help with scores cont.

She qualifies for special education based on the scores you posted. She should have an IEP.

Anitya, how do you know she qualifies. What scores tell you that. The school is leaning towards a 504. I am not sure they can provide her with what she needs at this point. Will and IEP address organizational concerns, memory and her inability to look at new words and decode them and also spell words correctly? Look forward to your thoughts. Maggie

There’s a humongous (oops, “significant”) gap between intelligence and achievement here. The psych may be of the school of thought that “she’s got all those strengths — think of those POOR children who don’t.” And, sadly, she has apoint…
But if she really believes that “anywhere between 25& and 75% is average,” then she’s probably cognitively a lot closer to 25% because that’s a gross oversimplification. *If* your daughter scored in the 25 percentile prett much across the board, *or* the 75% across the board, then indeed, she could be considered average. That definition of “average” applies to comparing a kid’s performance to the rest of the population.
Big fat however: that has nothing to do with the fact taht if a child has a discrepancy between achievement and potential, even if the potential is under 75% adn the achievement over 25%, the kiddo is eligible for help.
If your left foot is on fire and your right foot has frostbite, you are not comfortable because your average temperature is. Lots of tissue damage is happening.

I must be missing something here - where is the IQ score? I’m sure I have just overlooked it on the post.

I would caution some blanket statements about discrepancies. Does a student need LD services if they are gifted at apx 127 IQ and have a written language discrepancy but it still falls within the normal to above range? I don’t think so but we continue to place and expect remediation. Remediate to what?

Remediate to what they are capable of by addressing core cognitive deficits.

A gifted child who underperforms is often misunderstood and mislabeled. This can lead to frustration that can cause the child to underperform even further.

I do realize that this is beyond the scope of some schools and some teachers. The teachers at my school (not the one’s here) have absolutely no understanding of how to address cognitive deficits.

My personal view on this issue is that if the IQ is 127 and for the sake of discussion the written language score is 105, this places the child in the upper 50% and it should be possible for this child to perform to grade level standards. I would personally think this child does NOT need remediation in written language.

IDEA does not require schools to maximize potential. People do have intra-individual differences. We all have areas of relative strength and relative weakness. When a child is at or above grade level in all areas, then I do think we need to consider whether or not general education is addressing his needs and permitting him to make adequate yearly progress. If “yes,” then why would you promote special education services?

However, in another case a child with an IQ of 130 receives a word identification score and a comprehension score of 100-110, but is low in word attack and measures of phonological processing in the primary grades. Clearly this child may have an LD, but is compensating by using memory and context. I could probably argue that this child should be considered for some remediation of this deficit because it is present and a child should not be penalized for being bright enough to fake his or her way through first or second grade reading.

Each case needs to be considered on its own merits. Written language is a skill and an artform all of its own. Not every bright child will be an outstanding writer. Every bright child should be able to meet grade level standards in writing and express himself or herself clearly.

Samantha,
it is in separate post a bit lower than this one.
Amy

Maggie,

One of the main ways school determine if a student qualifies is to look at the discrepancy between ability and achievement. The WISC and the WIAT are normed on the same population. Your daughter has a FIQ of 116 while her reading subtest scores are 74 and 89. Her word reading score is 89 so you take 116 - 89 = 27 points descrepancy. Her reading comp. is 74 so 116 - 74 is 42 points. WISC and the WIAT have a Standard Deviation of 15 points. Her reading comp is almost 3 Standard Deviations below her FIQ. The question you need answered is how many Standard Deviations descrepancy does you school district require to qualify for Special Education.

Helen

Helen, thanks for your input. I am not sure how the school qualifies eligibility. We have our IEP meeting coming up in a week or so. It is so helpful to talk to people about test scores and have someone look at them besides the parent. I am not convinced to just let things go without any type of service. We are going to talk to an educational consultant who has a private practice for an outside opinion. I am of the mind that we need to do more now in the early years so she has good strategies for later years. Maggie