Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional schools oblivious to 2E

at my child's IEP meeting, no one have any clue about 2E, or about any issues facing gifted kids. My child was denied services, we are contesting. The school lacks a behavioural specialist at the moment and is non-compliant in that respect.
My child has a hard time organizing thoughts to write, or speak, and is the lowest performing writer in the class (though very high scores in verbal). He sits down and looks at the paper, but can't get the thoughts down.

Shouldnt the school have someone I can turn to? I feel like I am facing such a bias-- and ignorance-- against gifted kids.

THey have all the information yet would let this kid slip through the cracks. Any suggestion??? I can go through all the steps outlined re. the sped process. Never expected that I would meet such resistance.

My son has handwriting issues, but I am afraid I don't have any suggestions. My son was only in public school for Kindergarten and we were told to homeschool. Without coming right out and saying it, a teacher and a a relative of mine (the principal) made sure I understood that there were too many toxic teachers with tenure at our school for them to be able to really help my son, who talked more like an adult but had the handwriting and drawing ability of a younger child. Because he wasn't below grade level in anything, he didn't qualify for OT or anything. It wasn't fair, but it was reality and I just had to accept it. There are too many teachers who don't understand twice exceptional and refuse to learn about it. Because they have tenure they can't be fired or forced to do things differently.

When I complained about the school not doing anything to help my son, people would tell me that yes, it is a shame that kids like this slip through the cracks. There are not enough people who care, at least in my small town, to fix the problems facing 2E students, in fact the superintendent even tried to tell me that having to homeschool my son was a good problem to have. I have come to realize that it is a good problem to have. I am having fun learning right along with my son things that I never got the chance to learn in school.

I found that my son could get his thoughts on paper if he was allowed to use the computer. I don't think they would have let him do this in school.



My son is better able to get his thoughts on paper if he is allowed to type.

Hi Charlie's Mom,
How old is your son?
Does he have keyboard skill? At what level?

My son is an amazing writer for his age, at 12, but like yours, in elementary school would get in trouble for being 'defiant' because sometimes during writting assignments, he would just stare at the paper, or scribble down a few words that the teacher would say, 'to get him started.' The whole thing was very embarrassing for him.

BTW, our school had experts, which were sure that using a graphical organizer was going to solve this problem. Now our son can use a graphical organizer, but he still hates to do so, and usually does it after he writes his papers.

((shrugs))
Is it worth it to hire a parent advocate to help you negotiate this?
Grinity

My son is almost 8.
He has few keyboard skills. his handwriting is excellent.

I will be taking him to a language therapist to help address the issues- , but in the meantime in school he is struggling with the language arts. Not able to get the info on paper.
He just comes home and tells me he hate the language arts, and his work comes home with big circles where it is incomplete. It wasnt until he IEP meeting when I realized that they had the SPED person observe him doing this type of assignment (because they have some awareness of an issue, I assume). He asked for addional time and still produced the least of the entire class.

His teacher is new, not tenured and - I suspect- not willing to make waves. I am trying to get an advocate, I have notified the superintendant.

The IEP meeting was unusual (for me anyway) because the language evaluation was extremely well done, but the therapist failed to explain exactly what in her findings indicated a real problem. Soon after, I had a private speech person looked at the report and she showed me the red flags--which were completely unmentioned in the IEP meeting. The private person explained that the denial of IEP services were unjustified and why.

Who should be the "go to" person that aught to have knowledge of 2E in the schools? Is this some sort of new and foreign concept?

Thanks

Hi,

It's difficult to organize thoughts onto blank paper. This might help: Try sitting down with him and have him think of a topic exciting to him, one where he'd have to make his points. Help him make a main assertion. Write that down. Next, he thinks of an idea/statement to support that. Put that on an index card. Do another card, etc. Ask for examples/illustrations for those points. Write each on a card. When all thoughts are on cards, have him organize them on the table, play with arrangement, etc. This may be easier before he hits the paper. When I was younger, it worked for me.

It sounds like my son. He is HG, 2E with visual processing issues. He cannoot get thoughts down on the page the way most of us do. he needed to be taught a more graphic way to organize. we also had him stand up and deliverhis ideas like a speech, or use a tape recorder and then write. The best thing that worked was a mind map or web graphic that he used to out line his thoughts then we taught him to write a sentance or two for each arm of the web....

we also use colored post it nots and he writes one idea on each note, assigns a tpoic or point to each color and he writes a note, sticks it on the table, writes a note and sticks it on the table.... then he reorganizes them in collums and then her writes. brutal but it works and he no longer has to do all of this but he did for about a year.
joAnn

Mindmaps/Idea maps are so great for visual kids!

Sadly it is a really difficult process. Have you requested an IEE? Or where are you in the process? Keep your fingers crossed, our meeting is tomorrow morning, but I think I and my daughters advocate are ready! I definately recommend having an advocate.

Hi Charlie's Mom,

I just wanted to add that I feel a lot of empathy for your situation. We went through this with an inept system. How is he handling this emotionally? Is writing the only difficulty? Looking back, I wish we had moved to a district with a better rep for spec. services. We needed to do a lot of updating on our house and I think we felt stuck there. It's a long story, you can search past posts, but we took our dist. to court. Keep up the good fight. If this is emotionally draining you, spend some time with you and your husband to get out and destress and have "you" time. This helped us get through the bad years. Blessings, San