Just got DS1's report from social communications team and

[TheLadyEvenstar]

I am confused by all the facts and figures.

Table 1? Composite scores

Composite Score	95% Confidence Intervals	Percentile

Verbal Comprehension 102 95-109 55
Perceptual Reasoning 104 96-111 61
Working Memory**
Processing Speed 91 83-101 27
General Ability Index 103 97-109 57
Full Scale *

• Due to significant differences between composite Index scores the Full scale IQ cannot be interpreted meaningfully. ** It was not possible to calculate an index due to the variability within the sib-test scores

Am hoping this comes out alright. But if not I will retype it, I am just totally confused!!

AFAIK 'average' is considered to be 25 - 75%. All of your percentile scores are in that range. So I think they're saying he's pretty average.

Processing speed is low. But not scarily low.....

What were they testing for? What do you think he struggles with?

Indigo, he was diagnosed with AS after 8yrs of me asking.

I think these tests are testing his cognitive abilities.

Which is not part of the diagnostic criteria for ASD......

Maybe they were just ruling out other problems?

This is what it says at the top

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV) was completed with DS1 in one session. The WISC-IV is a measure of overall cognitive (learning) ability for children and young people aged 6:0 to 16:11 years

I still think this test and these results are saying that your son has a perfectly average cognitive ability.

Which says nothing about whether or not he has ASD.

But does mean that he should also be doing perfectly average at school, and if he isn't it is due to some other reason besides IQ.......

okies ty

as Indigo says he is doing average in everything, to 'understand' the figures,
taking Verbal Comprehension 102 95-109 55
as I understand it, he got a score of 102, his 95% confidence limits mean that on a 'bad' day he could have scored as low as 95, but on a 'good' day he might have scored as high as 109. The 55percentile means that on the same test out of 100 children he would have scored better than 55 children of the same age and worse than 45 children.
HTH

If they were unable to calculate his working memory (WM) scores, did they explain to you what the 'variability in the subtest scores' was? Is it possible that he scored extremely high in one or more of the subtests but very low in another?

If his WM is significantly lower than his Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning scores it can lead to problems academically, mainly because its hard for children with lower WMs to stay on task and focus/concentrate. When there is an extremely significant difference in scores here it can be an indicator of ADD or ADHD. Its hard to tell if this is the case though, without the scores. Did they give you the individual sub-test scores?

The results should have come to you with guidance and interpretation to help you understand them.

As Indigo said, his results in the other sections put him comfortably in the middle of the average range, with the possible exception of his processing speed which is low average. Basically this means he's bright, but may take a little longer than some of his peers to complete a task, although I wouldn't have thought significantly enough for it to be a problem for him.

The anomaly is really the Working Memory score - you need more information about why they couldn't calculate it.

Its important to remember though that these tests should never be used on their own to determine a child's intelligence or ability. They are a snapshot of how the child performed on the day, under those specific circumstances and should really only be used to inform a wider process of assessing the child through a variety of methods. In our case it was done by the Ed Psyc, who had already been working with my ds for a couple of months and was looking for specific things which had been highlighted as a potential problem as a result of other assessments and observations etc. The analysis is quite complicated as well and has to be done by someone very experienced, who has been specifically trained in interpreting WISC scores.

Thanks, that makes it a lot clearer.

I have an appt with the SENCO at his school tomorrow so I will take a copy with me.

While on the subject what are the questions I need to ask at the school?

am i the only one who doesnt understand all these scores it confusses me I was blonde before i turned grey its like mattrices for example my son did these sorts of tests because hes better with visuals they show him to be apparently average in most things but abouve in visual skills , i could have told them that without testing and as it depends on so many outward influences and can be different one day to the next are they really important sorry if that sounds thick but my DS's EP was awful only met her the day of the test (thankful for small mercies as was a horrible woman) its all so complicated and im not sure what significance any of it has in RL she told me nothing i didnt already know other than lots of stuff on a table and said she was in a hurry to leave for next appointment oh and he has a working menmory problem ( i already knew that too been telling them that since 2 and its in his DX already anyway)

Smile, no I am confuddled.com when it comes to it!!

This site is useful for explaining what each of the sections is assessing.

smileANDwave, its taken me months and a lot of reading to get my head around it all and as you said, in many cases it only ends up telling us what we already know. Sometimes that's not a bad thing though, as you can't reference your own suspicions or observations of your child with the LEA etc. In our case it threw up one or two surprises. Once it highlighted his slow processing speed things did seem to make more sense in relation to how he was struggling at school. We probably would have worked it out eventually, but the WISC gave us a heads up and saved us some time in trying to fathom it all out. A couple of months down and a lot of reading down the line and it seems ds perfectly fits the profile of a child with above average cognitive abilities, but slow processing and this is what we are seeing in his behaviour, performance and achievement at school at the moment.

Another important thing it raised for us was that ds has visual issues which affect his academic work. Prior to the WISC, we only had a vague query asked by an inclusion teacher who observed him in class. His scores on the WISC and the EPs observations of him whilst carrying out the subtests, confirmed that there is a definite problem that needed addressing. A trip to the opticians backed this up, as did his subsequent OT assessment and we now know there are several visual problems that need addressing.

Sorry for the hijack TheLadyEvenstar.