Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional What are some red flags for 2e?

My older son is PG, and I never really thought my younger son was highly gifted---though he clearly has *incredible* spatial abilities. There's no doubt that he's a visual-spatial learner. The problem is, I am starting to think that perhaps he can't learn through more traditional auditory methods. At what point does an extreme preference in learning style cross the line into being a learning problem? He's only 4, and we homeschool. What are some red flags for learning disability or 2e that I can be watching for?

Stacey, what are you seeing that concerns you?

DeeDee

There are probably as many red flags (or low-level-orange rather than blazing red!) flags for so many different problems that posting a random list is just going to be confusing rather than giving clarity.

Can you tell us, as DeeDee asked, what you're seeing that you are concerned about? What are you seeing that appears to be an "extreme preference in learning style?" What are the signs you see that make you think he isn't an auditory learner?

polarbear

I can only speak of what I personally see in my 9 yo dd who is dyslexic, dyspraxic and possibly has dyscalculia. I had suspicions of a LD from the time she was in kindergarten and her teacher at the time also had concerns. The not so obvious things are that her performance can fluctuate from day to day or even hour to hour. She also fatigues very easily and her short term memory is poor yet has an unbelievable long term memory.

I didn't want to write a novel in my first post, but I'll try to succinctly provide some details. Ds has always displayed incredible spatial abilities. At age 2, he could tell me which way to turn to get places---even when we were 15 miles from home, taking a different exit from the interstate, and coming from a completely different direction. It's like he carries a map around in his brain. He was never taught right or left--just figured it out at age 2. I honestly don't recall teaching him to recognize letters or numbers but surely we did a few times--anyway, he seemed to know them. His sight recognition of words is spot-on. He never forgets the visual image of a word--but if it's in a different font or capitalized--he doesn't recognize it as the same word. He started doing 500 piece puzzles around the time of his 4th birthday, and he's much better at them than I am. He can build lego creations and set up elaborate train tracks that are far more advanced than his age. He just knows how things work and fit together. His brain seems to be wired for visual learning.

On the other hand, his speech development has been slow, sometimes falling off the range of what is "normal." His articulation is not great for someone his age, but he has made progress. He still has to completely concentrate on what he's trying to say or he can't spit the words out. Language is just difficult for him--his sentences are very immature and often has words in the wrong order so we have to try to interpret what he's saying.

It's like he sees something, and he instantly "gets" it. But for 9 months, we've been singing a little song about the days of the week (he loves music). After doing this daily for 9 months, he finally got it. A couple days "off" from singing it, and he has no idea what the song is or the names for the days of the week. Eventually I'd like him to learn our address. So for the past month, we've been saying our street name. Multiple times a day, we say the name out loud (there's construction going on, so plenty of opportunity to throw it in when a cement truck or something grabs his attention). After a month, he's still clueless about our street name. He's listening--even repeating/singing aloud--but it's like anything auditory goes in one ear and out the other.

There's no doubt that he has a visual spatial learning style, but how do I know whether he has a problem with auditory learning? He's just 4.5 years old, so I'm not sure if part of it is maturity too. Thoughts?

Hi Staceyshoe,

I can't tell you what's going on with your son, since I'm not a clinician, but I can tell you some stuff about what is "normal" (I'm a professor of cognitive psychology). Neurotypical kids are language sponges. They often learn new words from a single exposure (a process called "fast mapping"). Their sentence structure is still relatively simple at age 4, but they generally get it right. Even in the two-word stage (usually age 2 or younger) they use appropriate word order, constructing two-word phrases such as subject-verb, verb-object, or adjective-noun.

So what you're describing -- great difficulty acquiring verbal information, incorrect word order -- I would say are signs that warrant seeking a professional opinion. You already know what your son's areas of strength and weakness are, and a professional can help you to get the resources you need to help him thrive and be successful with the type of brain he has.

I would say that an inability to learn from auditory information at age 4 is likely to involve some sort of disability. Maybe a preference for learning things visually is to some extent compensatory in your son. I'd definitely get him tested.

Out of curiosity, did he have sinus/adenoid/tonsil issues that could have impacted his hearing early on?

Are the speech struggles receptive speech or just expressive speech? What kind of speech and hearing eval has he had?

Can he follow single-step instructions? 2 step instructions?

Thank you both. My gut feeling is that the discrepancy between his visual learning ability and auditory learning ability is just huge--and probably indicative of something. I appreciate you confirming that I'm not out in left field. (Our pediatrician hasn't been concerned about speech development, even when ds dropped below normal ranges.) His hearing is actually very acute. No history of ear infections, and he sailed through a hearing test at his check-up this week. There are certain sounds that he just doesn't pronounce, and I'm not sure if it's because he can't get his mouth to form the sounds or if he can't tell that the sound he's making is different.

What kind of testing would I need to seek and what would be the best "next step"? Should I contact our school district? Or should I seek an evaluation from a psychologist who specializes in 2e issues? (I'm starting to realize that I've probably underestimated ds's intelligence because of his speech issues.)

I can speak from my personal experience as a farout visual-spatial learner. With the right focus and some introspection, there are a lot of coping strategies that can bring the v/s strengths to prop up auditory weaknesses. Some deficits remain, but I'm indifferent to them (e.g. I can only remember all the words to one song.)

You might experiment with some typical v/s coping strategies like encouraging your son to doodle while listening to instructions. Also watching a speaker can be very distracting, music and sounds can make reading harder, and other things.