Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Overwhelmed, seeking advice...new to all this.

wow, from all my typos one might diagnose me adhd too! I'm not...that I know of! ;0)

I recommend that you look into visual-spatial children. Here is a link: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm

I think you will find it very enlightening, as it describes your DS very well.

I have personal issues with that "Visual-Spatial Learners" list, as people have used it through the years to try to tell me that my very-much-not-a-visual-spatial-kind-of-person son is "just a visual-spatial learner", primarily on the basis of him being wildly creative, terribly disorganized, having difficulties with rote math facts, and needing to use a keyboard to write. He's PG, AS, NVLD, and has a disorder of written expression, but he's not a visual-spatial learner!

At least half a dozen or more of the items on the "visual-spatial" side of that list are potential indicators of disabilities and problems with executive functioning that do not bear any relationship to having a preference for "thinking spatially". Another subset of the supposedly "visual-spatial" characteristics are general characteristics of the gifted. In fact, giftedness and creativity are even listed on the "visual-spatial" side. In a lot of ways, the left side of that list describes neuro-typical kids, and the right side of the list describes kids who are 2-E. I completely understand the neuro-diversity position, and I think that it is important to reframe challenges, emphasizing strengths. I just don't know that landing at "visual-spatial learner" is a terribly useful level of information to have when you are trying to develop interventions to help your child succeed, particularly if the things that really stand out on the list are not the exclusively visual and spatial items, but things like creativity, conceptual learning, disorganization, and poor handwriting, as with my son.

Hi mom.org ~ You mentioned that your son has a high IQ but just how high? Could not being challenged enough be a possibile cause of your son's low executive functioning skills? I mention this because my son (also visual spatial) had terrible ef skills until he got grade skipped. I'm not sure if it was him just maturing or what...BUT the grade skip sure seems to have wiped away these past ef problems! Hugs and good luck!

In some areas, I agree with you, acculady. Through this journey, I have found many overlapping characteristics in my DS's diagnoses. I'm not the sort of person to suscribe wholly to any one theory, I don't think we understand enough about 2-e children to believe that any one theory gets it all. The visual-spatial learner thing helped me understand that this profile of characteristics is very common in children...especially gifted children. It helped me understand that it is how DS is wired, even without his diagnosis of ADHD-I, SPD, dysgraphia and stealth dyslexia. It helped me to understand that although he is dylexic, dysgraphic and sensory challenged, there are "normally gifted" children out there that also have similar challenges, although not on as great a scale. As you already know, if you read about gifted children, dyslexic children (particularly stealth dyslexia), visual-spatial learners or ADHD-I...all of these characteristics overlap. I do believe that there must be a common underlying brain structure in these children and that many of the diagnoses that we try to separate into different entities are actually manifestations of the same brain biology.

I just think that classifying children who show a majority of these characteristics as 'Visual-Spatial Learners' does a grave disservice to children who are emphatically not visual-spatial but still share those characteristics. My son has VCI > PRI by more than 2 standard deviations, and has severe deficits in visual processing, but he fits many of the descriptors on this list. I guess that my criterion is "Does this classification give you information that changes what you would do for your child in a meaningful and helpful way?", and I think that this list lumps too many disparate issues together in ways that could be profoundly misleading to pass that test.

Yes, our ds (who has developmental coordination disorder) has low processing speed but isn't adhd, and yes, he is extremely challenged with organization - not just turning in assignments, but in organizing his thoughts on paper etc.

Re the mental math - ds does this because he can and also because writing things down on paper is extremely difficult for him, and in spite of having tried many different software solutions we haven't come up with one that he really feels works well enough not to rely on pencil and paper. The best thing that happened for our ds and math was finding a school that was willing to accelerate him in math to where he was capable of working on concepts. Showing his work, trying to pass timed fluency tests etc were a disaster until we finally had him working at a level where he was challenged. I'm guessing his homework usually takes longer than it does for his classmates who don't have slow writing and processing speed, but he's getting all As and has found it easier to answer the "show your work" type questions now that he's got something challenging enough he can't just do it in his head.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Could headaches be causing the "fog"? If my 13 year old son were in school I think he might have trouble getting work turned in on time during weeks when there are frequent weather changes because of frequent migraine headaches that run in my family. Even when medication takes away most of the pain, it does not take away the "brain fog" and the really tired feeling we get along with the headaches. I know it affects our processing speed and I don't need a test to tell me this. My son is easily able to make up for those times of brain fog because he still learns very quickly when he doesn't have a headache.

We met with the psychologist. I Didn't get a copy of the report (but should get it tomorrow). Here's what I remember. Verbal 98%, perceptual 96%, the next area was 94%, processing speed... Wait for it... 16%. overall iq 94%. Guess his overall isn't technically gifted. (is it still ok to be here?). I'm a little freaked out about the 16%. Due to working memory score (which I can't recall) and various other testing she does not find ADHD. Anyone else with this huge percentage gap? Words of wisdom? So so wish I tested him 3 years ago when first noticed little issues. Thanks for all your comments so far. Still overwhelmed, but information is knowledge!

FSIQ isn't even generally valid with that big a gap. VCI at the 98th percentile sounds like at least verbally gifted to me. When you get the report, make sure you get subtest scores and raw scores as well...a "spiky" 98th and 96th percentile and a "smooth" 98th and 96th percentile kiddo may present very differently. My son's 99th percentile VCI had subtest scores ranging from 19 to 12, with the weaker area illuminating the effects of his disabilities.

My son has a very low processing speed, too, but he has a number of other issues (visual processing, motor coordination, AS/NVLD) that might limit the usefulness of what I could share.