<p>She has taken the WISC-IV & the Stanford-Binet, the WPPSI & the WAIS-R. ( she was part of a special study which all children who had been in the NICU @ the university qualified for- otherwise I would have never had her tested)</p>
<p>I couldn’t really tell you which one had the age equivalency or if that was an interpretation by the psychologist. But she * was adamant * enough about how unusual the score was to get me start thinking about considering private school for D.</p>
<p>Not to hijack the thread, but as a coincidence I’m in the middle of having my 5 yo son tested for autism spectrum disorders and one psychologist gave him the kbit 2 test, and he scored a 101 on verbal and a 134 on nonverbal. He didn’t say much about it, except he couldn’t give a composite score because of the difference.</p>
<p>QuantMech, thank you for your optimism in post #37. Son is a graduating (I hope!) senior, going to a college that fits his three main criteria: a lot of options in the sciences, a cold climate and close to good snowboarding (which in his mind excludes all of the east coast, lol.) It’s not a great school; it’s not a bad school. At this point, I’m just glad he seems to be excited about it. He’s a sweet kid and I love him, and hope he continues to mature, gain confidence, and learn to just… work. But from grade 5 till now, his education hasn’t been an easy or fun experience for any of us, despite that impressive-sounding IQ…</p>
<p>hmm … explanation first, then editorial.</p>
<p>Explanation: the sub-scores are ages. E.g if kid is 13 and scores 15 on a certain sub-test the result means kid performed at an average 15 year old level in that sub-test. The final ‘IQ’ number is probably easiest understood when translated as a percentile: he did better than about 98% of the population. For the math inclined – the IQ test is a normal distribution with a mean of 100 and a SD of 15.</p>
<p>Editorial: If this test told you anything about the kid you already don’t know you have not been paying attention.</p>
<p>Editorial #2 (and apologies if I offend): Labels of LD are a fool’s game. Encourage the kid’s curiosity and talents; give him love, encouragement and discipline; help find adaptation strategies when needed, and shun forehead stickers. Parents love them as a ready made excuse and for leverage dealing with teachers, and in unlucky cases the child adopts a crutch. Uneven aptitudes is not a curse or a disease, it is a whole lot better than being mediocre all around. Ask Feynman when you see him.</p>
<p>Parents love them as a ready made excuse and for leverage dealing with teachers, and in unlucky cases the child adopts a crutch</p>
<p>what a load of BS.</p>
<p>Perhaps an anecdote to clarify my objections to labelling excess:
My son was labeled autistic at age 3, mentally ■■■■■■■■ at age 4, and Asperger age 8. Today he is a happy college kid triple majoring in physics, chemistry and math with a 3.9+ gpa.</p>
<p>We have a lifetime of long talks between us, mostly about the importance of knowing oneself. He is slowly learning to rely on friends and family where social questions and interactions are involved. He grasps that he has a relative weakness in this area, and that is what matters. No labels ever made it to his ears, although i am well aware he thinks differently than I do. We have talked about how he thinks, but this is still obtuse for him. That is oK.</p>
<p>But Eric, that is one child and one child’s story. I’m glad it has worked out for your child.
The primary reason I started homeschooling was to avoid labels for my oldest (either profoundly gifted or adhd, both of which his testing labeled him). I am an ex-special ed teacher and I knew what would happen to him.</p>
<p>However, the various diagnoses for my middle son have been extremely helpful in peeling back the layers of the onion. I can love him all I want but I have felt very helpless and I thank God for professionals who have been working with him.</p>
<p>Call me a failure as a parent, I don’t mind, but I <em>didn’t</em> recognize many things. Would you say the same thing about his type I diabetes, that he’s using it as a crutch? We <em>didn’t</em> recognize his diabetes until right before he went into the hospital. I didn’t recognize the fact that he had a hearing loss. I didn’t recognize the fact that his eyes don’t converge on the page and reading has been like running a race with a ball and chain wrapped around his leg (and only surgery to both eyes will correct it) and I certainly didn’t recognize ADD in this child but today his counselor confirmed what the psych told me last year and oh, it makes sense. The great news is that they are working together on strategies to deal with it and my son is so excited. Crutch? No, I don’t think so.</p>
<p>As far as my oldest, remember that I was a public school teacher and very “in the box”. Testing helped me see how much I was <em>underestimating</em> his abilities. No wonder he wasn’t interested in what I was offering!</p>
<p>Yes, I’ve had many failures as a parent and while testing certainly has it’s downside (I will agree that my youngest son’s assessment for asperger’s was a waste of time), for my older two, it has reaped benefits and has helped me have some guidance in this challenge I call parenting.</p>
<p>sbj,
Sounds like your son had way more than a fair share of obstacles. I am sorry to hear it and wish him the best.</p>
<p>My objection to labels, particularly nebulous DSM fads, is that they are no substitute for understanding and diversity celebration. As for the crutch comment, I read not too long ago that at a certain college 30% of the kids are given extra time on tests as befits their LD handicaps.</p>
<p>My son will ask for accomodations if he is smart but his request will be to allow him to stop if something happens with his diabetes. He must always have his insulin pump, pdm (the little handheld machine that controls the insulin), his blood sugar tester, and a sugar source with him at all times. He won’t need extra time for his other disabilities because I think he’ll be ok (but we’ll see how it goes in high school) but when it come to diabetes, that’s non negotiable.</p>
<p>Now back to our regularly scheduled original post! :-)</p>
<p>He likely has that sort of thing (sitting at tests) well under control as far as Diabetes goes. The worry is low blood sugars, but I hazard a guess that assuming he eats a decent breakfast his will go up a bit during the test ;)</p>
<p>A lot of kids labeled as “learning disabled” are nothing of the sort – they are simply right-brained learners stuck in a left-brained teaching system. I have two sons who are right-brained “visual-spatial” learners, both of whom were tested at a fairly young age to have IQs in excess of 150 and both of whom have had various problems in school at times, while hailed as being incredibly brilliant at other times.</p>
<p>Of the two, my younger son is the more extreme visual-spatial learner, so I will focus on some of his current and former traits. Hallmarks of this type include extreme disorganization when it comes to turning in homework (which has, in fact, frequently been completed); inability to show one’s step-by-step work, especially in math; delayed response when being called upon in class; poor time management; and not being able to take detailed notes while listening to a lecture or watching a video.</p>
<p>Now let’s look at these individual items:
<ul>
<li><p>inability to show one’s step-by-step work: they can often look at a problem and immediately see the correct answer, if A, then D – but can’t tell you how they got there because the didn’t follow a path, they made an intuitive leap. As the math gets harder, they may well have intermediate steps to show, but these steps are often not the ones taught; such kids will tackle problems from all sides, sometimes working back to front or from the middle out in both directions.</p></li>
<li><p>delayed response when being called upon in class: a lot of these kids think in terms of pictures or diagrams or flowcharts or matrices of interconnected facts. Try and get an answer from them quickly and they’re stuck trying to “translate” their knowledge into a running narrative. It’s not obviously A-B-C-D, C-D-B-A could also be viable, or any of another couple dozen combinations. The simpler and broader the question, the more trouble they have in answering it; yet ask them to explain an obscure connection between A and H and they’ll have your answer first every time, because you’ve essentially drawn the path for them to take.</p></li>
<li><p>poor time management: their brains are optimized for managing space – making mental maps, flowcharts, rotating objects mentally to look at the other sides. But time? They nearly always underestimate.</p></li>
<li><p>not being able to take detailed notes while listening to a lecture or watching a video: the visual sense always predominates and to “hold” what they hear, they need to focus on it entirely. Yet they don’t need those notes anyway, since they’ll never have to come back and re-read them: what they learn gets stored directly in long-term memory and their “notepad” is in fact internal, their working memory. Note that it’s not memorization, but facts being stored in their appropriate places.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The good news about all this: these kids are often late bloomers who, over time, figure out their own ways to accomplish what the system demands of them. And the more they learn, the faster they can learn, because they have knowledge hooks already in place in that field or a neighboring one or via an unlikely analogy or parallel that others would never even consider (For example, recalling Simpsons parodies has often been a springboard for learning literature). And, by god these kids can learn fast because they don’t have to learn and practice and review to hold knowledge, they only have to be told enough once to understand the relevance of what they just learned.</p>
<p>Here’s a useful link:
<a href=“http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm[/url]”>http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm</a></p>
<p>My now 35 year old twins took this IQ test, along with the Stanford-Binet back when they were 5 years old and both were 144 and 145–very superior 99.8% percentile. I don’t have the rest of the information with me right now that snows the break down of every category. They were referred to go through testing when there was some acting out in their pre-school. </p>
<p>I can tell you this, though: I never felt they were properly challenged in school (for the most part) and as a result, they got comfortable with it and I honestly feel they never did work up to their potential. Both of my girls were quite talented in art and other areas such as piano and dancing. In fact, I think they were sometimes overwhelmed with their interests and talent and in the end, never really got serious about any of it. Also, IQ is one thing. “I will” is another. Unfortunately, if a child or young adult makes poor choices in life as one of my twin daughter did, it makes you wonder what happened to that gifted IQ score. :-/</p>
<p>When my current college freshman came along 16 years later I almost prayed for a kid with a “normal IQ” but who worked exceptionally hard and really wanted to succeed. Well, she’s probably *more *intelligent than her sisters! 
She didn’t go through the same battery of IQ tests that her sisters did, so I have no idea what her IQ scores are. However, so far, she’s exhibited a wonderful work ethic to go along with her “smarts”. And, so far, she’s making excellent choices in life! :)</p>
<p>The reason we decided to get him tested was because we are moving to a different school district. We cannot afford a private school so were looking at a public school that is ranked number one in my state. The school is competitive and requires students to have their IQ’s tested. My brother has straight A+'s in all of his classes. The middle school he attends only offers advanced classes in math and language arts, which he is both in. Sometimes he complains that the classes are too easy and that he gets bored often. But I make sure that he does his homework and everything. But I just don’t know how to get him out of his “bored” state. I cannot say anything negative about his study skills because they are good. Plus he has 98% and above in all of his classes! </p>
<p>He is good at making things with his hands. For example he makes clay models, and paper origami, and just draws. He also learned piano by himself. For me, I think I am doing everything I can to not “bore” him to death. Any suggestions as to what else I should get him to try? It’s so tiring keeping up with him!!</p>
<p>This is a very interesting discussion. Thank you OP!
D tested 155 V and 144 P in middle school. Why did we test her? Because she was tuning out and not stimulated by school, and was showing some emotional stress.
Funny thing: one of her very best teachers (one of those who just “has” it, can see each individual student clearly, motivate each one, yet maintain a well-behaved and pregressing class- not enough of them LOL) was her K teacher, who had told us that she was reading at the college level at age 5. (A good teacher may not need these tests!)
After that, she was bored, but the teachers did not know what to do with her except load her up with extra work, which was a big turn-off. Skipping a grade is a taboo in or world, too.
Anyway, she stayed where she was and was finally challenged a bit in 7th and 8th grade (her K-8 school becomes a pre-HS pressure-cooker), and was head of the Student Body on 8th grade.
She went to a very demanding HS and that has been a great decision- she really has had to work to keep up, and she has succeeded- YAY! Her Math SAT test scores are not in line with her verbal now, as we look at colleges, even though she gets the highest grades in an advanced math course sequence…
Anyway, we are hoping that the current highly competitive environment in college admission does not push her in to a school environment which is not challenging enough (as in her Lower School)- she needs to be in a pretty fast swimming pond!
Funny how all this comes up at each step of the way. So important to be aware and try to find the right environment for each learner. Goos luck to all and thanks for sharing your experiences- illuminating!!</p>
<p>I would agree that labeling is a problem- some Drs are very reluctant to label anything but textbook cases, others in the face of anything that isn’t " normal" they are labeled ADD or asperger.
But a correct diagnosis can add to understanding of yourself which can only help as we make our way through the world.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum great post.</p>
<p>My younger D is like this especially. Unfortunately our state mandated testing that placed more emphasis on explanation, regardless of accuracy.
</p>
<p>Her vision also did not track across midline, unfortunately also did not qualify for remediation ( through the school district & ins. did not cover anything “educational” in nature) it slowed down her work & caused difficulty with both reading & math.</p>
<p>I also always knew I learned differently- & felt different than other students- my gross & motor skills were delayed & have other attributes that while I was considered " gifted" ( I taught myself to read @4, a big deal in those post-Sputnik days) , I also had a very difficult time ( before IDEA) & dropped out before completing high school.</p>
<p>But at the same time, some very intelligent people have said that my type of insight & comprehension is above anyone they have ever met, but does that help me write a paper?
:o</p>
<p>While some classrooms may be designed for the holistic learner, larger class sizes and entire educational systems seem to want docile students who absorb material & spit it out in a way that the teacher then can be judged on how well they have absorbed.</p>
<p>Students with different learning styles & students who come into the classroom with knowledge gaps are going to negatively affect the way the teacher is assessed & when that info determines tenure…</p>
<p>My oldest tested upwards of 160iq- but had much weaker areas that prevented her from qualifying for the districts gifted program.</p>
<p>My youngest has struggled with a lot of problems, dyslexia, lack of phonemic awareness, anosmia, sensory dysfunction, very poor short term memory & it is only now that she is 20, & friend of the family is a neurologist, that she may be close to getting diagnosed which is sad. </p>
<p>A little rant. Why is it, that books that are written on how to parent children with neuro-differences assume that the parent is a traditional linear organized learner?
I have seen that if one child seems to have autism, it isn’t unusual for a sibling to have something on the spectrum as well as the parents.
I am a classic example of " out of sight- out of mind", I need everything to be where I can see it or it doesn’t exist!</p>
<p>The UW was actually doing research along this model, they wanted us all to have DNA testing as well as other testing- but the thing is with someone on the spectrum- …not so cooperative.</p>
<p>IQ is also not fixed- & the tests can be biased, I remember one question had to do with an envelope & a post office- that is very much cultural.</p>
<p>My daughter I think got big points because she recognized that a calendar didn’t have Sundays ( when she was 4)- it made the psych real excited anyway.
:)</p>
<p>" Labels of LD are a fool’s game. Encourage the kid’s curiosity and talents; give him love, encouragement and discipline; help find adaptation strategies when needed, and shun forehead stickers."</p>
<p>Excuse me?</p>
<p>What about those of us who have given plenty of what you’ve suggested and have kids who still struggle with a disability, and most likely always will? </p>
<p>I was grateful for the label, having known that something wasn’t quite right from infancy. It took 13 years and a lot of heartache to figure out what his issues were.</p>
<p>BTW, I’m thrilled that your child was “cured” with love and encouragement, etc., if only it was so easy for everyone.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Feynman got a 122 on the IQ test. Einstein never took it, but I’m guessing people overestimate what it would have been.</p>