Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Organization issues in gifted accelerated children

My daughter is a 5th grader who took credit by exam to skip
the first grade. She did well in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
grades including her gifted pullout class. Last year her teacher noted some organizational issues. She is in the 5th
grade this year and has gone from making all As to making half As and half Bs. Her grades on tests/assignemnts are more inconsistent as well. She has a late May birthday, so she
is one to two years younger than her classmates. I am wondering if her organizational issues are primarily developmental due to her younger age, or if she may have ADD.
Does any one have any experiences to share? Thanks.

Organization is the hardest thing for my DS7. His teachers post all of his assignments on the school website and he checks it constantly to keep himself on the right timeline for assignments. From what i've read, it's not unusual for GT's to be a little slow in the executive function part of things.

It is likely that she is simply not 'gifted' in the organizatinal area and her age is affecting her. Now is a great time of life to learn organizational skills because the Bs won't go one her college transcript. I love Deb Goldberg's book, "The Organized Student."

Can you figure out what is the pattern of causing the Bs?
Homework assignments not noticed?
Homework not handed in on time?
Doesn't know how to study for tests?

My son is similar and was eventually diagnosed with ADD. After he tried the local high school 9th grade, he switched schools and is doing 9th grade again. It is helping his grades. Luckily the new school is a better fit 'abstract thinking wise' so he didn't have to give up one thing to get the other.

There is plenty of time for your daughter to sort this out before you get to that stage, so I wouldn't panic over a few Bs now. I tell my son that his grades are a combination of how well he has learned the material and how prepared he is and that BOTH are important. It's also sometimes hard for GT kids to take the teacher's perspective and figure out 'what the teacher wants' - maybe their own personal visions of the material are too compelling?

Hope that helps,
Grinity

D15 has a non-verbal learning disability, and the primary symptom we see on a day to day basis is organization issues. It is not minor -- she has been an "organizational disaster" for years. Of course, that may not be your D's issue at all. But just pointing out one possibility.

Sylvia, my D17 followed a similar path and by 7th grade it was really impacting her grades. I assumed it was just because she saw the mountains of homework assignments as pointless busywork (because they really were), so I didn't worry about it but now I wonder if other things may have been at play too. We had moved to a dreadful school district by then, so it may have well been a combination of things.

intparent, how do you work with your D15 to help with the "organizational disaster" issues? Have you found anything that works well? A relative told me her Son was using an iphone to take pictures of the board in class and it helped with making sure he wasn't missing things. I wish I had thought of that earlier.

I am trying to think now if the organizational issues have always been primarily school work related or all encompassing and everything that really stands out is school work related.


So true...my daughter has run into problems with this, how do you help them in this area?

Grinity, how did you get so wise? :-). I wish I had found this site a few years ago.

I recommend reading some articles online about executive function and gifted. I also recommend the book Late, Lost & Unprepared.

I wish I had a silver bullet, Nik. She is VERY resistent to any calendar methods, which is adds to the issue. Even if she has one, she has no reliable pattern of entering things into it or checking for tasks/to dos. And I just discovered last week that her iCal (Mac calendaring used by teachers at her school) is on the blink again -- a chronic issue with her laptop. I got involved and found a tescher who fixed the settings for her, so hopefully this won't happen again. In the past she has not mentioned this glitch for weeks at a time. Sigh.

One thing we started with this year that seems to be helping some is using the "sticky" function on her school laptop (Mac). She has started keeping little to-do lists on them on her Mac desktop. She can change the colors, so make important ones bright or move them to a strategic location. I still have to remind her to clean off the old ones, though. So far this has been the best method we have found for her. She is like me, I am very visually oriented. If I put something in a file or a closed calendar, it might as well not exist.

Just recently she decided to study for a nationwide test in her main subject of interest. We ordered the textbook she needs, and it came yesterday. She agreed that she might have trouble organizing her study materials, so last night we found a cloth bag and put the textbook, the associated CD, some flashcards with rubber bands, a notebook labeled with the subject name on it, pens, highlighters, and some post it flags in the bag. She is going to try to keep the materials together in that bag, and repack them when she is done with each study session. Fingers crossed

Thanks Nik - I wish you had too. And I wish it had been there when my DS14 was an itty bitty...but my son was able to join the YSP and that has been such a lifeline.

In case you are being literal, I've http://rc.org/ for almost 30 years so far, and I think posting here lines up with all my gifts and very few of my challenges (if you can overlook the spelling!)

Love and More Love,
Grinity

intparent, that sounds like a great idea with the virtual post-its. We don't have a mac but I'll bet there is something out there for her PC. She did try post-its on her bedroom wall with some success... but they would randomly fall off and slide to never-land behind her bed.

Grinity, thanks! That's interesting about rc, I'm bookmarking it for when I get really serious about becoming a better person :-).

Thanks BonusMom, "Late, Lost and Unprepared" is now on my growing book list...I am developing quite the library! We need a "book exchange" site for those of us who want to help/understand our children without going broke!

I thought audio-sequential people were uber organized and the VS were the "total messy desk" syndrome, but they knew where everything was. Not that they couldn't organized but while in the middle of something, they needed everything out, not able to just work on part of a task and put things away like a sequential person.

Or perhaps, able to, but with great difficulty.

Ren

LOL - I think parenting a Gifted child should take care of the 'better person' slot! And as far as getting 'really serious' - well...((wink)) ....do I have too?

Although, I do admit that I was one of those 'super serious' gifted kids who really really needed to be surrounded by people who cared about social justice, and RC helped me not feel 'totally weird' because I cared.

Hummm
Grinity

Thanks for all the responses. I am still trying to sort out if my 9 year old 5th grader has developmental attentional
issues (attributed to her being 1.5 yrs younger due to
grade acceleration), or could possibly have ADD. Interestingly,
she does much better in her once a week pullout G/T classes which are academically more challenging than her regular
5th grade classes where she is making As and mid-Bs,

Maybe I am expecting too much.

Are there any other differences aside from level of academic challenge between the pull-out classes and the regular classes that could account for this?

Are the pullout classes quieter with fewer distractions?

Is she placed physically closer to the teacher and/or the board in the pullouts? (That is, is it easier for her to see and hear what is going on?)If this is the major difference, consider getting hearing and vision thoroughly tested (not just screened).

Are the pullout classes in a different kind of format than the regular classes? (discussion vs. lecture vs. project-oriented, etc.) This can be a clue to learning style, but also a flag for possible LD, hearing or vision issues as well. (For example, a child who does well with discussions but poorly with written or other visual format work may have vision or visual processing issues that aren't picked up on simple visual acuity tests.)

If there are no obvious differences between the classes other than level of challenge that might account for one environment being harder to pay attention in than the other, you might be looking at a situation where the regular 5th grade classes are still a poor enough academic fit that she is zoning out and missing details because so much of the material is below her level.

If there are environmental differences that could be affecting ability to pay attention in regular class, you might want to check with the regular teacher(s) to see if they can do anything to make the environment easier for her to handle, such as changing her seating to be closer to the teacher or the board, or presenting assignments in more than one mode (Writing assignments, due dates, and instructions for completing them on the board or on handouts in addition to announcing them out loud, for instance.)

Couple of organizational/Executive Skill books that I've been finding helpful lately in our quest to hothouse some of these skills and/or provide scaffolding which is age appropriate in an educational environment which is not so age-appropriate.

Smart But Scattered. Peg Dawson and Richard Guare. (that one has been mentioned before, I know)

The Organized Student, by Donna Goldberg.

We're using some of the techniques in both books to help DD self-regulate her own activities and develop an organizational style that works for her.

HTH!