Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional When to give up?

Well, this is the first I have heard of this program, on the one hand it seems great but the price YIKES! Also, the testimonies sound very much like my DD but the pics and descriptions seem to indicate a much higher-need population and that would really upset her to be put in an environment of higher needs students.

[/quote]

The program assesses students and places them at the level of individual support that they need, which can bring the price down if they really are not requiring daily intensive support. I went to an informational session for CIP Brevard, and several of the students in the program spoke at the session. The Asperger's students in the program who spoke were not people that would necessarily stand out if you passed them on campus, and all seemed to be gifted or highly gifted, but with executive function challenges, anxiety, and problems dealing with professors, navigating romantic relationships, and scheduling, regulating, and pacing study and rest. All had previously been admitted to excellent schools and then "crashed and burned" for various reasons related to their disabilities and level of coping skills. From what you indicate, your daughter may not be "higher need" in the sense of needing reminders to shower or do her laundry, but she certainly is "higher need" in the areas of being able to show up to class, complete and turn in assignments, and advocate for herself, which are pretty basic for success in college.

We actually looked into the Peace Corps before we found this college and they want people who already have degrees and skills…


I agree, therapy is a must for her future success, whether she gets to go back next fall or not. Although I do have faith that her EFs will catch up as I have already seen marked improvement – she has only missed 4 days of classes and those due to illness, she has kept up with all of the very rigorous reading assignments and shown mastery through orals with her tutors, she recognized a need for help in Greek and arranged for a private tutor which she has followed through with successfully (if only she would do this for writing too!!!).


It’s not 100% certain that she has failed yet, there is a slight chance she will have a “moment of writing flow” like she did on the last day of last semester and manage to turn the freshman essay/s in late and in that case, a chance they will accept an appeal and allow her to return. I think she is banking on that happening (and she has past experience to reinforce the idea that it is a realistic possibility). She is not thinking prudently, but she does precedent to argue that her thinking isn’t necessarily entirely “unrealistic”.

Perhaps this sort of leniency is what they are offering for accommodation…


This is the Assistant Dean of the whole college and she is the ADA contact. I didn’t know what accommodations to ask for, because the diagnosis was so new and we really didn’t/don’t know what the root cause of the problem was/is. I shared the eval and the “university class anxiety fiasco” with her last summer, but the program at this college is so well structured and supportive, having so few of the traps that usually need accommodating, we were just kind of hoping that the issues would work themselves out. I think all the help my DD needs is available at the college if she could overcome the anxiety and denial enough to ask for and accept it. It isn’t clear whether she will still be allowed to turn in the freshman essay, it was due over a month ago and I am not sure they would have time to review it at this point.


I am sort of torn between a very small part of me understanding the thinking that failure now might be what she needs to wake her up, and the rest of me knowing that a whole year of separation from this program now could be far too damaging for her to overcome.



Thanks for clarifying. Not only would my DD not stand out on the street, I would worry about suspicions of fraud if we were to apply for disability benefits. Really at this point she just needs help with completing and turning in writing assignments and advocating for herself/understanding what exactly it is she needs to ask for in order to be successful. I guess I could see what they would charge for help with just that, in the event that returning to college becomes no longer an option. Given that she would have to pay travel, room and board in another state in addition to tuition in order to take part in this program, even though it would be much better than just giving up on her, it would make funding for college no longer an option, and that might impact her desire to be helped.

I wonder if it wouldn’t be more cost effective and beneficial if I could hire a personal assistant/accountability coach type person at or near the college who would work with her on a weekly basis to make sure the writing is getting done and also accompany her to counseling/therapy. She might go along with that if it was made a condition of her return this fall.

While I was reading your reponse, I was thinking she needs a buddy!!! Personal assistant same thing. I would encourage you to do that but also to decide with your dd if she wants to go back and if you both want to go that route to schedule a meeting regarding her issues and how the freshman essay thing is part of that and ideally have the essay to turn in at that point. Grades can always be changed, there is a procedure for that when its a question of turning in work and if this is a disability issue then it should be accepted even at this point. I agree with your dd that there is precedent but using precedent as a means of avoiding responsibility without the evidence of what she is doing to rectify for the future might not be acceptable. I would encourage you use this to get her to understand her role in all this, and her responsibilities, and that the school needs to know she isn't just blowing it off because she doesn't care, but absent conversations with her, and a plan for the future, they have no way of knowing. She might not think she is failing but it looks that way from the outside unless she speaks up and if she can't speak up because of the anxiety in the moment she must acknowledge away from that setting that this needs to be in her accommodation because it's likely to happen again. Preemptive accommodations I guess.

Again, only speaking from the prof side of things, not the 2e side of things, there should be a way out/forward for her which does not involve having to be all sorted out before she comes back.

DeHe

Well, just as we feared, DD will not get to return to the college this fall, she did not turn in any written work and she stopped talking in her seminar (about the time her ADD meds stopped working). Interestingly, she did well on her oral which is a lengthy one on one discussion of her paper (that she did not write) with her teachers.

She will have to apply for re-admission and show what she has done to address the issues that held her back (anxiety and writing difficulties). Then she will need to repeat the spring semester if she is to go back. We had a long talk where I tried to convince her that she would be happier and more successful in a science/engineering program where she would play to her strengths and writing would not be such a huge factor, but she wants nothing else but to go back to this college and as soon as possible. So we have until August to show that the issues have been sorted out.

Question: since she did the heretofore unheard of and had a successful oral without even turning in a paper, I do believe that she would thrive if she could have accommodations that would allow her to give most or all of her written assignments to her teachers orally. Does that sound like an outrageous thing to ask? If the school could accommodate that, we could spend the summer working on anxiety and Executive functions with CBT and she could take a public speaking class at the local Community college.

Is this unrealistic?

If she's truly capable of producing the assignment orally, dictation software might be a good option. But the skills needed to succeed in a one-on-one discussion (where the other person provides a fair amount of organizational scaffolding) are not at all the same as the skills needed to produce a long written work (where you have to do all the organizing yourself, and organizational flaws can't be disguised by the organic flow of discussion). You have to have your whole topic in your head for both, but the purpose of a writing assignment is not just to demonstrate that you have the whole topic in your head.

I'm not saying it's an unrealistic thing to ask; just that it may fail to both accommodate your DD's weaknesses and satisfy the teachers that she's demonstrated the equivalent skills.

Has she tried the intermediate thing of writing her papers *by* first talking into a dictation machine, and then playing back (repeatedly, in sections) what she said as part of the process of turning it into written work? Different level, but this helped my DS when he was struggling with producing written explanations in maths - that doesn't have the same organisation issues, but still, it might be worth trying in case it might break the block, as it were.

We have the Dragon II software, I think we just need an extremely patient coach to help her get it working...She tried a few times and got very frustrated because it just wouldn't understand her and she is not speech impaired at all.

The purpose and structure of the essays at this college is quite unique in that they are intended purely for the benefit of the student and they involve demonstrating critical thinking by asking and exploring questions about the text, not answering them or bringing together research etc so maybe it would be okay? I am open to any suggestions on how to accommodate her weakness; ultimately that’s what we need to do.


I forgot about that but I did buy her a small portable recorder before she left for college so she could capture her thoughts on the fly before forgetting them and then write them down; she had said that was helpful.

I am guessing that when the meds quit working, everything else seemed to be too much effort and she fell back on the old strategy of just hoping she would wake up with the whole essay in her head and be able to write it out in one sitting before the deadline. That strategy has let her down but the few times it worked may have her thinking that's how it should be. Just my guess. She doesn’t seem convinced by the connection between her stopping the meds and it all sliding downhill even though that is when she quit talking in class and stopped producing written work on time. She argues that she was able to produce two essays at the 11th hour of fall semester without meds and then when she tried the meds again after a long break she was still not able to produce written work. I am not a med pusher, in fact I was against it at first but I certainly saw a big difference during the 3 months that they were working. God I hope I can get her in to see a good therapist soon she is on several waiting lists 7 months long. 