Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional SPD and gifted

I know there have been other threads on this topic but I decided to just start a new one. This is interesting information that I just found: (forgive me if someone else has posted this already!)
http://www.spdfoundation.net/gifted.html

I had previously commented that my investigations couldn't find any correlation with gifted and SPD, but seems I might be wrong (imagine that, my DH says!) At my new job, with so many new kids to see, I'm finding a VERY high number of kids with dyspraxia and modulation disorders who are also quite gifted!! Made me start looking around some more. I still wonder though whether some of it doesn't just constitute differences and not a disorder. Goes back to how you define disorder, I suppose.

I also got this link off another board:
www.itsyourhealthradio.org
The host is doing a whole series on SPD with interviews that are downloadable from the site. Click on "Past Shows" to get the audio from already aired shows. They are airing in May.

Thanks so much Debbie. This is very helpful. I agree that it is best looked at a difference. Unfortunately asking the school for a "quiet" place for work just doesn't work. That comment gets put in the "pushy overreacting mom" file the school has started for me. I wonder what they will say when I ask for swinging breaks????

I do have to say that I used to use the park as a reward for good behavior in the grocery store and after reading up on SPD I decided to start off with the park (swings and merry-go-round in particular) and then go do my shopping. Wow what a difference. The kids sit nicely in the cart or walk next to me now. I never knew their little bodies actually needed the swinging/spinning to calm down. Duh!

Anyways thanks for the link.

Thanks Debbie for the link - I will have to share with DS6 having SPD and Dyspraxia I have done more burning of the midnight oil on the computer than I care to think about trying to learn about them both and their correlation with being gifted. Over the past 2 years I keep reading and finding over and over again articles or books sharing that there is a high percentage of children who are all 3 and that in many cases have read that giftedness, Dyspraxia and SPD tend to go hand in hand. I keep running into gifted families online and in the state that state their child also has SPD, Dyspraxia and is very gifted. Thanks for the great links

Thank you for posting this. I have not seen some of the articles. I wish I had seen the article about dentist visits before we went to the dentist.

I wonder how many of these gifted kids with SPD and dyspraxia think camping in a tent and hiking are fun activities. I wonder how many of those kids and parents of those kids get the feeling that most people don't really understand this disorder and feel frustrated that they can't get the help they need. I wonder how many of their parents are like me and turned into helicopter parents when they realized that most people really don't understand this disorder and tried to protect them from ignorant people who call them a wuss or lazy or weak.

Interesting links - thanks for posting. I will download the podcasts for sure.

I'd love to see some good research on gifted kids and SPD. I'd love to know of the process of maturity with growing out of many sensory issues is similar for gifted and typical kids. Also, if sensory integration therapy tends to have similar outcomes for gifted versus more typically developing kids. For our family maturity, lifestyle changes and dealing with underlying anxiety seemed to all be more helpful than sensory integration therapy.

Was that a rhetorical question?

If not, I suspect that it is quite common. Overprotection is like a lot of kinds of anxiety. The initial trigger may make perfect sense but then unchecked it takes on a life of its own and gets totally out of proportion to the actual threat. It is not uncommon for parents of special needs kids or kids who have struggled to get stuck in a pattern of excess worry and overprotection. But, that doesn't mean it is healthy or an inherent part of the experience that can't be changed.

I don't see how it is possible to deal with the underlying anxiety without getting help for the underlying problems that are causing the anxiety. SPD, dyspraxia and hypotonia affect so many aspects of my son's life. I am trying to find help so that he can be successful when he needs to do physical activities in front of other people. He can't trust his body to perform the way he wants it to. It is like he has to find alternate ways of learning things like dance routines or anything that requires motor memory. I think he has to compensate by either converting steps to verbal memory by naming each physical step and memorizing those steps or some other kind of memory, but this takes extra time and slows him down. This is why group lessons don't work well for him.

How does he overcome his anxiety with his history of difficulty with physical things, with the memories of things like the choreographer and acting teacher making all the kids in the musical theater group go over the dance routines until my son could get it when they were tired and they got it a long time ago and the teacher pointing out to the group that they are having to do it again because of him. Or the group swimming lessons each year where all the other kids actually learned to swim and it took him most of the lesson just to get used to the water temperature and to get over the fear of putting his face in the water and that feeling of making very little progress compared to the other kids. I feel like I need to find a way for him to achieve success in something physical and this has been difficult for us.

My son went to Boy Scouts yesterday and there was a lot of talk about the swimming test the rest of the boys are scheduled to take, but he knows he can't do it because he doesn't know how to swim and it is not for lack of trying. It seemed like everything they talked about was physical and just another reminder of things my son can't do. I couldn't figure out how to teach him to do things that I just did without thinking and yes that causes me to have anxiety. Unless we can get help for these difficulties, how can I possibly be less anxious? My son has no trouble at all learning academics and anything to do with the computer but for this, he is labeled a geek or nerd. How is he supposed to fit in with the average boy scout that he is nothing like. Can he really have that much fun at a camp if he doesn't have much in common with the other kids?

He went to his friend's birthday party last weekend and the rest of the boys at the party were 3 and 4 years older and some of them were scouts, but they hadn't met my son. They played a lot of video and computer games at the party. My son said he didn't use any SAT words, but one of the older boys who heard him talk called him a technological nerd or something like that and when my son didn't react to the comment he said he guessed my son must have heard that a lot.

My husband asked one of the Boy Scout leaders yesterday if our son should be working on badges independently and the leader said the kids earn most of the badges at camps. It is like they want all the kids to earn the badges together, and they are only working on those that require physical skills and not the ones my son would be interested in working on, the ones that might help him feel successful.

I do think if he could manage to be successful in something like swimming, then he might be more confident in trying new physical things, but we have to find private lessons and they are very expensive.

I think a lot of people think I should just let him go to a week long scout camp with his anxiety over trying new physical activities when he has a history of great difficulty and just let him sink or swim. Let him sit on the side of the pool and watch the other boys as they swim so they know he is the only one who cant, let him see on his own if he can overcome the fear of the dark, the phobias, the inability to sleep because he hears every little noise, the fear of the other boys discovering his weaknesses and making fun of him, the bad headaches that cause him to be even more sensitive to light and sound which I do have experience with--migraines run in my family, the muscle aches that seem to be inevitable when he tries to keep up with the other kids.

Sink or swim. Common sense tells me not to put him in a sink or swim situation until he feels ready. With SPD and dyspraxia there is a higher risk of sinking and I don't think sinking will help him feel more confident. I think we need to work on being successful in one activity at a time until he can be successful and replace those negative memories with positive ones.

"I do think if he could manage to be successful in something like swimming, then he might be more confident in trying new physical things, but we have to find private lessons and they are very expensive."

We actually got simming lessons at YMCA for dd7. She has issues with motor planning and visual perceptual skills. We had to work with the Coach (who was a college student) to explain what babybear needed. She was great, using a multisensory approach. DD is really doing well with swimming and it is also great for her hypotonia!

Good Luck! Swimming is great!

It could be summed up as:

1. as long as he is physically behind he will feel anxious and there is no treatment for that.

2. physical learning isn't possible (because he's too severely affected and didn't have OT younger, because private lessons are too expensive, because doctors won't help, because people are mean and can't understand, etc. etc. etc.)

In other words: there is no possible solution.

From a distance to me this is summed up as: ANXIETY. There are many thinking errors in evidence here. The reality is that there are disabled children, even very significantly disabled ones, who are successful in activities including Boy Scouts. There are parents of disabled kids who are hopeful rather than ridden with anxiety.

Life isn't fair and we don't all get the same amount of gifts or challenges. A person could objectively have only the most minimal of challenges but see it as a mountain that couldn't be climbed if their anxiety is not under control.

So, for that reason, I respectfully suggest until anxiety is under control it is hard for anything else to be dealt with.

Sounds like a good goal. I just signed DD up for some sport camps through our local parks and rec. One offering they had was therapeutic horse riding. Here's a link in case this is something that would interest your son:
http://www.americanequestrian.com/therapy.htm

Lori, I PM'd you re: Scouts.

~S

At my new job I am shocked by how many children are sent to me for an OT evaluation with suspected SPD and then they turn out to be gifted. And often no one realizes they are gifted. I have, in just two months time, lost track of how many 4 year olds I've seen for assessment where the mom mentions things like he does math in his head or she's been reading since she was three or she talks like a little adult.....

Some of the kids I see DO have signs of SPD. They show low muscle tone or dyspraxia or problems with bilateral integration and coordination. But some of them are just on the end of the spectrum. Sort of out there - extreme sensitivity, quirks and unique sensory preferences, etc. I feel like I'm on a mission to help parents understand the "problems" in the context of the giftedness.

I'd like to see much more research on giftedness and SPD....I have some ideas....maybe someday.....

I think I understand some of my son's sensory issues better than my husband or the scout leaders because I think I have similar sensory issues when I have a migraine--at least the sensitivity to sound and lights and I have a hard time dealing with that. I am not fun to be around when I have one of these headaches. The pain medication makes the pain bearable but it does not take away the sensitivity to light and sound. I even get chills sometimes with my headaches like I did this morning and my son said he often gets chills. Just dealing with the low level pain and sensitivity makes me tired. It just takes away all my energy. There is no way I would want to be tent camping right now, so I think I understand how my son feels about it.

He gets really bad headaches when there is any change in the weather. There have been times when he started to get a headache and it didn't look like there were any weather changes but a few hours later, it started storming. We even have a dog that is sensitive to weather changes. I sometimes get headaches with weather changes too but I am not as sensitive as my son.

I can't imagine having to live with sensory issues all the time. I think the fact that he can learn as well as he does while compensating for these issues is amazing.

My son's half-brother is highly gifted and gets migraines but never had any coordination problems. I think all or most of my husband's side of the family are probably highly gifted. There are gifted people on my side of the family too but nobody on either side has ever had SPD that we know of. I still wonder what caused my son to have this when nobody else in the family has it.

Debbie, I pm'd you.

I agree with you Lori. I have a lot of sensory defenses that make me very uncomfortable if I were forced to deal with them every day.

Debbie,
I'm curious - do you see the SPD as something that may go with giftedness from birth. Or, with any of these kids do you see that their focus on intellectual development has come at the expense of needed sensory and motor skills play? I ask because I felt like with our son there was clearly sensory defensiveness from birth (I have it too so that wasn't a total surprise) but the very intense drive toward sedentary intellectual activity (early reading, focused playing of board games) didn't help. Those activities were just so much easier and more satisfying for him so it required concerted effort to push sensory and motor play. Knowing that was part of why we made him go to the park daily and why we chose a developmental rather than academic preschool. I feel like if he'd been in a full time academic school or if he'd had access to TV and computer it would have been much worse.

As a sensory defensive person parent to another sensory defensive person... I see a strong relationship with anxiety. It can be a cycle that feeds and feeds off itself unless you learn how to stop it. Cognitive behavioral therapy has been helpful to us with this a has learning sensory coping techniques.

PTP: that's a great question. It seems that most kids are "hard wired" in terms of sensory processing - meaning it's just the way we are. But lately I've been wondering if the whole theory of neurotoxins and autism applies to SPD as well. Just my intellectual queries....so much to ponder.

In terms of SPD, Jean Ayres theorized that in the absence of any frank neurological pathology the central nervous system was just hard wired differently when sensory integrative dysfunction was present. The thing is though that she also theorized that disruptions in sensory integration were also part of the problems that resulted in learning disabilities. Your question about the drive for sedentary activities is certainly appropriate, as it takes participation in movement activities to stimulate the vestibular system and facilitate the sensory integrative process. I think its a question for more research...the chicken or the egg?

My son didn't go to preschool. He stayed home with me, because he was already reading well and doing math in his head and sometimes talking like a little professor and collecting new words to use in making puns and jokes that the other kids his age didn't get but his sister and his older friends and his parents got them and he loved to make us laugh. While other kids begged their parents to let them play outside, my son begged to be allowed to stay inside because it was too hot or too cold or the sun was too bright or some smell irritated him or it was too windy. We live in a rural area next door to my parents with a total of six acres of land where he could run around and play but I had to "make" him play outside because that was not his idea of fun. His athletic cousins stayed with us in the summer and they couldn't even get him to stay outside very long. They liked to ride bikes, he couldn't ride a bike. They could play games with balls, he wasn't any good at this either so it was difficult to find things they could do outside together.

I never made my son sit at a desk or table as a preschooler (except to eat) because he had so much energy then. He had so much energy that it sometimes looked like he was trying to fly when he got excited about something. He had to do something with this energy. This is one reason why grade skipping would not have worked for him. I knew there was no way he could sit at a desk for hours. When I read to him he was often bouncing around and doing something physical and I even encouraged him to do this. I found that he learned better if I let him move around while I read to him. When he was six and practicing spelling or multiplication facts he jumped on his trampoline or swing. I let him climb on furniture because I thought he needed to. When I told the developmental pediatrician about this she said I should make him sit at a desk, but when she saw the results of the achievement test the educational psychologist gave him the month he turned seven and she saw that he was grade levels ahead in all subjects, she didn't say another word about making him sit at a desk and she decided he was doing well enough that he didn't need OT or PT or anything because we could work on physical things at home. We told her about his difficulty with learning dance routines for musical theater but there was no advice for us. We told them about his difficulty with handwriting (the slowness and the fatigue issues and the difficulty with drawing and the letter reversals, but we got no answers except confirmation from the educational psychologist that he was probably highly gifted but he couldn't tell us how highly gifted unless we had him take an IQ test which we couldn't afford. I felt that my son didn't get help because he was smart and was able to compensate just well enough that he was not eligible for help of any kind.

A few years later, when we finally got our insurance to authorize OT (sensory integration therapy but she had to code it as something else to get it paid for) he only got a total of six sessions and he thought it helped him and his piano teacher noticed a difference. We couldn't afford to continue OT without the insurance and I don't have all the expensive OT equipment the OT has. We did put up a tire swing and the last time I talked to the OT, she told me I need to keep him walking because his ankles are very weak.

Now that he just turned 11 and is in the early stage of puberty I am noticing that he has more of a problem with sensory issues. He is not the active little kid he once was and has started gaining weight. He is not overweight yet but he could be if he doesn't watch it.

Last night, during a thunderstorm our power went out and while my husband and I have no trouble dealing with no air conditioning and no lights except for flashlights, for hours, my son thinks it is a big ordeal. My husband and I used to go camping. Not any more. We rarely take the jet ski to the lake because it just seems like more trouble than it is worth. He has trouble getting ready. He takes longer to get ready than his sister who manages to put on her makeup and do her hair in less time than he can find his shoes and socks and find just the right shirt and pants. No matter how much time we allow him to get ready, he manages to make us a few minutes late. When one member of the family has SPD it affects the whole family. But I'm not complaining really, his personality and the way he sees things I would have never noticed, especially his ability to point out humor and irony in things that I am having trouble dealing with, and just the way he thinks are so worth any problems the sensory issues cause. Once again I am trying to get help for him but it takes many months of being on waiting lists.

I would love to talk to a neuropsychologist about his differences. I am going to have a list of questions a mile long, but I will probably be allowed 15 minutes because they are so busy and won't really get all the answers, but if I get answers to a few of my questions, then I will be making progress.

http://www.performanceorthopedics.com/files/ProcProtocols/AnkleRehab.pdf Ankle strengthening doesn't require an OT and it isn't expensive. A wall, a towel, perhaps a theraband and those cost less than $10.

Just five minutes a day and remembering to do it. I wish someone had given me this before I sprained my ankle so many times. Not to discount the value of OTs and PTs, but really so much of what happens in sessions can be done be done at home if you simply focus on it. Half of the value of therapy is just that it makes people stick with it better. The fancy equipment is great and fun, but really for less than $50 you can get a therapy ball, bands, free weights, etc.

For younger kids for sensory activities there is The Out of Sync Child has Fun.

Just an anecdotal bit of support for PtheP's ankle suggestions:

I have weak ankles, too. I was in Ace bandages or an air cast more than I was out of them between jr. high school and grad school.

But after a particularly nasty sprain/stress fracture, I was told by a doctor to start doing the "standing on one leg" exercise in PP's link whenever I happened to think of it, including a bit of wobbling to challenge my balance and work the ankle harder. I often do my one-legged wobble when talking on the phone or washing dishes, or even when standing in line at the bank. It's totally free, ridiculously easy, and it WORKS!

I can't remember the last time I sprained my ankle. It has been over a decade. (20 years, even? Not sure...) That's serious progress! Plus it improves one's balance.

I have long since dropped the other exercises suggested to me, I'm afraid. But the "one-legged wobble" keeps my ankles safe and strong.

I am trying to find out why my son doesn't seem to be able to build endurance like most people can and why he has all the muscle aches. It isn't just the ankles. He says he gets a burning pain on the bottom of his feet when he does a lot of walking and pains in his lower legs and then has sore muscles for days afterward, so he probably associates walking with pain. No wonder he doesn't look forward to hiking. My son and I went walking with a group of older adults, most of them in their 60's. I am sure we walked over a mile or two, stopping to look at things along the way. My son was the only person in the group who needed to sit down when we stopped somewhere. He can't stand for long periods of time like most people and he hates to sit on the floor when everyone else is standing, but sometimes he has to do this. He gets as much exercise as I do and I don't have muscle aches and I can keep walking well after he gets to a point that he just can't walk any more.

A few days later, he still had muscle aches but he didn't want to keep taking Tylenol. He tried to play a song on the piano for his dad, a song that he played well earlier in the morning, but he kept making mistakes. I told him to go ahead and finish the song and he told me that I just didn't understand. It wasn't that he didn't want to play the song, he couldn't do it. He said his brain could not process everything it needed to process well enough to do it because his brain was dealing with the muscle aches, the sound from a television in another room that I could easily tune out, and various other things and he just couldn't do it at that moment. The next morning, when he was well rested, he played the same song on the piano without any problem.