Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional My kid is gifted and has ADHD... now what??

We don't have the official report from the Dr yet regarding the ADHD and we probably won't have that for a couple more weeks. Once we get the report, what do we do with it? Is there an official plan we need to do with the school district? Are there certain accomodations she qualifies for? I know these are probably basic questions, but this is new to me so any direction is appreciated. She is currently in a full time gifted class, but is really struggling right now. Is there anything the teacher can do to help her in the meantime until we get the official report to the school? Thanks in advance!

If you want accommodations for your child, you will want to get either an IEP or a section 504 plan, depending on whether or not your child requires services that would be considered special education services.

Wrightslaw has great information on the process. You should request an evaluation from the school, and provide them with the report as a part of the process of making the determination of what accommodations and services your child needs and will qualify for. There are no set accommodation or services for a given disability, only for the actual needs of the individual disabled person.

You can certainly talk to the teacher about your child's needs and see what you can work out on an informal basis to help your child while you are getting the formal (and enforceable) plan in place.

Here are some ideas for strategies that are commonly used with students with ADD/ADHD.

morgans-mommy,

I will say from my own experience as a gifted ADHD adult, that your child's future is bright. She will probably need coaching in terms of organizing herself and her project work, and breaking big tasks down into more manageable chunks. If she's overwhelmed by homework but absorbs concepts quickly from a smaller set of practice problems (likely if she's gifted), you can probably get an accommodation in her IEP to require completion of a subset of homework problems instead of all of them. You might be able to get longer completion times for classroom tests (though I will say that wasn't necessary for me, and wouldn't have helped).

I'm sure there are lots of great books out there that I haven't seen in the last few years, but if you want some valuable perspectives on ADHD and how it impacts a person, Hallowell and Ratey's "Driven to Distraction" is an excellent place to start.

A useful book for you at some point might be "Different Minds", though it's pretty dense and scientific. The main point it makes is that twice-exceptional kids are quite different. A highly gifted ADHD kid doesn't fit exactly the same profile as a non-gifted ADHD kid, or a non-ADHD highly gifted kid. So be aware that the books you read, or the experts you talk to that are focused on just one or the other exceptionality, may describe a profile that's not quite spot-on for your child.

can I piggyback here?

Today, the ped wants to say ADHD, but since the problems are all only at school, she can't (it has to be at least 2 areas). But she said we could get a prescription anyway, to see if that helps. She says that's the way they do it now, since ADHD is a neurotransmitter deficiency. That totally freaked me out and right away, she said I could get a second opinion and will write a referral to a child psychologist in our group...

I think it's my duty to investigate all possibilities before possibly committing my child to a lifetime (?) of medication, so we are also seeing a psych recommended on Hoagie's...but also, right away, part of me is wondering, if it IS ADHD and she was on meds, maybe her test scores would be even higher? And that STILL might not be the solution to the part where she refuses to do work.

I'm worried about how they want to medicate her instead of discuss how being gifted might drive her to find additional stimulation when class is so dull for her...

2giftgirls, Different Minds and Misdagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults are probably going to be must reads for you. They really look into how to tell the difference between gifted/bored v. gifted/ADHD, also Gifted/no-peers v. gifted/social-deficit, etc. It's been very useful for me to read about straight gifted v. gifted/ADHD v. ND/ADHD. And it's been very useful to read both books as they both have similar but slightly different takes on these issues.

I have just been through the drama of whether to test DD on or off meds. We decided to test her on them, if her medication trial worked out, and it failed miserably (she puked the Ritalin back up within 2hrs). So she was re-tested sans meds. If we ever find medication that works for her than she can tolerate and it makes a big difference then we may look at re-testing her in a year or two I guess. But I don't regret getting her tested now sans medication, it's still going to give us a picture of where she is now and a useful talking point for dealing with school.