Kate, a 14 year old, was referred for evaluation because of difficulty in her 8^th grade classes, specifically in the areas related to mathematical concepts and reasoning. Teachers had noted on the Learning Disabilities Diagnostic Inventory (LDDI, 1999) that she frequently "Makes borrowing errors," "Reaches 'unreasonable' answers," and "Has difficulty in multi-step problems."

The first step in interpreting Kate's results is an examination strictly from a descriptive point of view - at what level of cognitive ability what did she perform? Analysis at this stage is considered descriptive in nature since no statistical comparisons have yet been made. Kate appears to be functioning overall in the Average range, with a GCA score of 100 (94-106, 59^th percentile, Average). The GCA score comprises her other composite scores, and these scores range from the low Nonverbal Reasoning score of 78 (70-88, 10^th percentile, Low) to her high Spatial score of 116 (107-124, 81^st percentile, High). Because of the differences between the scores, a careful analysis of Kate's profile is warranted. Blindly accepting the perfectly Average GCA score would neglect to take into consideration the seemingly diverse nature of Kate's abilities.

Examining the subtest T scores also gives some preliminary description about how Kate performed. Her core subtests ranged from a low of 32 (10^th percentile) on the Sequential & Quantitative Reasoning subtest to a high of 60 (84^th percentile) on the two Spatial subtests, Recall of Designs and Pattern Construction. The scores on the diagnostic subtests given to Kate also reveal information from which to generate hypotheses. She did poorly on both the Recall of Digits (2^nd percentile) and Speed of Information Processing (7^th percentile) and yet performed average or above on both the Recall of Objects - Immediate (69^th percentile) and - Delayed (86^th percentile) subtests. Since Recall of Digits and Recall of Objects both involve some aspect of memory, this area will need to be further explored throughout the interpretation.

To continue the analysis of Kate's scores, examiners should complete each of the steps outlined in the previous section of this chapter. Completing these steps allows the hypothesis generation and resulting interpretation to be integrated with all findings instead of continually generating hypotheses in one step that might be quickly negated by the next step. For our example, the DAS Analysis Sheet (Exhibit-4) was completed.