what could cause a 20 pt drop in IQ ???

and the other issues she is dealing with not to mention SEIZURES, which is a big diisruption causing a drop in IQ, Remember IQ tests are langauge based. What is your daughter’s processing speed? Perhaps she needs an adjustment in medication. She also may be tuned out to the language around her due to seizures and she may have memory issues due to seizures and also she may not be be reading and picking up new vocabulary.

[quote=”wileysmom”]My daughter was given the WISC-III in 1996 when she was 6 years old, and again, yesterday at age 13. Her full scale score dropped from 106 when she was six years old to 86 at age 13. Could the onset of seizures have caused this drop? She started having seizures last year in Nov 2002 that are now completely controlled with medication. Is there any particular LD or syndrome that is associated with a drop in IQ? She had been diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder, receptive and expressive language disorder, and is now being evaluated for high functioning autism. She was diagnosed with ADHD at 7 years old and had been on meds for that for years until things went downhill in middle school. Any insights are appreciated.

Thanks!

Wileysmom[/quote]

Have you consulted a Neuroscientist? Most (and I might even venture to say all) medical doctors know very little about brain chemistry and pathology. I would recomenmd contacting a neurobiologist about this. Also, try the Peabody test. IQ means very little. Mine is supposed to be over 160, but in real terms that means little when a person can hardly read. I can make some recomendatiojs if you wish, as I have 2 close friends who are both neuroscientists, one 9n London, one here in the states.

At age 6yrs old, your child was very young for the WISC; the examiner then should have explained that one IQ score at a young age is not predictive or definitive; retesting every 3 or so yrs gives a MUCH more accurate picture. Yes, many things influence the WISC scores-please ask whomever did this testing to review that this is a picture in time…does it match her academic testing and performance? Or does she present as a much brighter child? 90-110 is the average range…

I have a friend whose son had a 122 verbal, 145 Performance and a 137 full scale IQ at the end of third grade.

He had not been tested since. He was not reading well. She had him re-tested at the age of 15 and his full scale was 106. The evaluator came out after 2 hrs. of testing and asked if he had had a brain injury.

Mom flipped out.

I’ve heard that the Matthew Effect can cause a drop in IQ, but never heard of 31 pts. Matthew Effect is when the LD child is not remediated properly. See www.wrightslaw.com

Our son had an 18 or 20 point drop in IQ between a couple years of really struggling in the early grade school years.

After much bs from the district who tried to imply that “now there isn’t a problem with the isssue of his intellect being addressed” or something like that… we went to a Neuropsych who retested after a little while.

Neuropsych produced a pretty in depth report, IQ hadn’t dropped, but child’s desire to learn was severely impacted and then addressed other areas of ld that the district never identified.

Anyway, the independent evaluation was very educational for us.

Andy

Depending upon where the seizures occur in the brain…..

Indeed, seizures cause subtle, permanent damage where they occur. I know at least one adult who first experienced seizures in her teens whose seizures worsened in her 20’s, ultimately causing all manner of disruption to her life, her ability to function. I also had a cute little student 10 or more years ago who had suffered severe seizures during preschool which caused her to lose her language, etc. (per her mother’s report) and I doubt very seriously this child had the learning ability post seizures she had pre-seizures, apparently her seizures did effect language areas of brain.

So, I would suspect that the seizures may be a portion of the cause of the 20 point drop.

You need to scrutinize the scores, including the subtest scores to learn where the drops are most significant.

First question I’d ask w/ that 31 point drop was whether it was the WISC-R and then the WISC-III — many of our students had a drop when they went to the next version of the test. THe general consensus was that speed counts more on it.

Thank you all so much for your replies!! They have given me some good ideas of how to start figuring this out.

Any further insights/info is appreciated!!

Wileysmom
:D

Another thing to consider is that it is easier to score higher on the WISC at a younger age because being quick is not necessarily required to score well. Slow-processing older kids score lower because they can’t get the bonus points for speed.

Andrea

So, chances are then my daughter’s IQ will drop like a rock as well? She’s the one who says “Just b/c you don’t know the answer FIRST, doesn’t mean you don’t know the answer”.

I too have a child who was tested at age 6, i have heard a iq is not valid until the age of 8. I would also go to wrights law and read up on the mathew affect. If a child ld’s are not addressed you will see a drop in iq.
good luck
dl

She has and is being remediated. Others mentioned the difference in the test and “speed is a factor” could cause the drop. I guess, tho, (bear with me, I’m just a mom) that remediation would increase processing speed? So possibly the IQ won’t drop like a rock? Sorry if it’s a dumb question.

Lean,

I’m just a mom too, but it is my understanding that remediation of LD will not improve processing speed to any great degree. Some programs (IM for example) claim to have success in increasing processing speed, but I’m not aware of research to support that claim. In layman’s terms, processing speed is how long it takes for an answer to get from your head to your mouth or pencil. Increasing familiarity with math facts, for example, will make the answers more available but not necessarily easy to retrieve for a slow processor. My son’s doctor calls this a “traffic jam” in his head.

Andrea

Thanks, Andrea. YOu’re right - you know I think I was referring to fluency - not processing speed.

The OG tutor says she will “always struggle” b/c of the processing speed. So how do you know when to “quit”?

To the original post:
Anitya and others seem to lend the best advice, seek the consultation of a clinical neurologist with a background in childhood development re; the seizures.

Though, if you want to look into IQ testing, processing speed and what it may all mean in the long haul, I’ve checked a few bookmarks and have posted them with a preamble.

Leah-FL’s child had a great clue when she said, “Just b/c you don’t know the answer FIRST, doesn’t mean you don’t know the answer.”
That’s the spirit!
With that kind of outlook we might lead the child to build on what the answer is, then add to it with their own questions. In for the long run, not just the quick return!

The issue of processing speed and IQ seems to fit neatly into a cognitive modeling formula, though with all the variables that we humans have, mathematical models are useful yet… is weighted to the means of the quality of data has been collected. This often leaves out a load of probabilities that some Bayesian Inference analysis can make up for but still is admittedly not perfect.

As an example:

A. R. Jensen the IQ wizard built his premiss on the Hicks Law of calculating action & response to set parameters for IQ. He based this on a strict serial information processing construct that can be practically humorous if we accept the humanness of parallel and other information processing modes. Here is Jenson’s brief breakdown: http://www.psych.nwu.edu/~garea/i3.html
“Differences in reaction time (RT) in simple tasks, lacking intellectual content, are correlated with nonspeeded complex tests of reasoning ability — such as the IQ. Jensen investigates this phenomenon of the RT-g relationship (g refers to the unquantifiable single factor that comprises
intelligence).” Jensen, A. R. (1993). Why is reaction time correlated with psychometric g? Current Direction in Psychological Science, 2, 53-56.

His processing speed = intelligence measure is challenged in an inter-species study of Psychology Undergraduates and Pigeons. Given the task of pecking at the screen in a pure Hicks stimulus & response speed trial the pigeons won hands down. Yet, we would be adverse to say that pigeons are more intelligent than humans.
Vickrey,-Coryn; Neuringer,-Allen, (2000) Pigeon reaction time, Hick’s law, and intelligence.
Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2000 Jun; Vol 7(2): 284-291.

Frankly, I thought that IQ measures were tossed out long ago, what happened to multi intelligences? Has the Jenson equation become the “gold standard” for (teach to the test) standardized testing?

North Western University has a brief website on “An Outline of Intelligence” http://www.psych.nwu.edu/~garea/i1.html &, http://www.psych.nwu.edu/~garea/i2.html
From the bullated annotations the workings of how the Mathew Effect (“those that draw, attention get attention, Then more attention you get the richer you are and thus…that rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”) can influence a drop in IQ can be deduced.
Also:
Prof Linda S. Gottfredson, has written an excellent article ” The General Intelligence Factor,” it address the Psychometric g notion along with it’s curious measure of social success. Here is a link to a pdf file:
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1998generalintelligencefactor.pdf

And - if you really want to dive in to the subject with hands and feet, read through this hyper linked URL:
Human Intelligence. Developed by Eyal Reingold, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this resource is to help the students, as well as other interested visitors, to navigate through the enormous number of postings on the topic of human intelligence on the web.
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~reingold/courses/intelligence/intelligenceweb.html

From the ground up -
I’m going to look back to Leigh’s childs response for inspiration toward the overlooked good things that are yet to come.

There are a great many much more astute teachers, and parents on this bb to glean information from. ….Personally, I’d take some of the IQ measures with a grain of salt. — Up to the age of 3, I was considered developmentally disabled because I did not speak English, then after moving back to the states I started speaking English in full sentences. What my parents and their friends had overlooked was the fact that I was raised by my parents Japanese housekeepers who spoke to me in Japanese so, I learned to speak their language; my parents just talked to me in baby talk, and didn’t speak or, understand Japanese. Go figure?

A great many things can affect IQ test results and cause them to change. We all have simple bad days and good days and for that reason and many others, it’s best not to see the results of IQ testing as ‘written in stone’.

More important is, how does your daughter seem to you? Do you see her functioning less well? Or does she seem to be able to do the same level of cognitive tasks that she’s always done?

that her test results changed doesn’t necessarily mean she’s changed. Our IQ test results can go and up even when our IQ doesn’t.

Fortunately, my daughter seems to be continuing to improve. We will have her re-evaluated at the end of 5th grade, although this evaluator does re-do IQ b/c she believes it’s stay pretty much the same (I know, I know)

We’ll wait and see.

Sorry that should say our evaluator does NOT re-do IQ.

Bill G,

Thank you for the abundant information and resources! I really appreciate it!!

Wileysmom

Sara and everyone,

My daughter always struggled in school. She was diagnosed with ADHD early and I attributed her difficulties to that. I tried to have the school assess her for special ed for several years they always resisted. The school psychologist guilted me out of saying: ” why would you want to put her through the trauma of all that testing and subject her to the stigma of being in special ed”. At the time I naively thought I was dealing with a professional who had my daughter’s best interest in mind so I went along. I have since learned it had more to do with the schools lack of resources than with what was best for my daughter.

When my daughter entered middle school things went downhill. Her grades went from Cs to Ds and her behavior changed. She went from being a shy withdrawn kid to being loud and obnoxious and in your face. Needless to say she started getting into all sorts of trouble at school. My favorite incident is when a teacher repeatedly snapped at her to “SIT” and my daughter loudly replied: “I’m not a dog!” She also started having seizures at this time. It became obvious that her problems involved more than ADHD. I then insisted on having her assessed for special ed and she was. She qualified under OHI and specific learning disability due to ADHD and an LD in written expression.

She got into the special ed program but that turned out to be a joke. They sent her to what they call the resource room several times a week where the teacher was often absent and she just sat around and talked to other kids. Once she was sent there to take a math test and she only completed 3 out of 15 problems because there was nobody making sure she stayed on task.

I asked them what they were doing to address her LD in written expression and they said they were teaching her how to use a graphic organizer. I asked them for a copy of the graphic organizer so I could help her with her written assignments at home. Instead of just giving me a copy of the organizer they told me they tested my daughter to see if she knew what was on the graphic organizer and she did, so they did not need to give me one to use at home. In other words she didn’t really need the only remediation/therapy they were providing, thus to my way of thinking, they were providing her with nothing at all. People at her school continue to have the attitude that she doesn’t really have any problems. It seemed they are in the habit of only providing services to severely disabled/LD kids and think it’s frivolous to address the problems of a higher functioning kid.

At some point in the middle of all this I educated my self at Wright’s Law and contacted an attorney. I have had her privately evaluated by a communication disorders specialist and an audiologist. The communication specialist suspected high functioning autism and wanted me to have her evaluated by the UCLA autism clinic. We are now in the process of having that done. It was during our first appt at the autism clinic that she got the 86 score on the WISC. We have one more appointment with them.

In addition to the initial testing for special ed eligibility I had the school do speech and language, and audiology evaluations. Both of these assessments found that my daughter had no problems in and did not qualify for services in these areas.

According to the independent evaluations I have had done, my daughter has: auditory processing disorder, receptive/expressive language disorder, of written expression, and other symbolic dysfunction (social communication).

I finally got the school to screen her for their in-house Lindamood-Bell program at the end of last year. The contracted evaluator recommended that she be accepted into the program. They gave her 7 subtests and her scores ranged form age equivalent 9-8 to age equivalent 15-9. She is 13 years old going into the 8th grade.

I am putting her through FastForWord this summer and the school may offer their Lindamood-Bell clinic next year. I still need to try and get them to provide the speech therapy and social skills training recommended by the independent evaluators, and we will see if they think she is high functioning autistic.

The recent low IQ score through me for a loop! I always thought that she was very bright. I thought her intelligence allowed her to compensate and cover up her deficiencies in the early grades so her problems were not easy to detect. The low IQ score put a crimp in this line of thinking but the Mathew Effect would make sense in this situation.

Sorry this is so long. It’s either all or nothing with me!

Thanks everyone for all the input!

Wileysmom