Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Processing speed

I'll second the suggestion above to pursue private neurospych testing or at least some type of private, comprehensive educational eval. Your dd has an ADHD diagnosis, and you also suspect some type of 2e issue may be impacting her ability to complete her work as quickly as her peers. A neuropsych eval will not only give you test scores, but will also give you important feedback that will help you to understand what the test scores mean related to the behaviors you're seeing (slow to complete school work). It might be a working memory issue, it might be a focus issue, it might be a fine motor issue... really, it could be any of 1000 things, and having an unbiased and comprehensive look from a professional will help answer so many questions. You will also get a report outlining the accommodations (as well as remediation if necessary etc) that your dd needs, and that's where you begin with advocating - with a professional report in writing, as well as the knowledge you'll gain through the eval.

I also have found it helpful to look forward past the immediate school situation when thinking about what to do in situations like this. Right now you're focused on how to get your dd into the GATE program in 4th grade, but the CogAT testing for that program isn't the only place in her life where the challenges she has (ADHD, possible something else impacting processing speed etc) are going to impact her ability to show her full knowledge. At some point in time she'll most likely have to take timed standardized tests, eventually she'll be taking College Board etc tests, chances are that in middle school and then later on in high school her homework load will increase... things like that. The earlier you start implementing accommodations and the more you understand and have proof of why they are needed, the easier it's going to be to have them in place and not have to fight for them when they are going to count. You're seeing a bit of that "deadline" looming with the gifted program admissions testing - it *is* possible to get accommodations for the CogAT such as extended time or oral response etc. It's *not* an IQ test and it's not a test designed to tease out learning differences, so your school shouldovided you've gone through the process of requesting accommodations for *all* testing (classroom and state testing etc). It sounds like your dd needs extended time (and she might need other accommodations you're not aware of). All of this, from my perspective, is reason to pursue an outside eval, and to pursue it now, not later.

Best wishes,

polarbear

My DS has slow processing speed. We used to speak, then count to 10 before expecting any kind of response for him. Now, he can pretty much have a normal speed conversation, but he cannot follow a fast paced discussion and will tune out. He has a "quick" mind when it comes to making connections and recognizing absurdities. But it seems to be the processing of the language that slows him down. He is also a very fast reader--up til about 4th grade, his teachers sometimes punished him, thinking he had not actually read the material because he was so fast. And they'd tell me how poor his skills were, etc.

He is also very quiet at school. School can be crazy with lots of things going on. My DS doesn't have ADHD, but I imagine if he had that super slow processing speed coupled with difficulty knowing what to focus on and what to tune out, it would be quite challenging.

My DS does have a 504. One thing it has on it is that he needs to be directly called on with a direct question if he is going to be graded on class participation-- discussions just move too fast for him to process, form a response, and raise his hand before the topic has moved on. Prior to his 504, he used to crumple up his math fact papers and his teacher quietly adjusted how she presented it to the class, making it untimed and unstressed. She did this on her own. But a 504 might have worked too.

Testing gave us that information for us to understand and years later, we were able to say to teachers-- no, he's actually listening and participating, he just can't go that fast-- which helped them not take it personally.

One other thing to consider is -- is the slow speed related to taking in, putting out, both? We know we have a taking in issue here. We know we have a handwriting putting out, and we wonder if we also have a speech putting out issue--pragmatic speech. Our neuropsych said no, but we still have to wonder sometimes when we see what he gleans from some of the literature (lol). Testing can help tease it all out--looking at memory in various forms-- my DS is horrible at names and faces and forms, but has excellent auditory memory. That's useful to know and we wouldn't know it without having had a complete battery of tests.

Is your DD a perfectionist and could that be slowing her down? Would the school consider a WASI (although if you really want the information about processing speed this might not give you what you want)?

one neuropsych and they said it would cost $3300... That covers IQ, Woodcock Johnson (or other achievement tests), processing speed, sensory functioning, learning style, learning inefficiency, executive functioning, memory, language, and perceptual motor...

Now I'm looking at a place online where it is $1,075 plus another $400 to evaluate for ADHD. I wonder why the huge difference.