Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Discrepancy in testing- dyslexic son

syoblrig-

This has to be very frustrating. Who have you met with? Do you have a full report for either the private eval or the school eval? Is there someone you can hire to be an advocate? It sounds like you may have to take things to the next level to get an appropriate education for your child. Other people here know much more than I do about the legal options available to you.

With that said, I also have a DS9 who is HG and dyslexic. He is in 4th grade. We just got the dyslexia diagnosed at the end of 3rd grade. I have been very lucky to have a principal that works very well with me. DS9 was in the same situation....IQ scores high enough to qualify him for the gifted pull-out, but achievement scores below the cut-off. I am very lucky that the principal had no hesitition in making an exception for DS, knowing the situation with the dyslexia. His gifted math was very hesitant and concerned that he would not do will in her class. Well now she is eating her words. She has been blown away by how well he is doing....in fact he has a 100 average in the class.

I say all of this to encourage you to continue fighting to get your son into the gifted program. My DS is thriving there, where he is still mediocre in his non-gifted classes. It is hard to convince people that our HG children will actually do better when challenged appropriately.

Perplexed-- thanks for your thoughts! We're obviously walking down a similar road with boys the same age. Glad things are going well for you.

If he has a 504 plan in place that wasn't followed when assessing him for the gifted program, they should at least allow him to retake the testing with his accommodations (reader, extended time, scribe, everything he has in his plan) or they are clearly violating his rights and knowingly denying him access to the program solely on the basis of his disabilities. If he is accepted to the program, the 504 accommodations should also remain in place: the district cannot make a child choose between being gifted and having a disability.

You could make a strong case that he shouldn't be assessed for the gifted program using any test that could be unduly impacted by his dyslexia - it would be like assessing a blind person for intelligence using a visual test, and would not give a true picture of his abilities.

With the right accommodations in place, there is no reason that a gifted kid with dyslexia shouldn't do just fine in a gifted program. If he struggles with it due to the dyslexia, the answer is almost certainly to tweak the accommodations.