Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Not gifted only anxiety?

Hi there,
I apologize ahead of time for a long post here. I have a bunch of questions as we just received DD8's test results. I'm a bit overwhelmed by them. I am perplexed by her WISC-IV scores too.
For a bit of background, she took the NNAT fall of last school year (1st grade) and the CogAt this last fall (2nd grade) as part of the schools district's screening for their full time GT Centers. She scored 140 on both and was accepted into the center. Her teacher even mumbled that she thought DD had the highest CogAt of all the second graders in the school. Because of some significant issues such as refusing to do her work (usually writing), difficulty transitioning and with flexibility, screaming, hiding under her desk, and running from the classroom, we started testing for special ed. She's got perfectionism issues and avoids activities she's not sure she'll be good at. She is on meds for anxiety and is doing much much better (I still feel guilty for her multiple anxiety attacks per day).

So, she had the:
Beery-Bukteinca VMI 108 70th
BASC-2 - anxiety, maybe depression
BRIEF - some executive function issues

WISC-IV
VCI 106 66th
Sim 15
Vocab 15
Comp 4
PRI 135 99th
Block 17
Picture 15
Matrix 15
WMI 123 94th
Digit 14
Letter number 14
PSI 97 42nd
Coding 7
Symbol 12
FSIQ 121 92nd

Kaufman test of educational achievement
Reading composite 98th
Math composite 86th
Written 39th
Sound 82nd
Decoding 93rd
Oral fluency 58th

Does any of this make sense? I thought her FSIQ would be higher given her CogAt (all that she seems to understand). I don't understand her math composite feel her strong suit is STEM as she gets concepts quickly and she not challenged at all (virtually any incorrect answer she makes are "dumb" ones because she wasn't paying attention). Her favorite shows are NOVA and Cosmos; she can watch both without it going over her head. I could go on but I feel like maybe because I think she's so special I thought that the tests would show how special she was but in fact she's not gifted. She's just a bright-ish kid with anxiety (and still so very special in that way).
She's accepted into the gifted program and I should be okay with that but we're thinking of moving to another state and I'm worried I have to start all over to get her to a good place with learning.
Any thoughts will be much appreciated!

Did the psych compute a General Ability Index? That is just the PRI and VCI and does not include processing speed and working memory. It's a better measure of reasoning ability and when there are large gaps, many psychs do not calculate a FSIQ, and use the GAI instead. Do you think it's possible she got a couple low scores (like verbal comprehension or processing speed) because of anxiety? Maybe she just didn't want to answer the questions, or gave really short answers. I wouldn't conclude that she isn't gifted, if you take out the PSI, for instance, her percentile would be higher. DD had similar scores (but her verbal score was quite a bit higher and processing speed was lower) and there was a 15 pt. difference between her FSIQ and GAI.

It looks like it's possible she's 2e (gifted and potentially LD or other challenge). I'm just a parent so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but fwiw I'm a parent with 2 2e kids. So here's what I see:

1) Her PRI score is close to her NNAT and CoGAT scores. If you don't have a copy of these test results I'd request it from the school. I think the NNAT is non-verbal, and therefore more likely to match PRI than VCI. The Cogat has both verbal and nonverbal, and it would be helpful to know which parts were administered (our school district only administers the verbal), and what her sub-scores were for each on the Cogat, to see if a pattern there reflects the pattern of high/lower scores on the WISC.

2) Did the person who administered the WISC note any anxiety or fatigue? I don't have time to google for it right now, but the WISC subtests are given in a specific order, so you could look for that order and see if her subtest scores decline with the order administered (indicating fatigue).

3) Her coding score is very low - my EG ds who has DCD and dysgraphia also had a coding score of around 7 when he took the WISC. While mixed in with other strong scores it might not seem like anything, it is actually hugely meaningful for him - not because he has a weakness with processing, but because it is indicating he has a neurological challenge impacting fine motor skills. Both coding and symbol search subtests are timed, but the symbol search only requires a child to circle a repeated symbol from a random field of symbols. The coding subtest requires the child to make a specific type of mark, hence fine motor challenges can impact the score. If there is a fine motor issue, that might be the reason you see a lower score in a broad achievement test category such as math when you aren't expecting it - if there is a timed test that requires written output for instance. If the fine motor challenge is significant, fluency tests (timed) often measure the inability to produce quick handwriting rather than measure knowledge for a child with a fine motor challenge.

3) The Beery VMI usually contains two subtests that differentiate between visual and motor integration skills - do you have the subtest scores? Looking at these alongside the WISC processing speed scores can provide insight.

4) You dd's score on the WISC VCI would have been much higher if she hadn't scored a 4 on Comprehension. Is this Picture Comprehension? I would look for a description of what is required on that subtest, as well as ask the psychologist who administered it specifically what she thinks happened with the test. It is so far off the other subtest scores that unless you can pinpoint some specific skill weakness that might be impacting it, I might doubt it's accuracy. The other VCI subtest scores are very close to her PRI subtest scores, which would fall somewhat in line with the NNAT and Cogat.

5) Lastly, I would take the anxiety seriously, and not assume that anxiety is the root of anything, but consider that it may be a symptom secondary to an underlying issue. There is a lot of variability in her test scores, which may be a sign of an undiagnosed LD.


My EG ds has an expressive language disorder which impacts written expression. He appeared to "refuse" to do writing assignments in early elementary - but he wasn't really refusing, the reality was he had no clue what to do, but because he was very bright his teacher thought he was being lazy and just not doing his work on purpose. As his parents, we knew he was very bright, and thought what was happening was perfectionism. As a result of none of us recognizing he had an actual learning challenge, he became extremely anxious and was on the verge of clinical depression when he was finally referred for testing at the end of 2nd grade. So - fwiw, my recommendation is that you find a neuropsychologist or educational psychologist or a school psychologist who will look at the overall bank of data you have - the ability vs achievement testing, classroom behavior, classroom academic work, developmental history, and additional testing, and try to put the puzzle pieces together to determine what is driving the issues with written work and behaviors at school.

When you talk to the school, I'd also request further testing of written expression - the TOWL (Test of Written Language) is what is typically used in our school district. I'd also request an OT eval if that wasn't included in the testing. I don't know if it's an issue or not, but google dysgraphia symptoms, and see if any of that fits anything you are seeing with your dd. At home, try giving her different types of writing assignments and see what is easier (or compare to school) - can she summarize a story? Can she write about factual info but is lost when you ask her to make up a story? Is the length and complexity of her writing significantly different when she uses handwriting vs telling you orally?

Put together any notes you have from your own observations and see how hey correlate with the test results you have. You most likely won't get it all neatly figured out overnight, but you have a lot of info already to start with.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I am also struck by the significant range of subtest scores. In particular:

1. The Comprehension score of 4, in contrast to the other VCI scores in the Superior range (more consistent with a VCI in the upper 120s than in the 100s). Although this is not the only skill associated with it, social reasoning is one of the skills connected with performance on this subtest. Social perception is often notably impaired in individuals with anxiety disorders. Another possible angle (and I don't enough from your description to suggest how likely this is) is that the anxiety and the putative social reasoning deficits are both related to an autistic spectrum disorder. It sounds like there may be other symptoms that could be consistent with ASD, such as inflexibility/rigidity, and sensory regulation issues.

2. The combination of low Coding, relatively low writing, and anecdotal writing refusal all would concern me, wrt written expression, including mechanics, as polarbear already stated. The VMI was in the upper end of the average range, which is less significant, from an OT standpoint, but as it is untimed, there could still be fine motor issues.

3. The math composite score is not as concerning per se. It's within the range, statistically. I would like to know if both computations and problem solving were at the same level, though, as that could be more significant. The math computation subtest involves written work...

4. Did they do the reading, math, and writing fluency subtests? I notice that her Oral Fluency (mostly retrieval fluency) is average, and comparable to Symbol Search, which suggests that the challenge with Coding is specifically fine motor speed, as opposed to untimed fine motor, or motor-free speed. Her perceptual reasoning skills are quite good, so this is more data that suggests pursuing the OT end of things. Fine-motor speed can be connected to deficits in developing automaticity, which can affect writing (lack of automaticity in letter formation and/or spelling can become major obstacles to written expression), reading (using phonetic decoding strategies on novel words), or mathematics (lack of rapid access to basic computations interferes with higher level problem-solving and multi-step computations). The latter two usually become more noticeable in later grades, for high cognitive individuals.

5. I second (third?) more in-depth writing assessment, such as with the TOWL-4 or PAL-II (I give a slight edge to the latter for this age).

My DS has ADHD/anxiety/depression dx and 504 for those (old stuff--awaiting updates). I don't have all those sub-scores or know anything about them, but his only FSIQ was 126 and psych stated in report anxiety may have affected and should be considered in interpretation (again, those scores are five years old).

GAI has been tested at 146, 132, 136. Processing speed was big issue in FSIQ but I have nothing to add as far as the sub-tests. The lowest of GAI was when he was extremely phobic, anxious, and basically freaked out about the testing (and still remembers how much he disliked the psych--he was scared of him). I would definitely want further info especially before deciding "not gifted." I don't know much about IQ testing but 99th percentile in PRI and also 97th in WMI look like clues to me.

Thanks so much, I'm going to have to go back through the test scores and narratives with all this advice. The school psychologist did note that she tended to not answer rather than guess. With the meds attenuating the anxiety, we're seeing some things like the depth of her perfectionism and self-doubt. So, I think she'd rather not answer than to guess and be incorrect. She thinks she's the slowest learner in her class and the worst at math. Her teacher and I are floored as she gets stuff no other kid gets in her class. So, we're both trying to show her how much she knows. She just got beast academy books and LOVES them. Hoping that will help build interest in taking on challenge and help her feel good about it.

polarbear - your DS sounds like my DD. She goes completely blank with writing assignments, especially ones where she can write whatever she wants. Pre-meds, she would fall off the emotional cliff. She loves to draw though and one way to get ideas flowing is for her to draw pictures then write about the pictures. Her drawings are not that different from any other second grader except for the incredible amount of detail. They just started writing poetry and she likes doing that - something to explore.

aeh - the psychiatrist and another psychologist said she has a combination of behaviors that are associated with ASD but didn't think she was ASD. The psych thought maybe ADHD-inattentive in addition to the anxiety but wanted the psychiatrist to have a look (and give a medication consult). Psychiatrist wanted to get a handle on the anxiety before further examining for ADHD. She also wasn't sure if rigidity was leading to anxiety or anxiety leading to rigidity. I think it's the latter. DD became more and more rigid as her anxiety amped up. On the meds, she is calmer and more flexible (but still won't eat anything green 😝).

I have her CogAt report but can't find the NNAT. I can get that from school. Tomorrow is therapist appt for the anxiety, so more calculations such as GAI will probably wait for the weekend. As a side note, my kiddo very much reminds me of me and seems to be wired like me. I was identified as gifted as a kid and so in my shock of a lower than expected FSIQ, I asked my dad if I had an IQ test. It was highly likely SB (from the mod-1970s) and my dad said I scored in the 150s-160s. DH wasn't labeled as gifted but his sister skipped a grade sometime in early elementary. It made me feel better to think that I'm not crazy or "that mom" to think DD is gifted.

Thanks again and I know I'll be back with more questions.

Hi again,
I have an update and more subscores.
DD8's therapist also thought an OT evaluation of fine motor skills is a good idea. And it looks like she'll qualify for an IEP AND the full time GT center isays they are prepared to support her needs.

DD's CogAt subscores are:
Verbal 133 98th age percentile
Quantitative 137 99th age percentile
Nonverbal 132 98th age percentile

Kaufman subscores
Composite 130 98th
Letter & word recognition 126 96th
Reading comprehension 127 96th

Math composite 116 86th
Math concepts and application 122 93rd
Math computation 102 55th

Written language composite 96 39th
Written expression 94 34th
Spelling 99 47th

Sound symbol composite 114 82nd
Phological awareness 106 66th
Nonsense word decoding 115 84th

Decoding composite 122 93rd - no subscores - note says this is derived from letter & word recognition and nonsense word decoding. Y
Oral fluency composite 103 58th
Associational Fluency 109 73rd
Naming Facility (RAN - I don't know what this means) 97 42nd

Still looking at the narrative from the school psychologist. The recommendations are in the behavioral realm plus a comment on needing more time to complete work.
The WISC-IV was administered pre-anxiety medication and the Kaufman was administered while on medication.
If anyone has more insight, that would be greatly appreciated.

Hm. I'm seeing a pattern of relative weaknesses in the retrieval fluency areas and possibly phonological processing, with some indications that retrieval fluency/automaticity is starting to impact academics, in the form of math computations and written language. I'd agree with the IEP eligibility.

It is not unusual for cognitively intact or strong children with learning differences to experience themselves as much less capable, which feeds anxiety, which in turn distorts perceptions further. And, incidentally, differentially depresses the demonstration of math skills. You may find that appropriate academic instruction, and supports, contributes significantly to the moderation of her anxiety symptoms.

RAN is rapid automatic naming, and is a form of retrieval fluency

I think this is similar to what DD had on the D-KEFS in terms of the letter fluency score (I think the kid is supposed to name things that start with a certain letter)...she was in the below average range. He said she has slow proc. speed even though her latest WISC-IV processing speed score was in the above-average range.

The OT last year had her do a similar task (name animals that start with letters of the alphabet) and she basically freaked out and couldn't name much of anything. She also has anxiety issues.

There's a difference between acting quickly on information presented to you (which is more speed of information processing/processing speed as it is usually assessed), and retrieval fluency, in which one needs to access and produce information that one already has stored away. The latter has a lot of EF implications. I've used the messy closet analogy before. It's all in there somewhere, but the filing/organization/retrieval pathway is so inefficient or disorganized that finding it on demand is difficult. Often, cued or recognition recall will be much better than free recall.

I usually recommend that students learn to attach memory "hooks" or personally-meaningful mnemonics to information, so that there will be a "fishing line" attached to a group of related content or skill standards. Or you can think of them as links or beads on a chain/thread. Using mental walk-throughs or narratives can help, too. E.g., you memorize and later retrieve your grocery list by standing in front of the refrigerator (IRL or mentally) and looking at each shelf for the item that you need to buy. Or tell yourself a story that involves all the pertinent steps of a process/skill, with vivid sensory, relational, or emotional (including humorous) cues connecting each step.

This doesn't, honestly, help that much with retrieval fluency, because it's not that fast, but it can be helpful as a compensatory strategy for retrieval weaknesses in general. And I figure it can't hurt for fluency purposes, as it minimally gives one some sense of control over the effort to pull up facts and skills.

Sounds like aeh is referring to the classical Method of Loci...

Yes. And other imagery methods.

DD scored in the average range on the memory tests he gave her (for instance learning a list and then needing to recall it later)....so I'm not sure what to make of it. Her working memory on the WISC was 96th percentile but that seems to be testing more immediate memory and manipulating information rather than learning something and then needing to recall it. Of course, it's possible that for a gifted kid "average" on a memory test is really not good. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

aeh - thanks for the additional info. And I don't have Beery-B subscores.

We just had the IEP eligibility meeting and found DD to be eligible based on her anxiety behaviors. We have an IEP development meeting next week. They're focusing on the behavior but I want them to get at the root; what is the problem with writing? We were told we can ask for more investigation at the next meeting.

They seem to say that she's okay with respect to LD as she's performing at or above grade level. However, her teacher and I said she tries to do the minimal amount of actual writing and her teach says she goes through really clever means to write less. For example, in a math problem where she is supposed to write out how she figured out the problem, she just wrote another equation. In another case, she is supposed to write the assignment of the day in her planner by copying what the teacher put on the board. DD paraphrases the assignment down to one word and thus reduced the amount of writing. Her teacher noted that the DRA just administered (results not in yet) will score her lower than her actual comprehension since DD had to give answers in writing.

Between her behavior around writing assignments (it triggered big "freak-outs" pre-medication and difficulty while on medication), what you all have helped me with interpreting tests, and how much I know goes on in her head (regardless of how messy that closet is, I think there's something about writing that is inhibiting her, frustrating her and contributing to her distorted view of her abilitities.

I am going to take notes and look at information before our IEP meeting next week. Given that she'll have an IEP, she's probably going to the full-time gifted program she was accepted to.

black cat - if you get any insight with your DD, let me know as I'm trying to figure stuff out too.

thanks again!

Is your sense that the anxiety leads to the writing difficulty, or that the writing difficulty triggers the anxiety?

We have it going in both directions in this house. For kid 1, ultimately a diagnosis of dyslexia (with slightly larger splits in writing + spelling vs other verbal abilities) led to services to address the underlying phonological processing issues, which removed a lot of roadblocks in the writing, and therefore relieved a lot of the school-based anxiety. For kid 2, we're addressing *both* underlying phonological weaknesses as well as language difficulties (as exposed by a language evaluation from a SLP). This has so far facilitated an order of magnitude increase in writing output.

For us, these assessments were based on multiple evaluations of phonological processing (from WIAT/WJ, CTOPP, and AIMSWeb as well as specific OG testing-CORE?) and metalinguistics evaluation from a SLP. Neither kid really showed clear difficulties in overall phonological awareness, but certain subtests were clear outliers.

Our district counts a split in scores of more than 22 points as qualifying for intervention services, with no requirement that the student be below grade level.

Basically what the neuropsych said is that her problems with writing are due to executive functioning issues and ADHD. It's not "just" ADHD. So she has problems planning what to write, organizing her thoughts, getting it down on the paper. She is slightly better if someone scribes for her or if she types, but not much. If you ask her to tell a story, she has problems even with that and will resist. But her speech/language is very articulate and she has no problem with communicating her thoughts verbally. She has some characteristics of dysgraphia, but her motor skills seem fine. Her handwriting is generally very neat (whereas my DS has handwriting that looks like chicken scratches and I think someone could more convincingly make the argument that he has motor dysgraphia). Basically what the neuropsych said is that she needs a lot of scaffolding with writing. She needs to use a template, she needs help with planning, etc.

She also resists copying anything, doesn't like to show work for math, doesn't like to take notes. I think all of this is also related to EF and slow processing. Her copy speed/fluency is somewhat delayed for her age (the number of words she can copy per minute). You can find copy speed tests online and try giving them to her (if you can't find it let me know, I can find it). You can also google CBM written expression problems/writing fluency where you give her a starter sentence/phrase and then time her and see how she falls in terms of norms. DD tends to sit there blankly, says she has no idea what to write, and comes out a couple grade levels delayed despite having solidly average writing scores on tests like the WIAT/WJ-ACH and TOWL-4 contrived writing. She completely bombed spontanteous writing on the TOWL where she had to look at a picture and write a "story". She didn't even write 40 words in 15 min. which is similar to what I saw on the CBM probes I gave her at home. Of course, the school never cared about any of my writing samples. The one classroom writing sample they found, she wrote 2 sentences, but those two sentences, I guess, were sophisticated sentences (probably because her VCI is 99th percentile). It's a case of giftedness masking a disability. She is also able to "cover up" her ADHD symptoms pretty well when she wants to, making me look crazy. She did great on the CCPT (computerized test for ADHD) so it's hard to tell how much of her issue is ADHD and how much of it is processing issues. I know that stimulant medication helps her though.

You may find your dd stuck in a bit of a middle-ground-black-hole here. There is a difference between having what is considered an LD by the school (which means qualifying because you meet a certain set of very low-performing-high-impact scores) and having a challenge that impacts your ability to perform to full ability in school as well as potentially impacting the student outside of school. If she does fall into this in-between land - doesn't qualify for services for the LD but does in fact have a challenge, you'll still need to do as much as you can either through outside help or by advocating and supporting her in her schoolwork to help her find her way through the challenges.

I don't think you're really truly stuck in that hole in a way that you aren't going to get support from the school - yet. Keep advocating and keep looking for understanding. Definitely ask for clarification/testing re the writing challenges at your IEP development meeting.


FWIW, while these may look clever, they might also be screaming "I can't write" or "something about writing is difficult" and they might really be all that she can do.


When you are advocating, remember to compare this to what other students are doing and are capable of doing. There are signals here that are important - she seems to be lagging in terms of skills she will need now and in future grades.


I think you can administer the DRA using different books (I might be wrong). Or that the books change as you move up in levels. I'd ask the teacher if she could possibly test your dd again, maybe starting at a higher level, and scribe her responses. If the teacher doesn't have time to do this, request this at the IEP meeting. I'd also ask for the TOWL (Test of Written Langauge) at the IEP meeting.


I'd also request a Speech Language eval for expressive language - I'll explain a bit below under blackcap's post. You might not get it, but it's worth requesting.

It's also possible (maybe likely) that what will happen at the IEP development meeting is that since she's qualified, the school staff will tell you they can offer certain goals/services based on the teacher's notes about copying and math answers etc. That's all good, but what you really need to know is the *why* so that instruction/remediation/accommodations can be appropriately targeted. If they are resistant to further testing, let them know this is *why* testing is important. You don't want to spend valuable school resources attempting to help when what is being tried isn't going to work because it's not aimed at the correct target. Hope that makes sense!

Best wishes,

polarbear

Blackcat has most likely already heard this from me 900 times, but I'll repost it once again here for people who are new to the forum - the descriptions of blackcat's dd's challenges above are very very very similar to the challenges my ds experienced (still experiences in to a certain degree). These were, for my ds, related to expressive language, and the very very very *best* therapy/help we found to address these challenges was speech therapy for expressive language.

polarbear

First, I apologize for my horrible grammar. The only thing I can say is I always found writing difficult as well but I can't put my finger on it. However, it's is more likely because I'm being emotional.
Second, I don't seem to be able to use the quote function well from my iPad.

So, geofizz's question on anxiety causing writing issues or writing issues causing anxiety. I would say she is in/was in a spiral. I believe writing was the major trigger for her anxiety but became a self-fulfilling prophecy. She would get worked up with prospect of writing and she seized up to a pioint of being in able to write. This anxiety built up so high, she was struggling to function in everything but reading (reading became a place of soothing, she'd open to a random page and read). She feels like she can't do things, feels that she's the slowest learner, and feels that she's the worst in math. She also ice skates and it was a place where she felt confident in December ("I know I can do it even when it's hard" vs not the case at school) and her freak outs didn't happen on the ice. As her anxiety escalated to where "school DD" showed up at the rink rather than "skater DD". It just breaks my heart that she got in such a state.

Now that she's on meds, she is coping much better, interacting with classmates and working hard on her skating. However, she still avoids writing, still thinks she's not a good learner. As a side note, the WISC-IV was administered pre-medication, the Kaufman test was administered with 4 days of meds.

aeh - I am perplexed as her teacher's and therapist's observations of her ability to recall details. For example, her therapist states with every visit that she doesn't miss a thing. DD will notice any slight change in her office or if a tiny toy is missing or in a different place or telling all about our pending trip to Yellowstone. I have to read up on the different kinds of memory.

polarbear - I'm taking notes from your comments and you erased exactly how I feel. What is at the root of her struggle? What is frustrating her? I'll keep and eye for the black hole and keep looking for answers. All her teachers (K-2) and other adults that know her remark on how smart she is.
I have a lot of reading to do - fortunately it's a strength like my DD.
Thanks for the help!

Just a note on memory: it sounds like she has excellent recognition, cued, and narrative memory, which is why she can identify -changes- very well. Telling about a pending trip also is in a different category from retrieval efficiency, as it comes equipped with its own memory chain. The kind of skill that would be affected (apart from aforementioned math facts, categories of words, spelling, and letter formation) might include learning how to touch type quickly (because it's arbitrary, with no obvious meaning to the layout of the letters).

I'll add to this as well as I have also DS with dyspraxia and accompanying dysgraphia (Polarbear was a huge help for me with my son!) My son has/had same problems until the actual act of physical writing was/is removed - i.e. when he can dictate or type his work. His processing on WISC was in single digits but his verbal IQ was sky high. He had terrible anxiety until he was diagnosed and receives accommodations for writing (i.e., scribe and technology). School kept saying he had adhd and his writing would probably get better if I were to medicate him. He never did get an ADHD diagnosis (although I didn't really pursue one) and I have never medicated him. He ended up with a dyspraxia and dysgraphia Dx. He is doing extraordinarily well with accommodations for writing and poor processing at school. He's very much like Polarbear's son except he does not seem to have the expressive language aspect/issue - that is, he has the processing and actual/physical writing issues (as in can not write letters going the proper way/direction, reverses letters and numbers, takes way too long in forming numbers and letters (or any symbols) by hand, etc. He looked a bit autistic when his anxiety was so bad (although he scored quite well on the social reasoning WISC subtest). He was rigid, inflexible (becoming increasingly so in ways that didn't make sense to writing like insisting on certain colors, certain things, etc., became phobic, etc.) He was really acting out ... Now that the anxiety is gone because his true problem has been identified and accommodated for, he's great. All of that is gone. Well, he is still pretty intense but I think that is a gifted thing

Oh and my DS does all of his DRAs orally and with a scribe... He'd still be at 1st grade level I think if he had to handwrite that test!

DD's end of the year papers came home from school and there was some sort of end of the year "how you feel about school" paper. One question was "How did you improve" and DD wrote that she is doing better at writing because she can now write more than 3 sentences in an hour. Not sure how true that even is, but I thought she summed up the problem nicely. On another sheet a question was "What would help you with writing?" and DD wrote "NOTHING would help me with writing." With her, she does not reverse any letters/numbers and doesn't seem to have any physical problems with writing so I don't know if "dysgraphia" is appropriate for her. The neuropsych said it's not and that he said her writing problems are directly related to poor EF. Typing or scribing helps a bit but doesn't solve the problem. Her notebooks are filled with drawings rather than "notes" and the LA teacher said obviously her fine motor ability is not a problem if she is drawing all over everything. In the end, I don't know that it matters "what" exactly it is...because the neuropsych said she should keyboard, use dictation, etc. anyway. I don't think it's a "language" issue, I think it's an EF issue (poor organization, planning, etc). When I looked at the Rey Complex Figure test she did that made it painfully obvious, she wasn't looking at the whole picture and planning an efficient way to copy it. It was done in little bits and pieces, for instance instead of drawing a rectangle with an X through the rectangle, she drew the rectangle in separate parts. So if she had to come up with a story, she would have no concept of how to plan a beginning, middle and end and have the story flow. She can try and probably do an acceptable job, but since she is gifted she knows when something is not a good story. In class she tends to just sit there and look passive aggressive, and pretty much refuses to do the work, she becomes unfocused and off-task doing something else, and it infuriates teachers who don't understand the problem. Teachers would reprimand her, tell her to "focus", get to work, make better choices, etc. and then an anxiety issue developed, because she really does want to please people. Now if anyone uses the word "focus" she freaks out. She will only do tests on the computer, probably because she isn't required to "show work" like you have to on paper (math teacher pretty much insisted on it). Showing work requires showing your steps, and DD doesn't do "steps". She can't organize the problem on the page, even. In her notebook she would have writing on a page, and then 10 pages would be blank and then there would be more writing, upside down.

My one note on the "doesn't matter what" is that it may matter "what" in determining how to remediate and help your dd develop her written expression skills.

Also, as blackcap mentioned, I doubt her ddis dysgraphic, but I wanted to point out for parents who are new to the forum or new to dysgraphia, dysgraphic students are often very capable of drawing without issue - my ds is a fantastic artist - when he was young he could draw pictures that were so detailed and accurate they literally left adults with their mouths gaping open when they saw his work. Yet he couldn't write. The two things (drawing vs writing), while they rely on fine motor skills, are two very different processes (handwriting requires a development of automaticity that drawing freehand does not). While dysgraphia may have a component that is tied to fine motor vs visual, it is actually an issue with neurological wiring, i.e. how the brain communicates with either fine motor or visual processing.

polarbear

And I think part of the problem is that problems with writing can occur with and as a result of ADHD, of course, and autism. And problems with writing can be due or have its root in a different disorder such as dyspraxia, dysgraphia, etc. It is hard to tease out what to the true cause. I find (and this is my personal experience) is that people/educators in my area are really quick to grab onto ADHD or even autism because they feel like they understand that. No one really knows much about dyspraxia and how that manifests and how it can look like ADHD and/or autism, etc. No one knows about dysgraphia, either. When we were on our traumatic journey of trying to figure out what was "wrong," I more than once had an educator and even a psych say - "well, we don't really know but he needs help so we just need to label him xyz" (actually specifically one wanted him labeled PDD-NOS and the other wanted ADHD). None of them even considered dysgraphia even though I kept saying "I think he either has dysgraphia or dyslexia and the anxiety is stemming from that." In my sons case, I really felt it important to get to the true root issue. Not sure if that was the right way to go or what but I thought it could be very harmful to him if he were to be treated as autistic, for example, when his struggle was due to something quite different. It's just really hard to figure this stuff out

This board has been such a relief. I don't feel so crazy or alone but the complexity is a bit overwhelming. I am inspired by your pursuits for your kiddos.
Irena - I can relate to anxiety causing rigidity. I think my kiddo was starting to develop a phobia or two until she got on the meds.
Blackcat - your DDs frustration is heart breaking. My DD is frustrated too, she's at least now able to articulate that she's frustrated (rather than crying, screaming, hiding under her desk, and/or kicking the teacher......well, she did hide under her desk today).
Did you all seek out a neuropsychologist or did the school? I found a neuropsych in our area that specializes in 2e. I think DD may be more complicated than the school can tease out (but I will still ask them for more testing). I'm also worried as we may be moving to another state. I feel like I don't have anything to make a strong case for another school district to put DD into a gifted program with an iep. She doesn't have anything "through the roof" and her eligibility is based on emotional disability (& teachers experiencing months of severe freak outs) rather than an LD.

The school did a poor eval (at my request--they didn't want to actually evaluate her). All they cared about was whether she did or did not score below average for writing on a test like the Woodcock Johnson. They told me that any other testing is "neuropsych testing" and they do not need to do any of that. However the State manual for assessing disabilities like SLD states all of the appropriate/suggested tests and there is more there than the Woodcock Johnson! They are supposed to assess for information processing disorders. She qualified as having an SLD due to severe discrepancy between cognitive ability and achievement but they told me she has to be below average. I rejected the school eval and put in a request for an independent eval at public expense. School districts almost always grant this request (although they may hate you) otherwise they have to go to due process which is expensive for them. It is the most powerful right a parent has. You do not need to accept their eval. They sent me a list of evaluators but a disability lawyer told me they were all unacceptable people and gave me other names, so I had DD evaluated at a University by a neuropsych/ed psych (I think the educational psych part is important--that was more important to me than having a neuropsych, because I wanted recommendations for the school and something the school could relate to). Once we get around to having another IEP meeting he is going to attend.

My DD seems similar but she doesn't really freak out in an obvious way. The only reason they know she is anxious (now) is because she started telling them. Sometimes she starts crying. Most of the time, if she is overwhelmed, she just sits there and does nothing. On a test to place her for math, it was multiple choice and she picked random answers to get it over with.