are these LD scores?

He is a very bright little boy who is gifted verbally. The score on the verbal reasoning is about one SD above the mean, and the PPVT is above average as well so I don’t see what you mean about the verbal reasoning score being low to you. You probably already know know about the range of norms and confidence bands in testing so I wouldn’t be too concerned about the differences in the verbal parts of the assessment. In other words, both scores are within the above average range of the assessment. The testing did show motor control issues but in addtion he may have sensory integration issues. From what you have stated isn’t that what prompted testing in the first place? His sensory issues need further assessment as from my expereince they will have an impact on his learning and socialization skills in the future if they are not addressed at this time…

If I were in your shoes, I would have a central auditory processing battery to see how he responds to various sounds, if they irritate him, what his auditory vigilance is like, how he processes verbal stimuli in the presence of background noise.

Also some of the fidgeting observed during testing could be from fatigue as well as his age, he is only 3.5

Because we teachers are usually really stellar parents when it comes to reading to our children, talking to our children, taking them places, exposing our children to learning experiences about which we engage in plenty of verbalization (afterall we all know that the oral language base is what we build upon in school when it comes time to comprehend).

What I am saying is that I fully expect teachers’ children to display verbal precociousness, they usually do. And while you may have some cause for some concerns, I am not certain that at 3.5 I would take high verbal scores, vs. average scores elsewhere to indicate a true discrepancy. I’ll further suggest, because he really might be precocious, that these scores could reflect exposure and learning experiences at home that we teachers are famous for. Most of the teachers I know have children who score well on things like general information and vocabulary on tests like the WISC. We teachers usually prepare our children for school very well, it is our field of expertise.

Thanks so much for your take! I thought his verbal reasoning was more high average, and with the PPVT I expected a score a little more equivalent. My husband thinks I’m being neurotic, which is probably true.

I will look into CAP testing; he does have really, really good phonemic awareness already (substituting, deleting, even medial sounds). Don’t kids with CAP-D have weak phoneme awareness?

Again, I really appreciate your opinions. I have some knowledge of psych testing, but that much! Thank you.

After reading about the fatigue and possible fidgeting, I just wanted to mention, my younger son was in speech therapy from age 3 to 4 yrs. He was always moving in the classroom, it was kind of funny watching the therapist and my son scootching all over the floor doing their work. At the time, I asked the therapist’s opinion of his hyperactivity but not much was really said. I also remember though that at age 3 and a half, he wasn’t particularly cooperative (had to be carried to the classroom, would run out after about 15 minutes). Fortunately I found a book titled ‘Your 3 yr old, friend or enemy?’ It told of a theory about the mid year points being a time of ‘disequilbrium’. It made sense to me, beyond the fact that as I read, I was saying to myself “Oh, I recognize this behavior, this is my son exactly and this is normal for kids his age.”
Hope this was helpful. Best wishes.
Amy

PS Pattim I solidly swear that speech therapy is the reason my son is an almost straight A student and was spelling all of his classmates names to me in kindergarten. When he started speech he could only pronounce 10 consonants and the 5 vowels, he used W for almost everything.
How’s this? Me want wat wat milt wate = I want a chocolate milkshake.
Listening to him was like listening to someone from a foreign country.
Thank you for becoming an SLP!!

Some observations you might make if he has a CAPD:

Sensativity to noise
Speaking in a loader then normal voice
Difficulty with reading
Poor spelling
Acting as if he was deaf
Needs directions repeated
Language delays

This are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. I have a 14 year old son who has a CAPD elementary and middle school were a nightmare for him. The classrooms were always too noisy. He could not understand what the teacher was saying, had word reterival problems, ect. He always performed better in a quieter enviroment with 1 to 1 yeilding the best results. After many years of therapy including earobics, speech therapy, GREAT LEAPs, and self contained classes for 2 years, he is much improved. He is in high school now and he says the classes are much more structed and quiet and he is able to gain info in the classroom.

I’m not a professional, but one thing I do know is that a high proportion of children with significant motor skills issues have associated LDs and ADHD. Three years old is probably far too young to make that determination, but, you should definitely be alert to potential issues as he gets older. My son was diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder at 4 and received extensive OT for the next 6 years. At age 7 he was diagnosed with an LD in the area of written expression and age 9 he was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. At age 12 he is doing very well, having received extensive intervention. You are definitely on the right path here — you are getting OT for your son and you are staying alert to the potential for additional problems. Youre good parenting will surely benefit your son.

Andrea

Rs teacher makes a good point. I think there is less attention paid to the visual motor type skills and working at them from a young age. My son has these issues so I pay close attention to them for my younger son.

Some things that I do to prevent these types of problems.

Dot to dot books are excellent.
Get an old phone book, have the child hold a torn out page and crumple it without pulling it into his body. Do this three times. If they get good at this have them hold one page in each hand and scrunch away. This exercise comes from audiblox. www.audiblox2000.com I think audiblox is a great preschool prep program for these types of issues. It was originally created for preschoolers but is now used for older LDers as well. I use it for my son and his teacher is always telling me he is the most logical in the class.
Gymnastics and tae kwon do are good for coordination and body awareness. Ice skating was great for my son’s balance.
Get a number line hang it up at eye level and count forward and backward.

It is great you are on top of this. When my older one was 3.5 I was in awe of his verbal skills and had no idea that this was a problem.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience. I feel like I’m beginning some kind of new journey, but at least there’s guidance along the way!

Giving him a label probably isn’t necessary at this point but working on any deficiency that may appear is significant when compared to other 3 1/2 year old children. It would scare me to death to allow an IQ test on a child this age to have any relevancy. Early intervention in any development is important, a label isn’t necessary - is he doing what he should for his age? If not, find activities that are fun which help with those areas.

He’s really too young for CAPD testing. If you have a sensory integration assessment it will look at auditory processing as well as other areas of sensory processing. But the fine motor issues can be an isolated weakness- not necessarily indicating that other things are going on. I don’t really hear deficits in preacademic skills in your descriptions. But it really depends on what concerns brought you to have your child tested in the first place. Are there other concerns regarding his social interaction, self-regulation, thought process/memory, play or communication skills? Do you see difficulties with attention at different times yourself- such as during play or story time? An evaluation of a young child needs to look at broad areas of development using structured and less structured approaches to assessment in order to be a valid reflection of the child’s functioning- and also helpful for treatment planning.