A diagnosis is often needed to get an IEP and services/help through EI (early intervention), preschool, or grade level with a school system. Without it, you're on your own or left to go through the insurance company or obtaining a lawyer to sue a school system/Board of Education (done that).
The problem is that some issues, like sensory integration, can take years before they become more manageable/settle down. Therapy can take years; my son was in pt and ot for 5 years. Insurance companies often cut you off at a certain point/time. That's one of the reasons why special needs parents scramble to get a diagnosis, an IEP, and services/help. Otherwise, you won't get the services/help. And you can quickly go broke paying out of pocket for ot, pt, feeding, vision, speech therapies, etc. Yet without them, your child may stagnate and not move forward. So it's a catch 22. That's why EI is so critical.
I know Dr. Linda Silverman's work is sometimes criticized on this forum, but she's got a section on overexcitabilities, creativity, and visual spatial learners in her book, Upside-Down Brilliance, and techniques for overactive children. Changing the environment is one option that may work, but I agree it's rather difficult to do in public bathrooms that have loud flushing toilets and even louder hand dryers, which have been a nightmare for us.
One issue with school is that the vast majority of schools still expect the child to fit the curriculum rather than having the curriculum fit the child. Universal Design for Learning (
http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines) was primarily designed for those with print disabilities (i.e. dyslexia), but I've e-mailed them about 2e kids and how they're getting the real short end of the stick in terms of education. UDL advocates using digital technology or other ways to make the curriculum fit the child, but until schools start to embrace it - you're still dealing with the rote learning, sitting for long periods of a time, on-task behavior, completing homework, etc.
So as long as schools/Board of Education continue to hold the pursestrings/control on whether a child gets an IEP and services/help, we're going to be in this situation. No one knows how many 2e kids there are -
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/twiceexceptional.pdf. Without more public awareness on UDL and different ways of thinking/learning/doing, we're going to continue to be in this situation, I fear.
Like the NEA pamphlet states, "Although there is evidence that students can be both gifted and disabled simultaneously, limited awareness causes many school systems not to provide services to students who are twice-exceptional. This practice is in direct opposition to the demonstrated needs of students with dual exceptionalities. In particular, two significant obstacles negatively impact how schools service twice-exceptional students: 1) inadequate identification
procedures, and 2) the lack of access to appropriate educational experiences."
No wonder so many of us are homeschooling/unschooling are children!
