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Hi. I'm new here. After a year or so of worrying and questioning and wondering, we are finally having ds (7) undergo neuropsych evaluation. We waited months to meet with a specialist to help determine if he's 2e.. I'm the only one who thinks he's gifted, and even though my gut tells me he is, everyone else's disbelief has me doubting myself. So we start tomorrow, I'm excited and nervous and I hope we finally get some answers. Anyway, I just wanted to say hello as this board has been so helpful to me in helping me understand my unique little guy.

All the best! No matter the numbers and the diagnostic formulation, you will learn a lot about him from this process.

Welcome mominMA. I'll second Portia, never doubt your mom-gut! You know your child better than anyone else. I'll also second yeah, you'll learn quite a bit from a neuropsych eval that will be useful in understanding your ds, and that's all good whether or not he is ultimately 2e or gifted with no e or even not gifted.

I did a quick search and saw an old post from 2013 with scores... fwiw, and this is just my non-professional quick-look question - is there any chance he might have vision issues? One of my dds had double vision (but 20/20 eyesight) when she was in 2nd grade, and none of us (teachers/parents/etc) realized it... and she didn't tell us because she thought all of us were seeing 2 of everything most of the time. She had really low scores in the same set of subtests that your ds did on the WISC. So... just one thing you might want to look for this time around with the neuropsych testing, and something you could ask the neuropsych about.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I wouldnt think he has vision issues, he gets fairly regular eye exams as he has a small cataract, the cataract is so small he doesn't know it's there, how else could i tell?
We met with neuropsych tonight, shes going to repeat all tests as she was perplexed by some of his old scores. This particular doctor has written a ton of articles and books and has done a lot of research on 2e so im hopeful that she'll give us some answers so we can make decisions on how to help him. Testing starts tomorrow, Wed, and possibly Thursday. She's going to give us preliminary feedback Thursday, then we'll her final report in the summer.

...and thanks for the encouragement

For what it's worth, I was the only one who thought my 2e child was gifted. It's a function of seeing your child every day and witnessing how their mind works. I was also the only one who thought my DS had ADHD - he has that too.
What you may find with your DC is that giftedness is masking a deeper struggle than you know. Our psychologist observed that our DS was struggling *a lot* with executive functioning and using his intellect to compensate-- essentially he wasn't planning or even attending very well, but was able to learn as he went.

I also had people telling me I was nuts, turns out I wasnt😉

Although even today I finally told colleague and got the you must be kidding response. I don't care if anyone else thinks dd is gifted, we know and can now support her, everyone else can think what they like.

I was the one that said ds8 wasn't gifted.

This may not be reflective of your daughter, but rather related to the widespread myths about gifted kids. For example, the definition of child prodigy is a child "under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer" and a genius is recognized by creativity and eminent achievement... new advances in a domain of knowledge. A gifted child may show unusually high potential and ability, and be driven by curiosity, but may not have eminent achievement at this phase of life. A child may be gifted without being a prodigy or a genius. Gifted children are often known for their intensity, and parents often follow the child's lead in finding enrichment opportunities.


Welcome to mominMA , as you learn more about your child, and how to support him.

Would that be part of a neuropsych eval? I think she's doing every test imaginable..

We've been here for hours. He's actually enjoying the testing, i think it's probably the first time he's been challenged all year

Sounds familiar!

Our dd with the severe vision challenge also was receiving regular eye exams. As Portia mentioned, an eye exam from the typical eye dr only tests for visual acuity in each eye, and it's possible to have 20/20 eyesight in each eye (my dd did at the time) and still not have the eyes working together effectively, which is important for accurate vision. In my dd's case, her eyes did not track and she had severe double vision, and the way her brain coped with it was to effectively turn off the vision in one eye. There were signs that she had vision issues but they were relatively subtle things that wouldn't necessarily be obvious unless you knew you were looking for a vision issue. Those signs included: not making direct eye contact when she was talking to us (instead she tended to look off into the distance), holding her head at an angle when working on school work, often putting it down on the table. Tiring quickly when she had to do school work, difficulties learning to read that didn't seem to match her intellectual ability. Extreme sensitivity to noise. Very messy eater - crumbs everywhere. Somewhat clumsy. Couldn't remember multi-step directions - for instance, if I told her to pick up her socks in the living room, put them in the laundry bin, and then wash her hands, she'd forget where she was going by the time she made it halfway to the laundry room. Easily frustrated with puzzles. Freaked out by the movie theater.


This sounds wonderful - good luck with getting through the testing and figuring out what's up!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Well, i don't have all the results, but before we left testing today she told me his IQ is 130, and he has ADHD (which we suspected)...2e...so Im NOT crazy! Relieved and soooo happy to finally be getting answers...another hour of tests tomorrow, then she'll give us more details.

Full-Scale IQ (FSIQ) or General Ability Index (GAI)?

130 is FSIQ, will get other results tomorrow

IME with my 2e DS, knowing his GAI was key. Obviously I have a small sample size (and a completely different second e so this may or may not be relevant) but if they don't give you a GAI I'd definitely want to understand why.

Good luck tomorrow!

His GAI was 129. Her final thoughts were. ADHD (which we suspected), SPD (which we knew about), disorded of written expression (which explains alot), possible CAPD which we have to further investigate and gifted.