Originally Posted by moomin
Originally Posted by DeeDee
[quote=DeeDee]Task initiation is getting going on a task; very hard for people who have ADHD, not usually impaired in people with anxiety AFAIK. People who have impaired initiation often show a frustrating gap between the time they are given an instruction and the time they actually acknowledge it or start to complete it. It can make a child look oppositional even if it's really a processing glitch.

Initiation is only "impaired" in that it falls in the normal range, while the other EF scores are all very high. They're so high that the neuropsych says we can qualitatively rule out ADHD.

There are other types of reasons that task initiation (and word generation) might be impaired relative to overall EF and intelligence (outside of ADHD). And many of us here with 2e kids have their "impairments" show up as average range scores on tests like the NEPSY/WISC/etc. It's the discrepancy in scores (high to low) that means something, not the absolute number - other than in the technical description in the report. The type of number your dd has means that it is technically described as "mild". If I remember correctly my ds has #s on a NEPSY subtest that are 4 or 5 and his report description is "moderately impaired". Then in the summary section his neuropsych pulls all of his tests together and describes how they impact his functioning - and she uses the word "severe" there - but it's not tied to a specific test. And it is relatively severe - so I'm just offering that up as an example of - you can't get to hung up on the words used to describe the data as prescribed by professional guidelines... you need to look at how the whole child is functioning.

polarbear

ps - I was also surprised to read that high #s on the other EF skills rules out ADHD - I thought ADHD was usually assessed through surveys, and our neuropsych also had a computerized type of attention test she uses in her evals. I thought ADHD could be reflected in NEPSY scores, but didn't realize they could be used to rule out ADHD. BUT - I'm not a professional so my thoughts are pretty much meaningless and should be ignored on this!