Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment High IQ - average school performance

Thanks aeh - very useful. There's nothing in the report about the impact of timing on his scores but I remember the psych told me that he 'timed out' some of the tests that he got lower scores in and she thought he would have been able to complete them if he had had a bit longer.

I'll look into achievement testing too - it might help pin point where he is at academically and identify areas that he is weak in.

Welcome!

Giftedness does not necessarily equal high achievement in the classroom. If the work is too easy, the child may refuse to do it, somehow "lose" it, or overthink it (and therefore get a completely different answer, or fail to finish).

Giftedness can also mask learning disabilities. A gifted kid who is, say, dyslexic, may be able to keep up for awhile because he can figure out what is going on from classroom discussion, or synthesize answers on the fly without having read the text, but this gets more challenging with each year. He may never get tested for dyslexia because he manages to stay at grade level.

Yes, it is possible for a highly gifted child to not do well in school. The trick is figuring out why.

Gosh - this stuff is making my head spin! Do you mean that DS might have above average abilities in some areas and below average in others so that they cancel each other out and he ends up as average? I can sort of see that in theory but I really can't see how this would work with him - there doesn't seem to be anything he's really great at or really terrible at.

I definitely don't think he finds school work too easy - I've seen him in class and he does seem to try, he just finds it quite hard. I think dyslexia might be more likely as he did really struggle to learn to read but is there any point getting him tested for it now given he is a really good reader? It's not like he would need to go back re-learn to read using a different method. I mean I don't have problem at all getting him tested for something but there doesn't seem to be a point unless it's going to change things. Or is dyslexia something that can keep on being a problem even after you learn to read?

Yes, a few PP have been suggesting that he might have strengths and weaknesses that appear to cancel each other out. You might not be able to see them as literal strengths and weaknesses, because what many 2e individuals do is work very hard using their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses, just to get an average product. Rather than having mental or emotional energy left to excel in their strength areas, they spend it all on buttressing their weaknesses, often using strategies that are much less efficient than their neurotypical peers use.

For example, learners who struggle with phonetic decoding ("breaking the code"), but have very good visual memory, may laboriously memorize the shapes of all the most frequently encountered words. Eventually, they build up a repertoire that is functional, and may even be able to read reasonably quickly, but are still stumped by novel vocabulary, especially if they haven't heard the word in their oral vocabularies. So they look like readers who started slow but caught up, until you challenge them with low-incidence or technical vocabulary. If they have strong enough visual skills, they may even manage to memorize the spellings, but usually, they spell much more poorly than they read.

Another common situation is individuals who manage to learn the rules of phonetic decoding, but have a deficit in attaining automaticity, which restricts them from reaching reading fluency. They often read very slowly, fatigue easily, and may lose comprehension in lengthier text. They also tend to read better than they spell.

And yes, dyslexia can continue to be a problem even after an individual appears to be reading within the average range, especially with regard to reading comprehension, spelling, and written expression, for some of the same reasons described above. It also can affect vocabulary and general language development, especially beginning from grade 3 or 4 and up, when vocabulary acquisition starts to shift from oral (environmental) sources to written sources. If reading is slow or laborious, or if comprehension is compromised, then the dyslexic learner may be exposed to fewer and less sophisticated words, with the gap in vocabulary widening year on year. In your DS's case, the gap, if there were one, would be between his acquired vocabulary and his verbal cognition, not so much between him and age-peers.

It sounds like your DS is using his higher-level reasoning skills to manage reading comprehension, even though his decoding skills are only average. This is a good compensatory strategy, and one he will probably use all his life, and suggests that the most likely significant complications would probably arise in written expression--of which he has probably not had much demanded, so far.

And, btw, some research has found possible benefit to re-training dyslexics to read using more cognitively parsimonious strategies than the ones they typically use. (More brainpower freed up for other things, like comprehension.) Though he is probably too old and too good of a reader to bother if it is not otherwise called for.

Thanks aeh - that makes a lot of sense. It does sound like there might be some type of decoding problem going on with my DS. He reads fast now and can read for ages without getting tired but he did really struggle to learn at first and his spelling and writing are really poor. As you said, he probably is past the age of re-learning to read using other strategies so is this just something he needs to live with? Or is it something that we should do something about? And when he gets help for his weaker areas (writing, spelling, maths etc at school) is it likely that the sort of help he gets (in a mainstream public school) will be targeting his specific difficulty or is it likely that all the kids needing help will have different issues which the school can't possibly address? Sorry if these questions sound naïve - obviously I want to so what I can to support him but I don't want to replicate what the school is already doing. I don't want him to feel that there is anything wrong with being an 'average' student or needing extra help with things but also don't want him to be frustrated if he is in an ability group that he feels is too easy for him because they are addressing problems he doesn't have(he hasn't ever said this so perhaps it's not an issue).

I would suggest that, since his spelling and thus writing currently are compromised, and because of the apparent achievement gap, it would be helpful to him to be evaluated for stealth dyslexia (also known as compensated dyslexia), by a school-based or private psychologist (neuro, school, or clinical). If this is his learning profile, then it is likely that reading/spelling interventions based on the Orton-Gillingham method would help him, and may allow him to show more of his ability in written expression. In the schools, either OG, or the closely related Wilson, are the gold standard for remediation. Even though he is a very effective reader at this point, it would help his spelling. You could also, if he is willing to work at home, try the OG-based home program, All About Spelling, which is fairly affordable, and designed for an untrained parent or other tutor to use. www.allaboutlearning.com. Barton is another home or tutor-provided program, though somewhat pricier than AAS. There are also private OG and Wilson-certified tutors, often speech language pathologists, special education teachers, or reading specialists.

If he has not been identified with a reading disability by the school, which is not uncommon for those with the profile we are hypothesizing, he is probably not receiving the appropriate OG-type reading/spelling intervention. If he has not received individual or very small group reading support, then he has almost certainly not received it.

You may or may not find the school receptive to evaluating and qualifying him with dyslexia or specific learning disability in reading/writing. Either way, there are other paths to supporting his educational success, as many parents on this board can attest.