Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Not sure where to even begin

I�m a long time lurker, just recently on this board but have been following the Advocacy Board for two years.

I�m concerned about my youngest, DD9. I�m concerned she maybe 2E and I don�t really know where to start to help her.

This year she�s had more trouble than ever before. I was concerned about a learning disability for a long time and kept papers from K-3rd. In 3rd, she blossomed and did very well. Now, she�s in the gifted class (despite not having been identified) and is doing some struggling.

Is it underachieving due to other factors? Or is it something more?

I�m sure she is gifted despite the fact we don�t have test scores to back that up. Her sister was identified 3 years ago and when we were filling out the paperwork, youngest kept coming up. She�s a quirky kid with empathy 10 times her size and a sense of humor that rivals my husband. She�s the kid who stays up late worried about dying and the BP oil situation. She�s the kid who spends all weekend making a bow and arrow from sticks, a rubber band, complete with a quiver to put on her back to carry the arrows in (after Colonial Day at school). So far her test scores (school given) aren�t there to support this so I haven�t pushed the gifted aspect. Yes, youngest is also the kid who figured out early on that teachers gave busy work and doing that just didn�t interest her. She has to feel something is important to work on it and so far, I just don�t think the tests have seemed important to her in any way.

Why do I suspect a learning disability?

Writing: Letters have often been backwards. Numbers have often been backward. In 1st-2nd grade, she learned she could look around her worksheets to find other letters/numbers and see which way they went so she could copy the direction. I believe she still does this. To write legibly she had to write slowly and focus on the writing, which leaves little chance to focus on what�s going on in her brain. There is a disconnect between what she can write and what she is thinking. (Examples, I can call her words/questions verbally all day long and she�ll get them right. But when I make her spell words out on paper or answer questions on paper, she panics and she does have trouble writing things she can tell me verbally. Writing a poem, I was seeing her struggle so I took dictation. She told me what to write, I didn�t embellish. The differences were staggering between what she was writing and what she had me write). She�s never been able to conceive of leaving room between words so the words run together. She can�t seem to grasp indention, so everything gets muddled together. No matter how many times we go over proper letter formation, she�ll get in a hurry and revert back to the original way she forms letters. We must have practiced r hundreds of time over many days, she was doing them the correct way, now she�s reverted back to the original way. She struggles greatly with cursive and remembering how to write letters. Her grip of the pencil is awkward. She presses hard on the paper. Despite doing fairly well on spelling tests, she still spells phonetically most of the time, even when it�s a word she should know. She has trouble lining up multiplication problems in math. She knows how they are supposed to line up but can�t seem to keep the numbers in a straight line. Her hand hurts after writing a lot.

Reading: she doesn�t read what�s there. She inserts words and leaves out words. She has trouble with pronunciation. When asked to locate a word on a page, she can�t find it. Recently she read �belied� as �bled or bleeded (she asked me which one it was)� and �metal detector� as �mental doctor.� She�s had some trouble with reading comprehension and being able to answer questions about what she read. She�s talked about the words moving around on the page.

My husband says her reading problems come from reading too fast. That she wants to be a speed reader like her sister and I.

Her teacher has already indicated a few times, she doesn�t feel like DD9 belongs in the gifted class. I�ve dealt with boredom before and that�s worse than this. So I�m leery of opening the can of worms and giving the teacher ammunition to pull Maggie from the class. But at the same time, if this is a learning disability of some sort, the sooner we deal with it and get �help� the better, yet I also feel she would benefit from gifted services.

I�m not sure where to start or even where to go from here.

Tallenva
DD 9
DD 11

Movement of words and letters is a definate sign of LD. and yes you can be LD and gifted. She would need to be evaluated by someone for an official diagnosis. There are some who think that if they are at grade level is enough.
Some quick things to try to alleviate reading can be using a transparent colored overlay over text. You have to try several different colors to find out which works best. It stops the intensity of black on white contrast. I had a student who wore cheap rose tinted sunglasses to read. A cheap way to get the overlays is using the thin plastic folders that can be dividers for a binder.
Has she tried keyboarding? It helps many kids with these issues.
Good luck and stand up for your child. when mine was threatened w/ removal from gifted pull-out I made them wait until assessment was done and accomadations had been met. It worked well. My DS9 dictated to an aide(hser) who writes down what he says. Needs met and teacher sees him for who he is

I wear rose coloured glasses... for "Irlen syndrom," it may or may not exist, but it made an incredible difference for me when I got them in highschool, so I'm going with it. When DS broke my glasses and I had to wear clear ones for a while it seemed less of a problem than it used to be. But I still felt a LOT better when I got the tint back.

-Mich.

I would bring her firstly to a developmental opthamologist. Find one in your area at covd.org . They would check to see is she has any visual / vestibular issues and give you a lot of answers. Click on "About Vision & Learning - Symptoms checklist" to see if anything fits. It's in the left column.

My son has convergence tracking issues and reads just like your description of what your daughter does. Guesses at words, confuses words, etc. He is actually reading two sentences at once in his head...one to himself and one out loud??? He is in PT for visual and vestibular issues. It was totally worth the evaluation! p.s. He did not need glasses; he just needs to do exercises, physical and visual.

Your DD sounds a lot like my HG DD9 who struggles with dyslexia and dysgraphia. After watching our DD struggle in her 1st grade gt class, we paid for private IQ and achievement testing. These tests highlighted the disparity between her cognitive ability and her performance. It also persuaded us, as parents, to fight to keep her in the gt classroom and persuaded the school that she needed to be there.

Since then, we paid for vision therapy and found that it did help with the headaches and words moving on the page. It did not help with her writing challenges or change the fact that her brain works differently. I forget the proper term but she does not seem to have automatic word forms. She has to figure things out from scratch every time --particularly with spelling. We too have the problem that she can learn words for a spelling test but they don't transfer to her writing -- it's like they are stored in a different part of the brain that can't be accessed while she is thinking and writing.

Last year, with the support of her second grade teacher, we got her a 504 plan so she gets extra time on tests. She also is allowed to use a keyboard (though they haven't provided any training so DD doesn't really use one yet -- a typing class is on my list for this summer). Unfortunately, I think that DD will have to bomb the writing portion of her state standardized tests before the school will consider an IEP.

I agree that you need an evaluation. If you can afford one, a private evaluation may prove to be more objective.

Thanks for the feedback. I have a lot to think over. I'm still overwhelmed but at least I think I can find a starting point.