Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Scores Indicate 2e...Suggestions for Next steps

Polar Bear...thank you for such a detailed response.

These are his Beery Results:

Standard Scores. 98
Percentiles. 45
Descriptive Category. Average
Age Equivalent. 5-11 (he was 6.5 at time)

- he has very strong fine motor skills now as we did a lot of cutting with him since he was four and he was lego obsessed and has probably put together over 35 full-size lego kits in the last two years. This has helped! Ha!

I had the same thoughts about his teacher. I believe she is lazy as my son reports that she sits at her desk all day, she is not aware as she does not work with the kids one on one..My son says he has never had a conversation with her for more than 2-3 sentences...she does a lot of whole class teaching, then provides assignments for completion and sits at desk while they complete. That is according to him. She does not work with the kids in small groups for either reading or math.

I'll seek a neuropsychologist and appreciate insight and set up time with gifted teacher. I'm hoping she will meet me alone and not pull teacher in...

Just be aware that strong fine motor skills in other areas do not necessarily translate to strong fine motor abilities for writing. The processing seems to be different somehow. (outer limit of my science knowledge apparent right there.)

DeeDee

Yes, I noticed this in my ds. Although he is/was very able and willing to build Legos, his handwriting is/was often painful and prohibitive. Also, as polarbear says, the difference in quality between handwritten and typed is huge--even now that he's 12.

He sounds a lot like my DS who turns 7 in a few months. A neuropsych diagnosed him with Developmental Coordination Disorder. His motor skills are about the level of a 4 year old overall, but he is strangely good at swimming. The school all along has told me he is "fine" with gross motor and there are plenty of other kids who are worse. Hah! I don't think so! The school FINALLY did a comprehensive eval including gross motor, saw the problem for themselves, and they are adding adapted PE to his IEP. He will still go to gym with the regular class but will also have pull-outs to work on gross motor. Also pullouts for handwriting.
His WJ achievement score was, strangely, over the 90th percentile for writing. (fluency was lowest at 80th). Gifted kids learn to compensate in so many ways or have strengths that hide the disability. So make sure you get testing that just looks at the physical aspect, as well as other kinds of testing so you can see any discrepancies and figure out if this is purely a motor issue, or if there are other learning disabilities. There are a few different kinds of dysgraphia, for instance. DS has motor dysgraphia. He is very strong with spelling.