Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments First week of kindergarten challenges

For another perspective: the neuropsychologist who evaluated my son has a very similar background. She did not interact with him outside of the testing situation, so didn't have the sorts of observations, over time, you describe here.

After testing, she told me that an ASD diagnosis for him was not obvious in his case and she needed to look at all of the data she'd collected to determine exactly what was going on with him.

Her testing included:
Developmental interview with me
Open ended questions to DS' teachers, where they described strengths and areas of concern.
WISC-V
BRIEF (executive function)
ABAS-2 (behavioral)
BASC-2 (behavioral)
MASC (anxiety)
CDI (depression)
ADOS (autism spectrum)

In reading her report, I'd say the most important piece of this diagnostic puzzle was the ADOS, and the other data supported the conclusion.

I'm no expert by any means, and am sharing in hopes it's helpful to you in figuring out what to do to help your DS. I think the neurological angle is really important and the formal testing helps to tease out patterns to aid in understanding.

When my DS was younger, he had a psychological evaluation that in retrospect describes a lot of ASD behaviors, but through a different lens. In that evaluation, the diagnosis was generalized anxiety. Later, a neurologist diagnosed ADHD (but with limited data--rating scales only). It would have been very helpful to have the neuropsychological testing much earlier. I feel like all these years, I've been like the blind men and the elephant: having parts of understanding but without a complete, holistic understanding.

I think there are myriad reasons your DS could be having difficulties in the areas you describe and solid data could help you understand and support him better. So, in answer to your question about a second opinion: yes, I would seek one. It may be a long time before you have everything you need to understand, but since the kindergarten teacher is concerned already--I'd want to pursue more information.

I too would seek a second opinion. It sounds to me that you have lingering questions and I think it's better to have answers than not.

Maybe the teachers could try being more direct with your son? Like in the case of the shape hunting and drawing. If they had just let him know that they wanted to see if he could draw shapes that he had seen, he probably would have done it.

When my dd was that age I remember that the first thing I had to do when picking her up from school was to hand her some protein. Then I could ask her about her day in 5 or 10 minutes.

I don't have much advice but I can definitely relate. We have JK and SK here and in both years DS drove the teachers nuts. DS is now 9 and we've been through two rounds of testing. Both times he has had very low PSI & WMI and very high high VCI & PRI. The PSI and WMI is mostly what drove the teachers crazy - he was soooooooo slow and giving him a 5 step set of instructions usually resulted in him doing nothing because he didn't know where to start. He's eventually been diagnosed with an LD in written expression (not saying that is what you're dealing with but just mentioning it as a possibility). Almost every teacher he's had has completely zoned in on his LD and hardly noticed the gifted side - it's been fun. Early elementary teachers (IME) are all about making round pegs for the round holes of the system.

One of my favorite memories of SK resulted from a similar "hopes and dreams for kindergarten" exercise. The hall was filled with nice pictures of kids holding hands and cute captions like "make friends".
DS's was this -

1000000
00000000
000000
000000000
weekends
0 weekdays

and then in writing the teacher had filled in "infinity weekends, no weekdays". DS was really ticked that the teacher didn't understand the symbol for infinity so he had to write all of the 0's instead. Fun times!

I just came in to grab a piece of advice, but I will stay for this one!

Obviously all our kids are different even though they may show some of the same traits. You know your child best.

We have struggled for 4 years (ours turned 8 last week), trying to figure out what is up and we are just now getting to the diagnosis she needs in school, which is "disorder of written expression." It took us 4 years to get here, and that is despite the fact that my husband has dysgraphia himself! Nobody ever pointed to that before because she can sometimes write neatly. But, honestly, first graders don't have much to write--and they don't have to think and write much at the same time. Her writing looks like a lower than average boy's writing. What it looks like is not the problem.

She sounds a lot like yours too--and absolutely in no way, shape or form has autism, although she does have share some characteristics with autistic children. They are also characteristics of anxiety, embarrassment, loneliness and shame.

Our first neuropsych (at 4) did not catch the problems of DCD and dysgraphia. In fact, he told us her IQ would probably go down. We believed him. He did some fine motor tests (pegboard) that she did terribly on and others (Beery) that she did okay on. Whenever her writing is tested by OTs, she does fine on everything but copying a block pattern. We continued taking her to specialists that weren't that helpful. Finally DCD was diagnosed by an OT (which was a no brainer for us). Dysgrapha or diagnosis of written expression was never a concern of anyone's (except ours).

A couple of months ago (at almost age 8) we took her to a psychologist who specializes in gifted kids, who showed me the serious difference between her processing speed/coding score and other elements of her IQ. Now that the numbers are there, people can see the problem--even though her writing still just looks like bottom of the class (but acceptable) writing.

I'm not saying that your child has DCD or dysgraphia. But I do wonder if a second opinion so quickly will give you the information you need. Sometimes I do think you need a wait--and if your gut tells you it is something other than autism, maybe it is. We discussed the possibility of autism (dr. said no) and the even more possible NVLD (dr. said possibility), but neither ever rang true to me, mainly because she is such an incredibly flexible thinker. What rang true to me was "motor planning or executive function, but she's got something." Dysgraphia also rang true to me, even though she doesn't have a lot of the symptoms.

The only other thing I would say, is that I would be wary of saying what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. My daughter is now in 2nd, and she still draws those squares while everyone else makes beautiful, labeled pictures. Drawing is not something she does well, and we are figuring out how to help her cope with it. But she has been told for many years by many people that it is not acceptable not to try--and because the whole time she feels like she has been trying, she doesn't really understand what trying means. To her it means "I will succeed." So she will tell us she will TRY to try. She's become very ashamed of writing and drawing over the years because the adults don't think she's trying and she's learned that her trying isn't really trying because it's not good enough for them. Does that make sense?

Anyway, this is not to make any predictions about your child. This has just been our journey.

It sounds like your teachers care a lot. That's great! I am finding that most teachers do not understand the dysgraphia/really verbally bright kid combination--even the ones who care. But honestly, I don't think WE even truly understand what it is like to be her, and we've been living with it ourselves for decades!

Thanks for all of the collective wisdom! I can't tell you how much this support means to me- and helps.

I have to say that while I think SOMETHING is going on, my gut says that it isn't ASD. First, the descriptions don't ring true to me. It's also hard for me to believe that after spending approximately 90+ hours with my child in a variety of settings (doing evaluations, developmental interviews, observing at school, interviewing teachers, observing with peers and even going to cafes and doing social activities) that my son's psychologist would miss clues if it were ASD. During our first evaluation, she did say that she thought that, if anything, Dyspraxia might be something to explore further but she said it would be best to see how things go at school and to gather more information. She specifically mentioned his pronunciation (he still doesn't say the "r") and that he often pauses for a while before responding, like he's struggling to gather his words. He doesn't have this issue when he initiates communication. Reading about Dyspraxia and dysgraphia, it sounds much more like my son and I think that's heading in the right direction.

I also suspect that my son could have some visual processing issues. After the psych who did the IQ testing recommended it, we had his eyes checked by an opthamologist and his eyesight was fine BUT I've noticed several weird things about my son. First, he is TERRIBLE at jigsaw puzzles even though his visual spatial skills are very strong. For example, even at three he could do the advanced Lego Technic sets on his own. He has an unusual way of doing them- he skips ahead three pages at a time, memorizes the image and then builds what he saw. He is also great at taking machines apart and figuring out how to reassemble them. But he struggles with jigsaw puzzles that are rated for five year olds (he is 5.5). He randomly tries to put pieces together and doesn't seem to intuitively understand that the picture must make sense (for example, he'll try to stick the arm to the head of a person).

His reading ability also isn't as good as I would expect for somebody with such a high VCI: he has been spelling words for over a year but still cannot read much beyond short three and four letter words; he knows words if I spell them out loud but has a hard time if they are written; has an amazing memory but doesn't recognize a sight word even if he saw it (and sounded it out laboriously) in the sentence before; he can read a large word on a computer screen but has a hard time if the same word is in a line of text in a book.

Finally, he is very cautious (but not clumsy), especially when climbing or walking over uneven surfaces. He was a late crawler and walker. He avoids games where lots of kids are running around; it seems to make him nervous. He was ambidextrous until four and didn't develop a proper pencil grasp until we encouraged him to start using one had for writing/eating/playing guitar. His drawing is poor and mostly consists of scribbles. His handwriting is neat but slow and laborious and he mostly resists doing it. He also has poor eye contact.

I am thinking we should go ahead and see a developmental opthamologist and maybe wait a few weeks until my son settles in and gather more information to see if we should do further testing for dysgraphia and/or dyspraxia. Is it too early to test for this? Does this fuller picture sound like any of your children?

I would want to find out what that "something" is. It could be developmental but meanwhile, if his "differences" are negatively affecting him at school, I think it's better to go for an evaluation.

Lepa,

There are a lot of overlapping symptoms between dyspraxia and ASD (my ds is dyspraxic and dysgraphic). Our neuropsych has a chart that shows symptoms for ASD, Dyspraxia, and ADHD and outlines which symptoms are unique to each as well as which overlap - and there is a large overlap among all three. FWIW, there are two types of dysgraphia too - one is related to fine motor, one is related to challenges with visual processing. I don't know about visual issues and dyspraxia, but speech issues can occur with dyspraxia.


This sounds very much like my dyspraxic ds. Even though he did eventually choose a hand preference, according to his neuropsychologist he's still ambidextrous. I used to think of ambidextrous as something that was really awesome meaning a person could write neatly with both hands - for ds it's the opposite - he is considered ambidextrous because he has a difficult time with motor planning no matter which hand he uses.

polarbear

Your son doesn't sound that different from my DS16 at that age. But things were rocky at times and when problems occurred I would wonder is he Aspi? Is is ASD? But he never seems to meet enough criteria. Over the years he has seen several psychologist and none of them has diagnosed him with ASD nor ADHD, although both were always discussed. When he was a preschooler/early elementary is was obvious he was gifted and his idiosyncrasies were often passed off as those of a gifted kid. The necropsy who evaluated him last summer (when he was 15) did say in his report that he "shares characteristics with ASD" and that some techniques to work with high functioning ASD teens would be appropriate for him. On the other hand the gifted psychologist that works with him tells me he is just introverted gifted teen and the psychologists who do the testing are LOOKING for labels and not that experienced with gifted kids. My son has anxiety and is introverted and many of his social problem have more to do with these issues.

That said my DS has had social problems at times and other ages did fine. He had a 'best friend' in 3rd & 4th that unfortunately had to move away.. He has been in therapy the last year and I did put him in a social skills class in junior high when he was having the most problems. Early puberty/junior high which is bad for most kids was terrible for him. But when the High School pushed a social skills group, DS would have nothing to do with it. He has really blossomed the past year without it and I attribute some of that to maturity and effort on his part. (But that doesn't mean he will be winning any popularity contests at school.) Through trial and error I have figured out social situations that do work for him. Organized and fairly rigid social structures like the high school band where his role is obvious, or much small 6-8 person groups where most of the kids are like him and share his interests.

Overall I would say even if he isn't ASD there is no reason not to take the social skills help as long as it seems to be working and he is not adverse to it. But also that I see nothing wrong with a kid who has only a few close friends. The question is more how happy your child is about it. How do you feel about the diagnosis? How would a diagnosis help at this time? (testing costs money) If you are uncomfortable with the diagnosis & treatment then get a second opinion. Otherwise it can probably wait. I missed the details of the fist week K challenges are but be reassured that most 5 year olds find this a rough transition for one reason or another.

P.S. I missed your first post. Reading that DS is even MORE like you son that I first though. Any assignment to THIS day where DS has to talk about his favorite, or take about his feeling he will completely shut down. I'll post a more about this later when I have more time.

Response to your original post.

As I said about this sound exactly like my DS16. High anxiety upon changing schools when he was young. Introvert, gifted, perfectionist (in the way that he'd rather do nothing than turn in work that isn't perfect), and can't/won't answer questions like "what is your favorite", what are your "hopes and dreams". We had a terrible time when DS was in 7th grade health and his teacher wanted to play unprofessional psychologist. He absolutely refused to write a journal about personal questions and turn it in to the teacher everyday. (I managed to get him moved out of a class with that teacher.) And his first day of gifted class in 4th grade when he wrote two sentences when asked to "tell the teacher about himself" while the other students wrote pages.

What we put in DS's 504 last year that seemed to help for the "what is your favorite type question" was getting requiring the teachers to re-frame prompts/questions like this for him. Changing prompts like "hopes and dreams for kindergarten" to something a bit more pragmatic like "draw me 3 things you want to learn in kindergarten this year". I have been working for years on getting DS to be able to re-fame these types of questions himself. That when a teacher asks for his favorite he doesn't need to take this word literally. His teacher doesn't really care if his favorite animal is a dog, cat, pig or bat they just want him to draw an animal of his choosing. The words "favorite" or similar in a prompt has been quite an issue for us over the years. Some teachers seem to LOVE the word and don't seem to understand how much this word gets in the way for DS.

I also sounds like some of your DS problems probably do have to do with all the changes. My son has always gotten high anxiety around big changes like this and it's manifested in different ways at different ages. If this is a case you need to give him a few weeks for things to settle down. I hope things are getting better. I don't mean to scare you by saying that we are still working on these things with my son, but I didn't really realize how much of an issue they were with him till he was older and would write nothing to a writing prompt.

Good Luck