How much can LDs affect test scores?

[Renai]

I already had a feeling dd9 processed slow, and suspected dyslexia. I had her evaluated by the school district (didn't find out till too late that they don't actually test for dyslexia). Her testing took longer than expected because the evaluator said she was topping off in areas. I admit to being shocked that her IQ score came 20 points below mine. Is that normal? Now, I'm no crop of the earth, but at least expected her to be within the "bright" range. Maybe the fact that the guy who assaulted me was a drug addict and alcoholic knocked off some of my smart genes. I don't know. I am over the initial shock (tested in April). So, I don't know why I'm still bothered by this. It just doesn't seem right. Maybe I've been dumbing her down all these years and need to put her in school.

[JenneinCA]

It can affect the scores hugely.

 

If you have too much scatter (that means difference in scores) on the subscores it may be impossible to calculate a useful full scale iq score. I don't know which test your daughter took but definitely talk to whoever administered the test and find out those subscores. Another thing to consider is getting another person to review the scores and give you another opinion on what they mean. It sounds to me like you might not have gotten a person who understands gifted and learning challenged kids. Please don't give up. You are doing a great job on figuring out your daughter's needs.

 

I hope this helps.

[EKS]

A lot.

 

When my son (who has finally been diagnosed correctly with dyslexia and ADHD) was 7 he was evaluated by the school, his FSIQ was in the double digit range. Everything was average/low average except for a very few subtests that were high average. Based on absolutely no evidence, except my gut, I decided not to believe those results. After many therapies (such as VT and OT) and remediation later, we had him tested again, this time by a private evaluator whose specialty is gifted/LD kids, and lo and behold, he is HG+ (with dyslexia and ADHD that the evaluator described as severe).

 

If you think that the test results aren't accurate for whatever reason, you are probably right.

[KAR120C]

Her testing took longer than expected because the evaluator said she was topping off in areas.

If she has hit ceilings in some areas but also comes out lower than you expect overall, it sounds like you have some extreme highs and lows in there... and at that point the summaries mean much less than the individual subscores. Do you know what test they did? And did you get a chance to discuss the results? Sometimes there's a discrepancy in the indices (verbal vs. nonverbal, or processing speed and memory) or sometimes there's something "off" within an index, at the individual subtest level. Anything that's off by quite a bit deserves looking into.

[Renai]

I have a summary (not the subtests) with me right now. Dh got into my paperwork, and now I need to find the evaluation with all the subscores.

 

The tests she took were:

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children-II;

Bateria III Pruebas de aprovechamiento (Achievement Test Battery III (I think);

Bateria III Pruebas de Cognitiva (Cognitive Battery of Tests III);

Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement.

 

The ones with Spanish titles were given in Spanish since we homeschool bilingually.

 

There are discrepancies between what she does at home and what the evaluator said she did on the tests as well. For example, she has been writing elaborate and very creative stories with expressive vocabulary since she was young, but spelling is always bad. I've told her to keep writing and we'll work on the spelling. On the tests, the evaluator said she was writing very simple sentences, as though she didn't want to write words she couldn't spell. It took off points from the score. I don't know how large a part that played though.

 

There were a couple of other things, but I need to start training, so need to sign off here. I'll try to log in on my mac during the boring parts :001_smile:. Thanks for the comments; this has been bugging me for a while obviously, and I still have some thinking to do.

[AnitaMcC]

LD's definitely can affect scores.

 

When my son was tested when he just turned 9yrs old, most of the areas of the tests he took he did extremely well and topped out the scores. But a few areas he scored below age level. Found out it was common for kids with Asperger Syndrome to score lower in certain areas. I was told his over all IQ score was not as high as it could have been due to his disability and that his score could be about 15-20 points higher than his "official" score.

[KAR120C]

The tests she took were:

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children-II;

Bateria III Pruebas de aprovechamiento (Achievement Test Battery III (I think);

Bateria III Pruebas de Cognitiva (Cognitive Battery of Tests III);

Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement.

I'm not as familiar with the KABC as some other ones, but the subtests (names and scores) should give you some hints... And my personal opinion (not professional in any way!) about the writing section of the WJ3 is that it's flaky at best. It's a kind of weird way to test writing anyway.

[EKS]

And my personal opinion (not professional in any way!) about the writing section of the WJ3 is that it's flaky at best. It's a kind of weird way to test writing anyway.

 

Yes--the psychologist who recently evaluated my younger son said that she didn't believe that the writng section of the WJ-III meaningfully evaluated writing skills and she didn't give it to my son for that reason. I can't remember what the reasons were though.

[Renai]

Ok, so I still can't find the packet she gave me, but found the results of the Spanish only she gave me after the 1st day of testing (2nd day she finished Spanish and did English, I think).

 

I don't think I understand what I'm looking at. In one column, there is CLUSTER/Test, with two lists, I guess the first (all caps) is the cluster, followed by the tests. Clusters include (all are in Spanish; this is a translation): Oral Language, Oral Expression, Basic Math, etc. Tests include: Reading Fluency, Math Fluency, Writing Fluency, Word Analysis, etc.

 

Now, other columns are all abbreviations with NO KEY. Raw (I know is raw scores, no numbers are listed with Clusters, but with most Tests), W; AE (age equivalent); EASY to DIFF (?? looks like age spans); RPI (??); SS - 68% Band; GE (grade equivalent, which I've recently learned is not reliable). It certainly isn't very reliable considering she was 9.7 at the time of the test and finishing 3rd grade, yet their AE of 9.4 is considered 4th grade

 

So, a couple lines show these (I hope the formatting comes out ok):

 

Bateria III Normative Update Pruebas de aprovechamiento

WJ III NU Compuscore and Profiles Program, Version 3.1

 

CLUSTER/Tests Raw W AE EASY to DIFF RPI SS (68%) GE

 

ORAL LANG (Ext) - 497 9-4 7-7 12-3 89/90 99 (95-102) 4.0

 

Further down is

 

"Retelling" Stories - 505 >20 7-10 >20 95/90 115 (109-121) 13.0

 

Are the "Tests" the subscores, or is there a hunk of information missing from this report? There's one page for Spanish and one for English with the same information (different data of course).

 

Also, there are things that don't make sense, even just looking at language grade equivalents. How can oral language and auditory comprehension (in all caps) be 4.0 and 4.5, but she's able to retell stories at level 13? If she doesn't understand a story, how can she possibly retell it? Or am I misunderstanding what the test was measuring?

 

Also, I remember the evaluator stated in the report that her short term memory is good, but long term is way below level which will make it hard for her to learn new material. I think it's more her processing issue. She processes slowly. She can retell some things immediately after hearing it (as noted in above score), however, if you want blow-by-blow with finite detail, you'll need to wait a little longer. Try anywhere from a few minutes to hours, depending on ... I don't know what it depends on. I just know that in preK, I taught her a new phonic one day and practiced it the next. (she obviously has gotten a lot better) And if I wanted to know all the details about Vacation Bible School, I asked the morning after :lol:. So there's nothing wrong with her long term memory, just her short-long-term memory. She chews information, digests it, then chews the cud, then comes back with things I never thought of before.

 

Her mind is a sponge academically- mostly anything I read to her (or she watches) she remembers. Everything. She's always been that way and I don't think she's lost that. It may have slowed down since we started concentrating more on her reading and I haven't read as much to her as before :glare: :001_huh: :blushing: . I've accomodated by allowing her to thnk longer on things, and sometimes moving on, to discuss it later.

 

But, anyway, processing issue, not memory. I would think that if she had a long-term memory issue, she'd have problems with memorizing math facts and/or phonics rules. She doesn't. When it's there, it's there.

 

But, do you think I'm missing some information from this report? I think I'm going to contact the evaluator and ask when is the next time she's coming to town (she lives about 50 miles away, but is an independent contractor with the school district). I think she's got some 'splainin' to do :tongue_smilie:.

 

Oh! one more thing. Also on the evaluation, she mentioned that she would rather chat than work (no surprise there), would daydream (no surprise there), and near the end took off her shoes, and slouched in her chair (no surprises there either). I think she got bored, poor thing. She was doing good, so the evaluator kept giving her MORE, lol. What a prize.

Edited July 6, 2009 by Renai

[Laura Corin]

It can have a huge effect on the test. Calvin had a forty point difference between the 'performance' and the 'verbal' sections of the WPPSI test, hitting ceilings on one side and below average on the other.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[KAR120C]

Oral Language, Oral Expression, Basic Math, etc. Tests include: Reading Fluency, Math Fluency, Writing Fluency, Word Analysis, etc.

These sound like Woodcock Johnson Acheivement test subscores, which will tell you some things, but are more useful in comparison to the IQ (K-ABC) data.

 

Now, other columns are all abbreviations with NO KEY. Raw (I know is raw scores, no numbers are listed with Clusters, but with most Tests), W; AE (age equivalent); EASY to DIFF (?? looks like age spans); RPI (??); SS - 68% Band; GE (grade equivalent, which I've recently learned is not reliable). It certainly isn't very reliable considering she was 9.7 at the time of the test and finishing 3rd grade, yet their AE of 9.4 is considered 4th grade

Raw is how many correct (so that's not something that would go with a cluster, which is a summary score), Easy to Diff is the range where they expect she operates, which is usually reported by grade (so 2.0-5.4 would be that early 2nd grade stuff is too easy and mid-fifth grade stuff is difficult). It could be ages, especially since you have AE instead of GE scores elsewhere. RPI is sort of like "on tasks that kids her age can do at 90% accuracy, we expect she can do them at __% accuracy" -- so 89/90 would be very close to average performance. SS is the standard score - 100 is average and a standard deviation is 15. This is the same scale as most IQ tests, but of course measuring something different. It does mean that the scores can be compared, where they should be predictive. The 68% band is the "we're 68% certain that her 'real' score is between these numbers" -- since any score has some variation in it, this is the measure of how much variation you could reasonably expect. You're right that GE (and AE, for that matter) isn't terribly reliable, but in an individually-administered test like this, it's closer than in a group test. It is, however, measuring against an "average" child of that age and/or grade, so although she's finishing 3rd, the "average" 9-4 year old is starting 4th, and that's reflected in the AE and GE you report.

 

Also, there are things that don't make sense, even just looking at language grade equivalents. How can oral language and auditory comprehension (in all caps) be 4.0 and 4.5, but she's able to retell stories at level 13? If she doesn't understand a story, how can she possibly retell it? Or am I misunderstanding what the test was measuring?

If one is a summary score and the other is a specific test, then you can have a great deal of difference, just because the summary includes other aspects, and often just averages them together. I'm not particularly familiar with those, so I can't say exactly what they're testing, but that would be a fair question to ask the evaluator.

 

Also, I remember the evaluator stated in the report that her short term memory is good, but long term is way below level which will make it hard for her to learn new material. I think it's more her processing issue. She processes slowly.

The tests are limited... and I wouldn't let them trump what you know about your kid in real life... but also the specific types of tests they use are meant to bring out specific types of abilities, which might not be precisely what you think of as short and long term memory, processing speed, etc. But in any case, those would be in the K-ABC rather than the WJ3.

 

Hope this helps!!

[Renai]

These sound like Woodcock Johnson Acheivement test subscores, which will tell you some things, but are more useful in comparison to the IQ (K-ABC) data.

 

Hope this helps!!

 

It does, thanks!

[Reya]

It really depends on the test!!!

 

A ceiling at age 9 could mean a score no higher than 115 in that area, for example, if the ceiling is really low. Then a few low scores in other areas could really drag it down.

 

My DS, on a language processing test, scored in the 85th %ile or so. But when you look at the subscores, you realize that there are large areas that he handily scored about 95% in and about a fourth of the areas that he scored in the 16th-35th %ile. That was all his disability, there...

 

Poor testing can also affect a lot. My recommendation would be to have a knowledgable person interpret the full report.

[Renai]

It really depends on the test!!!

 

A ceiling at age 9 could mean a score no higher than 115 in that area, for example, if the ceiling is really low. Then a few low scores in other areas could really drag it down.

 

I'm back to beat a dead horse :D. This thought crossed my mind as well. Considering this is public school, and the special ed department, I don't think the testing was very extensive. Really, what does "topping out" mean anyway? And she never told me what she topped off in.

 

I found the evaluation JUST NOW. And in light of re-reading this thread, and going back over the paperwork, I've realized this report means absolutely nothing for me. :glare:

 

Since I have not idea what most of the KABC-II subtests measured-- Number Recall (that I can guess), word order, hand movements, rover (??), triangles, block counting, atlantis (:confused:), rebus (????), etc.-- the score means nothing. Then the all caps subtests -- sequential, simultaneous, learning, planning, etc.-- mean even less. All I know is, in three she scored high (number recall, word order, and triangles), some were low, and some were average. :blink: Great.

 

Now that I have the evaluation in hand, I can call the evaluator and ask for some better explanations.

 

Thanks again for all ya'lls help :D. I probably just need to :chillpill:.

 

Oh, and don't even get me started on her ITBS scores. She was so sick of testing by that point, she whipped through marking answers and finished most items within the regular time allotted. She doesn't read that fast, and she's allowed extra time (she didn't want it, just wanted to finish with or before the rest of the group. The extra time would have been given at home with me). She also did the CogAT. So that's $60 I could have used to line my toliet real pretty-like. :banghead:

 

Renai

 

ps. Can ya'll tell I'm in a smilies mood tonight? :tongue_smilie:Darn, had 3 too many and had to delete.

 

Editing to add: she's begging me to do the ITBS testing at home next year.

Edited July 24, 2009 by Renai
add info

[AngieW in Texas]

My gifted and dyslexic dd has scores all over the place. On the WISC-IV, her subtest scores ranged from 25th percentile all the way up to hitting the ceiling at >99th percentile.

 

On every test the ps did for her, she had wide ranges in her scores.

 

WJ-III ranged from 44th-97th percentiles.

CTOPP ranged from 5th-84th percentiles.

GORT ranged from 50th-90th percentiles.

 

The only test that had reasonably consistent results was TOWRE (Test of Word Reading Efficiency) which ranged from 39th-42nd percentiles.

 

The tester said that she could not give me a single score for my dd on any of the tests except for TOWRE. On all the others she had so much variability that a single score couldn't quantify what she could do.

[zaichiki]

On all the others she had so much variability that a single score couldn't quantify what she could do.

 

That's it in a nutshell. When the subtest scatter is all-over-the-place (our experience with oldest), the tester/psychologist cannot give you that "single score." For an IQ test like the WISC, there would be no full scale IQ score given. Instead, they CAN give the GAI (general ability index). It's their way of saying "Hey, this IQ test isn't really valid 'cause there's too many inconsistencies. Basically, we have here a pretty smart kiddo with seriously intense issues in some areas."

[LexiR]

Hi Renai! The K-ABC-II is frustrating, because no one has heard of it, :confused: . But two of my kids took that one, so I'll throw in what I've learned over the years.

 

You were given one of two "final" numbers....either an MPI or an FCI. This is your "full scale". The MPI, or Mental Processing Index is a more "hands on", or nonverbal scores (though it's not strictly presented as nonverbal). The FCI, or Fluid Crystalized Index uses the same subtests with two very "verbal" subtests factored in. These extra two verbal subtests are subtitled "Knowledge".

 

You also get those other index headings you've mentioned. "Sequential" processing is your step by step learning. "Simultaneous" processing is a more global, absorb it all at once aspect. It's very visual, and the subtest descriptions remind me of the PRI tests on the WISC-IV. "Learning" does seem to be what the name suggests.

 

My HG+ son scored highest on "simultaneous processing", so I like to think that subtest is most telling. But what I've read tends to suggest that many GT kids do not do well overall on this particular test overall, possibly because of its very limited verbal testing. The whole test is more "PRI-ish" (with the exception of those two knowledge subtests, that aren't even utilized in MPI mode). My daughter tested with huge scatter on the WISC-IV. She was then determined to have a learning disability, but kicked butt on the K-ABC-II. Again, this makes me like to think this is a "good test", but it's not at all talked about in the GT world.

 

I wouldn't read too much into any one day of testing. Try to look for patterns in time.

[Renai]

Hi Renai! The K-ABC-II is frustrating, because no one has heard of it, :confused: . But two of my kids took that one, so I'll throw in what I've learned over the years.

 

You were given one of two "final" numbers....either an MPI or an FCI. This is your "full scale". The MPI, or Mental Processing Index is a more "hands on", or nonverbal scores (though it's not strictly presented as nonverbal). The FCI, or Fluid Crystalized Index uses the same subtests with two very "verbal" subtests factored in. These extra two verbal subtests are subtitled "Knowledge".

 

You also get those other index headings you've mentioned. "Sequential" processing is your step by step learning. "Simultaneous" processing is a more global, absorb it all at once aspect. It's very visual, and the subtest descriptions remind me of the PRI tests on the WISC-IV. "Learning" does seem to be what the name suggests.

 

My HG+ son scored highest on "simultaneous processing", so I like to think that subtest is most telling. But what I've read tends to suggest that many GT kids do not do well overall on this particular test overall, possibly because of its very limited verbal testing. The whole test is more "PRI-ish" (with the exception of those two knowledge subtests, that aren't even utilized in MPI mode). My daughter tested with huge scatter on the WISC-IV. She was then determined to have a learning disability, but kicked butt on the K-ABC-II. Again, this makes me like to think this is a "good test", but it's not at all talked about in the GT world.

 

I wouldn't read too much into any one day of testing. Try to look for patterns in time.

 

I finally googled and found a powerpoint (turned html) about what the different subtests measure. Our evaluation returned the MPI score.

 

For those of you with ppt: http://education.gsu.edu/sdecker/Class/Assessment/Achievement/Test%20Review/KABC-II.ppt

 

Here's the html. It's a long link: http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:qm2NX1VgISwJ:education.gsu.edu/sdecker/Class/Assessment/Achievement/Test%2520Review/KABC-II.ppt+kaufman+assessment+battery+for+children+rover+triangles+atlantis+rebus&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a