I had an epiphany today as I was brainstorming up all the medical ANYTHING that we should get done before the end of the year as we have our deductible already met.
So, on a whim, I called our insurance and discovered that outpatient therapy (unlimited visits...wow) AND psychological testing are both covered at 90%. The only caveat with pysch testing is it has to be precerted with the provider calling to give info on need for testing.
SO...
My ds is a newly turned 6 year old in K. I'm sure many of you have heard about our saga that ds seems to be completely flying under the radar in K, to the point that the school thought I was crazy to be resquesting differentiation. He underperformed on his reading placement test and on the AIMSweb test.
He has always been a pretty distractible kid (not overactive, and not severely inattentive), so we've always shelved the idea there could be some minor ADD stuff (dh definitely has traits, and I have a sister and dad most likely with it, as well as a nephew).
My dh is extremely intelligent and got through high school without studying or doing any homework. He really hit a wall with college, took some time off, and then made it through with straight A's. He has always hated reading and states he feels he just can't concentrate on it. I ask him if reading ever feels like "watching a movie in your brain" (which is what it's like for me), and he says it's more like reading a boring user manual. However, dh still rememebers calculus, advanced physics, and random facts that I have long since forgotten from school. He's in the business world, so he has no use for this info btw.
I believe ds6 is experiencing a lot of performance anxiety at school with evals...and he gets extremely anxious and flustered when he does his timed math at home. He can do math with ease, but when it's timed - he just goes blank.
The reason I think testing would be beneficial for us (in the long run) is to see if we are on track with identifying him as gifted, help advcoate at school should we need it, and help assess if there is any underlying issues that might be contributing to this test anxiety (processing issues, attentional issues), low frustration tolerance, and perfectionism that sometimes causes him to just shut down.
I realize that his performance anxiety could make the entire assessment process irrelevant. I think if he has a good repor with the tester and there are extremely strict time limits on the test, he may fare better.
Any thoughts? Any ideas which tests would best suit him?
