Hi everyone. I posted here this summer about my son, and I feel bad about not being a good, supportive board member (tbh I have horrible social anxiety that sometimes even extends to online
). I really need some advice or insight or something, though. I'll apologize in advance because this is going to be very long. If you actually get through it--thank you!
My ds9 has had a GAD diagnosis for a couple years now and was diagnosed in June with ADHD, along with a provisional diagnosis of Tourette's, by a psychologist (not experienced with gifted). Working with his pediatrician, we have been trying to find a medication that will work for him. We have tried Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta so far and have seen NO improvement at all. His ped is concerned because she says that when the diagnosis is correct you almost always see quite a difference. She is questioning the diagnosis.
He has so much trouble focusing and gets distracted by any little thing (external or internal). He has a really hard time transitioning and at home I feel like I'm constantly telling him to either start doing something or to keep doing something. Talking with him can be very frustrating because he keeps stopping. At home sometimes it seems like he can't be serious about anything; he's always messing around being silly when he should be doing other things. He takes a long time to do homework, even things that are easy for him. Actually, he takes a long time doing everything-- getting dressed, eating, getting out of the car when we get to our destination (he's usually reading), etc. He seems really immature one minute, and really mature the next.
He has a very poor working memory--every night he has to read for 20 minutes and write a 3 sentence summary, but every time he has to actually look back in the book to do his summary because he can't remember what he read. He was also just diagnosed with an expressive language disorder by a private SLP.
Some background:
He was pretty advanced as a toddler and preschooler--taught himself to read at 2, writing words by 2 and sentences by 3, adding and subtracting at 3, deep philosophical questions at 4, taught himself multiplication at 5. Always very mature, never even had to use any discipline techniques except for explaining why he had to or could not do something. He went to full day, 3 day/week play-based preschool and never had any behavior problems at all there, either.
We started seeing some issues with still having emotional outbursts/mini tantrums in kindergarten and 1st grade, but no attention issues in school. He did go to a martial arts class where he goofed off quite a bit when he wasn't actively doing something. I pulled him out of school halfway through 1st and homeschooled him (he was not learning anything). It was during this time that I noticed he was extremely resistant to doing any work he didn't want to do and therefore couldn't focus on it. Admittedly, I was not very confident in my ability to homeschool and didn't really know what I was doing, so made it pretty much school-at-home. We homeschooled for about a year, but then he had to go back to the same school.
When he went back they put him on a behavior plan because he was still having a hard time controlling his emotions. As he matured, he stopped having the outbursts, but all this time he was having a harder and harder time paying attention at school and at home (when he's not doing something of his choosing). In 3rd grade he started having huge writing issues (went many writing periods not getting a single sentence down) and this is STILL happening. The school is really dragging its feet on evaluating him, but I think they might finally do it soon.
He has taken outside classes and all day camps of his choosing, and had no issues at all. In fact, in some, he commented on how he was the only one not goofing off at times and taking the learning seriously.
Test scores from evaluation in June:
SB5 results:
Fluid Reasoning 138
Knowledge 117
Quantitative Reasoning 133
Visual Spatial Processing 137
Working Memory 106
FSIQ 130
NEPSY II:
Animal sort total 17
List memory 10
Auditory attention total 11
Auditory attention combined 10
Response set total 10
Response set combined 6
Word list repetition 12
Word generation semantic 5
Word generation letter 11
Inhibition naming combined 12
Inhibition inhibit combined 15
Inhibition Switch combined 16
Clocks 14
Word list recall 16
He also had the Beery VMI 2 years ago:
Visual Perception 142, 99.4
Visual Motor Integration 99, 47
Motor Coordination 97, 42
Does anyone know what the possibilities are other than ADHD? I'm so tired and confused and just don't know what to do about him. Again, I'm so sorry this is so long. Thanks in advance if anyone gets this far.
