Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school putting a gifted child into Special Ed preschool?

Seems like a lot of helpful comments and I don't have a lot to add.

But wanted to chip in that my DS (now 5) was not a fan of circle time up to about 4.5. Still complains about it as his least favorite times of day, but obediently goes now and doesn't bother the other kids. In some earlier preschools he would sit okay for a minute or two and then exhibit what I personally think of as normal for an energetic little boy forced against his will to listen to adults with fake happy faces singing songs or talking yet again about the weather (a subject that adults seem to be more interested in than most kids): leaning into a neighbor or standing up or wandering away or laying down and making snow angels on the carpet, talking, singing, just anything at all he could think of to avoid the desperate tedium of sitting still and quiet in one spot.

DS has some social ineptness but not to the point of aspergers/asd spectrum, and looks ADHD sometimes but not others. His challenges are more he is easily frustrated and emotionally tense/intense. Can easily focus and remain reasonably still watching a great TV show, or pay good attention for long periods of time to someone talking about a subject he's interested in. As he's gotten older he's gotten more tolerant of doing what others ask for the sake of pleasing them, gotten more used to routines, etc.

The turn around with circle time for him came when we switched him to a montessori/free-play preschool last year, they happily let him not go to their circle times for the first couple months (they were fine with him playing quietly within eyesight of the group), later let him bring fidget type toys to circle time, slowly transitioned to expecting more from him.

If you don't go with the public preschool perhaps there's a play based type of preschool your DS (or both your kids) could attend part time for the socialization aspect. Perhaps just for the segment before snack time or before lunch, picking up early and in that way avoiding the worst of the food allergy risk. Sometimes the least "best" preschools can be gems.

Polly

well, here comes my update. We had our 3rd (last) session with the Pediatric psychiatrist and she said she doesn't believe he has ADHD ... I didn't think so either ... just some of this therapists did ... my opinion has always been it's "something else". She is recommending the Special Ed preschool and is saying PDD (forgetful me didn't ask if she actually means just PDD or PDD-NOS but I'll call her to make sure). Was saying she does believe he's on the spectrum though very highly functional as long as he has the right support (basically told me to continue doing what we're doing as it seems to be working for him) and she did say she'll refer us to a Developmental specialist if we want to find out more as to if it's Asperger's or other type of spectrum disorder ... they'd run all the tests, etc.
Anyone here with experience with developmental specialists / autism diagnosis .... would part of the developmental testing be IQ testing as well?

All in all, I am not surprised ... it's one of those mother's intuition things. Glad they are not agreeing on ADHD as I don't want the school to come a few years down the road and say we need to medicate our son because he's too much of a distraction but instead they'll have to work with us!

We're still waiting to do a speech evaluation (was supposed to have it done on Monday but the therapist had to reschedule for Saturday) to see if there's any issues with speech (there are a lot of times when I feel like he's not processing correctly what he's hearing)and then the psychiatrist will send an official letter to the school district with her recommendations.

But for now, it looks like we'll give the special ed preschool a try! If nothing else, it will make DS happy

Both my boys had partial WISC IV (I don't know why they didn't do the whole things) as part of an evaluation to see if they were ASD, although I know there are other/better tests for ASD that your specialist may use in conjunction with or instead of WISC. Others here will know more, I'm sure.

Oh my goodness - this made me laugh out loud. This is exactly how my son describes "circle time" Exactly ! He even mentioned the fake happy voice and big weird interest in the weather all of the time LOL. He wanted to know why no one else seems to notice how ridiculous it all is.

oh, I can totally see DS4 doing the same when the time comes! lol He lost any interest in the weather 2 years ago! And I highly doubt he'll be willing and able to sit even for 1 minute. Most likely he'll just tell them loud and clear that he's bored and will walk away

lol, doesn't get much better when you get older. I think I have a phobia of being trapped in conversations about the weather/random sport team/relatives medical conditions.

bit of a late night rambling thought... spectrum disorder stuff is disturbing to me, I'd self diagnose myself with ASD, ADD, and dyslexia based on 60% of the diagnostic symptoms of each.

If each of these disorders results from being out on the tail of a curve for like three or four traits/factors, then you can see a bunch of overlap symptoms without really being there.

Like:
A. Sensitivity 95%+
B. Detail oriented 95%+
C. Introversion 95%+
Might be an underlying mechanic set for ASD.

Imagine 20 common symptoms for identifying it. 3 of them exist related just to A, 3 just to B, 3 just to C. 2 when A&B are true, 2 when B&C are true, 2 when A&C are present, 5 when all three are present.

Then maybe dyslexia has
A. Sensitivity 90%+
B. Detail oriented <1% (i.e. abstract thinking)
etc.

Maybe 75% of gifted is at core:
A. Sensitivity 95%+ combined with one or more other extended traits

If the symptom matched to the right trait is matched to the right intervention, great. However, the risk of a spectrum diagnosis leading to a wrong intervention is disturbing (like giving stimulants to a gifted kid identified as having ADHD.)

Zen Scanner - I am taking the spectrum diagnosis with a grain of salt BUT ... there are couple red flags we have had for a long time that make me believe he is somewhere on the spectrum ... such as not being able to have eye contact. You can even hold his head, keep telling him to look at you and his eyes are all over the place but he can't look into your eyes. And a complete lack of empathy ... he can tell from the tone of voice when someone is sad or angry ... but just from a look of someone or their face he cannot tell anything. It's really hard to explain but it is very strange. If he thinks someone is angry or sad from their voice, he will ask about it "are you mad/sad mommy? I need to make you happy." ... he basically asks for reassurance either way because he can't tell himself and it is as if he has learned that people are supposed to be happy and mommy is not supposed to be sad or angry. But you can tell it's all learned behavior for him but he doesn't understand it at all. He just knows that is how it should be. It's really hard to explain. There's a lot more of these rather strange behaviors he has but these two are very noticeable. That's why I have to agree with the psychiatrist. Quite honestly, I think the most important difference will be with my husband who will most likely put more effort into being patient with our little guy!

DS2 on the other hand, I do believe he could very easily be misdiagnosed. So we'll have to be very careful with him when the time comes.

The thing that gets a bit annoying most teachers/schools don't realize that this stuff is indeed mundane and boring for some... They are immediately like your child has a "problem." In my more assertive days (before I started schooling in the art of passive agressive way of the upper class suburbanite), I had said "well he has a point this stuff is kind of insipid - every day" And they just look at me... like they never even remotely considered that perhaps it is indeed boring! Last year my son had a problem with the books they were making him read for 100 book challenge... the books were so so boring for him. The school was all like "Your DS thinks theses books are boring, there is something wrong with him!" I look at all the books and I am like they are boring - couldn't you do any better thant this? LOL.

Sorry I digress! I just really appreciate it when someone else's child also notices this stuff!

Yes. If you search my back posts, somewhere in there is the list of tests that were used to diagnose my DS at age 5. Included IQ and achievement testing, life-skills assessments, and a large variety of instruments that measured social and behavioral functioning. Make sure they do an ADOS. Make sure they have real expertise in autism. I highly recommend the follow-up, which will give you a detailed picture of strengths and weaknesses, so you know exactly what to target through therapies.

Sounds like you are making a great start on getting your DS the right learning opportunities! It can be so tricky to figure these guys out.

DeeDee

DeeDee - the psychiatrist said that it's a developmental pediatrician clinic at the Children's hospital (same as the psychiatrist office) and that they concentrate on testing for specific forms of autism. So I do believe going there is going the right direction. Hopefully their waiting list isn't as long as the psychiatrist's (6 months) ... but even if it is, the older he'll be, the more we'll know.

and OH DEAR! ... the sleep problems! He took a quick 40 minute nap on the way home from Chicago and it resulted in being still up till almost 5am! I was so tired ... and he needed something every 15 minutes. I can deal with everything else, but between these two boys, the lack of sleep in the last 4 years is really getting to me! lol