Reply to UCSD Shooting Suspect had autism -just what we need

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How does a parent know their child on the spectrum is a genius if testing and  academic performance indicate otherwise?[/quote]

The WISC gives more than one score. It gives a Full Scale IQ score (which is what most people call "IQ.") It also gives subscores for verbal IQ and performance IQ. Those scores break down further into subtest scores that measure specific abilities (vocabulary, comprehension, verbal reasoning, similarities, matrix reasoning, block design, picture concepts, coding, digit span, cancellation, etc.)  Kids with ASDS have verbal deficits and often have attention problems. Those subtest scores tend to be low and to drive down their subtest scores.  They tend to produce spikey scores that show remarkable strengths in some areas and big deficits in others. When that happens, the test instructions from the test creators say to disregard the FSIQ because it isn't a good measure. There is an alternate test score called the Global Ability Index (GAI) which should used instead. Even that can underpredict a kid's performance.

Here's a specific example -- my child with HFA has a score on the WISC of 115.  That's a good score, but it underpredicts his abilities in certain important areas and overpredicts other areas. He has receptive language deficits, expressive language deficits, and pragmatic language deficits and those show in his verbal score. However, he also shows extremely high abilities in math and nonverbal reasoning. You can see that in his matrix reasoning score, which hit the ceiling on the test. He scored as high as he can score on that section, and on the math.  His verbal IQ score is low normal (around 90) and his performance IQ score is around 140.  When those are combined into a FSIQ, the FSIQ overpredicts his verbal ability and underpredicts his math/reasoning ability. If he has attention problems on top of that, the distractibility subtests will further drag that FSIQ score down.

A better measure of my kid's ability might be his COGAT, which was in the 99th percentile on all measures when tested at one year above grade level. His IOWA basics scores were also spikey, but showed where his specific deficits are.

I don't claim my kid is a genius, but I would have a fit if someone told me that his ability is limited to what is reflected in his FSIQ score. Not when the test instructions specifically say that if the profile is spikey, you don't use FSIQ.  His ability level is considerably above what is reflected on his WISC.

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