help to get my head around this please

[Claw3]

SALT did some tests on ds and im trying to figure out what they mean, how they will affect ds?

Understanding of spoken language paragraphs. Child listens to 3 short stories and then answers a series of questions based on what they have heard. Ds scored on 90th percentile.

Understanding of spoken language continued. This assessment is used to assess a child's ability to 'make links' to identify which 2 items go together ds scored on 0.4 percentile for comprehension and 2 for expression (explaining his answers)

Vocabulary 2 years behind.

Im trying to make sense of how he can score on the 90th percentile for understanding spoken language, then in another understanding spoken language to score 0.4 and 2 percentile. How is this going to affect him?

Great difficulties with semantic links is mentioned. What kind of things will he find difficult?

Im googling, but it doesnt make any sense.

"Children with semantic difficulties have a very hard time understanding the meaning of words and sentences"

so how did he score on 90th percentile for understanding paragraphs, if he scored 0.4 percentile on making links?

Just reject the statement that he's on the 90th percentile as contradicted by oether specifics he has been tested for.

TBH I would also be submitting a complaint to the LGO. The LA have chosen to disregard the evidence availbale to them and that is maladministration.

You need to hit them hard with everything you've got.

This is the new evidence i had Wet, LA havent got this this info yet. (ive written my letter and a copy of it is sitting on the table, waiting for me to hand deliver)

Class teacher says "he follows instructions within the classroom appropriately, but can act unusually for no reason"

Every professional who has assessed ds has said they found it difficult to understand what he is talking about and he seems confused. EP asked him what he liked about the school playground and he replied with something totally different.

Im guessing because he hasnt understood whats expected of him?

it is confusing i agree.
I can't understand either. It's like it is a bit contradicting in a way.

Maybe someone else who get these percentiles stuff will come along and explain.

Think my ds did the latter test? Was it a CLEF test? They are shown 3 - 4 images on the page in a book (say a penguin, giraffe elephant for example and have to say which 2 go together and why? He did this with the specialist ASD SALT.
Another test he did was that he was shown a picture and then asked to make a sentance from the picture using a given word.
Was the first test your son did one from the SALT or EP?

Would the first test be more along the lines of checking his auditory processing? While the latter was to see what his visual processing and verbal reasoning as well as his expression perhaps?

My DD did the CELF test and the Wechsler scale of intelligence we got massivlely varying scores too...Performance IQ 93 32nd percetile but Verbal IQ 61...0.5th percentile! I dont know what to make of it.

Was the first test read out (no visual cue) and the second directed around pictures? I was wondering if he can focus on verbal information but struggles to process when distracted by visuals?..Loses his chain of thought?

My DD randomly refers to events...I thought it may be because of her lack of sense of time??

Wassup, yes both tests were CELF.

subtest 'understanding spoken paragraphs'. Listening to 3 short stories and then answer questions based on what they have heard. Areas assessed include inference, prediction and tuning into the 'main idea'. It says ds ultimately achieved a score at the 90th percentile. this indicates that ds's has no difficulties with spoken language presented in chunks.

2nd test subtest 'word classes' this was the making links ie identifying which 2 items went together from a choice of 3 and ds scored 0.4 and 2 for expression when he was asked to explain his answer. This indicates that the generation of semantic links between vocabulary items is an area of great difficulty.

RAPT word finding asked to name pictures. 2 years behind.

These were SALT tests.

I suppose what they are saying is that ds has no difficulties understanding what people are saying if they give him enough info and clues, but he doesnt understand the meaning of words if no clues or extra info are given or express himself?

Woolytree oh yes ds has no concept of time whatsoever or before or after, he doesnt know what day it is today or what time it is. Even if you told him what day it was, he wouldnt know what day came next or what day went before. We have to do everything by how many sleeps.

I dont think the test involved pictures, just words.

Sons tests had pictures -hmm. Haven't got the results yet and they are going into school as well before writing a report. He seemed to do the easier questions OK but got stuck on the harder ones and became distracted with what else was in the room and also managed to rip the testers book at one point after getting a bit giddy.

Wassup, it might have had pictures, im really not sure.

Ds seems to have a photographic memory for certain things. For example reading, he didnt do the sounding out bit, he just memorised words and he reads from memory. So i can see him being able to repeat back something that was just said to him, no problem. If you asked him to give you directions of a familiar route, he could draw you a precise map.

But if you were to ask him how many brothers he has, he couldnt tell you. What he did yesterday, he would tell you about something he did last year. Apparently with this SALT he was able to talk about a range of different topics, although she added it could be hard to follow his thread. Thats because it was all made up! Shame she didnt elaborate on what he actually said.

Honestly i despair at some of these experts, ds told a different SALT that we have birthday parties for our dog and invite other dogs and she believed him and he has 5 brothers and named them all (he hasnt got 5 brothers and none of the names were correct)

Report has her email address on it. I will ask her to explain.

Hey Claw, followed your link from the other thread.

The two subtests are looking at different things, it would be quite possible to score 90th centile in one and 0.4 in the other.

The second CELF subtest and the Renfrew word finding tests are looking at similar things,both to do with vocabulary.

The CELF one looks at the child's ability to make links between words.

When you learn a new word, you store it in lots of little 'pockets' in the brain...so for example, the word apple - as well as knowing the object, it gets stored in the 'fruit' pocket, the 'green' pocket, 'grows on a tree', 'begins with letter a' and so on.

The subtest checks that those links are there by giving 3 words and the child picking the two that go together - that might be that they are in the same category, or a related like knife/fork, day/night.

The Renfrew Word Finding Test looks at vocabulary knowledge in a more simple way - child gets shown picture, names picture.

The results of those subtests indicate your DS has lots of difficulties around vocabulary, categorization and making links between words.

The first subtest is not looking at vocabulary per se (obviously the child needs to understand the words used) but your DS only needs to access the vocabulary in a simple way. To understand the sentence 'the dog ran down the road' he's not having to think about 'dog = animal, furry, pet, doesn't like cats...'; he only needs to access 'dog' in one vocabulary 'pocket'.

The subtest is looking more at the ability to 'read between the lines'. For example if a teacher said 'it's very noisy in here', the implication is that she wants the children to be quiet.

It's quite hard to explain, but I hope this helps a bit! Obviously I don't know your DS, so I don't want to speculate on what impact the difficulties with vocab will have on him specifically, I would say definitely give your SLT a ring and ask for further explanation!

I'll keep an eye on this in case I can help any further x

Thank you so much Triplechoc, that has helped me to understand.

EP did British Ability Scales 11 psychometric test (BAS 11)

EP subtest verbal similarities. Presented with three words, ds was asked to explain how they are similar or grouped together. for example rectangle, hexagon and circle are shapes.

Is this test very similar?

Ds scored on 84th percentille 9 months, if the tests are very similar. I know with ASD children do lose skills or could it be due to it being different tests?

"Just reject the statement that he's on the 90th percentile as contradicted by oether specifics he has been tested for"

Not a good idea IMHO. Discrepanies between subtests tend to increase the likelihood that the overall language profile is disordered and therefore provide support for targeted individual instruction vs general environmental stimulation.

In terms of these scores, 90th centile on understanding spoken paragraphs suggests to me that he may be adept at picking up and piecing together cues where there are many of them together in a nice, orderly structure and questions are targeted to those cues. Interesting that his use of context and inference here is good.. the poor score on making semantic links though, suggests difficulties at a more fundamental level in categorising things.. this can, theoretically, cause difficulties with learning and retrieving vocabulary as items may be stored in the brain in different places. Sometimes, this can increase processing time in terms of real-time conversation BUT, the score on the understanding paragraphs section suggests maybe not so much so..

You can flip the interpretation of this: it may indicate that he sees different connections between things to what's typical to the general population, so he might actually be an innovator in terms of his thinking (a strength) but that may also be a weakness in that it may impact upon social skills as the way he views the world differs from that of his peers? Leading to the fact that his spoken discourse seems confusing?

You can interpret these scores in lots of different ways, depending on the overall context. This is a fundamental part of using the CELF.. it's like a detective's tool. The scores in themselves don't tell you anything without reference to broader understanding of language and communication models and the individual child's functional profile.

Clear as mud?

Arses, thanks that makes perfect sense, the way he views the world is extremely different, he finds it very difficult to separate fantasy from reality. Add to this his word finding and vocabulary difficulties, he then 'makes up words' or stories, when he doesnt know the meaning or the word to use and his rigid thinking, that this word/story is now fact, his language frequently involves confused ideas and others find it very difficult to follow.

So for a child with ASD, he has an amazing imagination, but he then finds it extremely difficult to separate fact and fantasy.

Also limited word finding skills, vocab and no time concept, he will say things like "he was crying", which may mean he felt like crying.

Makes perfect sense to me now.