Micheleh, I want to "echo" the advice michellea has given you....One test, on one day, does not necessarily represent your child's overall ability or level of functioning. Perhaps your daughter has language issues, and a non-verbal IQ test like the UNIT or C-TONI would yield much higher results. If you list all of her scores, not just of the WISC, but every test she was given, we can try to analyze them for you.
I'm concerned that the testing appears to have been done while consideration is given to remove her from her IEP...I'd be reluctant to do that...it's my guess that there are still areas where remediation could be helpful, unless she's really achieving at grade level in all area.

Hi Micheleh,
Understanding the tests and deciding what to do can be overwhelming.

There are many experienced people on this board and if you feel comfortable listing your child's scores on the WISC and other tests, we may be able to help you better understand them and formulate questions for the evaluators. If you do this, please include standatd scores and percentile ranks for subtests, index scores and full scale scores.

It is also helpful if we understand your concerns including academic, social, physical, language, attention and or emotional. How does she do in the classroom? what do you see as her greatest strengths and challenges?

Let us know what kinds of services she has been getting and how you think they are going.

Finally, if the evaluators gave you any information beyond the scores, let us know. By taking all these bits of data, we can have a better picture and lead you to a better understanding.

Take care - you are not the only one that has had diffuclty with evaluations and coming to a decision.

Just got my daughters test results back on her WISC IV scores and trying to make sense of it. Was told she scores on the first percentile with an avg. score of 70. Her core team is surprised since she is finally testing out of her IEP on all levels. They believe it may be her test taking skills are less than her abilities are. We are also finally considering medication (conserta or straterra) due to her inablity to stay on task although does not really show traditional signs of ADD of hyperactivity. She has a hypersensativity of anything sensory and a early childhood history of seizures that have seemed to have been outgrown. Currently she is in the 4 grade and we are now trying home schooling out with addition to IEP resource through the public schools. Does anyone have advice I am reading to cry and feel hopeless.

Sounds like deficits in perceptual organization. Children with PDD often exhibit such deficits as their ability to reason, and often visually may not be well developed. No predictions from me, it's a wait a see.
A
School Psychologist

Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful responses. I am going to review the resources you have all provided and I am sure I will be back with more thoughts/questions soon!

I thought you might like to read about another person with a child who has a "reverse discrimination" (achievement better than IQ) child: www.millermom.proboards107.com/index.cgi?board=Education&action=display&thread=5826
There are a lot of knowledgeable posters on that board, including some of us who have already commented here. Don't worry, you're not alone!

Your daughter does not have a typical learning profile, but there are many areas that are age appropriate. She has an area of extreme weakness, which means she is going to have to learn things differently than others. The average scores in other areas indicate that she has the potential to learn, but it's going to have to be specialized for her.

Low scores on the perceptual reasoning index of the WISC-IV can be indicative of PDD, which you say your daughter has. The reason for this is PDD often effects visual processing, fine and gross motor skills, and reading nonverbal cues, all of which are tested in the perceptual reasoning section of the WISC-IV. In addition, children with PDD, can have anxiety, which you say your daughter also has, and anxiety can play a role in a task like block design because it is timed. Having said that, let's look at her lowest scores in perceptual reasoning--block design and matrix reasoning.

Matrix reasoning is the nonverbal equivalent to the similarities subtest in the verbal comprehension index. When you look at your daughter's similarities subtest, it is a 9, which is much higher and almost dead average because 10 is dead average. This proves that your daughter does not have difficulties across the board with reasoning abilities, which is what both subtests evaluate. She can logically reason, but she does much better with this verbally, than she does nonverbally. That's part of her PDD. She does better in the verbal realm, than in the nonverbal realm. That's O.K. As long as she has the ability, than you can accommodate her work in such a way that she can show that ability, as she knows how--verbally.

Her next lowest score in perceptual reasoning is block design. Block design actually tests a couple of things. It tests visual/spatial ability, and the ability to complete a visual/spatial task under time constraints because it is timed. How these interact with each other is interesting and not truly told in the block design score. For example, let's take both my son and me, who score very low on block design. I can't nail a nail into the wall. I despised projects when I was in school because mine looked hideous! When I had to take the manual dexterity tests for trade school in high school, I was the last student to complete every task. It took me five years to learn how to type. But, you know, through it all, I managed to get a Masters and be just fine! My advice to everyone, though, is don't ask me to help you put together that BBQ grill you brought home and have to assemble. BUT, you can ask my son to help you, and he'll have no problem figuring out what goes where, even though he hates to read and, therefore, won't bother to read the instructions. In fact, he's the kid in class that the teacher calls on to help when s/he can't figure out how to get all the audio equipment to work. He says all the time that if he could go to a school where all he had to do was build projects, he would be there tomorrow. He scored a 5 on block design. Why? I suspect it was because it was the first thing tested. He had to focus and get into the testing, which will take a while with him, and he was trying to do a good job, which caused him to slow down. I question how well he would have done on block design, if it had been in the middle of test, when he was fully focused, yet not worn out. I suspect his score would have been much higher.

What you need to remember about IQ tests is that they are only tests. I say this all the time, so anyone reading this post will be sighing, "Here she goes, again!" but, unless your child's full scale IQ is on the extremes of the bell curve--very high or very low--I wouldn't be too concerned with an IQ test. For our children, they are important because they may show cognitive patterns associated with particular disabilities. Comparing these patterns with achievement tests may help us focus in on what disability our child has and both remediating and accommodating that disability, accordingly.

When we look at your daugher's achievement tests in conjunction with her IQ test, we see that her achievement scores are higher. This is quite common with PDD. So, she does have a "classic profile" of PDD--much lower perceptual reasoning scores than verbal scores on the cognitive test, and higher achievement scores than cognitive scores. O.K. Well, you know she has PDD, so that's fine.

When we take a close look at her achievement scores, we see that she is functioning at or above grade level across the board. WOW! That's fantastic! What your daughter has proven is that she can do well, regardless of her disability. Has it caused her difficulties? Yes, but you have advocated for her and helped make sure she has received the remediation she needed to deal with those difficulties. Will it cause difficulties in the future? Most certainly. But if the past can help predict the future, you will once again advocate for her and help her receive the remediation and accommodations she needs to be successful, and she will continue to be successful, just as she has year after year.

Your daugher, the professionals who have and are working with her, and you are proving what a team of concerned and knowledgeable people can do to help a child with disabilities. Look how well she is doing! Looking into private schools that will accommodate her disability may be a good idea, but I most certainly would not assume that this child is going to fail public middle school because of one IQ test. Instead, I advise focusing on the facts that she is doing "swimmingly well" in school, the teachers love her, she's playing team SPORTS and enjoying them (which is not something one often hears about children with PDD), and her achievement tests show that she is at or above grade level across the board. I say, "GREAT JOB!" to everyone who has helped make this happen.

Here are a couple of resources that might give you a better idea of NVLD/NLD:
children.state.mn.us/mdeprod/groups/SpecialEd/documents/Instruction/001566.pdf and
www.nldontheweb.org/thompson-5.htm

The C-TONI is a non-verbal IQ test, and for kids who have any kinds of language issues, it often gives higher results than the WISC. The fact that you describe your daughter as a perfectionist also likely comes into play, and the Block Design subtest is actually the first activity kids are asked to do on the WISC, so her unfamiliarity with the kind of tasks, or not understanding exactly what was required, plus her desire to do it "just right," may certainly have affected her scores.

I do still think it would be good to know how your daughter performs on a Visual Motor Integration test, like the Beery, but again, I would NOT get worried about a single number on a single test on a single day. Your daughter being a hard and diligent worker will allow her to achieve more than most people, regardless of an IQ number. (And your daughter's is likely much higher than the WISC measured!)

This was a private evaluator, in preparation for making a middle school decision and possibly applying to private schools. She has had the woodcock johnson in the past with similar results which is one reason she no longer has an iep. in kindergarten, i think, she had psychosocial testing but she had a lot of other issues going on and i don't recall the results from those tests and can't locate them at the moment (will try to do so). She did have testing from a developmental optometrist in the past, with no significant results. i have not heard the term nvld before.

The testing i reported was done on the same day. historically she had ot services due to motor planning, sensory integration issues but those are no longer an issue and she plays and loves baseball and soccer.

The person who made the remark about the middle school is someone who knows her and has seen her succeed and is suggesting that a public school environment, or most mainstream private school environments, will be difficult for her to navigate.

The evaluator doesn't have a solid theory -- she believed that some aspects of the testing were understated because my daughter has significant anxiety around giving wrong answers or making mistakes. however, on the block test, she apparently put them together randomly and then started over completely if the answer wasn't correct, rather than adopt a strategy to fix it. Similarly, she didn't really have a strategy for attacking one of the other subtests on perceptual reasoning -- i don't recall which one. She suggested doing an additional test called the CToni, i think. Thanks for your input. i should say that my daughter today is well ahead of where we thought she would be when she was in kindergarten with her myriad problems and delays and 1to1 aide. But we've been on a path where everyone was telling us everything is fine, and now this result - 2nd percentile on perceptual reasoning -- has got me really concerned again. her teachers think she is the greatest thing since sliced bread -- a hard and diligent worker achieving at grade level. Thanks for your input and thoughts.

Hi again. Glad to see you repost here, along with your daughter's WISC subtest scores. Was this testing done by a school psychologist, or a private evaluator? You mentioned "this round of testing" which infers that she's had other testing in previous years...can we ask how long ago, and could you perhaps post those results? At that time, was her achievement in line with her supposed ability? Has anyone ever mentioned the possibility of NVLD (non-verbal learning disability) to you?

Was all of the testing this time done on the same day? Was anything other than the WISC IQ test and WJ Achievement test done? I'm particularly wondering about tests that measure visual-motor integration....Has she ever been evaluated by a developmental optometrist? Does she have any problems with writing/motor skills/coordination?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but without having ever met your daughter, and just seeing a bunch of numbers, it's hard to give you advice. There are other kids who have "reverse discrepancies" between IQ and achievement, so don't let that concern you; and don't worry about the comment that your daughter may fail middle school; it's one person's opinion, and it sounds more like a "cover all the bases" remark than reality, because your daughter has already proven to be successful.

There's a poster named Sharon_F who has a son that she was told would never graduate from high school...Guess what? Not only did he graduate, but he graduated with honors and is now in college. Again, I encourage you not to get wrapped up in specific low numbers, but focus on your daughter's strengths. She's fortunate to have a supportive parent like you.