Hello,
I am preparing for a meeting between DS8's therapist and his teachers- 3rd grade is a little rough.
DS has ADHD and a language impairment affecting social pragmatics. I spoke with DS's therapist a few days ago and she suggested a few things (I will delete all of this later for privacy), but could use some thoughts/ insights:
1. She said DS's quotient result was atypical in that he was all over the place with attention the first ten minutes of the test and paid almost perfect attention the last five minutes. Apparently, kids with ADHD usually have decent attention at the start and fall off quickly.
2. She said in an executive function test called category switching that DS scored in the 98th percentile for categorizing words, but the 25th percentile for switching back and forth.
Mainly, I think this all boils down to what we've known since early toddlerhood-- that DS *really* struggles with switching cognitive sets? (i.e. he's terrible at transitions). Any thoughts?
3. The therapist spent time talking about how she thinks DS is a visual spatial learner. Certainly, when she gave me the literature, I agree that DS seems to fit the profile. *However* when he took the WISC IV, he scored 132 on visual spatial tasks (highest on block design), 144 on Fluid reasoning (primarily because he hit some ceiling in matrix reasoning) and 136 verbal?
Any thoughts about whether this could still fit a visual spatial learning profile? If so, ideas for nurturing this at home and in the classroom? (from a person who nearly flunked high school trig?)
I know this is disparate information-- his teachers need some strategies for working with him. Through no fault of his own, he's a PITA in the classroom. Spaces out on easy directions, intolerance for formal instruction, careless, and appears to want to write out PI 58 places on the whiteboard when the teacher needs it for instruction (according to the teacher who understandably finds this behavior frustrating).
I want to help with strategies to make life better for everyone.
