From my perspective, the OE theory may do a disservice to some kids because it doesn't provide a good roadmap to helping them overcome their difficulties.
For several years we looked for answers to why DS had so many difficulties and we were told "he's fine, just quirky and very bright." This approach cost him some years of early intervention services and cost us some years of understanding what was really going on with him and how to help. I regret both those losses.
If you label difficulties as quirks or OEs, you are more likely to decide you're just going to weather them with your child as best you can, ad hoc, without much professional guidance/ interference/ therapy. That may be the right thing to do in some cases. For us, it wasn't. We have done better with a diagnosis and targeted help.
My two cents, YMMV.
DeeDee
Hi DeeDee -
I totally agree with you on this one, but from a happier perspective. In 2nd grade DS was causing all kinds of disruption at school and the school was sure it was ADHD, but we just didn't see it at home, so we took him to a local Psychologist, who (mis)diagnosed Non-verbal learning disorder purely on the subtest scatter on the WISC III, but poo-poo'd the idea that maybe bordom was causing the acting-out. We were told that he was 'bright and immature' by the Psychologist who was telling us about the scores that got DS into the Young Scholar's Program. Later I called the fellow because I was afraid that YSP was 'making something out of nothing' and he did tell me that he had never seens scores anywhere near as high as my son's scores. I really appreciate that level of honesty, but I feel that the situation was mishandled. Ah! Outer Directed Perfectionism!
(My guess is that Psychologists are all smart enough that if they don't have a specific reason to know better, they think being bored in elementary school is normal. With no idea about LOG it's easy to imagine that all gifted kids are able to make things interesting for themselves
in socially appropriate ways. My son was plenty capable of finding things besides academics to be interested in, and yet the school adults didn't really enjoy his creativity in this area.)
So reading up on NVLD brought me to sensory integration disorder, which brought DS to a very useful 6 months of OT, privately and at school. At 7 he seems to be almost 'too old' so I am supergrateful that he got those 6 months in. Later I learned about OEs and thought, 'wow, if I had read this book before that book, we would have never gone to OT, and just kept struggling with modifing the environment - an easy trap for parents of only children to fall into.' The NVLD books also had great tips for parenting that were very helpful.
On the other hand, do I regret the time lost (all of 2nd grade) while DS learned that 'there was something wrong with him' at school and nothing was done for his real learning needs. Luckily for us DS got a great teacher for 3rd grade - his best so far, and I learned that sometimes doing the wrong thing (leaving him in that school) leads to the right result. It was a teriffic year.
But yeah, if anyone finds that crystal ball that all parents are supposed to be issued, please return it soon! Perfectionistic Mom would really like to be doing the right thing here!
Love and More Love,
Grinity
