Originally Posted by Bostonian
Originally Posted by PipersMom
The sensory issues, hand flapping, and disorganization can all be signs of an ASD.
My 10yo boy exhibits the latter two traits. I think his grades this year in 6th grade (he is one year advanced) will be A's and B's, although there are individual assignments where he has done worse. My wife considers him an underachiever and is more concerned than I am, broaching the idea of holding him back a year (undoing the year-ahead placement). But you don't make a student with decent grades repeat a grade. When I look at http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/treatment.html I don't see anything I'd like to try on him. Is there a book for parents who wonder if they should do anything (as opposed to cases where intervention is clearly necessary)? According to DSM-5 Asperger's can no longer even be diagnosed.

Maybe he needs more acceleration or a new school. Remember that if schoolwork presents too little challenge, focusing on it every day can be very difficult, especially for a child who's only 10.

Also, remember that a lot of the work that schools hand out isn't written by gifties, nor is it aimed at gifties. Sometimes badly written questions (especially multiple choices questions) can be harder for very smart kids because they see subtleties not envisioned by the author or most other kids. Is it possible that a portion of your son's lower grades may result from him overthinking questions on multiple choice tests or exercises? I was helping my eldest with an open-book quiz question last night. We both knew we were overthinking it, and we still couldn't get to what they were looking for. When we found out after he submitted the quiz, we both face-palmed over the writer's apparent logic. We kept thinking "it depends!!" and the author had made a simplistic assumption. Ouch.

Gifted kids are also known for being really energetic.

The best book I can think of is Exceptionally Gifted Children (new edition) by Miraca Gross. It's not specific to this question, but I suspect the question is addressed. This book is written about kids with IQs of 160 and above.