Hi Paula! He does qualify for it under insurance, under each category, all we need is a referral. I have to check my notes for how many visits per calendar year. She did say that what would help him alot would be social skills groups to bring up his deficits in that particular language area. Social stories will also help as well as cues to what to say, role playing etc. She said there we can also teach him "scripting" cues so he doesnt fumble so much. She is going to make some recommendations in her report that she sends. Nice thing is she is going to recommend an aide in the classroom, same thing as his dev ped said so that is now 2 on our side for it. He has actually been working with the SLP at school. We are meeting in a few weeks with the school "team" to go over all of the diagnostic eval results and hopefully get this IEP going soon. Next week we have the OT & PT evals. More to come on that!
Christine, Supermom to Nick, My Superkid, 5, Asperger's/ADHD, Loves all things Monster Trucks
hey there, wanted to point out a little something on those test results.
The lower score in social language concerns me. An 82 would actually be considered low average range and is a significant enough difference from the others to cause me pause. These tests are all on standard scores. i will put a little scores 101 here.
100= dead on average. 15 points is considered a "standard deviation" there for 85-115 is considered "average" sometimes 90-110 is considered "average". then you qualify each level above and below by standard deviations soooooooo
85-115= average 70-85 = low average 55-70 = below average (used to be called mild MR)
115-130 = above average 130+ = gifted
One standard deviation is considered a pretty significant difference.
Back in the day of the last IDEA they would qualify a child with learning disabilities based on standard deviations if there was 1.5 standard deviations between ability and achievement.
Now the scores you state wouldn't be considered a learning disability but I am using that to show that this point range (22pts) was considered a significant difference to the powers that be.
Your son scored 82 on one test and 118 on another. That is 36 points! NEarly 2 1/2 standard deviations. THAT IS FRIGGEN HUGE!
That tells me he has a SIGNIFICANT area of relative weakness in social langauge. Yes, in the grand scheme of things it is just below average and in speech sometimes they are funny about that, but within his own scores that is a major red flag that he has significant challenges in this area and needs support.
Best guess with a kid like this. He is likely extraordinarily smart. As such he can mask some of his social challenges in standardized testing. There for it is common for these kids to function in real life even further behind what their test scores say.
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news or a doomsayer. It just feels like they blew off the scatter and some red flags along with what is the typical profile of a kid with ASD. he DEFINITELY needs some sort of good social language supports and education.
Renee is right on the money. The fact isn't if he's average or not, what is curious is the discrepancy between scores. I know Liam's IQ scores read similar to Nick's speech scores. And Cian's a learning disability waiting to happen with a 51 point gap between verbal and non-verbal scores. If I remember right his speech scores from last year are similar to Nick's though. Very strong in memory recall, but low average in pragmatics, (as is Liam's).
Push for the aide; I am planning to when we get Liam in more mainstream.
Raw scores mean nothing actually without more information. They just mean how many he got right basically.
So for instance if there were 50 in one section where he got a 47 and 10 in the section where he got 9 then there isn't a big difference, KWIM? So I would need mroe info on the TOLD to know if it meant anything. A standard score or percentile rank would be most helpful. Age or grade equivalents really aren't that accurate.
On the OT score I hate when they do that. Yes he averages out to in the average range, HOWEVER, his testing shows a relative weakness in the area of Fine Motor. Consider his difficulties with writing that you have mentioned this would be a clue to where the challenge lies and how to support him.
As for the range from 100 to 121 I would have to see what scores those were. The specific tests you mentioned that split isn't a huge surprise. Mostly because the Receptive one work picture vocab test is something I would probably expect a kid of Chris' age with a more able ASD to score high on. I am not familiar with the OWLS so it would help to know more on that. Yes 21 point is typically considered significant, however, with the high score being a one word vocab test and them both being 100 or higher, this probably wouldn't be considered an area of need. Unless there was a huge range within the OWLS and he had some lower scores there.
Over all scores in the 80's aren't considered a severe concern but when you have a child who is scoring over all much higher then the 80 is a red flag of sorts.
Percentiles vs. standard scores. A percentile rank of 50 matches up with a standard score of 100. Both are dead on average. A 50%ile means that a students scores as well as or better than 50% of children in his age group. If anyone has seen a bell curve this is the top spot. If you want a visual I can do a search for a bell curve for ya. I would use one if I was teaching a class on it.
Now the average range is 85-115 or 25%ile to 75%ile. A 25% depending on the test will correspond with about a 85 or 90. A 16%ile is not another whole standard deviation and usually corresponds with about an 80.
Now a full test that scored about a 16%ile while his other tests were above that might be concerning but not neccessarily on a subtest depending on the subtest. I don't know much about that one but I will tell you what I know.
Subtests tend to contain a very small number of trials there for sometimes it is easy for a child to score a bit lower in one area if they missed one answer. What I would ask would be why he scored lower in the generals area, what that was testing, how the information was presented, how he had to respond.
We know that Chris has a hard time with fine motor tasks so for instance if this genarals section requires him to write it is possible it was lower because of that, etc. I really know nothing about that certain test.
Over all his testing looks really really good overall in the average range with one subtest slightly lower and one that is just on the border of average.
What I would do is investigate a tiny bit into that one subtest. what is it testing? Is it something that is possibly an area of concern, was it tapping into another area of concern, was he already testing for an hour that day and was pooped?
Finally, it is a good thing to remember that kids with more verbal ASDs often can do well on standardized tests such as these but not be able to hold a conversation. Cait's scores used to be all over the map and then the last time she was tested last year it was more like what you showed me. However, the SLP noted conversational areas of difficulty that did not show up on evals and that is what she is addressing. So a good assessmetn for him should also include observations and hopefully some language samples.
Over all there is nothing in the report that sticks out as concerning but given the nature of ASDs it is worth a bit of digging.
Just as a measure for you I broke out Mike's last speech eval. He did over all pretty well on the standardized parts with some glitches. it was teacher observations that were a big thing. His SLP was a knucklehead. His current one would likely get a more accurate picture but here it is for comparison
CELF (only did some subtests so no total score) Concepts/ direction SS=90 %ile= 25 Recalling sentences SS=85 %ile= 16 Listening to paras SS=90 %ile= 25
TLT Main Idea SS=100 %ile = 50 Details SS=100 %ile = 50 Concepts SS=106 %ile = 63 Reasoning SS=60 %ile = 1 Story Comp SS=93 %ile = 25
Total Test SS=92 %ile = 22
CASL Nonliteral language SS = 102 %ile = 55 Inference SS = 85 %ile = 16 Pragmatic SS = 81 %ile = 10
total SS=93, %ile 32
Qualifying was close because according to the state regs they list 2 subtests below the 7th percentile and he had one at 10. HOWEVER, they can qualify based on observation, etc if the SLP feels it is appropriate. Our SLP was an idiot.
Our new SLP increased his time to 2x per week stating he was dreadfully underserviced previously.
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Christine,
The evaluator sounds thorough and en pointe, which is great.
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
He does qualify for it under insurance, under each category, all we need is a referral. I have to check my notes for how many visits per calendar year. She did say that what would help him alot would be social skills groups to bring up his deficits in that particular language area. Social stories will also help as well as cues to what to say, role playing etc. She said there we can also teach him "scripting" cues so he doesnt fumble so much. She is going to make some recommendations in her report that she sends. Nice thing is she is going to recommend an aide in the classroom, same thing as his dev ped said so that is now 2 on our side for it. He has actually been working with the SLP at school. We are meeting in a few weeks with the school "team" to go over all of the diagnostic eval results and hopefully get this IEP going soon. Next week we have the OT & PT evals. More to come on that!
Christine, Supermom to Nick, My Superkid, 5, Asperger's/ADHD, Loves all things Monster Trucks
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Christine
hey there, wanted to point out a little something on those test results.
The lower score in social language concerns me. An 82 would actually be considered low average range and is a significant enough difference from the others to cause me pause. These tests are all on standard scores. i will put a little scores 101 here.
100= dead on average.
15 points is considered a "standard deviation" there for 85-115 is considered "average" sometimes 90-110 is considered "average". then you qualify each level above and below by standard deviations soooooooo
85-115= average
70-85 = low average
55-70 = below average (used to be called mild MR)
115-130 = above average
130+ = gifted
One standard deviation is considered a pretty significant difference.
Back in the day of the last IDEA they would qualify a child with learning disabilities based on standard deviations if there was 1.5 standard deviations between ability and achievement.
Now the scores you state wouldn't be considered a learning disability but I am using that to show that this point range (22pts) was considered a significant difference to the powers that be.
Your son scored 82 on one test and 118 on another. That is 36 points! NEarly 2 1/2 standard deviations. THAT IS FRIGGEN HUGE!
That tells me he has a SIGNIFICANT area of relative weakness in social langauge. Yes, in the grand scheme of things it is just below average and in speech sometimes they are funny about that, but within his own scores that is a major red flag that he has significant challenges in this area and needs support.
Best guess with a kid like this. He is likely extraordinarily smart. As such he can mask some of his social challenges in standardized testing. There for it is common for these kids to function in real life even further behind what their test scores say.
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news or a doomsayer. It just feels like they blew off the scatter and some red flags along with what is the typical profile of a kid with ASD. he DEFINITELY needs some sort of good social language supports and education.
Renee is right on the money. The fact isn't if he's average or not, what is curious is the discrepancy between scores. I know Liam's IQ scores read similar to Nick's speech scores. And Cian's a learning disability waiting to happen with a 51 point gap between verbal and non-verbal scores. If I remember right his speech scores from last year are similar to Nick's though. Very strong in memory recall, but low average in pragmatics, (as is Liam's).
Push for the aide; I am planning to when we get Liam in more mainstream.
GL
Dee
Hey guys, since were talking about speech therapy scores, can I ask you two knowledgeble women about mine?
Raw scores mean nothing actually without more information. They just mean how many he got right basically.
So for instance if there were 50 in one section where he got a 47 and 10 in the section where he got 9 then there isn't a big difference, KWIM? So I would need mroe info on the TOLD to know if it meant anything. A standard score or percentile rank would be most helpful. Age or grade equivalents really aren't that accurate.
On the OT score I hate when they do that. Yes he averages out to in the average range, HOWEVER, his testing shows a relative weakness in the area of Fine Motor. Consider his difficulties with writing that you have mentioned this would be a clue to where the challenge lies and how to support him.
As for the range from 100 to 121 I would have to see what scores those were. The specific tests you mentioned that split isn't a huge surprise. Mostly because the Receptive one work picture vocab test is something I would probably expect a kid of Chris' age with a more able ASD to score high on. I am not familiar with the OWLS so it would help to know more on that. Yes 21 point is typically considered significant, however, with the high score being a one word vocab test and them both being 100 or higher, this probably wouldn't be considered an area of need. Unless there was a huge range within the OWLS and he had some lower scores there.
Over all scores in the 80's aren't considered a severe concern but when you have a child who is scoring over all much higher then the 80 is a red flag of sorts.
Renee
The PPVT is a vocab test
Okay (thanks so much for helping with this btw :))...
He also had a EVT-2
Ok, here is understanding tests part 2.
Percentiles vs. standard scores. A percentile rank of 50 matches up with a standard score of 100. Both are dead on average. A 50%ile means that a students scores as well as or better than 50% of children in his age group. If anyone has seen a bell curve this is the top spot. If you want a visual I can do a search for a bell curve for ya. I would use one if I was teaching a class on it.
Now the average range is 85-115 or 25%ile to 75%ile. A 25% depending on the test will correspond with about a 85 or 90. A 16%ile is not another whole standard deviation and usually corresponds with about an 80.
Now a full test that scored about a 16%ile while his other tests were above that might be concerning but not neccessarily on a subtest depending on the subtest. I don't know much about that one but I will tell you what I know.
Subtests tend to contain a very small number of trials there for sometimes it is easy for a child to score a bit lower in one area if they missed one answer. What I would ask would be why he scored lower in the generals area, what that was testing, how the information was presented, how he had to respond.
We know that Chris has a hard time with fine motor tasks so for instance if this genarals section requires him to write it is possible it was lower because of that, etc. I really know nothing about that certain test.
Over all his testing looks really really good overall in the average range with one subtest slightly lower and one that is just on the border of average.
What I would do is investigate a tiny bit into that one subtest. what is it testing? Is it something that is possibly an area of concern, was it tapping into another area of concern, was he already testing for an hour that day and was pooped?
Finally, it is a good thing to remember that kids with more verbal ASDs often can do well on standardized tests such as these but not be able to hold a conversation. Cait's scores used to be all over the map and then the last time she was tested last year it was more like what you showed me. However, the SLP noted conversational areas of difficulty that did not show up on evals and that is what she is addressing. So a good assessmetn for him should also include observations and hopefully some language samples.
Over all there is nothing in the report that sticks out as concerning but given the nature of ASDs it is worth a bit of digging.
Just as a measure for you I broke out Mike's last speech eval. He did over all pretty well on the standardized parts with some glitches. it was teacher observations that were a big thing. His SLP was a knucklehead. His current one would likely get a more accurate picture but here it is for comparison
CELF (only did some subtests so no total score)
Concepts/ direction SS=90 %ile= 25
Recalling sentences SS=85 %ile= 16
Listening to paras SS=90 %ile= 25
TLT
Main Idea SS=100 %ile = 50
Details SS=100 %ile = 50
Concepts SS=106 %ile = 63
Reasoning SS=60 %ile = 1
Story Comp SS=93 %ile = 25
Total Test SS=92 %ile = 22
CASL
Nonliteral language SS = 102 %ile = 55
Inference SS = 85 %ile = 16
Pragmatic SS = 81 %ile = 10
total SS=93, %ile 32
Qualifying was close because according to the state regs they list 2 subtests below the 7th percentile and he had one at 10. HOWEVER, they can qualify based on observation, etc if the SLP feels it is appropriate. Our SLP was an idiot.
Our new SLP increased his time to 2x per week stating he was dreadfully underserviced previously.
As a
Okay, thank you for so much of your time explaing all of this too me.
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