Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Please stop singing, humming, wiggling, talking

I certainly don't think another assessment would hurt. Girls present on the ASD spectrum differently to begin with, and throwing in giftedness just adds to that.Dd wasn't diagnosed until she was almost 10. The sensory issues, hand flapping, and disorganization can all be signs of an ASD. Now that she's older, you may be able to get more solid answers.

Agree with Pipersmom. I remember when you posted here about your DD as a toddler; for what it's worth she reminds me a lot of my DS11 (2E/autism).

It is so worthwhile to know what the profile is, so you can manage the tricky bits more easily and in a more strategic way.

My 10yo boy exhibits the latter two traits. I think his grades this year in 6th grade (he is one year advanced) will be A's and B's, although there are individual assignments where he has done worse. My wife considers him an underachiever and is more concerned than I am, broaching the idea of holding him back a year (undoing the year-ahead placement). But you don't make a student with decent grades repeat a grade. When I look at http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/treatment.html I don't see anything I'd like to try on him. Is there a book for parents who wonder if they should do anything (as opposed to cases where intervention is clearly necessary)? According to DSM-5 Asperger's can no longer even be diagnosed.

Maybe he needs more acceleration or a new school. Remember that if schoolwork presents too little challenge, focusing on it every day can be very difficult, especially for a child who's only 10.

Also, remember that a lot of the work that schools hand out isn't written by gifties, nor is it aimed at gifties. Sometimes badly written questions (especially multiple choices questions) can be harder for very smart kids because they see subtleties not envisioned by the author or most other kids. Is it possible that a portion of your son's lower grades may result from him overthinking questions on multiple choice tests or exercises? I was helping my eldest with an open-book quiz question last night. We both knew we were overthinking it, and we still couldn't get to what they were looking for. When we found out after he submitted the quiz, we both face-palmed over the writer's apparent logic. We kept thinking "it depends!!" and the author had made a simplistic assumption. Ouch.

Gifted kids are also known for being really energetic.

The best book I can think of is Exceptionally Gifted Children (new edition) by Miraca Gross. It's not specific to this question, but I suspect the question is addressed. This book is written about kids with IQs of 160 and above.

Dd is also skipped a grade, and there are times I wonder if that was the best thing to do, but she was already subject accelerated in everything but history, so it seemed pointless not to. As far as resources, I love Tony Attwood. Dd goes to therapy once a week, but that's it, her school doesn't even recognize her AS diagnosis. At any rate, Attwood really seems to get AS kids, and has some great insight into what's going on in their head, etc. I have "Aspergers Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals" as well as "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome". Hope this helps

My ds 11 has some of these characteristics, slightly I would say, maybe. In our last parent teacher meeting 2 of the teacher says when they are working quietly in class on their work he makes noises or something they couldn't really describe what it was maybe singing. They said he gets quiet when they tell him. It got me thinking a bit. He is always singing, especially when he is doing homework. He sings the formulas to math. He will sing the questions to everything. It is nothing to worry about but this did get me thinking. He is in a new school this year so I chalked it up to him dealing with that. He does have a ton of homework for a 5th grader and this year has been more then he ever had at the public school in grades 1st - 4th.

I agree. What has worked for our family is systematic teaching and positive reinforcement of organizational skills, first in isolation, then in context. Writing homework in the planner is a complex skill: you have to remember to get out the planner (when you're already thinking about something else at the start of class), do far-point copying from the board, actually remember to check the planner so you can take home the materials that go with the assignment, and look at it again later at homework time. We worked on each component skill, with support from school so that the skills would be deployed.

For a neurologically unusual person, it can take a lot longer to build these habits than it does for a more "typical" person, but it's possible. Teaching all the skills, and workarounds as needed for skills that aren't coming any time soon, is important IMO.

Kids with ADHD or Asperger's/autism are also famous for doing the homework and not turning it in. This can be a perspective-taking issue: they've seen their own finished work, so they barely realize that the teacher also has to see the finished work or it won't get graded. This drives the people around them batty. It can be solved by a variety of strategies (clipping things to the front of the binder; getting everyone to agree that papers are submitted via email the minute they are completed; etc.).


Keep in mind that "behavioral approaches" or "applied behavior analysis" encompasses everything from "you work, you get paid" to very complex systems of reinforcement. I am a fan of these approaches, because they are highly customizable and can be implemented by parents.


For organization, "Smart but Scattered" and "Late, Lost and Unprepared" are classic and moderately useful.

If you're not sure, seeing a neuropsych to get an opinion could be a good idea. Many do an intake interview with parents first before deciding whether to test at all.

For ruling autism spectrum disorders in or out, most clinicians here are using DSM-4 and DSM-5 in parallel for a while to make sure they don't miss cases. The revision was controversial.

In addition, pretty much everyone who was formerly diagnosable as having Asperger's is now supposed to be diagnosable as having autism spectrum disorder.

A good clinician can help you discern what is a serious problem (vs. normal pre-teen disorganization), how much of a problem it is, and whether it should have a name.