I'm thinking that, were it impossible to learn social skills when severely underplaced academically, few gifted children over the age of forty would have ever developed social skills. Not sure I agree that it necessarily increases anxiety, either, though I would agree that it certainly can.
At this point, the child in question is placed, and any commentary (at least on my part) is intended to be purely academic and tangential. I certainly am not advocating moving him back with agemates, as that would play all sorts of creepy mindgames with the self-image of a child whose official labels would indicate a tendency to catastrophize, and do it amazingly well. (I suppose I should issue a disclaimer here that four of my four children are gifted, one has Asperger's, and in general our family looks like the poster children for the Geek Theory-- so anything I say should probably be taken through the filter of my own experiential bias.)
But back to social skills and SS groups: the biggest issue I've seen in a school setting is that the more formally they exist, the more likely the school is to justify their existence by adding to them any kid who acts inappropriately in class. So in many schools, they end up being sort of a holding spot for the EDBD classroom waiting list, with the attendant problems of the EDBD classes. What's worked fairly well, IME, is a "lunch bunch" of (nice, well-behaved) neurotypical peers who provide rather more functional role models, combined with social stories and roleplay in a more structured setting. In the early grades a reasonably skilled counselor can finesse the "we're here to teach Albert how to pass for typical" aspect, though that gets tougher in upper grades, as the kids get more savvy.
Agree completely on the "touchy feely writing" comment, btw. One of the FCAT practice prompts this year was "My favorite childhood toy", which caused no end of amusement with the middle-schoolers in this house. (My daughter with Asperger's is actually a pretty good writer, but we missed the boat when we didn't think to name her "Wednesday Addams", and her teacher got a surprise crash course in typically Aspergian dark, dry wit.)
As for the district dropping the ball...sadly, I haven't come across too many parents of 2E kids who can't say that.
Last edited by eldertree; 03/21/11 08:36 AM.
