I think you are right to get another opinion. In my experience once a specialist says, "It's not X," they are unwilling to ever change that opinion, even if it was originally just a hunch.
A high score in a single area of the test - that can be an artefact (aka "noise"). It just bears out what I keep saying - IQ testing is a valuable tool but you should never use it to be too specific, not without keeping a lot of room to back out when later testing gives different results. The tests were never designed for this degree of specificity and shouldn't be used like this. They are meant to give you a sense of direction, not a destination.
IQ testing - I scored very high as a kid. Nobody in those days ever told the child or the family the actual number but I know it was overr 120 because a teacher oncee told our class, "Everyone in this class had to have an IQ of over 120 to get here."
I did my own test in a magazine once when I was really unwell and not concentrating - I scored 145. So I probably would have scored higher if I'd been well.
I do recall whenever I was being tested, I got some gasps from the tester. One actually said, "I didn't know that answer - how come you did?" But frankly, I often only knew the answer because I had read ahead in a text book and could extraspolate from the word origins. Example - one test showed four pictures of a circle and a line. They were in different positions but in only one did the line touch the circle at one point. The word was "tangent". I had only read that part of my maths book a few hours earlier so I knew the answer. The tester, who knew the word from other sources, didn't get the mathematical reference and didn't know the answer.
Another tester, same series - they were donig Rorschach on me. I was shown an inkblot whick I said looked like an angry Sylvester cat, blowing a raspberry. I laughed. The tester said, "What is Sylvester?"
I said, "You're kidding, right? It's a character from Bugs Bunny cartoons, very funny. What hole have you been living in?"
"Do you watch cartoons a lot?" he asked.
"I watch good ones," I told him.
I watched his handwriting upside down as he wrote, "immature."
Our kids were tested. I was trying to get some educational extension for them where needed; problems identified more specifically (also where needed).
easy child scored 145 but with some sub-scores "hitting the ceiling" (which with hindsight is what I think happened with me when I was a kid - hence testers' eyebrows crawling into their hairline).
difficult child 1 scores about 125 but again, some sub-scores like his sister's. But he wasn't achieving like a kid with his IQshould. The school counsellor had tested him and said he failed the IQ test (ie he was "retarded"). Turned out he fidgetted too much to finish the test but she said she had to score it as if he had - I think she should have said, "test invalid".
We had easy child 2/difficult child 2 tested because she needed to be in school (by our own estimates of her development plus our observations of how she compared with her very bright sister). She tested brilliantly, very similar results to her sister. It was almost as if they had swapped test papers only they didn't because there were subtle diferences due to their age differences. NOTHING at that age seemed abnormal, other than the genius IQ. On the basis of the results, as well as the advanced score in the social skills tests, we got her accelerated into school.
It took a few years for problems to show up - her behaviour, cute when young because she wouldbe forthright, vocal and expressive - quickly became a problem when she would insist on HER rules always being followed. That was when we realisedshe had done well to begin with because people gave way to her because she was smart and cute. As she got older and needed to learn to fit in, we found she couldn't.
When tested at age 4 there was absolutely no hint we had a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) child. We just thought we had a child genius again.
Her school principal rang me one day absolutely horrified - she had championed our efforts with her and now was beginning to doubt the wisdom - easy child 2/difficult child 2 was insisting that when she grew up she was going to be a hardresser. "But you could be a doctor, a lawyer, anything you want to be!" exclaimed the principal.
"That's right!" replied easy child 2/difficult child 2. "And what I want to be is a hairdresser!"
The principal saw tis as easy child 2/difficult child 2 being deliberately defiant, deliberately dumbing down. With hindsight that was not the case - she is a natural designer, very artistic, is obsessed with textures especially furry hairy ones. She did not take up hairdressing (because we said she would quickly get VERY fed up with her fellow students/co-workers - we know her!) but she does her waist-length hair in elaborate designs that differ every day and only seem to take her seconds.
Then difficult child 3 - our last genius child. He was alert from Day 1, always knew what he wanted and seemed very much like easy child in so many ways. He began to show an interest in letters & numbers when only a few months old - he watched "Sale of the Century" on TV (which we thought was cute but pure coincidence - we were wrong) and we couldn't get anything form hium until the ad break came on or the show finished. We couldn't work it out - visually, it had nothing for a baby, the screen didn't change much and all there was (when he seemed to be watching most intently) was the contestant, their name and their score. The score would change as they got an answer right (or wrong).
We knew within a few more months thta we had an exceptional child - even though he seemed a bit slow to talk, he began counting. Not just forwards, but backwards too. And way beyond 10. By the time he was toddling we used to go for short walks in the neighbourhood and he would run on ahead to the next letterbox to read the number (double digits). Freaky. But it was letters too - and by this time he was using the computer and reading his way around the menu bar.
We videotaped him in the week after his 2nd birthday, typing in the alphabet into the computer. The computer was displaying lower case letters, the keyboard of course is upper case. difficult child 3 matched them so fast the computer could barely keep up. He was also reciting his alphabet at the same time.
I spoke to the principal about planning for another accelerated kid. But within a few more months we realised there was a problem - he STILL was not talking, apart from numbers and letters. No concept of his name, of my name. Of anybody's name. Of names for anything. Just abstractions.
An IQ test for babies could have read this so wrong (as easy child 2/difficult child 2 was read wrong). We had his hearing checked out - that was an ordeal, because he was afraid of the headphones. The fears began to show up - no reason for them. We remembered difficult child 1's weird fears as a toddler also, fears which had only amplified as he got older.
Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) doesn't follow rules, you can't say, "He has this, that and such-and-such, therefore he is Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)," or more likely, "He doesn't have X, Y or X, therefore there's no way it's Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)."
Sometimes it's the only explanation and if you look below the surface you can find out WHY sometimes X, Y or Z has been ruled out, often wrongly.
It's like me and the word "tangent" - it probably changed my final score by 10 points or more, jsut because I read ahead in the text book. So much depends on the interpretation by the tester, and they need to be GOOD. Not just think they are good at it.
Who knows how bright I really am? Certainly not as bright as I used to be... WHo knows how bright any of us are? I have friends who also "failed" IQ tests but who have succeeded in teaching themselves everything they were never taught at school, simply because they had to find out how things worked. One woman I've worked with, was "left" at school, ended up leaving school permanently when she was about 8 years old. Barely literate. She has written a book which I edited. It was a nightmare - no punctuation, bad spelling which she then ran through a spelling CORRECTOR (and it turned "cerable pallsy" into something totally nonsensical) then wanted me to make sense of it. It took me 18 months.
Since then, she has written a lot more. With good punctuation and greatly improved spelling. In the process she has learned how to use a computer, from never having touched one before. She still rings me up to aske me to trouble-shoot her latest computer problem but she surfs the net, sends emails with attachments, uses some sophisticated software - all self-taught. It's not easy for her, but she keeps persisting. I suspect that even now, she wouldn't get a high IQ score, but she has a different kind of smarts which has seen her well through life. A low IQ score for her would at least be partly due to her lack of life experience, lack of formal education. Because IQ tests are based on the premise that the person being tested has been looked after and educated to the age equivalent of other subjects.
All this is to say - go find someone else and get another opinion. Also, if you can, get your hands on the sub-scores of the test and we'll work out which one the doctor says "disqualifies" difficult child from a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) diagnosis.
It's very much a diagnosis of balance. How does the child balance out, when it's all taken into consideration?
easy child 2/difficult child 2's pediatrician insists she doesn't have Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) because she makes good eye contact with him. Her answer - "I know him. I can make good eye contact if I force myself, and it's easier with people I know. You have also taught me that it's polite to make eye contact, although in my job that's difficult. I make myself notice something about each customer though, usually their clothing, so if they forget a shopping bag I'll know them when they come back for it. Otherwise I'd never recognise them, I'm not good with faces."
To me, what easy child 2/difficult child 2 describes fits Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). But the pediaitrician justwon't be drawn on it.
We're not fussing. A change in label would make no difference now, she gets enough support just from the ADD label. But in 3 years time she has to change doctors anyway, at which point I think the diagnosis will be changed. She will make sure of it, she wants the honesty.
If you have a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) child, and one who is also very bright, it can be very difficult to have it recognised because even if they're not trying to be deceptive, they do learn to mask it. It's part of learning how to live in society. But it's still there, like the legs of a swan are furiously paddling beneath the apparently serene surface.
Marg
