Thank you so much for the detailed response. We are still in the process of evaluation and it will take few more months. We are trying to figure out if he has add, dysgraphia or similar issues. He also got diagnosed with another eye issue - aniseikonia and anisometropia, that might be effecting his binocular vision and might be the root cause of his school problems. However, for now, with our insurance we can’t get much more info on that.
One thing is certain - he lacks academic skills, any motivation for school work and basically 4 years of education. It broke my heart when he mentioned that his harsh teacher approached him to talk with him, but he doesn’t remember anything she said and his stomach just got tied in a knot and started hurting when he saw her…
So far, we made some progress with him opening up towards us a bit more and hopefully understanding that we aren’t disappointed with him and feeling a bit better. We also started working with him on a few subjects, so maths went from F’s and D’s to almost an A. Same thing happened with history and biology, and there is hope that if we start next year with studying from the beginning, he might regain confidence and start performing better. We are also getting some progress with his native language, and he is finally catching up with reading it. But, he gets tired after a few pages, likely due to vision. I hope he’ll get into audio books a bit more.
He is also getting re-evaluated with Iq tests, but I’m not sure if they will take into account the language barrier or vision issues. Docs also mentioned possible asynchronous development.
As for the social aspect, his group is tiny and his best friend is musical wunderkind. They all speak English among themselves and it’s not helping the school cause. I wish he would connect with “regular” peers more, but I don’t think I can force that.
As for me, I am still in hell as I only want to see him happy and wish I could let him be, however I also don’t want to let the school mess up his future by forcing him into “special education” if it’s not truly needed. Here, it basically means they would just tap him on the head and give A’s for nothing and label him as challenged for the rest of his life. I want to figure out what is going on and “fix” whatever can be fixed and give him a chance to thrive in life.
And everything is so strange. For example, he started stimming heavily to the point that I started realizing why the school thinks he is so odd. However, as soon as summer break started, I haven’t seen him stimming at all. If nothing, I guess it’s fair to say that he is really stressed with school.
Anyhow, once again, thank you so much for the encouragement and support and offering such amazing resources for my education. Even though I still have no idea if I actually have a gifted child, 2e child, challenged child or a regular one that just got really unlucky with school. I can just do my best to avoid beating myself up as a horrible mom who messed everything up, at least on good days.
