Hi all,
My son is 8 and in 3rd grade at a highly-rated public school. He's participating in their pull-out GT program and also leaves class twice a week for speech therapy (articulation difficulties, although he's about to graduate from speech). We've only done gifted testing through the school district - in first grade he qualified with Cogat scores (Verbal 153, Quantitative 139, and Nonverbal 121) and an Iowa test (98th percentile for reading, 95th Language, and 99th Math) as well as some sort of Creative Product and Parent/Teacher survey.
During our parent-teacher conference for the beginning of the year I learned that the teachers feel he has a lot trouble with focus. He needs lots of reminders to listen to instructions, stay in his seat, finish work, not talk to his neighbors etc etc. Talking to other students is probably the most common (and has been an issue every year, to be honest). He's a very sweet boy and they feel he is doing his best so the teachers have so far been pretty lenient with consequences (I have to admit I'm not sure this is the right approach...). They both said he's very intelligent and so far his grades are fine (A's and B's although realistically he 'should' be getting all A's). He has lots of buddies and doesn't seem to be having any major social difficulties. In fact, he's been paired up with another gifted boy in his class that is the 'difficult one' (angry outbursts, breaking things, etc) and my son does a great job of helping him stay calm, doesn't react, etc etc. He's not particularly athletic but loves to be outside and play pretend games, climb trees, etc. He also loves video games and reading. He's a bit 'immature' in some ways, although it's hard for me to express it exactly. He tends to enjoy playing with younger kids, doesn't like more mature movies, etc. On the other hand, he has a great sense of humor and can be quite wily socially in certain ways - he's never mean or defiant but is still good at pushing certain boundaries in very subtle ways.
Based on the parent-teacher meeting, I've already started talking to him a bit about some of the major issues. I decided to start by asking him to work on sitting and listening to instructions quietly and respectfully. We've talked about fidgets that are socially acceptable and won't distract his friends or teachers (twiddling thumbs, tapping fingers against each other, etc). I've also started to be a bit more structured at home since we'd lost track of that over the summer.
However, I'm trying to figure out what other steps we need to take if he's having trouble with focus. I'm trying to figure out what needs to be done to find out if ADD/ADHD is in play vs. immaturity vs. discipline issues vs. a bad classroom fit. Here's a couple of questions I have.
1. How do you determine that your child is having enough of a functional problem to pursue testing? What do functional difficulties look like?
2. What sort of testing is most important? Is it necessary or recommended to get detailed IQ tests done when dealing with a gifted kid?
3. Any practical suggestions to help my son learn to focus before we aim for testing/medication/etc?
Thanks for any input you might have.
