Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Is it possible to be 6e?

If anyone gets my frustration, I thought you all would. So here goes. Earlier this year, we thought we were dealing with a marginally gifted set of twins. A million thanks go to AEH who confirmed that one of our twins WISCIV scores were not calculated appropriately. So I find a new doctor who has been fantastic. She orders vision assessment which shows issues with both twins and our ped opthamologist agrees (different issues but both have issues). Have a CAPD assessment down at Able Kids to find both have CAPD. We get counseling 2x/week for the girls. Counselor recommends getting both retested because she still thinks there is something not right. We agree. We talk to this new doctor and she is happyt to do a complete neuropsych eval..soup to nuts. Testing complete..we find out confirmation that the assessments done on both girls by prior doc were not complete. Test shows even higher IQs than before (been way over year since last testing). Achievement tests show LD with both of them. We know one has mild ADHD on top of the other stuff mentioned above. They also discovered that this twin has Stealth Dyslexia. Seriously..can there be anything else wrong? Other twin's vision issues are so bad, her achievement scores demonstrated a problem. Oh, and she has some sensory vestibular something or other (haven't gotten full report yet) and they are recommending OT for her. I am at my wits end. We just finished OT for typing skills since twin with ADHD has syndactyly. Now we restart with the other one. Vision therapy visits twice a week (because they can't fit them in at the same time), counseling 2x/week, etc. Anyway, I guess my question is, is there some treatment for Stealth Dyslexia? I have ordered some books previously recommended in prior threads but they haven't arrived. Sorry for the long rant. Just need to pull myself together. Also, thank you again AEH. If you hadn't advised the accurate scores we would have likely never had a reassessment by an experienced neuropsych nor found these problems. Your help has been very much appreciated.

You must feel less like you are on a merry go round than bouncing from ride to ride at the amusement park. Having a gifted child is a challenge, a 2e child more so but twins! I have so much sympathy for you.

On the up side, Aeh has helped you get onto the right path. While you have found issue after issue, you have identified the problems and found therapists. Well done. That is a massive step in the right direction.

I hear that it is exhausting and frustrating and ongoing. Hopefully you will get some opportunities to take breaks and enjoy your lovely children in between all those appointments. Then take a moment for yourself if at all possible.

This a good starting article on stealth dyslexia. There are others on the forum who have more experience with that. I just wanted to send you positive thoughts and hope you know your hard work and effort is worth while!

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10435.aspx

I feel your pain... We are at 11 current diagnoses for DD10. So... Ummm...yeah...

The good news is that in our case we have only been able to uncover the last 5 because we got some big issues under control. With migraines and anxiety under control new testing last winter was able to send us down some new paths and remove a couple of diagnoses from prior testing as being inaccurate. I have spent the past few months getting everything checked out and have sent all the various reports (hundreds and hundreds of pages) on to a developmental pediatrician who is going to work on putting the puzzle pieces together to see what's going on with the whole elephant rather than relying on each speicalist's interpretations of their individual parts of the elephant.

It gets to the point of being surreal. Being told to check for the one thing you are *certain* isn't there, being told by the evaluator that it is really a "rule out screening" only to add yet another component to the already over-complicated puzzle.

If it helps I keep reminding myself that knowledge is power. These issues were there whether or not we had identified or labeled them. The only way to address the problems or figure out what the link may be is to get it all out in the open and identfied. Hopefully we are done with that part and can move on to the solution phase.

And for what it's worth I asked about hand-eye coordination issues starting at 18 months, started asking about VT the summer after kindergarten. Concerns were totally dismissed by pediatrician. Now after 3 months of intensive VT developmental optometrist is saying DD can see the page for the first time. So it looks like all the time, money and effort are going to be worth it.

Hang in there! And don't be surprised if there is still more to come. Remember knowledge is power. Not knowing an issue is there doesn't make it go away it just makes it harder to address.

That is a lot of Es, can't even fathom the twin situation (my two young ones are "Irish Twins" and that is difficult enough).

I feel you on the "wits end" and will echo some advice received here: prioritize, work on the biggest problem(s) first. I imagine it's hard to know how to do that. I've been there (okay, I live there).

Sending you mountains of cyber support.

DS had this "sensory vestibular" something or other a couple years ago and was seeing an OT. My concern was that his writing looked like chicken scratches and I wanted some support in getting legible writing out of him, as well as some remediation of a few other issues (like fine motor), but she ended up spinning him around on a board with wheels because his eyes weren't moving back and forth fast enough (or maybe too fast--I don't remember). It's quite possible he had something going on, after all he had a skull fracture and brain damage on the right side of his head, but is there actually research demonstrating that spinning on a board for a few min. per week will help correct this issue? Could I just find a free playground with a merry go round and swing instead? She also wanted him to go get vision therapy. Instead of taking him to get a vision assessment I took him to a neuro-opthamologist who saw the "superficial" issue (his eyes don't track on command), but thought that would improve on it's own. So who was right? I don't know but there seem to be so many different opinions in terms of these issues and therapies. I would be extremely curious to know the percentage of assessed kids for OT who end up with "some" diagnosis requiring therapy, as well as kids who get checked with vision issues and then are diagnosed with a vision issue requiring therapy. Sometimes it seems like taking a child to be assessed will guarantee that diagnoses will be forthcoming. I thought that working with a physical therapist was very helpful for DS, but the OT struck me as a sort of quackery and waste of time/money. I'd do some research on the issue and ask a lot of questions before investing time/money in it.

I know it must be overwhelming, though, to get all this information, esp. with two different kids. I have two kids that are 2e as well, and sometimes it seems like a full time job trying to figure it all out. Hang in there.

I hear and understand your cynicism on this point. When we were going through the figuring it out phase, I probably could have gone and gotten DD several more diagnoses. I got so tired of everyone telling me things that I should be doing for my kid RIGHT NOW to address her vision, her writing, her task initiation, etc.(notice it was never something that the school or whoever was assessing the problem should be doing). If we had done everything that they suggested, when they suggested it, DD would not have had time to sleep.

To the OP, I understand that feeling of being over-whelmed. I finally had to step back and ask which one thing rose to the top.
I know that it can be hard to figure out what that "one thing" should be. Ironically, for us, it was the school psychologist pulling me aside after a meeting and helping me prioritize without the crowd. He likened it to figuring out seating at a wedding. Sometimes it's easier to figure out who you can put at the back tables first and then work your way up. So for us, typing and gross motor OT could wait, then the reading intervention didn't make as much sense if her eyes weren't working and we ended up focusing on the vision. We didn't abandon the other stuff but her vision became the number one priority. If we had a day where DD was exhausted (this happened a lot), the other stuff could slide, including homework.

I hope that you can figure out what you need to prioritize. With all of these assessments, hopefully something will rise to the top. You don't have to do everything right now.