Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research PG? Husband is a skeptic, I am on the fence

Can you be both visual spatial and auditory? Yes. Those are mixed learners.

There are different types visual learners though. Some kids seem more into computers and coding than others; coding is more sequential. Some are more into maps or puzzles than others. Some are more into art or music. Some can pick up language through phonics while others are more whole language initially before memorizing phonics.

Remember, phonics can involve discriminating sound -- or memorizing pattern of phonics by sight. With my 2e/pg ds10, it was the later. He had trouble discriminating the different phonic sounds since he has CAPD (central auditory processing disorder). So he relied heavily on his visual spatial skills to discriminate the different phonic patterns with letters.

There can be overlap with higher levels of giftedness, ADHD, and spatial learners - even with spectrumy traits too. My ds doesn't have ADHD but he has some traits and has been misdiagnosed with ADHD. Ditto for PDD (pervasive development disorder/Asperger's). Then again, though ds is spatially gifted, he has visual deficits (some convergence insufficiency), CAPD, and sensory issues -- which can look like ADHD. Plus, he's gifted, been very asynchronous, and OE (overexcited) a lot.

I haven't found too many people who are so expert at disentangling the often subtle differences between higher levels of giftedness, ADHD, spectrum issues, sensory, OE, etc. There are some IF you go digging a lot and search far and wide. Quite frankly, I think many people lack the expertise.

I had to keep going up the totem pole with ds and the testing. Even then, the tests or paperwork say one thing about ds. But that's only a snapshot and often not what I see on a daily basis. We get flashes, at times. But he's still only 10. The maturity and consistency are not there yet.

IF you've got a very creative kid, it can appear even more perplexing because oftentimes the IQ scores are very scattered, inconsistent, and not overly high to boot. Yet I could cite many famous people who would fall into this category. Yet, I think, too often, many people tend to throw up their hands and reach for an easy diagnosis, which often ends up being a misdiagnosis. And IF this is the case, as it was in our situation, I would strongly suggest looking to find that proverbial needle in the haystack to figure things out if necessary.

There can been a wide range with these kids. Even the classification between high achieving, gifted, and creative, often isn't as clearly delineated as this site suggests -
http://www.bertiekingore.com/high-gt-create.htm. It's not a case of one shoe fits all or a standard trajectory here. Far from it.

However, I think the more creative a child is, the more murky the waters tend to be. Can you imagine where the cartoonist Gary Larson (From The Far Side) would fit? It seems -- the more high achieving the child, the less murky at least on the surface!

Also, even with a pg child who is doing college-level work at age 8 say, it's extremely likely that they're not consistently working at that level on a daily or even a weekly basis. It's more likely to be a few months or so doing one course OR a couple of hours a day at most and then doing other things that are not so taxing the rest of the time. The consistency and maturity isn't often there until a child's around 12+ years old. So parents are often dealing with trying to juggle the insatiable rage to learn with something 4+ years ahead of grade with the social/emotional aspects of their chronological age.

Kids still need to do 'normal', neurotypical things that are more align with their chronological peers like climbing trees or playing in a sandpit regardless of whether they are pg or doing calculus at 8 yrs old. Part of them is still a child.

The tricky part is that some of these kids go through phases or veer off into uncharted territory where they don't want to do the 'normal' stuff or be around more neurotypical children like in school setting. When the child doesn't tolerate being in a school setting with more neurotypical children or mg/hg gifted, that's when you have to start looking into alternative educational options.

Our view about education is that we are ok with no acceleration, as long as the school keeps him engaged, and he is not bored. I don't know what will happen if he is offered acceleration. He is doing ok at school today with standard materials just like his friends, with some up and down, but at home he learns like sponge, follows adults conversations, on the internals of sports cars for instance, and seems to understands the mechanics and can explain it back.

I am also curious about learning style vs. acceleration. My son seems to be sometimes marinating the idea in his head until he thinks he can do it, and then he does it when he decides he is ready. He was a late walker, his first steps were at 15 months old, and he walked around the perimeter of a round table, and that's it, he stopped walking then for a whole month, and then once we encouraged him to walk again, he ran and then walked on some toys and he was able to walk backwards also, all within the span of 48 hours. I had no idea he was ready to read chapter books to himself until that one night that my husband was late, but once he started, he wanted to read all the times and we had to install a night light on his bed.

My son was 2E, and now has only mild traces of that but is very functional. He had SPD and was very very sensitive, but our preschool was rich in sensory experiences, so by age 3 he was a lot better.

This is a tough situation you're in, peanutsmom. Been there and still doing it. I know it's not easy with a 2e and with the uneven early development you've had. Part of it, you just don't know what's going to happen with a child until they're placed in a certain environment. There's a degree of uncertainty with these kids and how they're going to react.

I'm not sure how you can prevent your child from being bored in school and being ok with a neurotypical pace of school. My son's done it all -- public and private schools (both structured and unstructured), and un/homeschooling -- and I'm still dealing with it (keeping him engaged and not bored). Most schools, though, are not designed for pg kids. And even with neurotypical developing children, there's a certain level of boredom that comes with school. The trick is stem the boredom from becoming chronic or veering into depression.

My ds was born with some severe physical issues, severe SPD, and a laundry list of delays (gross, fine, visual, speech, etc) and other 'stuff'. Between 0 to 5 yrs old, he was in special needs and often surrounded by adults. By 5, he had been in two pre-k programs as a special needs student due to the physical issues, having a late bday and moving. At that point, we had absolutely ZERO idea or clue that ds would be pg or close to it. NONE. We always knew he was bright and very sensitive too. He took the OLSAT and didn't qualify for gifted services then.

However, at 5, he started to bounce off the walls, have ADHD and PDD symptoms with his pre-k program due to being completely bored at school. We placed him in a private school in a pre-k/k/1st grade classroom (the school was small and lumped the grades together). He rapidly accelerated within a matter of months through the pre-k/k/1st and into the 2nd/3rd grade curriculum. School told me that they could no longer accommodate him and said he might be pg. Well, that completely floored us because like I said - we had NO idea that was going to happen. NONE.

We put him into another private school for kindergarten (public school wanted to keep him in special needs). That was another small school. It was completely opposite to the first private school since it was unstructured and didn't have such a structured curriculum. Ds rapidly accelerated with his reading while he was there (from phonics to 6th grade within less than a yr), but he only lasted about a year at that school before he got depressed and melted.

Since ds was 6.5 yrs old, we've been homeschooling him. Yesterday, however, ds, now 10, wanted to try out school again -- though he's not going to last being there more than a few weeks or a month. This time he's at a public school and in 5th grade.

After the end of the 1st day in 5th grade, ds10 is already complaining about the pace of school (too slow and boring), curriculum (at 5th grade level), various school admin paperwork, etc. He's already frustrated and not happy about not having control over his learning environment or pace/level of education, which he would have with homeschooling.

Ds10 wanted to try out public school because he wanted to be 'normal' and since 90% of kids go to public school. He wants to be like everyone else. He also wants some of the social aspects that come more easily with school. Not sure, though, how much the social needs which he could get with the public school will outweigh his other needs which he will not get in public school.

Part of ds knows that he's not like everyone else and will never be -- but that part is very painful to accept. It was for me when I had to deal with it in the aftermath of the first private school. It's entirely normal or understandable to want your child to be 'normal' and to fit it. And it's normal for a child to have these feelings too. BUT, statistically speaking, having a child in the 99.9%, or close to it, is not the norm.

So now, I don't know how long ds is going to last in a 5th grade public school setting without any possibility of acceleration, being at a set pace/level to everyone else, and without having a full scale meltdown, depression, increase in ADHD and PDD symptoms, etc. A couple of weeks? A month? More? I don't know.

We may have to pull him again if he starts to really nosedive and get depressed. We did that with private school #2.

So, my advice is: 1) do not dismiss psychosomatic symptoms; 2) if you notice any psychosomatic symptoms, don't hesitant about intervening before they become they really escalate. See this SENG article - https://sengifted.org/archives/arti...octor-fit-in-the-care-of-gifted-children

Another thought - if there's a possibility in your area for part-time or flexi-school that might be an option. It's not an option for us, but I know it is in some areas.

I just wanted to say that I think it's not fair to mislead posters requesting help and falsely stating their child is also PG when they haven't been tested as such. I think it would be fairer on those seeking help from like-minded parents to maybe state that you believe you child is PG, rather than flat out claim they are.

OP here. I don't mind any of the feedbacks actually, and don't feel that anyone has misled me.. I am learning a lot from this thread.

Its nice that you wanted to add that, as to put me in my place, but it's not just for your benefit. It's for everyone on this forum. I know quite a few here can't stand others using incorrect terminology. I personally find it offensive; I'm sure others would, too, if PG were to be replaced with ASD.

Sorry I really didn't want to offend anyone here, you included. I didn't read into it that way, because there have been studies that link higher prevalence of some special needs (SPD is what I am aware of) with giftedness. I also heard about kids with ASD scoring amazingly well in VS, and I happen to have a friend whose kid solved 1000 pcs jigsaw puzzles at age 3, the kid has ASD. The parents are gifted (both parents went to elite US universities, with graduate degrees in VS related fields), so I am guessing the kid might be highly gifted as well as in the spectrum. I think I learned from the former post about special need (in this thread) as well on the discussion about sequential vs. maps. The kid didn't seem to like blocks as much as my DS, though I bet he'd be good at it if he would, and my DS doesn't like puzzles but maxed on the ceiling for puzzles, so I guess he could do it if he would but it has never been his thing.

Agreed, obfuscating identification would not serve children well. This article from the Davidson Database may be of interest to this discussion thread. Note that being written in 2000, it predates the DSM-5, whose changes from DSM-IV include placing Asperger's Syndrome (AS) into the umbrella of "Austism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)", therefore the article utilizes the old terminology "Asperger's" and "AS".

This article goes on to provide much more detail, especially on the distinctions between gifted and ASD. As the article describes common traits in general it may not match a particular child exactly, whether that child is gifted, has Autism Spectrum Disorder, or both.

Having an understanding of similarities, and differences, of the common traits among gifted children, and those with ASD, may help parents appreciate the value of testing their child to obtain the most accurate identification so that appropriate support and/or remediation may be provided early on.

To whom are you referring, exactly? I can think of several regularly-posting parents on this forum whose children have not been tested yet have much evidence to suggest that the kid is PG.

There isn't a commonly agreed upon definition of what PG is, anyways. I think it's a bit misleading to flat out claim that being PG is a cut and dry thing.

ETA: there was a long discussion on this a few years back which is informative. http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/206526/1.html

George, interesting thread... it wanders from discussing definitions of gifted, to Profoundly Gifted (PG), to twice-exceptional (2e).

It appears that several posts have been deleted from that thread, collapsing the thread, and providing some discontinuity. For example, if poster A responds to the OP and then poster B responds to poster A... when poster A deletes his/her message, then message B appears as response to the OP, and the context of message A (which message B responded to) is missing.

Nonetheless, what was discussed from many poster's perspectives in that thread seems consistent with the article posted upthread:
Behavioral clues may be helpful, especially as a means to alert parents and teachers to the possibility that a child is outside the norm and to suggest that testing may be insightful... when a child may be exhibiting "gifted traits" or "2e traits" or "ADD/ADHD traits" or "ASD traits" or "HG+ traits" or "PG traits".

Yet without testing, it may not be wise to assign any particular label or diagnosis. As the article explained, some "gifted traits" may present in a similar manner to some "ASD traits".