Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Getting "lost" while writing.

We are awaiting further testing for our son (8) following 2e indication from an IQ test. I'm curious if anyone else has seen this issue- my mother and I were looking at some writing he has done for school and she realized he seems to get "lost" in the sentences he writes. By that I mean he will write a word and, before he finishes that word, will start writing the next word, seems to realize he's done this and erases, fixes, and continues on. This doesn't happen with every sentence but will happen two or three times in a couple of paragraphs. His testing indicates some working memory problems. Has anyone seen something like this?

Thanks!

Could it be happening because he's daydreaming? By this I mean, he might write a bit, then get distracted, and then get back to writing, having forgotten exactly where he was.

It could be. He is a bit of a dreamer. He also is very slow at writing and worksheets (finishes WELL after the other kids in his class, is several writing assignments behind, etc.) so we suspect is is less of an attention thing and more of a memory or dysgraphia type problem? We don't go for further testing until mid-December but, of course, I'm having a hard time not trying to figure it all out in the meantime!

Sounds exactly like one of my kids.

I found a little test I was able to give him a few years back. It involved copying some text (a paragraph or two?). I set a timer for a minute or two and then counted how many words or characters he wrote. Then I had his sibs take the test and compared. He wrote very slowly, even compared to his little sister. Aeh would know more about this test than I do.

This might help: http://www.schools.utah.gov/CURR/langartelem/Core/Handwriting/Speed.aspx

We decided to keep him writing. No scribing, no typing. Write. During school vacations, his dad would give him little assignments to copy text. That kind of thing. He writes much more quickly and easily now. I don't know if the problem would have resolved on its own as he matured.

He's also super-creative, which can be a mild handicap when faced with doing certain types of schoolwork (eg when answering a question about a story and getting mentally sidetracked as different potential events or endings occur to you). Is your son highly imaginative?

In our case, time and improved executive function skills have helped a lot. YMMV!

While you're waiting for the evaluation (which really isn't that far away... even though I know it feels like it's going to take forever waiting) there are things you can do now that might be helpful going into the eval.

1) Make a list of everything you've observed (home and school) that might be relevant - what you've posted above re starting a word then moving on before finishing it - sounds potentially relevant and you'll want to mention it to your ds' evaluator.

2) You can ask your ds to write the alphabet out, upper and lower case letters, in order, and time him while he does this. The task will give you two bits of info: how quickly he writes vs same-age or same-grade peers (to get this #, time him as he writes, calculate # of letters per minute when he's completed the task, and second point of info - you can look to see if he's forming his letters properly - does he start letters from top and move to the bottom, does he reverse any letters etc - all signs that *might* point to dysgraphia.

3) Try to compare his writing with handwriting vs what he can output if you scribe for him. He's still a little young for this to be a really useful test, but it's worth at least trying to see if you notice any significant differences.

Hope some of that helps!

Best wishes,

polarbear

My husband is almost certainly dysgraphic (in my expert opinion! ). One thing he describes is that unless he is paying considerable attention to what he is writing, he leaves all sorts of letters out of words, and is always going back to fill in the missing bits so he has a hope of knowing what his notes meant. There's a really obvious lack of automaticity there - words just don't get written correctly unless he's focusing all his attention on doing so.

Not sure if that's the kind of thing you're seeing? For DH this is more about what happens when he's trying to write too quickly to "draw his words as pictures"; it's not about having his attention wander off in between each word (though he can certainly do that too. There's nothing like a task being painfully-demanding to encourage the attention to go somewhere - anywhere - else than this stuff that hurts).

Thank you all for your responses. I will try the handwriting tests and see what happens. He has been very tolerant of the "little tests" I've been making him do so far. :0) We are both trying to see it as a science experiment on his brain.

We just had a very informative parent/teacher conference after the first "trimester" of third grade. Apparently, he is performing well in all areas except for three- (1) represents and interprets data using picture graphs, bar graphs, and line plots, (2) working independently and staying on task, and (2) completing work in a timely manner- which seem to coincide with his IQ test results.

Apparently, his teacher has been pulling him aside regularly to work at another table so he can finish whatever work he has been given. And she described my talkative, opinionated (in the best way of course), outgoing boy as "shy" and said when she hands out worksheets he will just sit and stare at it like he doesn't know how to start. She gave us examples of his work to date so it looks like we will have plenty of writing samples for the neuro when we go in December. Have, for these and social reasons, decided to homeschool through a local charter. The change in him after we made the decision final has been dramatic- he is much happier and seems to be so relieved to not have to go back to "regular" school. Honestly- it breaks my heart just a little bit that he seems to have been just enduring school instead of actually enjoying it.