I'm pasteing a version of "the story" from Jaxmom's tread, but I'd like to here intoductions from the other folks here also.
It's so easy for me to "forget" how painful that time was - which is good. But it was so bad. In retrospect i think my son was inattentive in school because he was depressed and anxious, perhaps clinically. I don't think that's true now - Thanks Be. Here it is:
When my son was in 2nd grade, the school asked our permission to complete a "behavior scale" and gave us one to complete at home. Then we had a meeting. We were told that our scale revealed that our dear son was at risk for 9 or 10 catagories like: agression, anxiety, atipicalily, depression and that his in school scale showed him as "significant" even worse in those catagories. Then we were told that even though our son's teacher had 20 years experience and was particularly strong in handling kids with ADHD, that our son's behavior in class was "like nothing she has ever seen before." Our state has a law that school personel are not allowed to give a diagnosis. I thought this was very innapropriate. So we went to a local child psychologist who noted that our son tested "very superior" on the WISC III in many of the substest but average or below average on a few. Although we liked this gentleman, I feel he was unqualified to interpret a WISC III that was so high. His take on our son was that our son might certianly be a little bored at school, but that the behavior problems where due to the splay in his scores, and could be thought of as a "relative" Non Verbal Learning Disorder. When we shared back our "diagnosis" there was another meeting where they showed us checklists about NVLD and ADHD and have multiple school specialists explain to us why ADHD was a better fit than NVLD. If I had know then what I know now i would have realized that unaccomidated giftedness is associated with many of the things they were concerned about. My belief is that a child like this can not be evaluated for NVLD or ADHD unless they are in an academic setting which is appropriate for them. I wish I was in a position to homeschool or try private schools but I am not, and my son reports that he likes his school and his friends. It's two years later, and a wonderful 3rd grade teacher, and a 4th grade teacher who tries her best to accomidate him in the classroom have improved the situation quite a bit. BTW, when we asked the school for single subject acceleration, our son was evaluated by their specialists and found to "not be a very deep thinker in math." and turned down. (He got the highest possible score in reasoning on the WISC IV that they regave him this January.)His behavior at school is "so-so." Thankfully He was accepted into the Davidson Young Scholar Program and I have had so much support and information! It's my glimmer of hope. I am still trying to work within the Public School system.
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Since that time DS10 has attended summer Institute for the gifted day camp program twice, had a bunch of playdates with other Davidson kids, started playing a musical instrument and learned to touch type, to the tune of (his estimate) 65 words per minute. There is still a variety of opinions as to "what to do with him."
Love and More Love -
Trinity
