I've been concerned about this previously, but I haven't gained any traction on figuring out what's going on.

My DD9 has an FSIQ of 147 (GAI of 159) but basically makes low Bs and maybe even C level work. She doesn't appear to have ADD (she doesn't zone out or lose things although she can get really really hyper when she's excited about something). However it appears that her academic achievement is nowhere near her IQ would indicate. I recently got her CAASPP scores back (we are in California) and she just barely tested into Standards Met. I know some kids don't test well and this was the first year she had to take take it, but I'm really concerned because I expect that she would at least test at the middle or top of Standards Met based on IQ... my DS who is 2e and has a lot more visible issues and the same basic IQ has consistently tested into Standards Exceeded. Also her school work is in line with the test results. I can't ignore this... but I have no idea what the problem is... ? The school checked her reading but said she is at grade level so I should drop it. Teacher states she notices that she makes careless mistakes. She is an artistic child- likes crafts, does not really seem to like academics but still does her homework, wants to please the teacher etc. Doesn't like reading unless graphic novel. I don't get that she doesn't care, in fact I think she'd love to be a top student if she got the chance. However, I don't need her to be the perfect student, but I am worried about the fact that she just got through 3rd grade by the skin of her teeth... yikes. Please think tank this for me. I have asked similar questions before, and aeh mentioned that there might be a problem with automacy but any and all suggestions welcome.

How does she feel about school?

Up until grade 3 this sounds similar to my DS10. Occasionally he'd get a higher mark in science or math (his passions) but mostly B's and occasional C's. He's 2e (dysgraphia) so we weren't really shocked about low writing marks because he wasn't really being properly accommodated. We were working on trying to improve that as well as trying to get some differentiation in math/science. Careless mistakes happened way more when things were really easy for him (but try explaining that to a teacher without sounding like a crazy person trying to protect a precious snowflake of a kid....).

Where things differ is that DS reads constantly (and way above grade level so we knew that wasn't an issue). He HATED school pretty much from the start and had little desire to please the teachers (with 1 exception - interestingly enough she was the only teacher out of 15 that said nice things about him).

Last year (grade 4) he changed schools into a full time gifted program where he's taken off. He LOVES his teachers and classmates and actually looks forward to school. The depth that he craves is finally there and he is finally in an environment where he can talk to people that can follow his conversation and actually contribute. He is no longer told to be quiet in classroom conversations. Kids no longer look at him like he's alien. His teachers actually get 2e and he is getting much better at typing so he's able to express his ideas on paper/screen. His first report card was almost all A's, his year end was straight A's. We were shocked.

I realize that we are very lucky and that not everyone has the luxury of a gifted program that actually fits their child so YMMV but I do think that school environment is a big thing. I wouldn't go as far as saying that his past teachers and peers bullied him but there were several instances that were far from ideal. DS figured this all out pretty quickly and this resulted in him shutting down and/or becoming rather prickly to deal with.

I also want to say that my experience with 2e has been an adventure of trying to tease out the can'ts from the won'ts. Even with a firm diagnosis (he's been through two full founds of ed psych assessments) there are nights were he's fought me and I can't tell if it is
a) too easy because of the gifted part
b) too hard because of the LD part
c) homework that is taking time away from his current novel/lego project/whatever
d) he's just cranky for some other reason

In my experience kids really, really want to do well and when they can't they are very good at convincing people that they just don't care. If they aren't there are usually pretty good reasons. Unfortunately they can be a challenge to figure out.

Not sure if any of those ramblings help but I can definitely empathize. Hopefully others will have more helpful input.

I would get her evaluated privately by someone who understands HG+ and 2E. With that ability level, I'd expect her reading level to be well above grade level. Anything less is, to me, a red flag.

I'm not sure how to get her evaluated.. I already had some person who did "her own evaluation" of her reading which was helpful NOT. She basically thought she might be ADDish based on the fact that she said her brain never stopped but she is not someone who can diagnose (and frankly her evaluation did not give me anything at all on paper so it was a waste of time and money). She basically just said she's reading at level, and she didn't see any learning disabilities.

My DS has some inability to regulate attention related to his second e, but I know what that looks like and she doesn't look like that at all. I would think possibly stealth dyslexia except that she can sound out words she's never seen before (at the 8th grade level) and she's a good speller. She says school is a 5 on a scale of 1 -10. Her favorite subject is art. She has multiple friends at school, she's outgoing, she doesn't love school but doesn't hate it either.

She does have some impulsivity (interrupts at home) but teachers have never complained about her behavior. Her teacher last year said she kept wanting to get up and get a tissue, get a drink of water, etc. but there was a lot of chaos in that room cue to teacher not being very organized and some kids with behavior challenges and I think it was hard to concentrate. However, she has had this pattern for more than just this year.

Which instrument did you use to get the original test done? The tester should have broken the test down into different sections and given more feedback. For example if it was WISC there would have been a WPI etc

Flipping back through some of our previous correspondence, I notice one trail that might be worth investigating is speech and language evaluation, to look at whether there are subtle expressive/receptive language deficits (as distinct from her very high verbal cognition). I would suggest that this is best in the context of a comprehensive neuropsych eval, which you may be able to access through your primary care physician.

I don't know this program specifically, but one resource might be something like this clinic in collaboration with UCLA: https://www.thehelpgroup.org/professional/the-help-group-ucla-neuropsychology-program/

Just posted a few links on visual spatial giftedness on this current thread:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....band_is_a_skeptic_I_am_o.html#Post233312

aeh that's very interesting...why do you think speech and language would be an area to investigate? My DS does seem like he has an expressive language disorder, he uses um, gets log jammed a lot when trying to say what he means.. in these situations he often never gets to the point and just says never mind (which makes me sad as I can see he tries to hard to tell you what he's thinking). But my DD doesn't appear to have anything similar to this, and her social skills are really good...

Can you explain more about her grades in school? You said she makes "careless mistakes". In what way? For example, if she makes errors in arithmetic, are they because her columns are not lined up, or because she works too quickly and doesn't check back, or because she's trying new concepts just for fun? Does she skip questions? How is her work in, say social studies, which can be a combination of fact-based and open-ended expression?

I am going to ask her teacher and the other teacher who had the tutoring class they put her in for several weeks last year. I believe at the time her teacher told me that they put her in tutoring with some other kids who were behind because her work was careless and sloppy and they wanted her to focus on being more careful- but I just asked my DD and she said it was because she didn't know her times tables..so I will ask. I noticed that she will look at a problem and rush to finish it and miss something. I remember seeing her look at a math problem that consisted of three lines and she missed it because she didn't read all the lines - I had to get her to look at it again. I do know her teacher said that when reading out loud her reading was not as smooth as it should be for her age. A lot of these things don't seem like a big deal- but then I look at the big picture at how she's doing and it's not pretty...

If I look at her CAASPP scores it breaks it down to give you an idea of where a student is doing well and not so well. Categories given are Below Standard, Near Standard, Above Standard. I am also adding her percentile.

ENGLISH (60% percentile)
Reading - How well does your child understand stories and information that he or she reads? (Near standard)
Writing - How well does your child communicate in writing? (Near Standard)
Listening - How well does your child understand spoken information? (Above Standard)
Research/Inquiry - How well can your child find and present information about a topic? (Near Standard)

MATH (65% percentile)
Concepts & Procedures - How well does your child use mathematical rules and ideas? (Above Standard)
Problem Solving and Modeling & Data Analysis - How well can your child show and apply their problem solving skills? (Near Standard)
Communicating Reasoning - How well can your child think logically and express their thoughts in order to solve a problem? (Near Standard)

Lots of good advice and questions above... which may help more than the thoughts that keep running through my mind when I read your posts on this topic.

Is there any possibility that she has checked out mentally from class due to it being too easy and is thus not paying enough attention to do well? Or has developed a habit of rushing through work for the same reason?

We did see some of the latter in ODS, which has required a mix of a better fit and encouraging him to show his work/manage the detailed steps.

Has she participated in any academic enrichment outside of school? If so, what's that experience been like?

ConnectingDots - her focus even in preschool was always social and not academic. In kindergarden the teacher even had me take home alphabet flash cards because she didn't know her whole alphabet (even though they taught the alphabet in the preschool she went to) and they were teaching them to read and she needed to have it down. She did learn to read when all the other kids did, but she has never liked to do it.

She has never appeared gifted to me but I know she is (even without the WISC IV results that say she is HG). She has too much energy and always wants to make things. But now I can even see her starting to disconnect from the smart kids… her friends were all in the tutoring sessions with her last year. When she got into this one class (with the teacher I wanted for her - yay!) she said "but all the smart kids are in that class, I'm not smart." I don't think she's hiding though, I really think she has a problem with academics.

Hi aeh -

I went back and looked at your interpretation of her results and I see what you are referencing. I will look harder at that.

I'll second the suggestion of a thorough neuropsych eval - some of what you've said sounds a lot like my HG+ dd who has a challenge with reading (she has difficulty associating sight with sound). It took quite a long time to find out what the challenge was, simply because she was able to compensate thanks to her other high abilities. Unlike your dd she did well in school, but she's a very driven personality who always wants to land on top and approaches almost everything competitively. When tested in school she always "looked" a-ok - because the benchmarks used at school for diagnosing challenges are so low.

I wouldn't go to a neuropsych specifically seeking out a certain type of eval or following a lead on a specific suspicion of what's wrong - I'd seek out a broad eval, let the neuropsych know where your concerns are (again, not the suspected diagnosis but what she struggles with in school, observations such as difficulty with oral reading or refusal to do certain types of schoolwork etc). The neuropsych will conduct a wide spectrum of testing which includes ability vs achievement and will then make recommendations. If there's a speech/language issue present, the neuropsych will likely refer you on to an SLP eval which will include more thorough testing of expressive and receptive language. Or if the neuropsych testing points to a different challenge, you'll likely have follow-up of a different type recommended. The neuropsych eval won't be the end-point of the journey (if there is a challenge), but it will be the place you can (hopefully) get a roadmap that shows you where your dd is starting and where to head next on her journey through understanding/remediating/accommodating/etc.

Best wishes,

polarbear