I usually consider it an LD-related deficit, but you could classify it as EF, since it's generally assessed using neuropsych EF instruments like the WRAML or RCFT.
It's not particularly important which category it falls into.
My question was really "who diagnoses this?" Thanks for answering it, despite my clunkiness.
's really important for them to have an over-arching concept or framework first, into which they can insert the bits of data. Like a minerals classification scheme, with an understanding of all the key characteristics that could be looked at and how they are used to sort/ differentiate the various minerals... I'm the antithesis of visual spatial, but I suspect the way my kids would deal with that kind of question is to picture a periodic table kind of schematic in their head, find the mineral in question, and then derive its characteristics from what they know about the characteristics associated with the rows and columns into which they have put that particular sample....
I couldn't say if DS is visual/spatial but I do think he has to actually need the information (factoids) before they begin to sprout in his brain. I think the reason I can get him excited about topics is because I ask him a lot of questions about the "whys" of things. He doesn't do "whats" very well. I bet that doesn't make sense...but it does to me, because I process information similarly.
Getting my ADHD daughter to memorize meaningless info, like names of capitals, is like pulling teeth. My other gifted kid who doesn't have ADHD or is "less" ADHD does not have a problem w/ this at all. She scored in the average range on most memory neuropsych tests vs. her reasoning ability was so much higher. Working memory on the WISC IV was very high, however. Not sure why. Working memory in terms of the BRIEF for executive functioning was in the very impaired range, so there is a difference depending on what a person means by working memory as well. The type of working memory on the WISC is completely different than working memory for executive functioning.
I know you just used states/capitols as an example, but that's one of the puzzling things about the way DS learns. He *does* learn things like states/capitols relatively quickly--but I think he has an innate interest. Also he learned that particular set of info when he was super young, working with puzzles and games.
His working memory was just fine on recent WISC-V, not crazy high but I think it was mid 120s. He can't "memorize" the basics of getting ready in the morning, though, despite having done these things since he was little! Or maybe it's not that he can't, but that he prefers not to, and doesn't have to, because I do it all morning, every morning. SO EXHAUSTING.
I am pretty sure the BRIEF assessment is just observers rating behaviors, correct? DS bombed that one, too, along with all of the EF related stuff in the ABAS-2 he took last year.
He doesn't seem to be able to memorize auditory, multiple-step instructions, but knows every major league baseball player who ever lived, along with their stats, history, big games, etc. He also knows a lot of pop culture stuff, remembers names of songs/bands, etc., unlike ME, who can't remember any of that stuff, ever. My friends make fun of me because I never know anything about actors, musicians, etc. or sports (I thought Kobe Bryant was a baseball player, for instance), but I just *can't* make myself care about it and my brain doesn't work unless I care.
I can't remember names of books I've read or who wrote them, unless I'm completely enchanted by them. I've found myself mid-book more than once, suddenly feeling "this seems familiar" and realizing I've read it before.
I mention that part because of the whole apple/tree relationship but also because I wonder if this is a similar deficit.
