Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional will someone explain WISC-V coding score?

I searched and read every thread with "coding" and low-processing speed and still don't understand what it means.

What kinds of problems would you expect from a child with a barely average coding score (8) relative to higher scores in every other subtest?

I ask this in frustration, after watching DS sit on the couch with the laptop and type one sentence of a research paper in several hours' time. The research was printed and in front of him, I'd given him a very systematic way to deal with it, and he understood the subject matter well enough.

I made sure he didn't stray into youtube, bribed, coddled, threatened, etc. and he just sat there making weird noises, humming, squeaking, etc. and occasionally throwing his stress ball against the wall. He wasn't even in a bad mood--just totally out in lala land. WHAT IS THIS? Is this related to his 2E profile, and which part?

He is very frustrating. I can't tell how much is can't and how much is won't or "prefers not to." I try to be compassionate and look at this as a lagging skill set but I can't figure out which skill(s) are indicated.

We had a neuropsych eval with DD and he said it's an executive functioning issue. She doesn't have the planning/organizational ability to figure out how to get started or how to organize her thoughts. He suggested breaking everything down into tiny parts and having her use graphic organizers. DD says she doesn't like the graphic organizers, so even that may be too difficult for her. At this point she basically requires someone to sit with her to do projects like this.

I don't think that this is directly related to "coding" but slow processing speed is another manifestation of impaired executive functioning.

This is an interesting article, scroll down to the boxes and look at #1 activation, and #3 effort.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10782.aspx

That sounds about right. DS is totally resistant to having any help, also. He is under the impression, evidently, that "nobody else" needs their mom's help with HW--even though I've given him direct, contradictory evidence.

I even asked him to just start talking, and I'd type, and then we could organize later. Nope.

He did eventually come up with a paper. Grammar, mechanics, etc.=excellent. Voice=inappropriate (but I just let him say "weirdly enough" etc. for transitions--killing one bird at a time, here, in SOS mode). Organization=questionable. I think, once he begins "talking," he is fairly organized, naturally, just because he has high verbal ability.

I absolutely can not BELIEVE how difficult it is to get him started on writing anything that isn't his own idea.

I'd given him this idea: go through and highlight things you want to quote/paraphrase re: each main idea using a different color. Then go through and paste those things in. Paraphrase, quote as needed. Then I said I'd help with the citations.

This thing could have written itself. He couldn't understand that he didn't have to say anything earth-shattering. He kept saying, "it seems like all these sources just keep saying the same thing over and over again--redundant." I couldn't get him to understand that is kind of what a research paper is.

Once he started writing, he completed five pages pretty quickly, but it definitely seemed like he was trying to be entertaining and not informative.

Okay, activation is what this is called. I don't know if that has a relationship to "coding," itself, just grasping at explanatory straws.

DS processing speed is not even all that bad: 109 last test. Coding was his lowest score, significantly.

Can every single thing he struggles with be related to EF? It sure seems that way.

blackcat--have you had any success with "extended time" etc. with your DD? In DS' case, it seems to me like he needs the opposite of extended time. Like, you have 15 minutes to get this done. OTOH, if he perceives the deadline as too close, this causes major anxiety and shut down. Very tricky balancing act.

DD's lowest score was coding as well (it was 25th percentile, or an "8", on WISC IV). Compare that to GAI 150.

She was impaired on every aspect of EF (the 7 or 8 "boxes") on the BRIEF.

Only difference between her and your DS is that she does not have Aspergers.

Sometimes she is helped with a timer, for instance she is sometimes overwhelmed w/ her math homework. Sometimes I set a timer and say "see what you can get done in 20 min. then you can stop". If she knows that she only has to work for 20 min. it seems to help. But other times, knowing there is a time limit makes her extremely anxious. For instance timed math fluency tests.

The neuropsych did recommend using a timer w/ her, not as a "Hey you have to get XYZ done before the timer beeps" but so that she is reminded by the timer to keep working and so she can see how much she got done or didn't get done in a certain time period.

DS was also impaired on every BRIEF aspect. His ADHD and anxiety symptoms are far more impairing than his social communication--which is only evident in certain environments and situations where he is expected to "code-switch," for lack of a better term.

For whatever reason, math has been his easiest subject, in terms of "activation." I think it's because he doesn't have to make a lot of interferences about what the heck he's supposed to be doing. He didn't do well with timed tests on "math facts", either, when he was younger--would get answers correct, but never finished. Now that the facts are more automatic, this never causes any trouble for him.

I asked him if he agreed that math is the easiest thing to "get started on" and he does. He also does fairly well with straightforward, worksheet, fill-in-the-blank stuff.

Writing may kill both of us.

P.S. I wonder if neurofeedback could help?

I don't think the "cognitive training" like those "Brain Balance" programs work long term but I don't remember what I read about neurofeedback. I just know it's debatable and our insurance won't cover it.

Short answer: no on cognitive training. They are effective at raising performance on the specific task trained, with negligible transfer to anything else.

To the bigger question of EF, processing speed, etc.: I hear a few aspects of EF that are particularly challenging in your case.

1. initiation (what was referenced as activation). This is, as you correctly note, the skill of getting started.
2. idea generation. Learners on the spectrum often have challenges with this one, as it involves mental flexibility, imaginative and speculative thinking, etc. GT learners and other divergent thinkers also can have problems with this for the opposite reason--which is that there are so many possibilities that they can't figure out how to settle down to one or two. Actually, this ambiguity affects spectrum learners, too, since there's no clear "right" answer. Both ends of the spectrum in idea generation lead directly into difficulties with initiation.
3. planning and organization: Again, this feeds back into initiation. If you don't know where you're going, it can be hard to take the first step.
4. shift/flexibility. You mention this specifically with regard to code-switching.

What does any of this have to do with Coding? Well, yes, it's a fine motor speed/processing speed task, but it also is affected by sustained attention, switching/shifting, working memory, anxiety, etc.

It might help to try a variety of graphic organizers for writing, so that the planning portion is heavily scaffolded. For initiation, sometimes it helps to narrow the choices, sometimes it helps to "prime the pump" with a few examples or sentence stems. Or you can prime the pump by having him start from whatever portion of the paper is easiest for him to write. (There is no rule that says papers have to be written in the same sequence in which you publish them. I write most of my psych evals beginning from the third section.)

It can also be extremely difficult for highly logical/analytical thinkers to understand the function of the smoothing and illustrative parts of writing (transitions, elaborations, examples), as they may be perceived as extraneous fluff. I definitely saw this difference when I moved from an experimental science to a social science. Research publications became (literally) 5 times as long, with much less than 5 times less data. (25 pages on a single descriptive case study, vs 2 very dense pages of reproducible hard data in PNAS.)

Learners who struggle with sustained attention also need personal investment in the topic of writing even more than those who don't, which is why writing about a topic not of his selection is noticeably more difficult. Finding a connection between the assigned topic and something he cares about can make a huge difference in the quality and ease of his writing.

Thanks, aeh. When I have enough time and energy, I can normally get DS excited about most any topic. This was a strength, when I taught, the ability to have kids make personal connections. Also a weakness, because the follow-through is SO DIFFICULT. At 13, DS is much more difficult to reach--it requires an advanced finesse. He is extraordinarily resistant to anything he thinks is "pointless." We are having to get creative around here in developing a cause/effect mentality.

eco, you've received excellent advice already - I just have a few things to add:

I think your ds has had a neurospcyh or educational eval, hasn't he? If so, it might help to revisit the report from that eval and maybe even talk to the psych who gave the eval, letting him/her know where he's at now and what type of challenges he's facing. It's just so very easy to look at one thing that's happening with a child, compare it with things you've researched and read about, see similiarities, and think, hey, that's it... when there's a chance it might be all of it, part of it, or something else entirely. It's important to remember that the WISC subtests are impacted by challenges but don't necessarily define what those challenges are - processing speed and coding in particular can be impacted be many, many different abilities.

For instance - I'll throw out my ds as an example - and he's only an example and he might not relate at all to your ds' experience, but fwiw: his relatively low PSI index is primarily due to coding - he scores fairly high on symbol search. His depressed coding score isn't due to initiation at all - it's due to a fine motor challenge. Symbol search also requires fine motor to answer the task, but it's a much less complicated, thought-required fine motor skill, so it's easier for him to accomplish quickly.

One of the things his fine motor challenge impacted a lot when he was in elementary was timed math facts. Once he was past those in math class it wasn't obvious at all that their was a fine motor issue (impacting math)... until he hit upper grades where he has timed standardized testing - and he does run out of time on those without extended time - you can tell he's running out of time because he leaves questions at the end of the test unanswered (plus he can tell us). He doesn't have that issue in the classroom - he's bright and capable enough that he's able to easily answer the questions in the same amount of time that teachers typically give the test so that kids who have to think about the problems have enough time to answer all the problems. And in the twisted world of early teen-hood, that's been enough for ds to honestly think he doesn't need extended time... until he takes a standardized timed test that's normed on a wide population sample and specifically meant to separate out by ability rather than allow everyone a chance to answer each question. I only mention this because... if your ds doesn't have an extended time accommodation, and he's had difficulty finishing math tests in the given amount of time in the past (or other types of tests involving handwriting), you might want to be certain there isn't a component of fine motor impacting his writing so that he receives the appropriate accommodations now, rather than having to scramble and prove he needs them later on.

My ds also has a challenge with written expression. It can really *look* like an initiation challenge, and it appears really uneven. When he writes, he writes really well. It could appear that he's writing when he is engaged because he's interested in a topic, but if you look deeper the issue is more with the type of writing - is he having to make inferences, is the topic open-ended, etc. You mentioned that you're able to get your ds to write once he's made a personal connection. This sounds somewhat reminiscent of what writing is like for my ds - it happens with a lot of support in the form of prompting/work at initiation etc. I don't know if it would benefit your ds at all, but speech therapy focused on writing was *tremendously* helpful for my ds. And a lot of support from me at home with strategies his SLP suggested.

For myself, and for many of my ds' teachers, it's not easy to differentiate from things my ds finds "pointless" simply because he would naturally feel that way about them, and things that he finds "pointless" because they are difficult. The tricky thing about that is - the things a child is finding "pointless" because they are difficult are things that probably need some type of targeted/strategized/specific type of support, or at least would benefit from it - but when we see the behavior as resistance just because a child doesn't want to do it, we don't know to deliver (or how to deliver) the help that's needed. As 2e kids get older two things happen - one, the hopeless or pointless feelings they have about certain types of assignments start feeling like that to them, whereas when they are younger and just starting out in school they are more aware of the task being something they feel like they can't do. Sometimes tweens and teens don't want to admit to themselves that they "can't" and it morphs into "don't want" to do it. The other thing that happens concurrently is that academic demands increase at school - so writing assignments become longer, more complicated etc.

So - it might be all cause/effect with the writing, but I'd wonder if maybe there's an underlying *something* going on that's impacting it too. That's all together why I'd suggest a touch-base appointment (just for you) with his neuropsych (or developmental ped or whoever) to run through what you're seeing now, and see if the psych/whoever has any thoughts re what might be up. If you didn't have a private eval, I'd consider asking the school to look into the initiation question.

As I mentioned above, I didn't meant to suggest that anything that's going on with my ds is in any way related to whatever is going on with your ds.. and I'm not a professional, only a parent. I just wanted to point out how difficult it can be to see what's really up, and also point out how it can be extremely important to really try to understand what's up. Hope that makes sense! And... it's not something any of us 2e parents figure out overnight either.... I'm still learning more and more about my ds' challenges as the years go by.

Best wishes,

polarbear

One thing you might contemplate here... are you getting your ds excited... or is whatever you're doing giving him enough clues/support/scaffolding that he's *able* to get started?

pb

I have wanted to get his language evaluated (and listed that as a concern in eval request), but the school won't do it. I planned to do it through the university, but to tell the truth--between having to be DS' frontal lobe, along with taking him to constant "other" appointments (and his grade in one class being reduced on the basis he was not there to "participate"), I really just hit a wall.

I would not be at all surprised if there is something going on with his language, beyond pragmatics. He just says so many weird things, and is so difficult to communicate with about things that seem pretty basic.

I also wonder about his fine-motor skill. When the school OT did the VMI (?) last year, she noted that his "hand shook" but DS told her that it shakes when he is on meds. He has very messy handwriting (but can make it look very nice, if he's slooooooow), can't snap his fingers, was at least 10 by the time he could tie shoes, button pants, etc. He is very fast at keyboarding, can play multiple instruments, draw, and build Legos. But I guess those are different processes.

I probably should go ahead and have the language evaluation, privately. It's discouraging because I figure, even if he were diagnosed with an SLD, the school would still refuse to evaluate him. I continue to shake my head in disbelief they refused this year, with his history and a very detailed NP report. She did not do anything language oriented, though, except ADOS. As far as I can tell, anyway.

His NP moved out of town and is kaput. I attempted to contact her, earlier this year, for a consult and received no response. I am considering taking the report to another NP to see what they might suggest.

I never feel like I "really know what's up" with DS.

I think engaging in conversation about a topic gets him going, intellectually. He likes to converse. Also, when we do this, he normally is standing, throwing a ball back and forth against the wall, moving and being funny. I'm not sure if that is DS managing anxiety, or DS trying to use his own personal activation strategies.

He sounds a lot like my ds - my ds' SLP referred to the engaging in conversation as a "jump start" to get his thoughts flowing out. DS describes it (for him) as not an issue of having too many thoughts to decide between, but literally "having nothing" in terms of thoughts, but engaging in conversation with another person helps get his brain in "thought" motion. Once his SLP discovered that connection, she worked on finding ways for him to "jump start" in the classroom. Her first suggestion was to talk it over with a teacher or fellow student, and if that option wasn't available she discovered that just moving his mouth helped - so she had him chew on gum or a granola bar. She also suggested he get up and move around - walk to the bathroom and back if walking around in the classroom wasn't an option. At home he would always prefer to be up and moving around or playing with clay or something while we brainstormed writing topics.

I don't know if these are things your ds necessarily "needs" but they are things that help my ds (who needs them) and are also widely used by the *adults* with no challenges that I know.... so they might be things that would help your ds' writing process flow quicker... just fyi: speech to text and keyboarding with word-prediction.

Anyway, fwiw, when my ds was initially evaluated by an SLP he didn't have *low* scores on the CELF (widely-used speech assessment), but he had uneven scores, some extremely high, others around average, similar to the unevenness on his WISC. He was diagnosed with an expressive language challenge based on the discrepancy in scores. Speech therapy really did help a ton.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Hi eco, I'm sorry - I didn't notice this reply yesterday!


Our school wouldn't evaluate our ds' language either, although I do believe (based on what our advocate told us and based on what I've researched) that the school has a responsibility to either evaluate for speech/language or provide a written response re why they don't see the need. If you hadn't gotten that far with your school you could make the request again, listing reasons you suspect the issue. It might or might not work. To be honest, we had a *very* tough time advocating for evaluation and services at our ds' elementary school.

We made the choice to go for a private SLP eval for two reasons: first, we'd already been through two tough years of advocating at school by the time we realized our ds had an expressive language challenge (and before we realized SLPs can help with written expression), so we predicted that going through the school eval would take considerable time (based on our previous experience) and had a high probability of resulting in no services offered. We also felt, in our situation (school etc), that it was imperative to get our ds appropriate help, and help received through the school at that point was minimal and sub-par. That's just one school though - and doesn't represent any other school anywhere else.

One thing we did that you might be able to do is network around and find a school district SLP who you can find out some basic info from: i.e., what is the school district bar for qualifying for SLP services. In our case, we knew up front once we'd asked that our ds would not qualify under the *typical* set of district guidelines, meaning we'd have another uphill battle to advocate through.


I totally understand this - and I've been there. There is only so much you can do with 24 hours in anyone day and in order to have some kind of life outside of dealing with 2e issues. I am not a person who looks back or has regrets or any of that, but to be honest, parenting a child who struggles is extremely time consuming, and it's time consuming for the child to, to deal with everything. It also takes a lot of mental energy for kids to cope with these types of challenges, and with having to go to tutors/therapists/etc. When we're in the thick of it as parents we often don't realize what our kids (and ourselves) are missing in terms of just having time to relax and recharge. It's tough. Really tough. You can't fit everything in, you just have to pick and choose and deal with it all as best you can - so don't ever forget that as his mother, you're the person who knows best what direction to take at any given point in time.

[eco21268]I would not be at all surprised if there is something going on with his language, beyond pragmatics. He just says so many weird things, and is so difficult to communicate with about things that seem pretty basic.[/quote]

Sounds like something's up. And it may be that you're at one of those intersections on the 2e journey where you have to step back, reassess and think - do I need to deal with this issue head-on for now, instead of something else we're working on. Communication challenges can get more complicated and difficult as the years go by in school. Especially once you hit that transition from middle school to high school and expectations from teachers rise, project work becomes more integrated into the curriculum, and parents are generally not a part of the communication mix between school and student.


This all sounds *so* much like my ds - who has a dyspraxia diagnosis. The snapping fingers issue actually relates to a test (somewhat) that's part of the criteria used in diagnosing fine-motor dysgraphia (it's called a "finger-tapping" test - and requires the student to repeat finger tapping combinations made by the evaluator). When my ds was initially diagnosed and this test was mentioned, I thought the neurospych was crazy when she suggested my ds couldn't repeat her finger tapping sequences - it looked like such a basic task. Then I went home, told my dh all about it, and found out he couldn't repeat that type of task either! Anyway, I digress... sorry! The one thing that is different for my ds in your description above is that he isn't terribly fast with keyboarding. It is *very* typical of dysgraphic children however (which is separate and not necessarily related to dyspraxia) to be able to keyboard quickly yet labor over handwriting.

You might want to look at dyspraxia symptoms if you haven't already. Our neuropsych has a diagram that illustrates how many of the symptoms of dysgraphia, ASD, and ADHD intersect.


So I think what you've experienced (let me know if I get this incorrect!) is that you have presented the np eval with diagnoses and recommendations to the school, requested an evaluation for IEP eligibility through the school, and the school has said no, they will not evaluate for IEP eligibility. Is that correct? Did you make the request in writing?


Our np didn't do any language-oriented eval either, other than confirm that it was a possibility ds may have an expressive language challenge and that speech therapy could potentially be helpful. DS' actual speech/expressive language eval was done through the SLP.


That's too bad about the original np. If you can network around and get a good reference, I'd seriously consider taking the original report along with your updated observations to a new np for a review.


I don't know if it's helpful or not to hear this, but I always feel like I'm chasing things from behind - sometimes way behind. I will feel like ds will make great progress (and my other kids, one 2e, one totally nt and at the moment, totally teen lol), and then wham! yet another *something* comes up. We're two years away from college now, and on the one hand I'm amazed at how far ds has come from the elementary student who couldn't communicate, and on the other hand there are days when I wonder how on earth he's going to be ready in time to go to college. So although it may sound (on here) like I have things figured out - and really, I do feel like I have a *lot* of things figured out - I don't know that I'll ever have it figured out! Hope that makes sense - just wanted you to know, you're not alone

Best wishes,

polarbear

Warning: three days worth of response in one way-too-big post.

Reading through this whole thread, I’m nodding so much I look like a bobble-head. Coding score of 6 (age 8) and 7 (age 10). Hours to produce a single sentence. Lala land is DS’s country of origin. And I’ve had many moments of “oh yes” reading about blackcat's DD, and I am still trying to pursue the expressive language “aha” prompted by polarbear a year or two ago.

This year, pretty much all written work has come home, to be finished over many, many hours. Every night, I’m at his shoulder prompting, reminding, trying to keep on task - we’re both exhausted. For DS, at least, I'm pretty clear this is a can’t, not a won’t. Which doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally catch myself demanding, rather too loudly, “would you just focus for a minute and get this DONE?”

But my suspicion is that, like blackcat, executive function is a huge piece. DS is - to my expert diagnosis! - extremely, extremely ADHD-inattentive. Organizing and planning his thoughts to get them on paper is overwhelmingly difficult. Keeping focus when writing is hard at the best of times, and just excruciating if he has no interest in the topic. I do a lot of brainstorming with him if the topic has shut him down, to try and find a hook that brings it back into his areas of interest.

There is something fine motor there too - his hands are definitely too bendy. He says writing hurts, and avoids shoelaces and using a knife as much as possible (buttons are verboten). It’s like the fine motor end of dyspraxia, but none of the gross motor. No hints of dysgraphia, though (writing is messy, but fluid enough and accurate if copying). Grammar and mechanics excellent, teachers always said quality was great - but quantity is almost non-existent. He’s been on a computer at school since grade 3. Keyboarding is essential, but still only helps a tiny bit.

I still try offering to scribe when he’s really stuck, but mostly he says no - the words don’t come any more easily when he delegates the typing. Where I do a lot of writing is in the brainstorming/ planning phase. I take notes while he talks so he doesn’t lose key ideas, and then help him think about how to organize them in a graphic or outline form. Then, when I step back to let him to actually write, he has a map in front of him and just has to turn it into sentences.

Graphic organizers help, but still require a fair bit of one-on-one mentoring, leading him from one piece to the next. Rules help a lot, though. I drew up a “five paragraph essay” schematic that comes out every time he has to write something of that ilk, that pretty much defines what kind of content needs to go in each sentence of each the five paragraphs. Yes, DS, they are repetitive. Yes, you do have to say what you are going to say, then say it, then summarize what you said. But it’s all laid out, sentence by sentence, so it takes the argument out of it. Rules help.

He’s also a super visual thinker: he clearly stores pictures, not words, so there is a translating function that needs to happen. For him, a couple of words brings that whole vision into his mind, but the rest of us only have those couple of words and don’t see the rest of the picture. So we spend a lot of time discussing the kinds of assumptions you can make about your audience’s prior knowledge. Sometimes it helps to define a slightly different audience - a friend or a grandparent, depending on the topic - to make it easier for him to grasp what needs to be explicitly explained in his writing and what he can assume the reader already know. (“But my teacher already KNOWS that - she’s the one who taught us!”)

A teacher last year also had a set of writing models on her wall that went from basic level 1 to sophisticated level 10. Each step explicitly defined what you would add in to move to the next level, and provided samples of how and what it would look like. Again, explicit rules like this seem to help DS a lot. (Interestingly, he generally hates language arts, but loves poetry writing - if he’s allowed to use super-structured formats like haiku and pyramids. I imagine these feel more like a puzzle than writing, trying to figure out what kind of piece he can create to fit in each required spot.)

Looking at the list of functions on the Davidson article, I would say DS rocks #5 (working memory is off the chart) and the rest is non-existent. However, while he is lost in figuring out where/ how to start writing, coming up with ideas is not a problem. He usually has lots to say. His sister gets blocked seemingly because she’s so overwhelmed with ideas she can’t figure out how to choose. Her excellent teacher this year has figured out how to help her find that opening line (sometimes after hours or days of staring at a blank page), and then boom, it all flows. (Teacher quote I want to embroider as a cover for her IEP: “It really looks like resistance, but it’s not.”) For DS, in contrast, getting started hurts, but every subsequent line is also just as excruciatingly painful to draw out as the one before.

“He was trying to be entertaining and not informative…" Oh yes. Since forever, DS has had a need to make what he does “interesting” (not to mention “complex”, his favourite word of yore). It was hard to know what he could and couldn't do, because he just wouldn’t, on principle, produce a recognizable drawing, clay sculpture, or whatever that looked like anyone else’s, or like the teacher’s model, because that would be boring. Sounds like this might ring some bells?

Extended time doesn’t really help, as he needs the extension in days, not hours, and one-on-one mentoring during it. argh. I strongly suspect we need to bite the bullet and seriously investigate ADHD drugs before next school year; it just feels cruel to leave him struggling like this if there is a way to help. However, since he already eats nothing and sleeps minimally, we’ve been putting off that option as long as possible.

An interesting last note, picking up on polarbear’s comment about tasks that are “pointless”: DD, unlike her brother, has actually been assessed for and is diagnosed with ADHD-inattentive (though she’s nowhere near as affected as he). Focus and attention were massive problems in the classroom when younger. Since discovering and remediating her dyslexia, though, her teachers tell me attention problems have completely vanished. Not that she isn’t still ADHD, but it seems that reading and writing tasks at school have become intrinsically motivating instead of painful, and no longer trigger her attention issues. It has emphasized to me that when some one thing is particularly hard to keep the attention on, it’s worth looking closely at that thing to see what is so deeply de-motivating about it. It’s hard to keep your attention closely focused on something that feels near-impossible.

I have hopes that we might perhaps see some similar - if less dramatic - effects with DS’s writing, if we can find ways of directly supporting/ remediating the expressive language barriers between thought and output. The huge and far more sophisticated writing demands make on him this year have really helped me see that the problem is not just with getting words on paper, but starts way sooner, with just getting ideas into words. Combined with his breaking down over tasks related to making inference and connections, I feel like I finally have something coherent to take to a psych to get my concerns about expressive language taken seriously.

All this is a really long way of sending hugs and commiserations, and agreeing that digging into why may helpful.

Thanks to both of you for all of this information. It's nice to not feel so...alone.

Platypus--DS *does* take stimulant med and it *does* help a lot at school. He absolutely hates it, though, and that is painful. He absolutely *will not* take it on the weekend, and that's when I usually try to help him with his writing. He had genetic testing and has a gene associated with increased anxiety and attention problems, and ALSO with a reduced response to stimulant med. It has to do with dopamine metabolism, complex stuff.

We may try Strattera over the summer. I have never heard of anyone having a "wow" response to it but DS really suffers with the side effects of stimulants.

It really feels unfair, TBH. I have to remind myself that he is fortunate because he is a brilliant person along with all of these challenges.

I helped him study for a test and it was pretty enlightening, and hilarious, and also sad. We made flash cards and I would say, "what do you know about dolomite," for instance, and he absolutely could. not. answer. the question phrased that way. His responses were things like (in the dolomite instance)--"Um, not much--it's a rock." When I asked the question more specifically, he was able to recall a lot more detail and express it more clearly. But if I don't say the right word, he just STICKS in a strange, literal place.

I also noticed that he cannot "memorize" in terms of rote memory, if he doesn't understand the concept. He was having trouble with understanding the "coriolos effect," and said there was no use trying to just memorize a blurb about it--yet could describe other more complicated concepts quite easily, because he understands them.

This makes it really hard to play the school game. He won't answer unless he feels confident in his understanding. No ability to BS. Sad (to me) that we are actively working on the BS Factor.

I think there is something going on that is EF related, that affects all of these processes, that maybe I just don't have the correct words for just yet. If he could be tested orally, I think he'd be a very successful student.

Lots of hugs and commiserations coming right back at you! I'm still deciding about what to do with DS. I think the fast-paced high-pressure environment he's in is not healthy and doesn't fit the way he thinks. No good fit for this guy right now.

P.S. I tell DS he needs to write his answers to things as if he were explaining to his seven-year-old cousin and that actually works! Weird how we've come up with the same interventions.

P.P.S. OMG, DS writes really great poetry, too! I didn't take in all that you wrote. You could be talking about my kid.

You're describing what could be a retrieval deficit. It's all about the hook, both for getting it into long-term storage, and for getting it back out. When he is able to take notecards into tests, he should make sure that he studies to mastery with the SAME notecards he will have, so that the retrieval cues can be attached to the materials he has available in the testing situation.

It may also help him to learn some typical "translations" for the kinds of questions that teachers ask in class and on assignments and assessments, so that he can re-interpret those excessively vague and open-ended questions into something that works better for him.

Is that an EF thing or an LD?

I wondered about that, while I was working with him. I told him, for now, just to interpret all questions as "say everything you know" about the concept/term and explained to him that is a better strategy than leaving a blank. This sounds nutty, but DS was astonished. He said, dubiously, "I don't think she gives partial credit." I don't think he even understands what that means.

I usually consider it an LD-related deficit, but you could classify it as EF, since it's generally assessed using neuropsych EF instruments like the WRAML or RCFT.

It's not particularly important which category it falls into.

eco, that's really tough that your DS is struggling so much with the stimulants. As if it wasn't bad enough that they're not helping the way you might hope, it's brutal that they are adding to your DS's frustration and to conflict with him. Sending oodles of commiseration.

As I understand it, a huge piece of ADHD is trouble with factoids. I certainly see it with my kids. Isolated bits of data are really hard for them to absorb. Complex concepts with context, much, much easier. We could actually see this really clearly in memory tests in my daughter's psych assessment, where scores ranged from 30s to 90s, generally increasing with more meaningful tasks. For example, her recall of story details was amazing, but words lists not so much.

It's really important for them to have an over-arching concept or framework first, into which they can insert the bits of data. Like a minerals classification scheme, with an understanding of all the key characteristics that could be looked at and how they are used to sort/ differentiate the various minerals... I'm the antithesis of visual spatial, but I suspect the way my kids would deal with that kind of question is to picture a periodic table kind of schematic in their head, find the mineral in question, and then derive its characteristics from what they know about the characteristics associated with the rows and columns into which they have put that particular sample....

Getting my ADHD daughter to memorize meaningless info, like names of capitals, is like pulling teeth. My other gifted kid who doesn't have ADHD or is "less" ADHD does not have a problem w/ this at all. She scored in the average range on most memory neuropsych tests vs. her reasoning ability was so much higher. Working memory on the WISC IV was very high, however. Not sure why. Working memory in terms of the BRIEF for executive functioning was in the very impaired range, so there is a difference depending on what a person means by working memory as well. The type of working memory on the WISC is completely different than working memory for executive functioning.

My question was really "who diagnoses this?" Thanks for answering it, despite my clunkiness.

I couldn't say if DS is visual/spatial but I do think he has to actually need the information (factoids) before they begin to sprout in his brain. I think the reason I can get him excited about topics is because I ask him a lot of questions about the "whys" of things. He doesn't do "whats" very well. I bet that doesn't make sense...but it does to me, because I process information similarly.
I know you just used states/capitols as an example, but that's one of the puzzling things about the way DS learns. He *does* learn things like states/capitols relatively quickly--but I think he has an innate interest. Also he learned that particular set of info when he was super young, working with puzzles and games.

His working memory was just fine on recent WISC-V, not crazy high but I think it was mid 120s. He can't "memorize" the basics of getting ready in the morning, though, despite having done these things since he was little! Or maybe it's not that he can't, but that he prefers not to, and doesn't have to, because I do it all morning, every morning. SO EXHAUSTING.

I am pretty sure the BRIEF assessment is just observers rating behaviors, correct? DS bombed that one, too, along with all of the EF related stuff in the ABAS-2 he took last year.

He doesn't seem to be able to memorize auditory, multiple-step instructions, but knows every major league baseball player who ever lived, along with their stats, history, big games, etc. He also knows a lot of pop culture stuff, remembers names of songs/bands, etc., unlike ME, who can't remember any of that stuff, ever. My friends make fun of me because I never know anything about actors, musicians, etc. or sports (I thought Kobe Bryant was a baseball player, for instance), but I just *can't* make myself care about it and my brain doesn't work unless I care.

I can't remember names of books I've read or who wrote them, unless I'm completely enchanted by them. I've found myself mid-book more than once, suddenly feeling "this seems familiar" and realizing I've read it before.

I mention that part because of the whole apple/tree relationship but also because I wonder if this is a similar deficit.