Love your signature Grinity, lol!

Thank you for all of your comments and suggestions. I'm a clinical psych masters so am comfortable saying that he doesn't exhibit signs at all of Asperger's. He also has been followed by a developmental behavioralist team since he was 4 for the ADHD and Anxiety. We are medicating for both and after years of trials have settled on a great combination. The specialist and us both feel that we are treating as much as psychotropically possible for the Anxiety/Adhd symptoms. There are, in our opinion and expertise, no other options regarding dosage or medication at this time.

We have been battling since he was in pre-school for appropriate education. We live in a small community and there are no private or charter options within even a reasonable drive or we would have considered it. It was what the specialist first suggested with our son just given his combination of brightness/adhd issues at age 5....but not an option for us. We are in the unique position that we have the option of 3 local schools so we are currently investigating all of our options to see which would best meet his need and will contemplate switching if one has a better program. Being all public schools, however, and with no state programs, our schools offer NOTHING to GT kids. No pull out and no enrichment without a battle, and even then teachers don't know what true enrichment is (not giving more!). There is literally no training in our state for GT populations! In later middle school, he can be promoted into honors or accelerated math and science, which may help.

I don't know exactly what the achievement scores show but we aren't hearing from any teachers (ever) that he is an average kid and we have never seen difficulty of him with any school tasks, outside of organization. For example, he doesn't enjoy writing-hence the low WIAT score-BUT he writes wonderfully and quickly. He'll moan an hour about writing an essay but them write one that is full of rich vocab, correct puncutation, and very creative. Same with Math...Doesn't want to do it but does his homework (3-4 pages) in the ride home from school, and they are messy but correct. He also shows no work for math, which drives the teachers crazy, except his answers are right. In Science, he knows in his estimate 75% of what is already taught if not more.

Challenging to make a plan for him because of the twice exceptional piece...personally I don't think that achievement scores are an accurate reflection of his true ability, and nor does his psychologist who tested him. I think he was bored, didn't enjoy the more traditional paper/pencils tasks, was on day 2 of testing and missing class and rushed. As is typical....
Seems fairly typical of his profiled kids as well...

I feel strongly that he can be managed in a traditional setting if we can get accomodations/support that will make him feel beter about his program. I should add that he is an A student who doesn't have to work hard at anything given to him so far. His issues are more with organization, avoidance of easy work (subtle), talking in class, not focusing (25-50% of the time in class he is off task routinely yet still manages to make high honor roll), social struggles, and self-esteem issues. He tells us he is bored and "entertains" himself by drawing, reading, talking. Crazy kid.

We enrich significantly outside of school as he honestly demands it. He begged for music lessons at age 4 and is currently taking 2 different lessons. He is on 2 travel teams. He plays chess locally. He goes to camps. He has books, experiments, art supplies, logic games and activities, electronic kits, legos advanced galore, etc. He NEEDS stimulation and doesn't get it at school so we try to engage him outside of it. Whereever he is, he'll learn because he enjoys it! I guess I just want to do right for my child.... when he told me that he feels misunderstood and that teachers don't like him, I was sad. This child is well liked by adults outside of school, is incredibly compassionate, raises money on his own for local animal shelters and has huge empathy for pets, young kids, and those affected by difficulties (fires, tsnamis, etc.). I don't want his questioning personality to be considered aversive in school when outside of school we all recognize the humor, the curiousity in the incesstant questioning, and not the lack of respect in his tone, but the intensity of his "need to know" and "need to question".

He has SO much to give! I'm gonna pick up those books...

Thanks Dottie as well for the information. I am still struggling to get a handle on the discrepancy so any information helps...

As I said, these boards are a life saver because these aren't easy conversations to have with other parents!