How to interpret K-ABC results?

He is visual spatial and that is where his gifts are, infact many dyslexic kids have this profile. He needs speech and langusge services to help with his language deficits. A slp would work on the areas where he is having trouble

I’m a parent, not a professional, but here’s my take on the testing.

Simultaneous processing is associated with higher-order thinking skills, so it looks to me as if the test results indicate very high IQ.

It is the sequential processing problems that prevent him from performing. If these are not remediated, he’s going to experience a lot of frustration, being unable to perform at this level he can think. There is a large developmental component to sequential processing skills, so I would concentrate on reducing his deficits in this area first, rather than on having him compensate.

The first thing I would do is have him evaluated by a developmental optometrist. In my experience, sequential processing problems are often linked to developmental vision delays. At the very least, you want to rule out these delays. You can find certified developmental optometrists at http://www.covd.org. (I just made an extensive post about developmental vision exams on the “Reading and Math” homeschooling board at http://www.vegsource.com, and you may want to check that out for more detailled information.)

If there are visual efficiency problems, vision therapy can be very effective. After vision therapy, or if there are no developmental vision delays, PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement, http://www.learninginfo.com) is excellent at developing sequential processing skills. If PACE is too expensive ($2,000 or more), a good home-based program that does a lot for developing sequential processing skills is Audiblox (http://www.audiblox2000.com)

Because of his age and intelligence, I would definitely concentrate on reducing his deficits first.

Mary

My dd had the same problems and seems to have a similar profile - she has high visual-spatial ability.

When she was 5 late 6, she had a very difficult time with sound/symbol. She could not recognize or name the letters of the alphabet, sounds of the letters or names of numbers. We all were frustrated and she recognized this and developed a real distaste for reading.

Many visual-spatial kids have very poor auditory sequential processing/short term memory. They want to look at things as a whole vs. sequentially (i.e. reading left from right). Unfortunately, reading/decoding and writing requires good auditory and visual sequential/short term memory abilities. Visual-spatial abilities are a function of the right brain and my personal observations is that these kids rely on the strength of their right brain and their language center doesn’t develop fully on the left brain (which is why you need speech/language remediation). They have very poor phonological processing - blending is still hard for my dd- we work alot of blending.

We have had alot of success (she is reading above grade level now) with the following:

Sound therapy(auditory tonal training) in combination with Earobics(auditory processing skills) seemed to really wake her up - within 3mo. she was learning the names and sounds without that blank look.(Fastforword would be an alternative if you think your son can sit thru the 90 min. intensity for 3 months- my dd was not old enough at time to be able to handle this - 20min. of Earobics was brutal enough).

Brainbuilder3.0 - This increased her short term memory/and sequential memory abilities. I saw direct academic improvement with each level we increased. But it’s a boring program and you have to be very diligent to do it.

Audiblox - this is a good alternative to brainbuilder. We burnt out on Brainbuilder after 9mo. of use and started Audiblox. Audiblox works alot on visual sequential memory (which was low from my dd too as well as auditory). And it does some auditory memory work. It also does a flash card/fluency drill that I think will work for your visual-spatial child. It worked well with mine and once she learned all the sight words, her reading fluency improved alot and her confidence/desire to read improved. It’s easier for visual-spatial kids to memorize sight words vs. decoding left to right. BUT - this is not the correct way to learn to read(I’ve heard you can only memorize so many words - best you can get to is a 3rd grade reading level) - if your son is like my dd, he will develop a bad word guessing habit that you need to break.

Reading Reflex - this book is helping us learn how to decode and break the word guessing habit.

Strenghts - if your son is a visual-spatial kid, he will probably do well with math. You want to teach math facts visually tho - let him figure out the math on his own. Just drill on flash cards could be frustrating - my dd has now developed her own way of mentally calculating the math facts. Audiblox has a math component that is visual in nature - I’m not sure if this helped her or not - it didn’t seem to me that she was transferring it over to her work. We just did alot of worksheets and she seemed to figure it out on her own. Is he good at drawing? My dd is not real good at creative art (where she has to mentally develop an image in her head), but she excells if she has something to copy. We have her in a basic drawing class and she loves it.