Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Where do I go from here?

EmmaL, it sounds like you did amazing work throughout a deeply challenging meeting. Well done keeping calm and keeping them on point despite their strenuous efforts to be anything but.

It feels presumptuous for me to try to offer advice in a situation more complex than I can even begin to imagine, but in the spirit of making sure you know we're listening and want to help, here's a few thoughts.

With your circumstances, your question "How do I help DS regain confidence/self-worth?" is tough. The simple answer is to find places where he can succeed, and see for himself that he is succeeding. But from the way he's been desperately trying to avoid school, it's clearly a negative environment for him, and contributing to his low self-image. The long school day makes it hard to add anything else in.

So I can't really extrapolate from our situation to yours, but for what's it's worth, here's some observations from our own experience. For my DD, taking reading back to the basics with a structured program was a HUGE confidence builder. From academically broken in grade 2, she discovered she could learn, and she could learn well, when taught the way a dyslexic needs to be taught. Our home program provided reading materials carefully constructed to only include words she was capable of reading at that point, and she started to discover she was capable. We stopped asking her to do things she'd never been properly taught and couldn't do. After years of nightly battles over school reading, I was the one crying the day she came to me and asked if she could read me a story in her reader, please? Her teachers couldn't recognize this newly confident, engaged, non-surly child.

My (extremely visual spatial but writing disabled) son was born doing math, but learned at school that he was no good at it. His anxiety hit the roof in grade 4, when he found himself unable to keep up with classmates and produce the volume and kind of output school demanded, in math and everything else. Advanced math activities outside of school have been critical for teaching him how to learn, persevere, and see what he is capable of. At home, I scribe all our math on a white board, so his writing doesn't stop him from being able to challenge himself with complex concepts. His school marks are consistently mediocre, but in extra-curriculars - programming, math, piano - he escapes writing and the linear world beloved by teachers, and he excels. After a couple years of him telling me he hates math and is no good at it, this summer he asked to go to an advanced math camp, and found it absolute bliss.

I can only imagine your son has spent years internalizing a horrible sense of himself, and it will probably take a lot more than easy fixes like these to begin to undo. I don't know how, in your circumstances, you can create space for your son to learn at his level - both at the basics for his weaknesses and conceptually advanced for his strengths. Is there any possible way you can come into his school and take over a period a day to tutor him yourself? Could you pull him out of the double curriculum for now, to create time to work in areas that need remediation? Perhaps others can offer some additional ideas for how you can create for him the space he needs to learn what and how he needs to learn.

Sending all the support I can; keep up the amazing work you're doing for your son.

P.S. If you don't need the phone capability, an iPod is a cheaper alternative. Some additional great uses are taking pictures of the blackboard etc instead of writing notes, or recording instructions or information from the teacher. My DD (also maybe dysgraphic?) finds writing on whiteboard much easier than paper, so she often does short work on a whiteboard (instead of iPad or computer with word prediction) and her teacher takes a picture to save her work.

The value of an official diagnosis depends on its application. If you need it for advocacy purposes, then you will need an official diagnosis. If it is primarily for your and your child's understanding of his learning profile, then you may have enough data without a definitive diagnosis. Depends on what else is in the eval besides the D-KEFS and achievement testing. Was there also a comprehensive cognitive battery? (WISC-IV or -V, WJ-III or IV COG, SBV, DAS-II are some of the most common examples)

And I sent you a pm.

Regarding audiobooks, bookshare.org offers free audiobooks to students with documented learning disabilities. I'm not sure if the website's app is compatible with the iPhone, but it is compatible with the iPad. However, one word of caution: a parent education leader at a school meeting warned us that almost every kid will have some exposure to porn within a relatively short time after receiving unfiltered access to the internet with a smartphone or other similar device.

EmmaL, in your OP above, you said:


That *is* your diagnosis. There isn't a specific "2E" diagnosis - 2E is a term referring to a child who has a challenge such as a learning disability and is considered to be intellectually gifted (the definition of "gifted" is typically school-district dependent). When advocating, you need to address both, but right now, at this point in time, speaking from my experience as a parent of two 2E kids... you need to focus on getting remediation and accommodations for your ds' challenges.

Re how to help your ds with his sense of self confidence etc - you are already doing a lot of what you need to be doing. Continue to help him by doing everything you can to get those accommodations and remediations in place. Continue to help him by explaining what the results of his neuropsych eval revealed. Continue to help him by doing what you can at home and outside of school when he's with you. Continue to help him by advocating at school and with his father - and let him *see* that you are standing up and advocating for him.

A long time ago when my ds was first diagnosed and we were caught in a nightmare of a battle with his public school to get recognition of his disability at school and accommodations and services, I read an article online by Charles Schwab. I don't know the link, but you might be able to find it again by googling. That article helped *me* so much because - after Schwab had described his LD (dyslexia and dysgraphia if I remember correctly) and described how difficult school had been for him, he wrote about what his mother did when she found out through testing what his diagnosis was - she told him that yes, he was going to have to work twice as hard as any other typical kid to do his schoolwork and to learn his academics but that he was going to do it and he'd be fine - and then she was by his side for the next however many years he was in school making sure he hung in there with the long hours of hard work even when he wanted to quit. What stuck with him wasn't what he *learned* or the progress he made, it was having someone recognize that learning was hard for him but also recognize that he was smart and could do it, and having that adult care enough to see him through it. As tough as things are right now for you in your family situation, don't lose sight of the fact that in the midst of all of this, you are setting an example and teaching your ds that he is smart, he is able to learn, and he will get through this - with you by his side. That's the most important thing of all, no matter what type of horrid situation you have to work your way through with school and your ds' father.


Children with LDs and other challenges are at risk of anxiety and depression. Yes, it's really really sad and devastating to hear your child feels this way. When our ds was first diagnosed, it wasn't obvious academic issues that got him a referral to a neuropsych, it was extreme anxiety that had led to severe panic attacks. I will never forget the day when ds had left the shoes he needed for an after-school activity upstairs in his classroom and he was so nervous he couldn't walk all the way upstairs to retrieve them. We were stranded in the middle of that staircase for what seemed like an eternity with ds sobbing like crazy and shaking with fear, and I was just standing there completely not understanding what was going on in that classroom that left ds petrified of going back into it. I totally understand *now* - having the eval and the diagnoses is incredibly helpful all around simply because it sheds light on what's going on in a child's life. As tough as it is to hear those words spoken by your ds, they are also going to be tremendously helpful to you in understanding what is going on in his life and helping him find his way to a happier place.

One thing that happened for us was that our ds' anxiety - which was diagnosed as basically sky-high at the time - disappeared once we were able to get appropriate remediation and accommodations in place for his lds. I wonder if part of what you need in your arsenal when advocating is something to quote from either his neuropsychologist or something from research that addresses the need for appropriate support for lds in reducing anxiety/etc.

I also wonder - do you have an advocate? Have you looked for one? It's possible you might be able to find access to an advocate at no cost to you - there are parent advocate groups in many parts of the US that are funded by federal grant money. I found an advocate in our area by looking through the yellow pages on www.wrightslaw.org - and having that advocate to turn to for advice in how to advocate with the schools was worth it's weight in gold (and we paid nothing for the service).

Another thing I'd consider - did you talk to the neuropsych at all about school choices? I apologize if you've addressed this upthread and I missed it. It would be helpful ammunition for you if you could have the neurospych's advice on appropriate school placement in either the full report or in an extra written statement. At the very least, I'd want to have discussed school placement with the neuropsych verbally so you have an idea what the neurospych thinks. Our neuropsych gave us very specific advice re where the psych thought our ds should be in school in our area (public and private schools both discussed) - basing the advice on having evaluated numerous students and hearing about experiences at each of the different schools. Our advocate was also helpful hear, having heard from many different students/families of experiences at each of our area schools. I realize you are in a position right now where you can't take your ds and put him into a different school, but you can build up your "supporting data" bank of evidence in case you're able to advocate for a different school at some point in time.


There aren't words, but there are many of us here who've been there. It's so tough - but it's also just one place along a journey. You are doing all the right things, and everything you are doing is going to help, it's just really really tough to be in the trenches.

Hang in there,

polarbear