Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment So what happened at your kid's assessment?

Aside from our testing being in network, this is almost exactly our experience. Our DS5 (then 4) was having major problems at his second preschool after being kicked out of the first one. As parents we felt like the problem was more with the school or the placement and not so much with our kid, but really wanted an outside observer to check for problems we might have been obvious to like ADHD or ASD or some other behavior disorder. Because it was checking for something "wrong" insurance covered it, as much as they do anything. Since the question involves a bunch of questions about problems as much as about general iq, there's a decent shot at getting it covered if you ask correctly.

It may not, but since the OP is clearly concerned about them, these are important and legitimate concerns to raise before the PCP and psychological examiner. The best possible outcome would be that they are simple overexcitabilities in a gifted child, and the parents receive recommendations appropriate to such. Everyone goes home happy, and insurance also pays (legitimately) for the eval.

aeh, thank you so much, that is a great outline of what I need to ask for. A psychologist with experience for a psychoed eval would be able to do a neuropsych too, yes?

That depends on their additional training and clinical experience. Although neuropsych is a named specialization, the actual skills needed for what constitutes a neuropsych eval are actually part of the training of many clinical, school, and counseling psychs as well. Most psychoeds are conducted by clinical or school psychs (those done in schools are overwhelmingly done by school psychs). Even if the examiner is not ABCN/ABPP certified in neuropsychology, they may still be able to generate a decent neuropsych eval. Mainly, you will want to have a good conversation with them about the kind of referral questions with which they have experience, what they do to investigate them, how they respond to ambiguous or unexpected findings in the midst of an evaluation, etc.

For a directory of board certified neuropsychs, see here (and select pediatric subspecialty):
https://theaacn.org/directory/

Keep in mind that a professional's absence from this list does not necessarily mean that they are not adequately competent, but the presence of a name does mean they have demonstrated a minimum level of training and knowledge on a written exam (similar to the medical boards). I know of a number of neuropsychs in my area to whom I would have no problem making referrals who are not board-certified.

I am liking your post, Portia!

Pained smile indeed. There's no clear line, but for me I guess it happens somewhere around when you move from: it's hard for you to live with them, to it's hard for them to live with themselves.

yes, indeed, we didn't end up at the drs without actual problems being present. Ds had trouble making friends and dd had/has issues not being able to stop talking, beyond even what might be considered 'normal' for young girls (so you know that's a LOT of talking) - and this lack of impulse control was problematic in other areas as well. I say 'was' because we've made progress, however it still comes out when she's tired, etc.

We're going to get a psychoeducational assessment for DS6 for the same reasons (OEs and not for placement, right now). From what I understand, the psychologist who is doing the assessment also does counselling to help GCs develop ways to tone down the intensity a bit. I sure hope she's good!

Oh, and we're lucky that our insurance covers both.

I would add one thing to Portia's note - with young, gifted children, it's easy to find things related to giftedness to suspect as a cause for intense behaviors/etc - and as parents we like to see the things that are wonderful about our children as opposed to seeing a behavior as a symptom of something that might be a challenge. This happened to *me* in a big way - when our ds was young we thought he wasn't writing, for example, because we thought he was a perfectionist. It never occurred to me that a child who was so clearly advanced in verbal language would have any academic or other challenges. As he moved into 2nd grade in school, his unrecognized 2e challenges caused him to have behavior issues that we again, as parents, thought had to be due to boredom since it was so clear to us that he was intellectually way beyond 2nd grade.

madeinuk, your dd has been very successful at school and you've never suspected anything 2e - so chances are there is nothing going on that is in the slightest bit 2e with her. The OP, however, has concerns and has a younger child. I would trust my gut instincts as a parent if I felt at all concerned that there might be something more going on than "gifted overexcitabilities" - especially if I saw the challenges as impacting my child's happiness or ability to function.

I'll also add - it's not impossible for 2nd e's to slip by undetected until middle school, high school, or even adulthood. We've seen that happen in my family, and I've seen it happen with a few adult friends too. The frustrating thing about that with the people I've known well who've experienced it is, they experienced frustration and unhappiness for quite a bit of their lives until finally getting a diagnosis. If a parent suspects a challenge when their child is young, absolutely get an eval and check it out - if nothing is found, the eval was still worth pursuing!

Best wishes,

polarbear

I didn't read this whole thread, but I'll add to polarbear's, that not all evaluators/psychologists seem to understand 2e or that they need to look for discrepancies. They focus on composite scores. Average range...no problem, parent needs to stop stressing. They might call a certain skill a "weakness" but not go any further than that, but many gifted kids with disabilities score average on standardized tests, because they are able to use advanced reasoning ability or other compensatory skills, and concerns are blown off, when there really still should be a concern if there are big gaps between scores, or the child's achievement isn't on par for what you'd expect given their cognitive ability.