Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional LD Newbie- how to get a "diagnosis"

It is time for me to look into the issues my dd14 is having with math. I suspect memory or attention weakness, dyslexia or dyscalculia or something I've never heard of... She came home with another D on a math test that I was sure she would have Aced; the night before she had explained all the steps to me/figured all the problems correctly. No wonder she hates math; she gets the rug pulled out from under her.

I have been reading the 2e forum thread and the Mislabeled Child book, but I don't know how to get from here to a "diagnosis".

My question is what kind of tester would I take her to and what type of tests should she take? would she need a complete IQ and achievement test? Would I ask the school system to do the tests, or is that something that you've regretted? Is there an economical way to do this -- like test through the school but have an outside person look at the scores (or is that a mistake?). Do I start with our pediatrician?

Any information you'd like to share about the path you took to have your child diagnosed would be helpful to me. I am a real newbie, so assume I know nothing...

i can only share our experience but I am sure the experts will have good advice for you:)

DD7 was starting to have trouble with math and spelling. i remembered she had lower scores (inconsistent with the rest of her IQ testing) in processing speed so I found a place that does cognitive math training. Well, that went out the window when they met DD and told me she needs OT. I never thought to get her OT! So this was the craziest path from thinking I needed a math tutor, associating it with her testing, ending up at OT and now she has been diagnosed through her therapist with a few issues. The school said if it was a year ago she would have been automatically classified as LD but not with the new rules. Ugh. so, we are working with the school to get a couple of accomodations.

It was great that I already had the testing done. You can maybe go to a local university. I did that once and it was $150 instead of $350 for the private psychologist.

good luck!

I, too, can only share our experience. DD8.5 is practing math as I type (akin to Chinese water torture in our house).
She has a province-wide grade 3 math assessment test next week and she is very anxious about it because she knows how poorly she does when required to use a pencil. I have verbally quizzed her on every criteria and that child knows it forwards, backwards and sideways. I gave her a sheet of sample questions and she got 5/10 for silly mistakes.

On her WISC, her working memory was in the 34%-ile. She has an incredibly difficult time keeping numbers straight in her head while manipulating them. It seems that adding the pencil to the equation is the straw that breaks the camel's back for her. She has never gotten better than a "B" in math, yet she is much farther ahead than all the others in her class in 'verbal' knowledge. In her case, this can partially be explained by her ADHD. I, too, worry that there is something more going on. But all of her testing failed to show any other red flags.

I just attended a 2E conference where, although it was supposed to be a general 2E conference, the main focus seemed to be on the trifecta of (inattentive) ADHD, dyslexia and CAPD (or other processing type issues). Pretty much the whole gamut of professionals who spoke, and the parents in attendance who had been around the block already, were of agreement that ADHD was the key that once treated resolved or at least reduced the other issues.

One thing that was really striking to me was the Pediatrician who gave the keynote speech talking about the fact that in his opinion inattentive ADHD is not a condition of attention (or working memory) but of cognitive control of attention and memory. That the ability to be really focused and have great recall does NOT rule out ADHD, if the child can only do it when it's "easy. This was a great big AH-A moment for me about my own DD. The psychologist who administered her WISC actually said to us at the end of the testing "I was sure she had classic inattentive ADHD until I introduced some visual stimuli and then I realised she had great focus". Which we were so relieved about at the time, looking back I think my DD could have been being treated for the last two years and actually had some clue about what was going on in her classroom!

Some of the points he made were that both reading and speaking can be seen as automatic functions of the brain, the reward is in the activity, they aren't hard for a child to maintain focus on, but writing is tedious. So a gifted child who is verbally precocious but can't write, or who knows the math inside out but can't get it on paper - you may have an OT problem, or an ADHD problem, or both.

Since hearing this guy speak I have completely changed my view on what inattentive ADHD is, how you treat it, why you treat it, how long for, etc. DD is on his waiting list but won't be seeing him until january next year.

So I guess from my perspective I would be considering seeing a paed and an OT. In my DDs case I already know that she has sensory issues, CAPD and dyslexia and I am convinced she has ADHD, the paed is the only person we haven't seen yet. I am pretty sure that the ADHD is there and that treating it will help a whole lot of other issues, but every other specialist we have seen has helped and she is doing better, way better, already so they were all worthwhile in addition to a paed re the ADHD.

Thank you for sharing this. Is OT occupational therapy? I have just googled it; very interesting! It looks like they can help children with attentional issues to focus...I guess there are a lot of paths to getting a solid handle on what's going on with your child.

I wonder about dd's working memory; Is an IQ test is the only way to determine if this is a weakness for her?

What other testing did your daughter have?

Who do I talk to at the (middle) school? Principal or maybe the special education coordinator? I have a real mental block about getting her IQ/achievements done. I think it is a bit of my own baggage...

From what I can tell, my daughter doesn't check her work. I don't know if it's just too hard the first time around, or if she is "lazy" or maybe she just doesn't realize what an impact those errors are having. Or maybe she does do a superficial look over, without asking herself to double check/get the answer a different way, etc. I do know that she is just miserable when she gets the tests back.

She does seem to understand the concepts much much more than she can carry out the calculations.

She wears glasses & has been seen by a pediatric ophthalmologist.


Thank you for the suggestion about the multiple choice test. I bet she works through tons of problems without ever getting to a possible choice of a,b,c,or d. That's a great suggestion!!!

My DDs working memory was also tested by the audiologist who confirmed her auditory processing disorder. Her working memory was on the 13th percentile on her wisc scores. In the audiology testing she had two auditory working memory tests under 2% (this was what earned the diagnosis) and one at 98%. she failed the tests using meaningless data and aced the ones with meaningful data.

Which in a classroom translates to little or no chance she will be able to retain completely new terms, concepts etc delivered orally but may do very well on expanding existing knowledge. Which explains why her teachers can never predicted when she will have no clue what they were talking about or understand something everyone else missed.

I feel like the audiologist's working memory tests were more useful than the wisc tests. The addition of a meaningful data test gave a much more complete picture.

I've copied this alphabet soup from a different post on this forum, and have researched these a bit. Is this the type of testing that would need to be done to determine add, dyslexia, etc? Is this done by an Educational Psychologist?

CPT-II (Connors')
NEPSY-2
ABAS-2
BASC
CPRS-R:L
CTRS-R:L

Your post is very helpful; my daughter also has days when she is the only one who understood the concept...and days when she's getting yelled at for not getting it. Very interesting. I feel like getting her to an audiologist should be pretty straightforward, and now I will know what kinds of questions to ask. I truly had no idea how much information could be gleaned from this type of dr. visit. Thank you.