Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional teacher meeting about child's attitude

Heartbreaking! So sad. Very little doubt in my mind that this would be my DS if it were not for me. (yeah I'm patting myself on the back LOL) That poor child. Unfortunately it is the COMMON story of any intelligent child (gifted or even simply bright/intellingent) with an LD.

Yes watch this! I was told DS is "pretty much fine" and on grade level over and over. It was sickening, really. I finally brought in two OT evals, from two different places, in two different states, one from a well-renowned childrens' hospital that showed him TWO YEARS DELAYED in writing. They NEVER told me he was okay again.

Thanks mon, I appreciate you taking the time to clarify, I was hoping it was the summary of a report. It's not about the child in some districts, and if an authoritative source is found, it will be used to raise awareness.

MON your tale of two children breaks my heart, particularly considering how little handwriting is needed in so many possible paths through adulthood.

I’m extremely thankful for all of your comments, and will address some below. It’s good to know everyone else struggles with these issues such as getting a word in edgewise or turning the conversation to topics that feel useful.

ZenS that’s a good idea to ask about the curriculum as it applies to gifted children, thank you for that thought. In the most-kids-are-gifted climate I will probably modify it more to asking questions to help me understand how the curriculum works in a grade where kids are all over the place in preparation. Looking for insight in that way will give me something to focus in on so I listen actively.

Irena thank you for sharing your experience, we are also doing private evaluations, hopefully we will make some progress that way. I’m so happy to hear that the two outside evals you did made a difference. How did the evaluators determine writing grade level? Were there particular tests?

Indigo – we are working on the disability documentation. On the actual writing part, yes it’s very possible he’s at low normal… I need to find some way besides asking the school to know whether he’s within the range of grade level. Thanks also for the idea of an agenda, I will ask for that in the future and add ours. I feel like I’ve made a good effort to avoid coming across as “formal” to the school but as I’ve only been met with formality I think it may be time to forego that.

Polar Bear: Thanks for the in depth comments. With a scribe writing is well above grade level. Spelling is perhaps only a grade level up but organization and output is further up. It is the physical (or motor planning) aspect of writing that truly challenges him, a row of a’s would all be different from each other. Outside of writing he has fine and gross motor delay, mostly mild.

He did have IQ testing with the wisc iv, I just hadn’t posted it. He had a GAI of 160 and the WM index was 150. But the processing speed was in the 90s. The school has that.

MON: Your comments are all very helpful, thank you. 1. He has a DCD and hypotonia diagnosis. In process with OT type evaluations. The school seems to want to save money (they are tiny and most everything has to be hired in from outside) and has not said they would reject private opinions. The hard part is getting concrete enough recommendations that the school interprets them the way they were intended. “Reduced writing” for example can be interpreted in so many ways. 2. That is great advice on the positive comments… we had said something similar in writing already so reiterating it is a good idea. We have not yet asked for more advanced material as we wanted to wait until it was clear DS was not a behavior problem. But that is a huge issue and it's hard to know how much to shoot for. 3. Asked for more detail, foiled by vague response. 4. Great idea to try to insert DS into the curriculum. 5. I think the writing level is teacher feeling, not sure whether they have to accept an outside opinion or not on that? Overall I think likely he is at grade level, the grades ahead style and narrative and slightly advanced spelling/punctuation average out with the slow speed and below average legibility.

The evaluations to which I referred were evaluations done by occupational therapists. They did not give me grade levels, they gave me age-levels. According to the evals, at 5 years old, DS had the writing and fine motor skills of a 3 year old. At 6, his evals came back as 4 year old, at 7 I believe his age equivalent was 4.8. He also did a few Bender Gestalt tests and a few Berry Visual Motor test - they gave percentiles, and if I remember correctly age norms, and he was consistently deplorably low on those as well - no matter how much therapy he gets. He came back grade level for some writing tests the school psych gave, *of course* (said sarcastically).

In terms of acceptance of outside testing, in my state, I believe the law/regulation (or something) is that they (the school district) have to accept outside eval and recommendations from a "certified school psych." Someone told me that along the way (my advocate I think)... Anyway, now I make sure any psychs/neuropsychs that I take DS to are also State Certified School Psychs. As for the outside OT evals - the school has never given me a problem with those (DS's vision doctor and vision therapist even had a conference with DS's teacher to help with accomodations, etc) but I think having them incorporated in the outside state certified psych's eval/report would solve any problems with acceptance. Honestly, I don't understand this "doesn't accept outside testing/evals" I suspect it is a ruse a lot of schools attempt to pull ....but, think about it, it doesn't make sense. So, to get the school to recognize my son's diagnosis of ehlers danlos, for example - the dx has to be made by a school doctor and not the well respected creditialed geneticist? School psychs usually can't diagnose so what happens when you have a kid with a ADHD dx from a neuropsych outside the school - does the school get to choose "not to accept it?" I wouldn't let any statement of "we do not accept outside evals/tests/Dx" to stop me if I were you. Also, just a heads up - more than one (several actually) private OTs have told me that when they worked for a school district they were explicitly limited in what they could tell the parents about the child and the child's level/progress/ect. You simply can not trust the school system in my opinon - you can find a way to work with them but you can not trust them at all to do right by your child. It's just a fact of life, in my opinion.

My DS had a hypotonia diagnosis last year... this year we found out the cause of the hypotonia is Ehlers Danlos so we have replaced the dx with that and hypotonia is described as one of the symptoms. However, I did a lot of advocating and educating last year that 1) hypotonia is neurological-based, physcial disability; and, most importantly, 2) a kid with hypotonia actually has a physical pain in his hands, wrists, posture etc. when writing (ie. so, my kid can possibly write "on grade level" for a short time but to require that of him all day is unbearable). Your child really needs a scribe and computer access for a phsyical medical condition. The hypotonia is not going to be remediated away ( DS's teacher last year thought she could "push" DS and remediate him right up to being on par with the others... unfortunately, that is not how it works and getting her and the school to understand that was a difficult process... and basically it's like saying a kid's eyesight will get better if we keep preventing him from wearing his glasses). Your son's school needs to understand that. With my son's school I took the approach that this is a physical medical condition (it is!) and it is not going away - he needs writing accommodations just like a parapelegic needs a wheelchair - period. Yes, you can make a parapalegic army crawl on the floor to get around and he can do that for a short time but what kind of effect does that have on his learning, his emotional and psychological state?

DS's teacher last year was slowly taking away my son's accommodations (b/c she thought she could get him 'on par with his peers' in a few months despite his having a neurological/neuromuscular and what we later found out was a connective tissue condition) and, as she did, he began to slowly deteriorate emotionally and behaviors started to appear (instead of realizing his deteriorating behavior was connected to him being denied needed accommodations, she thought he needed social skills group) (as an aside, that is an example of blindsiding I was hit with at a meeting: "DS is no longer behaving, he needs social skills group, etc., and oh by the way he is writing just as much as his peers now and he doesn't get his scribing accommodation! So, we'll just take those accommodations out, don't want to short-change him! Okay moving on...") When I found out about her 'plan' I immediately put a stop to it and once he started getting his scribing accomodations consistently again he began to "behave well" again.

Also, it sounds like our guys are similar (gifted with hypotonioa and DCD); although my guy is not nearly as gifted as your guy, which really makes me feel for your guy b/c my DS was soooo frustrated having a high IQ and not being able to physically keep up due to writing/fatigue etc and to "look" not-so-smart (and be treated like he is "bad' and cognitively impaired) b/c he can't show what he knows via writing, etc. - it was really very devastating for him. With an IQ of 160 you DS is really suffering a severe bottleneck with no accommodations for his DCD and hypotonia.

Irena thank you for all your comments.

Everyone's help makes a huge difference to me. Most of all to my inner feeling of assertiveness. But also many of the specific ideas were helpful. Thank you all!

It has gotten really clear to us that the teacher has discrete categories in how she thinks about issues, and to her things from one category (for example gifted or disabled) do not have any reason to intrude into another category (work ethic). In work ethic she looks solely for causes such as psychological or the child's home situation. I understand to a certain degree, they see lots of students struggle with tasks but have an excellent work ethic. But it seems so obvious to us that a child who faces hardship in more than one area would feel little pride in school, I really don't get how that isn't obvious to others.

On the plus side I think it is turning out the principal is in favor of whatever is the least difficult for the school as a whole, or is personally neutral, I can't tell the difference. Either way it is much better than if they actively shared the viewpoints.

DS had been absent a number of times and was never asked to make up work. But starting this week he has been. Coincidence?

Yes, great ideas. Some districts begin requiring students to key (type) their work in 3rd grade. By middle school, typing/keyboarding skills are essential. There are free, fun, online programs which kids can use at home to practice.