[senco-forum] RE: 4th percentile

Hi,

"Where a child has a well above  average IQ  and only an average  reading-age 
- this is the clearest possible indication that something needs  
investigating because such a child could be 'coasting' in school and 'getting  by' with 
very little effort or has a significant learning disability because he  or she 
is not making progess in line with his or her intellectual  capability."

There are a lot of things that can affect intellectual capacity including  
dusal exceptionalities children - those who are gifted with undiagnosed or  
invisible disabilities. Reading is not the only benchmark and IQ is only  
representative of the score gained on an IQ test, it means very little in real  terms. 
A child can have a well above average reading age and be a low  achiever in 
other areas.

That is why it is essential to always look at  discrepancies in raw scores 
notaverage scores on formal assessments...a  diference between 2 scores can 
indicate a significant learning difficulty -  there are many sites on dual 
exceptionalities  e.g  http://www.nldontario.org/articles/InvisibleGifts.html   .

"In our records, we typically see discrepancies of 3 or 4 standard deviations 
 (9 to 12 points) on the WISC-R between high and low subtest scores of  
learning-disabled gifted students. A difference of 7 scaled-score points between  
highest and lowest subtests is considered significant at the .05 level of  
confidence (Sattler, 1982). An example from our case files is the student who  
scored 19 on Block Design (Spatial Reasoning), the highest score possible, and 6  
on Digit Span (Sequencing) -- a difference of 13 scaled score points. The 
Block  Design score is at the top of the gifted range, whereas the Coding score 
is well  below average. Several of our cases have had discrepancies of this  
magnitude." 
Best wishes,
Aly

Chair Auditory Processing Disorder in  the UK/APDUK
www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm 
www.apduk.org