the computer program is malfunctioning. Don’t stop pushing the issue with your psychologist until you get this settled.

The problem is not that the GE and AE are high. They may indeed be that high. The problem is that the GE and AE are high, and the standard scores indicate this is average (at grade and age level).

The way the program works it would be difficult to enter mix up your son’s age and grade. The computer figures out the age based on the child’s birthdate and date of testing. She may have entered 11 as your son’s grade, thinking it was an age blank, but then your scores would be very very low (unless your son was quite gifted) or not affected at all. based on how she scored it.

What may have happened is that the scores are mixed— the standard scores are indeed your son’s scores, but the AE and GE were not replaced with your son’s scores. If the psychologist used another child’s scores as a template, replacing scores but retaining the formatting, this can happen. (and does happen)

Nevertheless, I’m concerned that the psychologist doesn’t seem to realize the inconsistency.

Michelle

Jan,

Whew, I was all prepared to blame the school, but this was a private psychologist. Goodness! I hope you haven’t paid yet!

The scores definitely do not match the summary. So it will be interesting to see how it comes out! Please let us know what the psychologist says!

It is interesting to me that SAR commented that her child’s subtest score was higher than his actual performance on the corresponding state test, because I have had the same experience. I would choose the WIAT for a private eval over the WJ-III because I think it artificially inflates scores….but not to this extent, of course!

Janis

Unfortunately I have paid and she has not called me back. The worst part of this is that we have an evaluation on 9/11 with the neuro and I was supposed to take that test with me.. Let ya’ll know what transpires. Thanks again, Jan

Ladies, I called the Psy back today and explained the problem to the secretary adn she looked at the # and knew they were wrong!! She Did it back through the computer and got the correct scores!! Thanks to everyone for helping because I might have just thought I didn’t understand the resuls if you had not kept telling me it was wrong. By the way Written Expression PR 32 and 22. That is more like it!!! Can he get accomodations with those scores? Thanks to all, Jan

Jan, we can only tell if we know the standard scores. Was this a re-evaluation (I don’t remember)? Is he already placed LD? Currently placement in special ed. requires a discreapncy between IQ and achivement. So we’d have to compare the IQ score to the written expression scores.

So glad you got the scores straightened out!

Janis

Janis, These are the corrected scores. He didn’t have to retake the test. SS Broad Written Language 93, 94
Written Expression: SS 88,90. Thanks, Jan

Do you have an IQ score? He’d have to have at least a 108 if your state requires a 15 point discrepancy or a 115 or above if they require 22. But those scores are not terribly low, which is good.

Janis

Janis, These are the corrected scores. He didn’t have to retake the test. SS Broad Written Language 93, 94
Written Expression: SS 88,90. Thanks, Jan

Janis, His IQ score was 135. Thanks Jan

Jan,
Ask the psychologist to show you how to use the regressed scores for determining a discrepancy between ability(IQ) and achievement(WJIII); it means that a child who is gifted doesn’t have achievement scores in the 130’s-they are lower. That said, yes depending upon your state and if your child is in public school, and if you’ve requested a special ed. eval thru the public school, your child would probable qualify as LD in writing. but is this what you’re looking for? Many gifted kids have bigger swings between strengths and weaknesses; is your child struggling in public middle school?

Goodness. 135 is very high. I would think he should qualify LD in written expression. If you look at that 88 and 90, you are talking about a 45-47 point discrepancy. You really need to get someone good like Shay (a teacher on this board who uses V/V and Step Up to Writing) to tutor him, though. I really don’t have confidence in the school to remediate this. He is much too bright to waste his potential.

Janis

Jan,

If you haven’t already done so, you might take a look at the information in the LD In Depth section of this website about gifted children who have learning disabilities. What is striking about these children is there ability to use their gifts to compensate for their weaknesses. Its a good new/bad news phenomenon — good because gt/ld kids can really end up doing well because their gifts give them extra power to work around their LDs, bad because they often appear (to the uninformed) to either be lazy and unmotivated or to be dead average. These children crave intellectual challenge and can become very frustrated when their weaknesses cause schools to withhold those challenges. My gt/ld/adhd son is now doing well but that was not always the case. Emphasizing his strengths and supporting and remediating his weaknesses was key to the process.

Andrea

Sar, My son is homeschooled since I know he couldn’t keep up in school. We have homeschooled since 3rd grade. Thanks Jan

Try posting on the homeschooling board for more info.; you really need SKILLED interpretation of all of the testing, including the IQ testing(?done when). Good Luck.

Sar, We are going to a neuropsychologist that I hope will tell me what I can do for Michael and tell me if he needs OT and where to get it. His IQ testing was done 5 yrs ago. Jan

Hopefully the neuropsychologist has done the WJIII cognitive or another more recent assessment of IQ; if the last test was done at age 6 and your son is now 11, it should be redone. IQ testing in young kids is not cast in stone; you really need two points of measurement from which to draw conclusions.

Also, be aware that kids with problems with the physical act of writing all likely to have a decrease in the FIQ overtime because with age there are time penalties for going slow. The VIQ is then seen to be more indicative of overall IQ. It would be good for the Neuropsych. to do the IQ because he can observe your child in action.

Helen

I appreciate both of your opinions!! Thanks so much. I will see if the neuropsy will do the IQ again. Linda Silvermn from the Gifted Development Center in Denver says that the highest score a child receives should be the one you use because they cannot fake high IQ but can have a bad day esp. if they are gifted LD. She also recommends that they take the Stanford Binet because it has a higher ceiling. What do ya’ll think? I believe that Michael is visually spatially gifted. He tells me he hears everything in pictures and can’t do computations but has post highschool abilities in math concepts. Today has not been good. I’ve been very frustrated with him because of his daydreaming and incessant talking about everything except what we are doing in school!!!!!Sometimes I wish he could go back to school just to give me a break! I love him and I KNOW he couldn’t make it at school. Oh well, just mouthing off. Thanks Ladies, Jan

We have the same math profile along with the writing problem. It will be interesting to hear what the Neuropsych. says. When doing math in 1st grade my son handed me the pencil and said, “I’ll do the thinking, you do the writing.” He had it all figured out at a young age. Math went good until borrowing in 2nd grade and it was two years before he got that procedure down. In 5th he scored High School in math. Middle school was a pain. He claims he learned nothing in math putting him into deficit going into Algebra. He gets a D+ in Algebra and repeats the second half over the summer via BYU independent study. State testing at the end of 9th grade using the CAT/6 he got a 98% in math. He said he was able to do almost all the problems in his head. Math has been a real roller coaster ride.

Helen

My child had the WISC at age 6 and again today at almost age 8. Her fullscale score came up 7 points and the performance 10 points. I was very glad we redid it. But this will probably be the last time we do it.

Jansis

Janis, Michael has been through so many test that I hate to have to put him through more but I know we have to PROVE that he has this or that to even be considered for accomodations on SAT and ACT. I hope he won’t think something is Wrong with him because we have been through so many yrs of testing etc. I am upfront with him and tell him why he is being tested and the advantages of it etc but children sometimes think much differently than we would like thim to. Maybe he will have a good testing day if they decide to repeat IQ like your’s did.Thanks for everyones help, Jan

For the SAT the evaluation and testing should be completed within three years of the request for accommodations. I have that right from the Colege Board Brochure of Services for Students with Disabilites since I just went through the process last week.