Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Spacing Out

My son is 7yo and is PG. He's a terrific self learner, although it's very hard to teach him. He has this issue that I'm unsure if it's a disability or part of his PGness. You see, when things get monotonous, he spaces out, like he stares into space with a blank look and a half smile on his face. It's hard to get him to snap out of it!

He's done this for writing (he has handwriting issues), for easy or drill-ish math (say long multiplication that he can't do in his head - so we don't do a lot around here), and now I've noticed that he'll zone through class instructions so that he doesn't know what to do for homework or for tests.

It hasn't been much of an issue when we were homeschooling - I just avoid, skip, and hope that developmental milestones will kick in. Now that he's in school, the requirements are less flexible. He really has no problem staying with the task if they're complicated enough - he's actually dogged when it comes to trying to understand algebra problems. But life not all of school is complicated and hard. I've told him to try his best - he will be grade accelerated soon and tested for subject acceleration after that, but I wonder if this will be an issue going forward. Can he help himself here? What can I do to help stop the spacing out? Is this a learning disability?

TIA

Can he chew gum at school?

Wow, does that help? He doesn't chew gum and isn't permitted in school.

Um. no real suggestions but I did do that as a kid. Honestly, I needed to. Things were just so mind-numbingly dull that if I paid attention 100% of the time I would've gone insane. I think it was my brain's defense mechanism.


Unfortunately, now, I still struggle with paying attention during oral presentations at work and always seem to have to go back and get the slides to truly understand things. I STILL space out quite a bit! Although, I think a big part of that is that I've always been better at processing written text vs. oral information. Do you think your son could have the same problem? I should say, stuff learned in conversations is entirely different but paying attention in a classroom setting where there wasn't written text and no conversation going was impossible for me (and still is).

First thing I do when I sit down to do homework with my son is hand him a piece of gum!!

My son is in a GATE cluster in 2nd grade. The teacher is very accommodating. Some kids stand for instruction, others sit on balance/exercise balls. Some have squeezy tension balls on their desks. And a good number of them chew on their sweatshirts... OE's are so strange in a class of very gifted kids! Perhaps one of these will help him occupy a part of his brain so the other part can concentrate on the directions.

Interestingly, that's what he told the school counselor, newmom21C. That the only way to pass the day is to zone or he'll go nuts.

Ok, I'm learning that that this can be a lifelong thing (I realize I do it too, when people talk to me about things I have no interest in), and that this can be a sign of visual versus auditory processing strength. Really interesting too, about the squeezeballs and gum chewing. I'll ask if he can bring a squeezeball into class, although that might be a distraction in itself!

Blob - I posted a few days ago about my DS6 forgetting instructions in class, he sounds a lot like your son. How did you find homeschooling? We're considering it when we move back to the U.S. later this year.

LOL Me too! At school I remember several times when the teacher refered to "what we were doing yesterday" and I had absolutely no recollection of ever seeing it before!

Not sure that helps, but - well, does it really matter if he can't remember? I mean, is he learning anything by doing those tasks anyway? (I don't know, it's just something for you to think about.)

Hi Venture,

Which thread did you post in? Would love to have a read .

When I look back, we had a wonderful time homeschooling. I was never trained to be a teacher, never had the patience even. But it was a terrific experience when I learnt to let go and LISTEN. We homsechooled from 5-6.5yo. He just turned 7. My son speaks about it wistfully and keeps asking to revert to our homeschooling ways, but I need to balance what I can bring to the table going forward.

Our favourite thing about homeschooling is the amount of time we had to just chill and read. We had some seatwork going, which took about an hour tops (more like 30-45mins). But after that, we were free to go to the park, check out museums, and just read. That's how my son learns - he reads a lot, or he's building his Lego or cooking up some experiments from the Horrible Science of DK books.

The two most difficult things about homeschooling was 1) finding his level and the type of curriculum he liked, and 2) the social aspect of life. His favourite subject is math, but everything I could find (Rightstart Math, Life of Fred) just wasn't to his taste, or he felt the pace was slow. I finally found Ed Zacarro - he loves it because there is no drill (he needs some of that but, oh well. He fills the gaps when he needs). He's actually still doing the Algebra book - he loves it so much, we've had to bring it on holiday!

The social aspect was tough - I probably worked hardest in this area. He had a few playgroups, none of which worked out. My son is an extrovert who also happens to be very sensitive, and he's fussy about the type of company he has. He's looking for a connection that I just haven't been able to find. I'm down to hoping that eventually, he'll find people to really connect with when he's in college.

What I like about school - the Gifted board seems to know what to do and are trying to accelerate to his requirement. On the social front, I don't need to know every parent (I found that exhausting) and to manage other people's feelings. Also, my son is very competitive, and already, there was a venue for him to participate in, and he's looking forward to more. The biggest drawback of school is time - there's not much left to the day!

Choose carefully, Venture! And nothing is cast in stone forever - you can change your mind any time. For us, I'm really glad for the homeschooling experience we've had, but I'm also enjoying him going to school now. Good luck!

I explored the manipulatives idea with my son. He didn't want to bring anything to school because he felt it was weird. BUT he insisted I bring this idea up to the teacher. I felt like he was looking for understanding. He used a pencil grippy at school to occupy his hands and bounced it on his desk. The teacher allowed this and it was not a problem. I think this was explained to me as a way of diverting some brainpower so he could consentrate on tasks too simple.

Hi GeoMamma,

I see what you're saying. I actually had no issue with it until he did poorly in a test. He didn't feel bad, to be honest, because that must have been his first test ever, but I don't want to dent his confidence going forward. It wasn't that he didn't know how to do it, but he didn't know the format. I explained that sometimes, he has to just catch the instructions instead of trying to figure what to do during the test .

LOL on the "no recollection"! He's exactly like that!

This is interesting. What I'll do is start this habit at home and see if it helps. If/when he's used enough to it so that it's not a distraction in itself, I'll speak to the teacher. Tks!

Interesting discussion. I definitely did this as a kid, and still can find myself spacing out at boring, slow paced meetings or discussions. My DS9 definitely does it too. Both the kids have been sitting on yoga balls to do their school work lately. They *LOVE* it and it seems to help them. It's funny, because the yoga balls showed up for DH and I to sit on at our computers. They have rarely gotten used for that purpose. The kids play with/on them constantly.

My DD5 does not appear to space out at this point, but she also has never been to "regular" school. I wonder if it's a "learned skill". I spent hours and hours daydreaming through elementary school.

That's really interesting. I wonder if other homeschoolers have seen this? I wonder to what extent this is a learned skill or if it is just more related to auditory learning vs. written word. I'd love to hear back from some others on this!

DH also does this A LOT to the point that I always make him answer me with at least something so that I know that he's actually listen (we've had sooo many times in the past that he didn't do something important because he was completely zoned out). And I'm one of the people he listens to most! He has an office mate who has whole conversations with him and he remembers absolutely nothing! Although his school differentiated even less than mine and he literally skipped almost his entire HS to play the guitar so I wonder if that contributed to this?

Too bad about the gum. My daughter spaces out too and same age. At home, she is allowed to chew gum when she does her homework if she thinks she is spacing out. There's no way the school she goes to would allow this, but her old school did and it helped a lot.

Some kids a dd's school use these disk stability cushions like you'd use in a fitness gym as a seat cushion. We use one at home in the kitchen more as a booster seat than anything else. I find that it helps her focus, but I don't think she uses it at school.

What about semcils - those scented pencils? Could he use them at school as long as he is paying attention? There are regular and colored pencil ones. They are the "in" thing at dd's school right now and I have been thinking about paying my dd some for school - we have the colored ones at home for fun.

http://www.target.com/Educational-I...mp;pf_rd_p=58371022&pf_rd_s=bottom-4

I know these are more sensory aides, but maybe could give his nervous system something to process...

DD has just started using an attention chart at school. The spacing out had gotten really out of control. Now she has a chart that all her teachers sign off on everyday. The only goal is that she looks at the teacher while they are giving directions. If she earns 2/3 of the check marks in a week, she get 5 minutes of computer free time at school. It sounds kind of harsh, but she decided on the goal and the reward herself. This was the first week and she got 24/25 check marks. I know its not going to fix things forever, but I think part of paying attention at school is a habit. If this gets us to the end of the year on a good note, we'll be thrilled.

chrys

Not to raise any alarms, but in my husband's family there is a history of epilepsy that manifests itself with Absence Seizures, pronounced like the French "ab-saunts". A child will zone out for 2 to 30 seconds up to 200 times per day. It is difficult to get them out of it. The epilepsy seems to go away in the late teen years thus often goes undiagnosed. Google epilepsy and you will find some great websites and you can check symptoms, but it might be worth mentioning to your pediatrician. My husband's family also has some incredibly smart people.

That said, both our boys space out and we had them checked by a neurologist at the urging of our pediatrician and it confirmed there was no epilepsy, they just ignore us! Good luck.

Thanks guys! The suggestions here are great- so many different directions to think about. Will certainly explore them.

My son had the same problem in Elementary school. He went to public school until 5th grade, Good student, never studied. After we started homeschooling, I notice he couldn't focus for long period of time, say 20 minutes. His sister 4 years younger can sit for 2 hours. But since he was such a fast learner, it did not bring much trouble. As we hit high school subjects, it it taking him longer and longer to finish it, because he even noticed that he zoomed out, and asked to get up and shake it out. Guess what, he has ADD. A cup of coffee in the morning made it all better.

I've never heard of that?

Hi Vivace, I'm starting to wonder if this is the case... I tried the squeeze balls to help him get focused - not working, at least not now. He had an achievement test recently and zoned out half the time.

I'm bringing him for an evaluation later since this has been niggling at the back of my mind for awhile now. He felt bad zoning out for the test, and I'm trying hard to talk him out of it. But as always, my words don't count as much as if he sees the improvement in himself.

Interesting; one of my sisters children has been diagnosed with this form of epilepsy - not a seizure so much as an 'absence', I can't recall what she called it. I never thought about ds in this way, and probably that is not his issue, because you can call him back to 'the present' pretty easily, but he zones A LOT. Guess I am just boring, lol!

Hi Blog,there are some online test you can do and it will give you a good idea if you are heading the right direction. I sat on this for three years wondering why he was giving me conflicting signals. Now I know, he is just a borderline ADD, hopeful coffee will do the trick and we don't have to go to meds. I read that Brazil have the lowest rate of ADD/ADHD, because everybody drinks coffee. Ha...

Not necessarily for everyone, but helped with my niece (now 14) & has kept her off drugs for two+ years.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=coffee+adhd+kids

Hi Guys,

I haven't checked in for awhile because I've had some fires to fight. The last one week has been rough .

I'm expanding on the post that I wrote hurriedly last week - DS had a math achievement test and didn't do well in it. The tester said he zoned out and was playing with the eraser, with anything really. I was stunned because he's such a mathy kid and loves algebra. What's true is that we don't drill, but his concepts are very strong, and so is his logic, unless I'm totally deluded. He has very good recall for multiplication tables.

Because of the feedback ("he doesn't know what area means"), I signed him up yesterday for Aleks at Level 3 (lowest level possible) to see if he needed help. Um, surprise! He did pretty well on the computer evaluation, considering that he probably had a lot of errors just trying to man the keyboard. I just looked through Level 4 - he should breeze through that too, but at least there'll be something there for him to learn. What is going on?? DS refuses to talk about the test, saying that the tester was impatient. But this is a definite signal that his attention issues are worse than I realized.

There have been suggestions when he was younger that he has CAPD. He has an extreme aversion to loud, sudden sounds and used to cry at the nursery when they sang the goodbye song. He doesn't like music. His teacher recently told me that at a recent school celebration, he just froze up and was completely zoned out because of the huge amount of sounds around him. To me, he seems to have a really loud "internal" voice, because he ignores me when I try to teach him anything (I've always thought that he was a good learner but a difficult student). He seems to not hear me when he's engrossed and has to work things through by himself to learn. But because it's always panned out, I never gave a second thought to it. Happens too, when he's building Lego or reading when I call him for dinner. He also seems to have a very short memory for instructions, sometimes. I'm wondering if the achievement test was partly read out to him by the tester, because in total silence in front of the computer yesterday, it was fine.

The big stumbling block to the CAPD self-diagnosis is that he spoke early (at 6 mths) and has great verbal abilities. Other than that, the little that I have frantically speed read from yesterday seems to fit. I made an appointment with an audiologist for next week. Aside from this, does anyone have any theories as to what is going on?

I brought him to a cognitive screen earlier this week for ADD/ADHD but don't have the results yet. What's positive is that he's recovering from his disappointment, particularly after yesterday's session with Aleks when he felt "plugged in".

I don't know anything about CAPD, but I always found it INCREDIBLY difficult to do math if someone was watching me. I still do. If the tester was intimidating (or seemed intimidating) he may not have been able to perform. Was it a one-on-one testing environment? Because that sounds incredible distressing to me! Not meaning that anyone else would feel that way, but I certainly would.

Hi Vivace, tks so much for this. I googled and found the following:

http://newideas.net/adhd-online-test-screening

It's interesting, but I still get led back to the inattention bit, ie, I don't know why he's inattentive.

I read that coffee below a certain age can lead to poor height growth, and DS is a bit vertically challenged (DH and I were late developers). I'll look into this though.

So strange. Last year, he had the same tester and did brilliantly. Well, I have a whole list of appointments over the next two weeks to check things out. Just hope I have some answers so that help can begin.

Blob,
ADd/ADHD can be inherited,difficulties during brith, lack of oxygen, childhood illness, frequent ear infection and resulted in auditory problems, not so much as to not being able to hear, but rather hearing everything, and not knowing what to do with all the information. ADD/ADHD children are almost all right brain/visual spacial children, but not all right brain children are ADD/ADHD. right brain children do not learn sequentially, so that may cause a bit learning issues. Look for the book written by Linda Silverman called "Upside down Brilliance", you might find that it answers a lot of you questions. Good luck.

Tks Vivace.

I tried to buy Linda Silverman's book online before but it's out of print. Will make my way to the library for this. Tks for the rec!

The preliminary diagnosis after the ADD/ADHD screen is that he does have auditory attention issues. So we're off to the audiologist. Taking stock though, I'm so grateful that he's such a happy, interested kid, notwitshtanding test scores.

My problem is now with the Gifted Board (gosh, they all take turns!) I just wrote about in the other thread, and you can find the post here:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....s/72914/Re_School_Meeting.html#Post72914

Anyway, we'll take it slowly, enjoy what we can, and see how things go.