Thought I'd give an update after my rant earlier this week. I actually had a good (long) meeting with DS8's French teacher, as well as the school resource teacher (who writes the IEPs). French teacher explained that DS wanders around the class, talks to his friends (distracting them), refuses to speak in French, sings in class then denies he is singing, refuses to work on offered extensions (or does them in English).
It sounds like she was really trying hard to engage him (as well as accommodate his DCD), but not having a lot of luck.
They were really pushing us to explore the full gifted program (which he is eligible for, but doesn't want to go to). They are speculating that he's not engaged because his mind is going faster than he can provide output in French. They wanted to know if I had suggestions on how to engage him in the class. The teacher did say that his class is having a hard time in general speaking in French - it's not just him, but they sense he doesn't want to be there.
DS has told us (me and DH) that he enjoys learning French - and there is no doubt he can do it - he as a beautiful French accent and picks up vocabulary quickly. Language (verbal anyway) is a real strength for him. Last year he did fine in French (had trouble with the English teacher, but that's another story). My suspicion - it's mostly perfectionism and he feels uncomfortable making mistakes when speaking in French. But this is something he's going to have to learn to deal with - in FI, or not - no?
Unfortunately, I have not very many ideas for making him do things he doesn't want to - we have the same problem at home!
I did give them a few ideas, which they are going to try: we sent in a pair of noise-cancelling ear muffs - thinking it may help to reduce distractions and also be a physical reminder that he is supposed to be on task (he is very sensory and seems to like the pressure on his ears); the teacher will offer him breaks to go get a drink of water or walk in the hall when he needs to get up and move around (he has trouble sitting still long). THey are going to work on having him use voice recognition so that he doesn't have to always print his work (which is very slow).
So, we'll see - teacher reported today that he did better the last few days with the ear muffs working. We'll have to see if it continues after the March break (next week).
We didn't even have time to get into how to deal with his organization and EF issues, but they were really, really happy to hear we are considering having him do a private psycho-ed assessment, to see if there are any issues we are missing.
