I'm new to this forum, and I'm scrambling to read through these fascinating threads. Here's what our family is dealing with:
I have a 12-year-old son who just started in a self-contained GT program this year. He's always struggled with school, but we decided to try the GT program because of all the fantastic and engaging enrichments they use, combined with a great teaching team for 6th grade.
But...he has an auditory processing disorder, along with dysgraphia. He's failing nearly all of his classes.
We recently had him take the WISC IV, which showed a verbal comprehension score of 132 (98 percentile), but a working memory of 61 (1 percentile, I believe). Yikes! The rest of the scores were in the average or above average range.
During his recent IEP meeting, the special ed teacher recommended placing him in a reg-ed language arts class with a resource teacher there so that he can get the help he needs with writing/organizing thoughts, etc.
Fine.
But...
Then, it was suggested he might do better in regular-ed for most of the classes, with GT as a resource, instead of the other way around. It took us FOREVER to get to the GT class, and I like that the brilliant/creative side of him is finally getting some attention. He loves the classes and they definitely teach in a stimulating/engaging way. I know he's learning. The problem comes in when it comes time to actually complete/turn in the work. It's pretty advanced (7th grade math, etc), so it is difficult, but a lot of the problem is that he hates writing, doesn't show his work, doesn't organize it well, doesn't remember to turn it in, etc, etc, etc.
I've given lots of suggestions for accommodations that might help, based on my research, and the teachers are willing to help with what they can, but they're expressing a general frustraion at not knowing how to meet his needs in a GT setting, when there are limited special ed services available during their classtimes (the special ed teacher(s) are already pretty well booked up or overbooked with the regular ed students in the school).
I guess I'm mainly venting, but if anyone has input, I'm all ears.
