I have a seventeen year old daughter, she is a senior in HS. She is in the process of applying to colleges. She was diagnosed in 1st grade with a learning disability. Never had her retested until now for college. Can you all help me understand her test scores? She scored a IQ 91. Her verbal performance was 98 and performance score was 84. Verbal comprehension skills are 107. Perceptual organizational skills are 78. Working memory 86 and processing speed was 93. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale was used in testing my daughter. I received the test results but do not meet with the psychologist who tested her to explain the scores for another month. I want to go in there and have an idea of what he is talking about. What kind of learning disability does this indicate? What kind of accomodations should my daughter need in college to succeed? Thanks for your help!
[Modified by: lafeytaffey210 on December 07, 2008 03:26 PM]
Re: Daughters test scores
Hi Lafeytaffey,
I run a forum for the maths disorder Dyscalculia, where people have very similar test scores.
The difficulty more often is with their Spatial Thinking, which effects their organizational and sequential thinking. So I would ask you what her spatial thinking is like? Can she easily read a map, or does she get lost? Can she judge distances easily?
Does she have a problem with left and right?
Geoff,
Let me make this fundimentally hardcore clear…. I am not an expert on IQs.
It sounds like it means that she understands verbalized information at a slightly above average level. Which means, When someone speaks to her she understands them perfectly! This shows that she must have a rather decent vocabulary. However, her ability to utilize and perform with her vocabulary and for whatever reason reproduce and verbalize or otherwise reproduce the words she knows and understands is much more difficult for her. It means anything you say to her she understands, but her ability to show you that by speaking to you in respeonse is not quite as good as her ability to understand what you are saying. Atleast that is what it sounds like to me. But i am no expert. It means, she is likely an auditory learner and that she should be taking a tape recorder to class with her all the time in college and recording everything. It means she is not so strong on visual cues. It means, she is like me. She has to *hear* it to get it. There are some ppl in this world they say they have photographic memories. I could swear i have a tape recorder in my brain instead. But i have the visual memory for example of a gold fish. That may not be your daughter’s problem (the visual memory thing.) But for ewhatever reason it seems her ability to take in and properly grasp and utilize and comprehend visual information is not strong. It seems she has trouble putting order to what she sees and organizing it all. She has some trouble with memory issues, another reason a tape recorder will help her. And naturally she processes things a bit slower than is normal. I would assume that would be especially things that are visual.
I don’t know what your daughter needs besides a tape recorder. But perhaps a speech therapist and a writing coach? She needs to figure out a way to get the words she understands when they are said to her, to be her toys to say to others for 1. That might be the most crucial thing. Trust me you can survive just fine int he world being visually weak. I do just fine. But it is another area of weakness, for whatever reason. I am not an expert i have not got any idea what your daughter has. I don’t think it really matters. I think what matters, is knowing what her strengths and weaknesses are and finding ways to utilize her strengths to create ways to get around her weaknesses. Learning how to do that, is the work of a life time. But, getting her a head start by finding someone who understands somewhat how her mind works might help you and her. The more she can produce verbally the easier everything is going to get because she will have an easier time still telling you what she needs. It is not uncommon for those with LD to have a slightly lower IQ that doesn’t seem to reflect accurately their intelligence. They tell me i have an iq above 160. And i inquire what the hell they have been smoking and if they really can not do proper basic math. Because i simply don’t believe it. it is also common for children with LD to have a huge discrepency between their scores in various areas making a true and reflective IQ very very hard to do. If your daughter is going to college she is definately of atleast average intelligence her score however indicates low average at best….. Which can’t possibly be reflective of a student soon entering college. You might want to ask for untimed tests as she doesn’t remember as quickly as might be average? Though i am not sure as i am not an expert, i am assuming a score of 100 on that point would be ‘normal’? If she was diagnosed in first grade what was she diagnosed with? This will tell you alot about what she needs. What name/s did they give her LDs? It is impossible for anyone to advise you on accomadations without knowing what she actually is believed to have. Having LD isn’t all the same. Many types and different kinds you handle differently because of different strengths and weaknesses. I would suggest you actually read about and learn about and do your own study on the LD/s she actually was said to have in the first grade or have her re-evaluated.
That is all i have for you and i am only making some guesses but that is my understanding of the information you have made available. Someone else might know more about this than i do. But, i got the feeling you are really very…. hmmmm insecure bout all this and in need of someone to say *something* So i said something. I hope i am atleast pointing you in the right direction. I *think* i am but i am not entirely certain. Hopefully others will reply to you too and hopefully they will have a better idea about this than i do or can even tell me if i am understanding it right? Because now i am curious.
Best of luck to you and to your daughter with her studies.
I want you to know that being LD is not the end of the world. Some of us (many) turn out fine to great. I am married to a PHD in theoretical physics. I have ADHD and Dyslexia. I also couldn’t write my own first name till i was nearly 11. Today i am 28, i am multi lingual, and multi instrumental. I also read and write music both in modern music notation and that used by the ancient greeks. I hold a degree in archaeology and am working on one in egyptology. I am a dyslexic epigrapher! If they had it their way i would have lived and died in some forgotten hell ward somewhere. Thank god my mother had atleast some good sense. Don’t be afraid. Take a deep breath and don’t let all the technical jargon get to you. You are doing the right thing to ask for help to understand don’t feel uncomfortable doing so. Hopefully, someone can give you a better understanding than i can. Your kid is a little different. She has the opportunity to think in ways that most people never will. You must always remember that is hardly a curse but a gift. It is those that have the difficult path that ultimately get the furthest on the road.