My twice exceptional 11 year old son with motor dyspraxia, who has a high verbal IQ but lower performance IQ, was able to learn and play a two page piano song written at what his piano teacher estimated to be a late intermediate level. The piano teacher said this song would even be challenging for her high school age student. I think my son's performance IQ would suggest that he might not be capable of this, yet he did it. He did it because he wanted to do it badly enough and was willing to practice as much as it took to do it.

I reminded my son that he somehow learned to read without being taught at 2 1/2 even though he had undiagnosed vision issues that made it difficult for him to read for very long, and he managed to read at a 5th grade level at age five even though he could only read a paragraph before his eyes got tired and he had to rest his eyes. I think he was able to do this because he didn't like books written at the lower levels and he really wanted to read the books he liked.

I think this success gave him the confidence to try other things that were difficult for him in the past. Because he had such difficulty when he was younger in manipulating small puzzle pieces he never wanted to do jigsaw puzzles and I didn't force him to do them. He had Legos when he was younger but he wouldn't work with those either. For the first time he put together a Lego car with small pieces by himself. He had a little trouble with dropping some of the smaller pieces but he didn't give up and now he wants more building sets.

A few weeks ago, I was a little worried when we talked to the neuropsychologist about college plans and she said something like "He has a high verbal IQ, but which IQ score do you use to predict how he will do in school?" I think we found our answer. He is capable of higher performance even with his motor learning disability. He just has to want to do it badly enough and he needs the freedom to learn in the way he learns best.