Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Unexplained delays and further testing

I have often thought that he must really have more difficulty than other children learning and processing language, but that he has been able to compensate for it and catch up.

Maybe here delay is just very literal, delay as timing rather than pacing.

Train A leaves the station at 3:00am travelling at 100 mph
Train B leaves the station at 5:00am travelling at 145 mph

Luckily it isn't all quantitative and the teachers have been able to clue in on the qualitative difference.

Did I catch right that you haven't seen the SLP in a year? I would write out all your concerns with social speech, splits between receptive and expressive, and anything else you see and request that the school do an evaluation. If you pick up on subtle speech quirks, document them and describe them as best as possible. Same with fine motor control.

I would also head back to that SLP you loved so much and ask for a reevaluation. My poor 8 year old has been through 5 (? 6?) SLP exams. When the kids get older, some of the issues become clearer on their testing tools. Particularly for bright kids who have found other ways to communicate, more information is better than less. I'd want the school eval (including a classroom & lunchroom observation) on top of the other parts to help pick apart problem areas.

In our case we finally got a diagnosis that seemed to bring the pieces together with a brain-functioning based explanation, whereas previous diagnoses pretty much described the symptoms (expressive and phonological speech delays). No way could we have uncovered that diagnosis without remediating the symptoms.

Good luck! He sounds like a great kid, and the teacher sounds like a gem.

Yes, we checked in with the SLP every 6 months until the last year (when my son was declared "fully graduated"). Of course, that was with the knowledge we could bring him back at any point. We have sent a few e-mail questions since then, but haven't seen clear issues for which we'd need an appointment. I've just been puzzled by the disconnect between what the teacher is reporting and what we have on paper.

The teacher is definitely a gem. If I see a teacher of the year award, I fully intend to nominate her... The principal is a gem as well because he supports everything she recommends (like calling in the GT specialist to consult and allowing the partial acceleration).

I'm not sure what kind of testing we would do (if anything). He always scores Ok on language assessments. But he is just not very articulate. He has a new teacher who has a Master's in special ed and she is in contact with his new SLP at the school so we'll see what they come up with, or know of a good person to do an outside eval.

Does he have issues with articulation or motor output (in terms of speech), or is it more of a language issue? Does he use age appropriate grammar? Sounds like maybe a pragmatic speech disorder but hard to tell from the info you posted and I'm no expert anyway.

He tends to be on the lower side of average for articulation, but keeping up. His grammar seems delayed to me, but I'm used to a highly verbal PG child and his teacher and SLP seem to think it's normal. He just has a few problems with unusual tense constructions. He can have a complex conversation with us; he gets fewer opportunities to do so with his teacher so I can't tell if she would see anything unusual in his speech. I think I will ask her to try having a longer conversation with him at some point to get some feedback. When I picked him up after his pre-kindergarten screening at the school, the tester came over to me to tell me how impressed she was at his verbal ability (his vocabulary and knowledge of sight words). I don't think that most people actually take the time to have a longer conversation, though, and that might make issues more obvious.

I would keep track of the speech quirks -- make note of what he says and the situation, including time and date.

When he was "fully graduated" was that based on the original diagnoses, or was that with further investigation? There are some speech evals that aren't normed until 6 or 7.

Teacher of the year -- even if you don't have an award like that, I've gotten into the habit of writing a thank you note to the principal delineating exactly what it was about the teacher that really served my kids well. I keep all negatives out of the letter. It's 100% positive. In the day and age of "value added" teaching evaluations and such, I figure these are more beneficial in the long run to the teacher. Also, by writing out in a 100% positive manner what worked for my kid, I've found that my kids are more likely to be similarly well placed in the future.

It was based on his last full evaluation at age 5. That included expressive and receptive speech, articulation, and an informal pragmatics assessment (because, as you mention, those tools aren't standardized for younger kids).

I've been thinking of writing a letter to the principal and also to the superintendent (so I can thank the principal as well).

This sort of thing is so far my biggest "bang for the buck" in advocacy. Put it in your calendar for the end of the year and do it.

I'm thinking about sending letters, then also giving a gift card for classroom supplies. They seem to have nice supplies, but I figure there is always something more that could be used.