Thursday, October 18, 2007

The test results

Well, I don't have so much time right now so will have to continue this later, but I know some of you have been wondering about the testing results, so I'll give a brief summary here and then try to elaborate later.
We met with the psychologist this morning, finally -- the appt. had been rescheduled a couple times. She had obviously put a lot of time into compiling and interpreting the results for us. After her initial description of how Ian handled the testing, she made the observation that she does believe he "qualifies" (for lack of a better word) as gifted. In fact, she noted when presenting the various components of his IQ test that she has never had a child score as high as he did on the Verbal Comprehension scale. Not surprising, if you know Ian. He also was sort of "off the charts" on the Rorschach test in terms of creativity and imaginativeness. And he scored very well on the Visual Perception of the IQ test.
So, that was the good news.
The more difficult news was that both the subjective observations and her objective ratings pointed to a clearcut clinical diagnosis of ADHD, with possible Sensory Integration Dysfunction to boot (I know Jenny may be the only person reading this who understands what all this stuff is, but anyway). He also just scored average on the Working Memory and Processing Speed portion of the IQ test (both of which have to do with attention and focus), which incidentally affected his composite IQ score -- not that that matters much, but still interesting. I guess none of it was really a surprise at all, but still, I'm kind of reeling.
It does sort of explain why people who meet Ian usually think two things: 1) Wow, he's very bright (because of the high Verbal ability) and 2) Boy, kind of a handful! (Although most people are too polite to say that out loud. :-))
She had some recommendations, from a social skills training group to parent training group to discussion of meds with his dr. (low on our list) to .... here's the biggie ... school. Believe or no, kids with ADHD tend to do best in highly structured environments (kind of counterintuitive, no?), and she recognized that not only can that be hard to provide at home but also it can stress the parent/child relationship to have to provide that level of structure while homeschooling (yup). So, she recommended that we at least consider private or public school.
I went to the interview feeling that I should go with an open mind, not closed to anything and yet not taking anything as gospel either. I still feel that way. I am not ready to make any changes without a LOT of prayer and discussion with Tim, but I also realize that I shouldn't reject the idea of change out of hand.
A verse from Proverbs keeps coming back to me in these days, about trusting in the Lord with all my might, and not leaning on my own understanding, but acknowledging Him in all our ways so He can direct our paths.

2 comments:

Jenny said...

Sounds like a lot to digest! But good to have the information so that you can consider all sides before doing what YOU (plural, including Tim of course) think is right...and nobody can decide that for you. Wishing you lots of wisdom and insight as you consider your options. (((hugs)))

Tracee said...

Good luck. Tyler has not been diagnosed but I believe he has sensory issues. Thinking of you and sending you hugs as you consider possible change.