Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Need advice..

I'm sorry if I confused posts - I tried looking back to see what you'd written previously, and found a thread where I thought you'd mentioned your school had questioned whether or not your ds was gifted or simply had a helicopterish pushy parent. I may have gotten posting parents mixed up!


It usually takes several months (here at least) to get an appointment with a neuropsych, but fwiw, I'd say the wait is worth it. I will admit to personal bias on this, based on personal experience, but fwiw, I've had two of my children who either teachers or peds or other people thought had ADHD, and to be honest, I am fairly certain that I could have managed to get an ADHD diagnosis for both of them through a regular psychologist (I know for certain that one psych would have diagnosed my ds and our ped was convinced my dd has ADHD). Neither has ADHD, and their neuropsych evals were instrumental in helping us see and understand that. Had they been diagnosed for ADHD, they likely would have been recommended to go on meds, and I'm not sure that it would have been as easy to tease out what was really up from a neuropsych eval once they were on meds. Please note - I absolutely am not saying that children who have ADHD shouldn't be diagnosed and shouldn't have access to meds - it's just been my experience, *where I live* that ADHD is often the first thought that comes to mind when a child is struggling. It's also been my experience that regular psychs don't step back and recommend a neuropsych eval when they don't have all the answers.


It sounds like handwriting isn't an issue, but getting his thoughts out *might* be. Perhaps it isn't - chances are he's simply taking his time and thinking through exactly what he wants to say and how he wants to organize it. The flip side of that is, is it taking him longer than anticipated to organize his thoughts and figure out how to get them onto paper? This can be (not saying it is) but it can be a symptom of an expressive language disorder, and it can be very confusing because a child who is extremely verbal and highly capable of expressing himself when he talks can, at the same time, have difficulty getting those thoughts out on paper.

He is okay with other fine motor tasks -- I would say average.


My ds had these same difficulties in early elementary school, and it looked like ADHD to his teachers, but it was due to Developmental Coordination Disorder. Not something that was obvious at all, and quite likely not something that is an issue for your ds. But - fwiw, I wouldn't automatically attribute those behaviors to ADHD, and that's why I so strongly believe the neuropsych eval is important. I also think that we often hear teachers attributing behaviors like this to ADHD because ADHD is more common than things like DCD and therefore they are familiar with ADHD - so it's the thought that comes to mind first.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Polarbear, thanks.


I agree with this. Which is why I waffle on getting a diagnosis. I plan to bring up all these questions to the psychologist and hope he/she answers them.


I actually keep thinking about this. He is not exactly un-coordinated, but it takes a lot of effort for him to hop (one foot is better than the other). Or zip his jackets (he finally got it on his own, but later than I would have liked to see). He also seems to have difficulty doing the steps -- like he is about (50% of the time) lagging behind a physical movement class by a minute. So, I wonder about this a lot.

Hi

Just a thought, the way you described some of the ADHD feedback from school sounded like it could be a motor planning issue that an OT can evaluate.