Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Seeking input - possibily gifted? ADD? or????

We have a 9 yo boy in 3rd grade. We are starting to see issues with his school work and trying to figure out what's going on. Since 1st grade, I've always been told he's a day dreamer and doesn't finish his work. His issue is getting started; he sits at his desk and looks around the room instead of doing his work (he also misses verbal instructions). When doing assignments he doesn't like (book reports for example), he does the minimum to get by. Last week he decided to make it more interesting by teaching himself how to write in cursive left-handed. His teacher gets pretty frustrated with him. He's not talking or bothering other students, but he's getting behind. He's very smart and is a fast learner. He is an excelled math class and doing really well; his math teacher doesn't have any issues at all with him (he likes math) and she's also VERY structured in the classroom.

A little history on our son.... he's always been a bit odd/quirky. He is VERY obvervant; he watches things repeatedly and won't try something new until he has it mastered. Examples-- walking. He walked on his first birthday and then decided to go back to crawling. 3 months later we came home from daycare and he just started walking. He never fell. Perfect little walker. Then came coloring; he refused to color and would ask me to color for him for hours. First time he colored at age 3, he did it PERFECTLY between the lines. Drawing... he would ask me to draw things and would tell me "how". One day he drew a perfect spiderman. He's really really good at drawing and HIGHLY creative. He asked his Dad to take the training wheels off his bike and took off the first time, never fell. He refused to let me teach him how to tie his shoes. One day he came out of his bedroom with perfectly tied shoes. I never once saw his practice.

He is VERY picky about things and has some sensory issues. He always had issues with sock seams, doesn't like tags on his clothes or his stuffed animals. He is VERY particular about how his clothes fit; sleeves have to be perfect length, etc. He is also a very picky eater and food cannot touch.

On the behavioral side, he's very sweet but he challenges me almost daily. He is a master at arguing! He takes FOREVER to get going in the morning and often has "selective hearing". He almost always forgets to bring his books home to study and He's really disorganized with his school work. But what's weird is if I ask him to help me clean he is a master at organizing things and putting things away. His future wife is going to love his cleaning skills!

He recently got tested in the state gifted program and we are waiting on results. Based on what I've described, do you have any suggestions for other testing? ADD is a possibility but his attention issues are very isolated to school only and he has no problems completing his homework. Should I take to see a pediatric phsycologist? I am really concerned about his school work.

Any input you can provide would be helpful.

Thank you!!

Wow, he sounds like an interesting kid to live with!

By definition, ADD/ADHD has to manifest itself in more than one area of life: school, home, sports, etc. Not necessarily ALL areas, but more than one. Also, being able to focus on one particular item of extreme interest doesn't rule out attention disorders.

It surely does sound like he's a bright kid, and the fact that he has no problem with attention in his math class is reassuring. He might do better with some more advanced work in other areas -- and you can use his IQ scores, when you have them, to help you advocate for that.

On the other hand, you mention that the math class is very structured. It can't possibly be the first "very structured" environment he's met at school. Does he do better in other more structured settings, or do you think he's doing better because the math is challenging and interesting?

The disorganization and leaving schoolwork/books in the wrong place could be ADHD symptoms, or they could be "9 year old boy" symptoms. :-)

I'd suggest some harder work to start, and see if the inattentiveness improves before moving on to the next step. You can always get a copy of the Connor's Scale from your pediatrician, if s/he is experienced with attention disorders. And if there's any question about a diagnosis, a psych eval can be helpful, albeit expensive.

Good luck!

You mentioned missing verbal instructions at school and "selective hearing" at home. This can be a symptom of ADHD or it can be a symptom of poor auditory processing. I might look into a full audiology exam (not a hearing test at the regular pediatrician).

Are the structured settings, like the math class, also freer from background noise, and does the teacher there speak more clearly, or at a higher volume? Are there more visual cues in some classes then in others? What is the level of routine like in the different classes? How much decision making is required in each environment?(Is seating assigned? Does the work require choosing topics, or are they assigned?) How is the seating organized? Analyzing the environments and situations where he does well and comparing and contrasting them with environments where he does poorly can give you clues to what he is really having difficulty with.

I might also look into having his sensory integration evaluated, since you have noticed a high degree of sensory sensitivity. It is possible that the school is a more annoying and distracting sensory environment than home is, and this is part of why he is having trouble paying attention there.

Disorganization in school work could just be because he doesn't have a system. "Late, Lost, and Unprepared" and "Smart, but Scattered" are two great resources for helping build executive function skills (like time management, organization, impulse control, etc.), and you might find them helpful.

You haven't mentioned any social difficulties, but you may want to be sure that Asperger's is ruled out. The disorganization around school, the uneven performance across assignments and domains, the willingness to challenge authority, and the sensory issues are all little flags. Great motor skills makes me lean away from this, but I'd feel awful if I didn't at least mention the possibility if this is actually what is going on.

I'd make sure that any professional you took him to to evaluate this possibility was familiar with both gifted kids and kids on the spectrum and with how gifted kids on the spectrum manifest, so that they don't confuse the two or miss one thinking it is all the other.

And while you are investigating those things, I'd look into getting him more challenge in the classes where he daydreams and looks around the room...whether it is gifted underachievement or ADHD (which it doesn't really sound like), or even being insulted and bored by the level of the work, increasing the challenge level so that the work captures attention and holds interest can help dramatically.

You might want to consider getting further testing to determine the possibility of giftedness with or without ADHD. It can be hard to tell what's going on at times but you need an expert with experience in both giftedness and ADHD to guide you. Otherwise, you run a risk of getting a misdiagnosis or an incomplete one like we recently got.

I agree that the sensory stuff can be an indicator of sensory integration which can be managed or greatly rectified with occupational therapy or a sensory gym/diet; Lindsey Biel's book, Raising a Sensory Smart Child is very helpful.

Have you looked at these books?:
1. Different Minds by Dr. Deirdre Lovecky - http://www.amazon.com/Different-Min..._1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323700164&sr=8-1

2. Misdiagnosis and Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults.
http://www.amazon.com/Misdiagnosis-Diagnoses-Gifted-Children-Adults/dp/0910707677/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Very observant, creative, sensory stuff, master at arguing, selective hearing, etc., I can relate to a lot of what you were describing with my kindy son who's now 6 years old; we're in the process of getting further evaluations for him as well due to a similar situation. He's a visual spatial learner and your son may be as well. You might also have a divergent thinker who is going to buck the status quo.

Have you read anything by Dr. Linda Silverman?
See - http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm

We found that my son did better with less structure rather than more structure and that he was better when he was allowed or presented with more challenging material. It sounds like your son isn't being challenged at school; yes, we've got the same situation with our kindy son - who complained on Saturday that his private, creative gifted school is boring. Yikes!

I feel compelled to note that, as much as the Gifted Development Center has done for gifted children and adults, I believe that this particular list of characteristics of "visual-spatial learners" misleads many parents of 2E children into thinking that they have children who do not actually have an LD but who are just "visual-spatial learners", and this can delay geting appropriate help for children who really could benefit greatly from appropriate therapies or other interventions. Only 8 of the items on the list of characteristics of "visual-spatial learners" are primarily about having visual-spatial strengths or learning preferences - I've marked these with the "^" symbol. Many of the other items are either "symptoms" of giftedness in general (marked with "@"), or symptoms of learning disabilities (marked with "*"). Some of the items can indicate more than one possible situation.

^Thinks primarily in pictures
^Has visual strengths
^Relates well to space
^Is a whole-part learner
@Learns concepts all at once
*Learns complex concepts easily; struggles with easy skills
@Is a good synthesizer
*@Sees the big picture; may miss details
^Reads maps well
*Is better at math reasoning than computation
^Learns whole words easily
*^Must visualize words to spell them
*Prefers keyboarding to writing
*@Creates unique methods of organization
Arrives at correct solutions intuitively
Learns best by seeing relationships
^Has good long-term visual memory
@Learns concepts permanently; is turned off by drill and repetition
*@Develops own methods of problem solving
Is very sensitive to teachers� attitudes
*@Generates unusual solutions to problems
*@Develops quite asynchronously
*@May have very uneven grades
^Enjoys geometry and physics
@Masters other languages through immersion
@Is creatively, mechanically, emotionally, or technologically gifted
*Is a late bloomer

Thanks Aculady - lovely thought and lovely list!

for the OP, well, why not both? I think you'll thank yourself if you get a psychoeducational eval for your child and find out if he is gifted, what are strategies for making things go better for him and also if you get him checked for ADHD.

One strategy for helping kids with ADHD focus is to make sure they are in a learning environment where the learning is at the 'just right' level of difficulty - it helps everyone focus, and really gives a boost to kids who have trouble modulating their focus.

Hope that helps,
Grinity

Hopefully your child will make the cutoff of the gifted program and that will solve everything. Was the testing done one to one or as part of a group. If it was a group test, remember that your child my be gifted, or even unusually gifted, and still not score well on the group test - they are good for screening kids in but not for screening kids out.

A book on teaching your child to do what you tell him is 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo.

A book on understanding the nuances of executive function skills is 'Smart but Scattered.' It's perfectly possible to be very strong in some areas of organization, such as making an over all plan and putting things away according to that plan, while weak in other areas, such as timesense, or deciding which books need to be brought home.

If you want, keep a journal of which organizational skills are causing him problems at this point in his life, and figure out which on is most important to solve. Then start a thread about 'How can I get my child to do X' and we'll all pitch in ideas.

I'm curious about what motivates your son. That's another great thing to actually observe and track.

Love and More love,
Grinity

doclori-- I think him doing better in his Math class is a combination of both structure and he is challenged. Last year he was in a class at a different level and his Math teacher complained that he spent almost the entire class looking around the room instead of looking at her.

In math he actually sits in the back of the room and has been in the same assigned seat since the beginning. He had hearing tests done when he was 6; all was good. In his homeroom class, he's been moved a few times. As of now, he's near the front and by the teacher's desk and that isn't helping. His homeroom teacher allows for some talking and it makes me wonder if she lets the kids get away with quiet chatter when they are supposed to be doing focused work. Though I've witnessed him myself in computer lab; he will do anything but what he's supposed to be doing unless you give him something interesting like research on sharks (he loves sharks).


He's very social and love sports. He's excelling in karate; especially the kata.

Thanks for the excellent input and validation the likely needs to be challenged more. The problem will be around HOW to get him into a learning environment that allows that.

cdfox-- thank you for the links and helpful information! I'll look into these.

I know my son can't have too much structure because he's so creative. Some of our other educational options are very structured and "back to basics" (uniforms, lectured learning, etc.).