[senco-forum] RE: 4th percentile

From: Olanys at aol.com

iks -- this highlights the point that RAs and IQs are not the same thing. And IQ, as assessed by a WiSC or BAS standard scaled battery of tests, is not one simple measure of IQ. They measure a whole range of 'intelligences' (the most recent WiSC has added extra dimensions to th tests/assessments). Measuring RA is done by EPs, often when they have been carrying out a full scale WiSC, to incorporate a comparison measurement, but RA and spelling age tests are not in themselves part of a WiSC or BAS IQ battery. That's the point Eddie was trying to make. When I first answered the question on this thread, I should have said "similar age range children" not just "children" as measured in percentile terms.

Where the confusion lies, is that many RA and spelling age scores are being referred to in percentile terms rather than staing "CA 12; RA 6" (a 'notional' 'behind the average' of 6 years). Now, if the overall IQ scores add up to 120 on the percentile ranking (an above average ability child) then there would appear to be a  huge discrepincy between intellect and ability to read. So the question arises -- why has this young person failed to learn to read?

But one has to analyse the individual IQ test scores to work out, not only is the young person 'dyslexic', but, also the nature of the dyslexia/ specific learning difficulties. Beware the 'cut down' version of the WiSC testing, that (in my experience) is often carried out by LA EPs because of time constraints. My experience of LA EPs doing this (only 3 of the commonest tests adminitstered) usually caused ambiguous verdicts by the EPs ("may be verging on dyslexia or a type of SpLD").

In one case, when the LA EP refusd to carry out the full-scale WiSC, the parent commissioned an independent full-scale assessment (carried out over a 2 day period) which revealed a very severe level of dyslexia of a particular type which was not able to be sufficiently addressed in the current m'stream school with the very limited support and expertise being made available. And the "wrong type" of teaching approaches were being used. Whereas many children at a young age may benefit from a 'mix' of multisensory and phonic approaches, otheers may benefit from Rebus or Morphological methods -- particularly at an older age. This approach (in this case only found properly used at a local specialist independent day school -- young person moved there on the order of the Tribunal) proved successful and the young person is now flourising at university.  In this case, when faced with the independent report the LA EP was forced to agree the findings -- with the caviate "all of this IQ testing is very controversial you know".

It's gettng more difficult to get a diagnosis of dyslexia confirmed from LA assessments (even when obviously intelligent children have spectacularly failed to develop basic reading and numracy skills over several years) despite the hoped for effect of the Phelp's case which indicated that LAs and EP could be found to be negligent in duty of care in not detecting difficulties such as dyslexia whils the child is at school -- and, indeed, at an early stage in the child's schooling. Brendan King        

-----Original Message-----
From: lks1985 at hotmail.com
To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Sent: Wed, 25 Apr 2007 6.16AM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] RE: 4th percentile

Then of course there are children such as my 10 year old daughter who have an apparently below average IQ. The expectations of her have been low as well. In the last 10 months with appropriate specialised (private!) 1:1 tuition her reading age has improved from 6yrs 9months to 9yrs 10 months, spelling has progressed even further. This has now thrown some of her percentlile scores all over the place! 

>From: Olanys at aol.com 
>To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk 
>Subject: Re: [senco-forum] RE: 4th percentile 
>Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:12:38 EDT 
> 
>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 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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