Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Introduction/Advice?

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum but I thought I might seek out some advice and also support!

So, for background, I was formally identified as gifted at 16 (though I was informally recognized earlier). I was at a youth day hospital, mainly for my anxiety and my bipolar disorder, and they had just gotten a psychologist on their team. So they decided they wanted to screen some patients for LDs and ADHD. I had already been diagnosed with ADHD so I'm assuming that's why I was among the chosen.

I was tested with the WAIS-IV. I don't have my actual scores, nobody at the hospital records office could find them nor could the school board and I'm still trying to find out who actually performed the test. Anyways, I do have my own solid recollection of her telling me her interpretation of my results. I was, according to her, highly gifted "but not profoundly gifted or gifted enough to be causing the kinds of problems I was having with my emotion regulation and attention", that my verbal and non verbal scores were extremely discrepant to the point that it indicated a problem in and of itself (my non verbal was average and my verbal was in the top 1%)

She told me according to my results I generally functioned cognitively about two years ahead of my chronological age, and was moderately to highly gifted, but that my specific "brand" of intelligence would be experienced as frustrating because I can think a lot faster than I can express. Her analogy was that I was running a top of the line, custom high speed computer on a standard best buy monitor. She then went on to describe traits she thought I would have, which I interpreted as autistic traits, my little sister has autism so I'm very familiar with them. I think now she was describing non verbal learning disorder, though she never used the actual word she just described traits like not understanding social cues and preferring to hear instruction verbally rather than in written form

I mostly kind of shrugged it all off at the time, I had bigger things I was dealing with and I honestly couldn't have cared less about school because I found it boring and pointless. In the spirit of complete honesty I kind of shrugged off the test while it was happening and that makes me doubt the validity of some of it, I specifically remember zoning out and taking my time on the block designs.

Regardless, I'm now 23 and I've recovered a lot mental health wise and I'm going to university. I have accessibility services purely based on my mental health, but I found out I can get a full psycho ed assessment covered and I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it for me to get assessed again now that I'm entering a more stressful academic environment?

I feel like old patterns are repeating themselves already, I am so anxious and overwhelmed socially but my school work is not challenging. I'm overwhelmed by all the people around me and the new environment. I find lectures engaging at first but they quickly get repetitive and I get bored and want to leave because I feel the point has been made. I don't know how much of this relates to being gifted and how much is that I have ADHD and potentially NVLD or ASD.

The only real intervention offered to me in school was in the first grade when my teacher strongly suggested I accelerate two years (my mom denied the offer because they thought I might need additional support to catch me up in math which she couldn't afford) and putting me in split classes afterwards so I could do the next grade up in work informally. I did have dysgraphia but I outgrew it. I got a pencil grip in the second grade which made my writing legible and in the fifth grade I taught myself how to write "nicely" because I got sick of not writing in an aesthetically pleasing way.

I've never really been able to talk about being gifted because I've never really had people to be able to talk about it with. There was never any real social support and I don't know what is common for someone who is gifted and what isn't beyond what a google search can tell me.

I know this is a bit all over the place but I haven't really had a place to express all this before

Welcome!

First off, so happy to hear that you are in a healthier place now.

Based on what you've described about yourself, I have no reason to think the original psychoed eval you had was particularly far off. Many people with the NVLD profile are initially identified as ADHD (which they may or may not actually be; there can be overlap in presentation, without overlap in underlying causes). This is relevant mainly because psychostimulant meds can have undesirable side effects in individuals with mood disorders (especially depression), and assuming that additional risk when they aren't necessary (i.e., if the symptoms are not explained by "true" ADHD, but by NVLD-related inattention or activity level) would appear to be nonpreferred. Your history of dysgraphia is also consistent with genuine personal weaknesses in visual spatial thinking, which is in the category of what we call NVLDs.

From the description you've given, it sounds like your VCI (verbal cognition) was in the Very Superior range, PRI (visual spatial and fluid reasoning) was in the Average range, and PSI (processing speed--includes both fine-motor speed and thinking efficiency) was Average or possibly below. No mention of the fourth index (WMI--working memory). Again, these are all quite consistent with NVLD and dysgraphia, as well as your history of having relatively weaker math skills vs language skills.

(The social perception/social skills deficits associated with NVLD do have a lot of symptomatic overlap with autism, but are believed to be due to poor reading of nonverbal communication, which requires sophisticated visual spatial thinking. In ASD, it's believed to be due to lack of what's called theory of mind, where individuals have challenges in perspective-taking, or understanding that other people have an internal voice or view of the world separate from one's own. Functionally, of course, there's not a huge difference.)

I'm going to speculate a little more here...you may be finding lectures initially engaging, but quickly boring because of a combination of grasping the concepts quickly (giftedness) and difficulty receiving the typical visual stimulation of a presenter's body language (NVLD). It may even be that this lack of stimulation is leading to disengagement (ADHD). In my experience, learners with this profile can create greater engagement for themselves by asking periodic questions (but watch out for inadvertently monopolizing discussions). In terms of the overwhelmed feelings, do access your on-campus and off-campus support networks, both formal mental health professionals and any informal community or family supports you have.

The value of a new psychoed eval is if it either 1) answers a question or provides a solution to a known problem, or 2) provides access to needed services. At the moment, you appear to have access to the services already, so it would be whether there is a personally-relevant question or problem that you need solved. Based on your report, the social and emotional aspects appear to be where the unanswered question or problem might lie. Honestly, there is not a lot one can do about underchallenging work in college. The expectation is that you are a self-directed learner, so if your classes are insufficiently challenging, you may wish to go to your academic advisor and discuss your plan from now until graduation, including any post-graduate plans. Professors really don't need to differentiate up for more advanced students. Course selection is where that would happen.

Thank you for the feedback! This sounds accurate to how I experience my learning.

I think for me there are unanswered questions. Mainly I would have liked to have been given more information at the time I was tested. I would have liked to have had more concrete answers as to what she was implying I had, which was very likely NVLD. Whether or not I had traits of it or I have a diagnosis (though I've heard these aren't formally diagnosable?). I do remember her making an offhand comment that this was relative to me, my non verbal scores weren't low they were just average but that is not what she would hope to expect in someone with my verbal comprehension typically. I think if I could see my original reports I would have my answers. I also agree on my need to pick more challenging courses, I have a tendency to not challenge myself initially only to have realized I made a mistake. I do honestly feel like not accelerating kind of messed me up, I feel like I'm in my early 20's and I'm only now gaining a work ethic

I'm sorry I thought I replied to this, it must not have sent but thank you for the thoughtful response! This really resonates with me. I think I really just want to know more of the specifics of how I learn. More of my score breakdown. But I actually feel kind of relieved to hear I probably have nvld. There were things I genuinely did struggle with that were discounted growing up. Reading books by 3 but not learning how to tie my shoes until the first grade, things like that. Thank you for the input!