With low scores (WISC-III) on Arithmetic (7), Digit Span (8) and Symbol Search (7) and everything else is at 10 and above, what would you say these subtest indicate the problems may lie.
I know we can’t rely on scores only but just wondering does this combination of low scores indicate anything I should be looking into or asking questions about?
Thanks
Re: 3 low subtest scores
The three subtests all deal with short-term memory. Arithmetic and Digit Span both use short-term auditory memory while Symbol Search depends on short-term visual memory. Some parents have reported success using a software package called Brain Builder to increase both visual and auditory short-term memory.
Helen
Website
Thanks for the tip. You are a wealth of information.
They have a website: http://www.brainbuilder.com/
Re: Website
Susan,
The following site is also good for interperting the WISC it was posted by a parent a few month ago and I found it helpful.
http://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/epreports.htm
Helen
yes, that's him!
Thank you. That is definitely him! I appreciate you explaining it like this. For some reason the school is just not seeing this as being and issue. I think it explains MANY of his issues in class. They just keep telling us to practice, practice, practice and it will come or he’s not practicing enough.
Obviously this is not the case.
Re: 3 low subtest scores
Gee, that’s most of my family: Good at thinking skills, very resistant to rote, absolutely horrible at organization, and totally incapable of multiple directions or confusing environment. Let me second the thought that this can be a *good* thing; the rote learners drop like flies in high school math while the understanders pick up more and more speed.
The first two are both heavily dependent on remembering what you hear and spitting it back and things are pretty much random; I’d suspect that you have a kiddo who learns by *meaning* rather than by rote so if it doesn’t tie into something he understands, he can’t just spew it back at you. This can be a disadvantage because sometimes you have to remember things that don’t make sense for long enough to make sense of them — but it can be an advantage if you use it, because things are far morelikely to go into long-term memory and be useful if htey are understood.
So this is a kiddo you don’t teach by the “say it over and over again until you can just say it” — you have ‘em figure out why the answer is what it is and *then* recall that over & over until it’s quick and automatic. It’s also the kiddo who may have trouble with long oral directions (get out your pink notebook and your green book, open the book to page 23, find the second set of quesitons and do the odd numbered ones.)