I need some advice on my oldest son (10). He is an extremely quirky child that we cannot figure out. He has been diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive) with some autism spectrum characteristics, but none that warrant an actual autism diagnosis. His WISC-V FSIQ, when tested two years ago, was barely above 100. He does not participate much in school and rarely finishes assignments. However, his teachers have all told us he is brilliant and on the SBAC he did get perfect scores in math and language; but otherwise, none of his work during the year would indicate really anything advanced and his general reading ability seems about average; yet there is that perfect SBAC language score. He hates to write and for the most part will refuse to do so. He also did score 160 on the math WIAT-III section, but around average in everything else. He is a very curious and intuitive self-learner, that does not need instruction. Unfortunately, he is very difficult to motivate, extraordinarily emotionally sensitive (cannot be emphasized enough), will only do things on his own terms and seems to feel the need to negotiate everything. He does not have much in the way of friends, yet seems perfectly content in school doing pretty much nothing. He is always creating hypotheticals, that, for the most part, are ridiculous scenarios. I cannot express how utterly willful and stubborn he can be. Despite test scores that would not qualify him for it, the school did put him in the �highly gifted� class for a year, but he was miserable and we put him back in the regular class for 4th grade where he is much happier.
It is very frustrating because when we�ve talked to psychologists, they just think he is a kid with average intelligence, ADHD, and some social skills problems. I can�t believe that is all there is to it but it is hard to argue the opposite as most hard-evidence would support their conclusion (aside from the exceptions I already gave). His younger brother, who has his own issues but overall is much easier to deal with, scored in the high 140s on the CogAT and is a smart kid, but in my opinion, nowhere near as smart as my eldest. We have a third child that the jury is still out on that has her own problems as well (barely said a word until she was 3), but is very eager to please and is catching up rapidly to where she should be.
So, we don�t know what to do with our eldest. We are constantly doubting ourselves in our impressions of his abilities because most of the time, the work he produces, seems below average to barely average. Do we try and have him tested again (which he hated)? Is he a case where IQ tests might not be telling the whole story? Do we just let him coast through school on his own terms which is pretty much what we have been doing? We are concerned that if we push him too hard that he will rebel and completely shut down.
