Can speech delays and mild vision impairments cause a lower I.Q. rendering a child a “slow learner” later in life. Hearing problems from birth to 2 (had surgery). Speech services began at age 5 until 10. Visual processing problems (scanning) with services for 2 years at age 5. In addition to Speech and Vision was labeled LD in 3rd grade. in 4th grade label changed to LD/EBD. Private testing at the end of 7th grade showed he is a “slow learner”. Currently beginning 9th grade with a 4th/5th grade level in Math and Reading. Also being told this year that the public school DOES NOT have to provide services for slow learners.
Re: Slow Learner + Speech/Vision Delays
John,
Was the child’s IQ higher when he qualified for LD in fourth grade? In general, I think it is a big mistake to repeat IQ test later on for kids as the IQ’s often fall if they have not been remediated in reading giving them access to the full curriculum. I’d say this child may be a victim of lack of remediation resulting in an IQ drop.
Janis
Re: Slow Learner + Speech/Vision Delays
As a school psychologist, I expect a fairly stable IQ between the ages of 9 and 12 for a typical or LD child. I sometimes see a slight IQ drop for an LD child because the impact of the learning or processing problems- but only in specific areas. For instance, the child may do more poorly on the Information subtest on the WISC-III because of retention problems and/or lack of exposure to grade level curriculum. However, the scores on other subtests should remain the same- they have little to do with school learning. The psychologist should be able to sort out what would be impacted by the speech and vision deficits. If the vision problems are mild, then they really shouldn’t interfere significantly with performance on most nonverbal cognitive tests. It really depends on the the specific deficits. If the child has weaknesses across the board then a slow learner classification is probably correct. However, if something just does not add up to you and you see more range in this child’s profile (say, the child is pretty sophisticated socially or some skills are on grade level and others are not) than there may be a missing piece in the puzzle. I do find that slow learners often get lost in terms of services- particular as many districts have phased out “basic” courses for low performing kids. All in the spirit of having high standards- they are forgetting that there will always be students in the 70-85 IQ range who will be achieving below grade level, commensurate with their IQ.
Private testing should also include a dev. history that probably will reveal some developmental delay that is consistent with children labeled as slow learners…students with IQs below the average range and not meeting the diagnosis of mental retardation. The lack of services through the public schools is due to the ineligibility for special ed. services since “slow learners” are not in the federal definition of disabilities. Some schools do provide many supports thru regular education for students in this category. There are many students who are blind and or hearing impaired who are of at least average intelligence(look at Helen Keller!), so no you can not say definitely that speech delays cause a child to be a slow learner. Certainly students of all IQ levels may have vision problems.