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    petunia Offline OP
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    And, in the next episode, I sent the report to the GT coordinator at the school yesterday and she called this morning saying that they want to move him to the GT English class ASAP. Hmmm. I'm not sure about the ADHD diagnosis yet but maybe it's time to bring that up and ask for accommodations/modifications because the GT class does have more homework. We could always change it later if the diagnosis doesn't stick. Hmmmmm...


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    Petunia, what behavior do you see at homework time? How is he likely to respond?

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    petunia Offline OP
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    He diddles and he dawdles and he gets distracted. Last night, he was supposed to be doing his vocabulary cards and I checked on him and he was looking up the word "traipse" in the dictionary. ME: Oh, is that one of your words? Him: No, I just wanted to know it's precise definition. Me: Why's that? Him: I just want to". He'll go to the bathroom and if there's any reading material within 10 feet, he'll read in the bathroom. He also has trouble getting through the tedious stuff. He wants to move on to the next thing because, of course, that's much more interesting than whatever he's doing. If he's supposed to read one chapter, he'll read until I make him stop. If he's supposed to be doing math, he might be reading the newspaper or his science report or playing with the dog or whatever.

    For example, yesterday, he got home at 4:30 and had a snack and then went to piano lesson, and got home about 5:40. I told him to get right on his homework because he had a scout meeting at 7 and he asked for 5 minutes of downtime. So, 5 minutes later, I told him his time was up, and to get busy. He finally got around to getting his homework out at about 6:20. I have no idea what he was doing in that time - daydreaming, creating sand castles in his head, solving the mystery of the universe, who knows? Ten minutes later, supper was ready so he ate and went back to his homework about 6:40. He "worked" on it until 8:00 when I told him to put it away and play with his dad. "What'll I do about it? It's due tomorrow?". I told him I didn't know but that he had had plenty of time to do it. Then, he realized that he had missed scouts and started calling himself stupid.



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    Originally Posted by petunia
    For example, yesterday, he got home at 4:30 and had a snack and then went to piano lesson, and got home about 5:40. I told him to get right on his homework because he had a scout meeting at 7 and he asked for 5 minutes of downtime. So, 5 minutes later, I told him his time was up, and to get busy. He finally got around to getting his homework out at about 6:20. I have no idea what he was doing in that time - daydreaming, creating sand castles in his head, solving the mystery of the universe, who knows? Ten minutes later, supper was ready so he ate and went back to his homework about 6:40. He "worked" on it until 8:00 when I told him to put it away and play with his dad. "What'll I do about it? It's due tomorrow?". I told him I didn't know but that he had had plenty of time to do it.

    This sounds like one my my normal days at work.

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    My DS almost 9 is Gifted/ADHD. He has similar profile as your DS though his WM is a little higher and PS is 109. He was initially tested on the WISC at 7.5 and was diagnosed ADHD at a little after 8 years. He is grade skipped and is in the 4th grade in a self contained gifted class (it's a 3/4 classroom). Here is how I explained him to his teacher this year after I summarized his IQ scores and told her he has ADHD.

    "DS needs a lot of mental stimulation and has a level of understanding and analysis far beyond his actual years. However, his relative area of weakness on the WISC is in processing speed (PSI is 109 which is average) which manifests itself in difficulty in task initiation and persistence, focusing on uninteresting things for long periods, slow written output and difficulty in taking large projects and breaking them down. He is happy, inclusive and friendly. He generally likes everyone. He has a positive attitude, is a hard worker and is willing to try anything new.

    While DS is several years advanced academically, generally, he behaves like a younger 3rd grader. Additionally, because his executive functioning abilities are impaired he does have some behavioral issues. He struggles with impulse control (sometimes acts immediately & impulsively, rarely listens the first time), and responding to social cues (does not understand why classmates find his tapping annoying and/or does understand but is too impulsive to respond appropriately). At the end of last year, we sat down with a team and prepared a 504 plan to accommodate his ADHD which highlights many of the strategies that we developed last year in dealing with some of DS's challenges."

    He has accomodations at home and at school to help him with task initiation and persistence. I am a big fan of the books Smart But Scattered and the Nutured Heart Approach - Transforming the Difficult Child Handbook.

    I agree that there is likely something else going on with your DS and whether it is ADHD, I don't know (sometimes I still don't know about my own DS.) But, the situation you described above is not that unusual in our house and we have just tried to come up with strategies to help. Sometimes though if my DS has baseball or rehearsal or something else after school, I just don't push the homework and he usually gets it done on time. He does have some accomodations at school that give him additional time if needed. I know my DS is younger than yours but we have put a lot of structures and supports in place (lots and lots of checklists) and he has made significant growth over the last year.

    Have you thought about applying to DYS?

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    I would also just throw in that if your DS has ADHD - impulsive type, and he is able to hold it together at school - especially given that it is likely terribly boring and he is extremely gifted - it is no real surprise to me that he cannot control himself at other times. He should get a lot of credit for holding it together all school day!

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    Originally Posted by petunia
    He diddles and he dawdles and he gets distracted. Last night, he was supposed to be doing his vocabulary cards and I checked on him and he was looking up the word "traipse" in the dictionary. ME: Oh, is that one of your words? Him: No, I just wanted to know it's precise definition. Me: Why's that? Him: I just want to". He'll go to the bathroom and if there's any reading material within 10 feet, he'll read in the bathroom. He also has trouble getting through the tedious stuff. He wants to move on to the next thing because, of course, that's much more interesting than whatever he's doing. If he's supposed to read one chapter, he'll read until I make him stop. If he's supposed to be doing math, he might be reading the newspaper or his science report or playing with the dog or whatever.

    For example, yesterday, he got home at 4:30 and had a snack and then went to piano lesson, and got home about 5:40. I told him to get right on his homework because he had a scout meeting at 7 and he asked for 5 minutes of downtime. So, 5 minutes later, I told him his time was up, and to get busy. He finally got around to getting his homework out at about 6:20. I have no idea what he was doing in that time - daydreaming, creating sand castles in his head, solving the mystery of the universe, who knows? Ten minutes later, supper was ready so he ate and went back to his homework about 6:40. He "worked" on it until 8:00 when I told him to put it away and play with his dad. "What'll I do about it? It's due tomorrow?". I told him I didn't know but that he had had plenty of time to do it. Then, he realized that he had missed scouts and started calling himself stupid.


    petunia, everything you've written above sounds like something that would happen with my ds if we put him in the situation of having two different activites after school and add in homework. It's just a lot of stuff for any kid to handle. My ds12 does *not* have ADHD but he has the same relative dip in processing speed that your ds has. School days are long for him - he gets tired because the dip in processing speed does impact him academically. I don't know if it is impacting your ds, but it might be and perhaps no one realizes the way it impacts him simply because he's so bright.

    When our ds gets home from school, he needs downtime for at least 30 minutes and a snack. If he has one activity in the evening, he needs some time to get back in gear mentally before taking it on. He needs to know he has plenty of time to finish his homework, and he stresses if he thinks he has more to do than he can accomplish. He wants to get good grades in school. He feels like he's slow, even though his processing speed really isn't slower than average - but it feels that way to him. Boy Scouts is meant to be an add-on, but if his Boy Scouts is like my ds' Boy Scout experience, it includes a lot of work too - it's not just throw-a-bunch-of-boys-into-a-room and let them play, kwim? You'd never realize to look at my ds from the outside in without knowing all that that he's tired or stressed or worried about school - it comes out differently. He's 12 and it can look like he doesn't care or like he's a space cadet. But he's not - he's a kid who is challenged in school by his processing speed and who is never probably going to a rock-star I can do everything and do it great and hold-it-all-together kid. BUT - he does really well when we give him a schedule and structure and room to breathe and relax.

    Perhaps none of that applies to your ds - I just thought I'd offer it up as food for thought. Your OP asked about the possibility of an impact from the dip in his processing scores and working memory - from what you've said above, it sounds like it would help to have a full neuropsych eval if you haven't had one to explore further what's causing that dip. My ds is also in 7th grade, and the workload is really increasing. No matter how intellectually higher level work may be, if there's a challenge with processing speed and working memory, just *getting the work done* at school can be mentally exhausting.

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    My DYS had similar scores and patterns with even lower PSI (see 9/22/09 post). We found great help here http://www.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/Clinic/.

    It seemed that everything was looked at in context of the knowledge that he is gifted and that was very reassuring - and a first as the nueropsychologist he saw who was less familar with gifted gave a much less helpful report.






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    Originally Posted by petunia
    And, in the next episode, I sent the report to the GT coordinator at the school yesterday and she called this morning saying that they want to move him to the GT English class ASAP. Hmmm. I'm not sure about the ADHD diagnosis yet but maybe it's time to bring that up and ask for accommodations/modifications because the GT class does have more homework. We could always change it later if the diagnosis doesn't stick. Hmmmmm...

    If the only thing keeping him from taking an advanced class is homework (as opposed to ability) then yes, the advanced class with accommodations would likely be a good plan. A couple of accommodation options: assign all of his homework for the week on Monday (to be due the following Monday); homework only required to show mastery (rather than the things designed to reinforce concepts); acceptance of late work; projects broken into smaller pieces or smaller pieces put together into one large project (I've had kids who do better each way)...I'm sure you could come up with more but those are off the top of my head.


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    Originally Posted by eldertree
    If the only thing keeping him from taking an advanced class is homework (as opposed to ability) then yes, the advanced class with accommodations would likely be a good plan. A couple of accommodation options: assign all of his homework for the week on Monday (to be due the following Monday); homework only required to show mastery (rather than the things designed to reinforce concepts); acceptance of late work; projects broken into smaller pieces or smaller pieces put together into one large project (I've had kids who do better each way)...I'm sure you could come up with more but those are off the top of my head.

    Good ideas. As to the homework and activities issue, I guess I need to rethink the plan. We usually don't schedule two activites the same night but his scout troop changed their meeting night and so there wasn't much we could do. I think, too, that right now the Strattera is making him very tired - yesterday he fell asleep at 5:15 and I started waking him up at 6 so he could go to his baseball game. It took him 30 minutes to fully wake up. I'm hoping that's a side effect that will go away.

    All of your posts are giving me things to think about. Thanks.


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