Please help with test results...

[SweetandSimple]

Hello,

 

Could anybody help me understand the following test results? Any insights?

 

DS will be 14 next month. He has some "autistic-like behaviors" but may or may not be on the spectrum. We are still in the middle of getting that figured out/evaluated. We've completed lots of the initial assessment forms...So far, he is right on the borderline and no one can quite figure him out. Same with ADHD inattentive... maybe, maybe not. We are waiting on further testing, but it may be several months before we can get an appointment for the ADOS and NEPSY.

 

These are the scores that our homeschool charter school provided us with last week. The educational psychologist seemed to think that it was really the motor skills issues that are the real problem. He said that even the low processing speed is also a result of the motor skills component, and that the motor skills dragged the Full Scale IQ score down as well.

 

The school said that he is doing fine and that we just need to work harder on learning how to type... but we've been working on it for awhile and it is very slowly coming.

 

I'm just not sure. I'm seeing a lot of concerning things in this report, but I am not sure what to do about them. We have done a lot of O-G phonics work in the past, but he struggles to remember the rules, and so we had moved on to a more traditional spelling program. I'm not sure that I want to go back to teaching the rules, since he doesn't seem to retain them.

 

He is currently receiving OT for sensory/muscle tone/ motor issues.

 

 

WISC-V   (Scaled Score  8-12 = average)

 

Similarities                 9

Vocabulary               13

Block Design            10

Visual Puzzles          12

Matrix Reasoning      9

Figure Weights       10

Digit Span                8

Picture Span            9

Coding                      4

Symbol Search         7

 

 

Full Scale  (Standard Score/ Percentile)

 

Full Scale    93/32

GAI   101/53

Verbal Comp  106/66

Visual Spatial       105/63

Fluid Reasoning   97/42

Working Memory  91/27

Processing Speed   75/5

 

 

WIAT-III       (Standard Score Average = 100)/ Percentile

 

Total Reading Composite         91/27

Written Expression Composite   95/37

Mathematics Composite     106/66

 

 

Listening Comprehension  129/97

Oral Reading Fluency   95/37

Word Reading  96/39

Pseudoword Decoding   86/18

Reading Comprehension    116/86

Sentence Composition      110/75

Essay Composition 103/58

Math Problem Solving 112/79

Numerical Operations   98/45

Spelling             77/6

 

Berry-Buktenica Visual-Motor Integration

 

Beery  VMI   (Percentile 42,  Age Equivalent   12:3)

Visual Perception  (Percentile  63, Age Equivalent  16:0)

Motor Coordinaton  (Percentile 1, Age Equivalent 6:8)

 

 

CTOPP   (Scaled Score, Average=10)

 

Elison   9

Blending Words  5

Phoneme Isolation  10

Memory for Digits  6

Nonword Repetition  5

Rapid Digit Naming   9

Rapid Letter Naming   6

Phonological Awareness (Percentile 21)

Phonological Memory  (Percentile 3)

Rapid Symbolic Naming  (Percentile 16)

 

 

His listening comprehension was very high...I'm assuming that means that we don't need to pursue the testing for CAPD?

 

Also, does the high visual perception score mean that vision therapy wouldn't prove helpful here?

 

 

One other question... does anyone have an opinion on whether or not piano playing is a good activity for him?

 

He has been playing for 5 years and making mediocre process. He likes his teacher and playing songs on the piano, but gets discouraged easily when learning new songs and I face frequent tears about practicing.  I understand that with his processing speed/working memory/ motor skills issues, piano is going to be difficult for him. But is it worth it? Is it actually a kind of therapy in and of itself? Of should I accept that piano just isn't his thing? 

 

Thank you for any help and advice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 27, 2016 by SweetandSimple

[Lecka]

I think your question about piano might be a question for an OT. Not like they give a straight yes or no, but to give you more insight to make the decision.

 

Have you ever had OT for him or been able to talk to an OT?

 

Are you having OT testing through this eval process? You might have already had it, if an OT did the Beery VMI. An OT gave that here, and could give some opinion about activities that could be a better/worse fit for my son.

 

If he hasn't had any OT, he might be able to improve some, too.

 

Personally I think it could go either way. I wouldn't look at it as therapy but as an activity that is overall positive or overall negative. I wouldn't overlook many negatives by saying it is therapeutic. Something else could be therapeutic, too. If it is overall positive I think that is pretty good!

[PeterPan]

Dump the piano.  If he wants it later, he'll work on it himself.  My dd struggled for years, and it's a bilateral brain gig.  She could read the note and tell you the name.  She could strike the note if you said play A.  But to read it and play A?  HORRIFIC.  So give up, stop forcing it, move on.

 

There's actually a piano method meant for autism.  A music therapist used it with my ds and he enjoyed it.  I'm having a moment.  If he wants it later, I'll get the name.  It uses little colored elastics for the fingers.  Not turning out a virtuouso, but it was something he could DO.

 

How is his typing?  It looks like he's headed for a dysgraphia diagnosis and SLD reading.  He really needs to be able to type.  Dump piano.  Pay or use whatever his motivator is in spades to help his typing.  I had to switch my dd to Dvorak, because typing just was not working.  Like she was 12, had chicken scratch handwriting AND couldn't type.  We used Dvorak with Mavis Beacon, and I paid her $1 per wpm any month in which she increased by at least 5.  She got functional in a matter of months.

 

Btw, she now plays piano for herself for pleasure!  She's not like Bach or anything, but she'll get little easy books from the library and peck at them to figure it out.  Sight reading is really hard for her, like not practical.  But because we backed off, she enjoys it and just does what she wants, kwim?  

 

Also there's a modified guitar method I've looked into for my ds.  Actually there is more than one modified guitar method.  If you have an autism school, see if they have a music therapist.  That has been our best resource.  She helped my ds learn to sing.  He's not Sinatra, but he can now try and get his voice up and down.  It's really good for them!  He liked her guitar so much in the sessions that we got him a cheapie ($20 at walmart) for Christmas, which he actually adores just for sensory and fun.  Then there's a thing called Chord Buddy, which might be a fabulous landing point for your ds.  Christmas is coming!  I think you can get the Chord Buddy with the guitar for like $150.  It's an ok guitar, from what I've read.  It was too big for my ds.  And it would be nice with someone who understands autism and music to teach him, kwim?  Our music therapist is AWESOME.  Crazy awesome. She also has a modified guitar technique where they teach simplified chording.  So it's not with the Chord Buddy but actually doing it themselves.

 

Now that you have the CTOPP baseline, do some RAN/RAS exercises to get that rapid naming up.  That's easy, super easy to treat.  Have you already had his eyes checked to make sure he doesn't need glasses?

 

His reading comprehension is stellar!  My ds is that way now, with reading comprehension much, much higher than his decoding scores.  My ds is diagnosed with dyslexia as part of the mix, so you're not crazy to say it seems like all these things are going on.  I guess think through how much it matters.  That spelling is a problem, but does he write anything?  How?  By hand or by typing or by dictation?  Without using typing or handwriting (I'm not picky), he's not getting any motor memory.

 

There is some discussion about carnitine and supplements helping tone.  My ds' tone is better than my dd's, and he drinks coconut milk.  Actually, I think mine has improved since we started it a few years ago.  My dd refuses to drink it.  It's not really the kind of thing that you just fix, poof, done.  It's going to revert back.  

 

Prioritize what you need to make happen.  What are you most wanting to solve or improve?  Are you trying to get an IEP?  The school is going to be less than helpful in diagnosing that.  Part of the problem we found was that there weren't enough people seeing the behaviors to fill out the forms.  When we finally brought people into our home to work with him, THEN we were able to gather a lot more data and make it more plain.  I think an ADOS gets crunchy at this age, yes?  And the NEPSY isn't for autism, is it?  There's the ADI-R, the GARS, Vineland...  We found a psych (small practice) who specialized in autism who could spend a lot of time with him doing lots of things.  That was really helpful.  And then we brought in a behaviorist and some of her staff into our home to work with him.  That's how we finally got enough data and observations that there was just no doubt.

 

My ds will be very different in different scenarios or people.  You might come into our home and he totally ignores you.  Or he treats you as his new best friend.  Or he speaks to you the whole time in echolalia.  You don't know what you're getting.  And his outside activities were always in preferred areas, where they weren't seeing the behaviors.  Like if you put him in a sports class, that's very calming for him, kwim?  Well it wasn't always that way; he used to flap and dance a jig half the time.  But now it's calming.  His behaviors were before the class, after the class, and the teachers weren't seeing it to put them on the forms, kwim?  So getting chunks of time with other people or bringing providers into the home can gather that data.

[SweetandSimple]

Thank you both for the advice! I talked to our OT, and she said that some of the things that they are doing in OT right now might make a difference with the piano, too. So we'll see. This week he has been practicing the piano rather happily, so I might just wait and see how it goes. But if things get frustrating again, I won't feel bad about dropping it. The guitar might be a possibility, but I know he will have a hard time with the finger soreness...

 

And yes-- we definitely need to make typing a higher priority. He is still writing most of his work, and typing just a few of the essay assignments. Spelling is on the computer this year, too.

 

I will also look into the carnitine and supplements-- that is something that I hadn't thought about yet.

 

Thanks again!