Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Philosophical question

In my DD8.5's case... she would know the difference. She needs to understand why she thinks differently than others and why she struggles more than others. Putting a name to it and defining it makes her feel more 'normal' in that if it can be defined than other people must have it too. She has a need to make sense of all things, including herself. Her ADD covers a lot of her GT abilities, so she often feels stupid (her own words) because she can't show others what she knows. In her own words, again, she's a hammer without a handle.

I concur that you should let them know - my point was about addressing the ADD or not. My dd was evaluated, was at the read out, has read the report. She has a 504 plan and knows what's in it.

My ds doesn't know his scores - but absolutely knows he is bright, dyslexic and organizationally challenged.

DeMistification is essential. Pressing for acceleration is not - as long as the person is happy and well balanced. Life is a journey. Students can arrive at the same destination taking different routes. And sometimes the different route can be more inspiring than any school curriculum.

Dd has generally had a hard time socially in elementary. She had "friends" in the non-accelerated classes but she really felt like they were acquaintances more than friends and she put on whatever it was that it took to make them happy. She was rather dissatisfied with the relationships and felt very, very lonely, though. In the GT/accelerated groups, I'd say that it has been a better fit but still not quite good enough. She still doesn't feel like she fits with the other kids, but she does feel like she fits better.

I just wonder if she might have somehow fit with the average kids if we had thought that's who she was, though, and she hadn't had an older sister who was so obviously not average. That's an alternate universe, though !

For us our journey with DD9 so far has involved a great deal of "Oh you mean that's not normal? *I* do that", alternating between DH and I who the trait came from. DH and I are both probably around MG, each with LD issues that we did overcome/learn to live with, and our poor DD got BOTH sets of issues. We survived, we have turned into functional adults with interesting careers. But school was a thoroughly miserable experience for both of us and neither of us managed to actually fully complete our degrees at Uni. There are so many levels on which our lives could have been easier had our parents had a clue what was going on with us and been more able to be appropriately supportive, or had we had more understanding at least of our "quirks", and that's without actually doing anything to actually remediate our various issues. For me personally, understanding what is happening makes so much difference to my ability to cope with issues. I can't honestly even imagine what life might have been like with actual treatment for some of our issues!

So from my perspective I am SO glad that we do know as much as we do about where my DD is at, I will keep pursuing more information and I do expect it to help her her. I have to say that in my DDs case she was not functioning at all in a school environment, which is how we started down this path in the first place, so not diagnosing her issues would have left her illiterate. She has a 43 point (83 percentile point) gap between her VCI and her WMI. So it's hard perhaps to compare to a child whose blend of G/LD produces closer to "average" or "high average" performance than my DDs does.

I don't expect that she's going to suddenly start performing years above her age but I do hope that she will be able to both master the academics at least normal for her age AND that she learn all sort of executive function skills that no-one in my DHs family seem to have mastered. Investigating why she seemed so bright and was failing so miserably also provided answers to a whole lot of issues that explained how hard it was just to get through the day with DD. She is SO exhausting to parent and understanding how exhausting it must be for her just to exist has made us more tolerant and less harsh on ourselves and her for "not doing better" (and here I mean not doing better at teaching her to get out the door on time in the morning with everything she needs, or not doing better at spending 30 mins alone).

I think that you can take credit for helping her be in good enough shape, emotionally, that she was willing to 'really work' at trying to be friends in the heterogeneous environment.
I don't think you can take credit for the way she doesn't fit with average kids. That's just par for the course with being on an alternative developmental path. Could you really have a deeply rich and satisfying emotional life in a room full of your-aged version of the kids in her heterogeneous classes? Gifted kids as young as preschool notice that something is up and can feel distressed by it.

Shrugs and more shrugs,
Grinity

My dd has an 43 point spread btwn her VCI and WMI as well but in her instance that came out to the difference btwn an average score on WMI and above the 99th on VCI so just a bit more than 52% difference. Both times she was tested, her VCI was like that and WMI and PSI average, but not really below. In knowing her, I strongly suspect that what suppressed the WMI and PSI were tons of mistakes not actually doing things slowly on PSI, for instance. Yet, she still looks average or above even with those mistakes and divergences.

I think that my dh, while he didn't have as bad of a time as it sounds like your dd would have without any interventions, had a hard enough time that he didn't come out as well as dd would have with no assistance. I do have the experience of having grown up knowing something was different about me and interpreting that as something wrong, but I was just straight gifted not 2e so it was easy enough to get to that "aha" moment and heal once I realized that dd12 was gifted and to realize that had also been my problem. I could accept that about myself b/c my school performance had, for the most part, been very good and I didn't question whether I was smart.

I guess that I was just wondering if a 2e person who doesn't struggle in school, at least as long as s/he isn't pushed to his/her ability level, would also grow up knowing that s/he was different in some way and feel misplaced in the world if neither exceptionality was ever ided. It sounds like, for the most part, that you all think s/he would.

I really do think they would. Gifted often presents as academically advanced but what produces that advancement is thinking differently. 2e kids are still thinking differently even if they don't necessarily have the ability to perform academically the way that other gifted kids do. In some ways I think the feeling different has got to be worse because they may not be seen as an a peer by the people they feel most like, it may be even harder for them to find their people...

I know for my DD being completely unable to learn to read as all of her friends one by one started reading was just devastating. Of course she wouldn't ever acknowledge it to us but she went from feeling equal to her group of friends to falling literately years behind them in the space of 12 months and she knew that she should be able to do what they were doing... Retrospectively she started school with a very skewed cohort of kids who I would say were all at least MG, one I suspect maybe even PG, they had parents like us that bordered on actively avoiding having their kids read before school. But they all progressed from not reading to reading chapter books in kindy. My DD was still struggling with the alphabet at the beginning of yr 2. Intellectually in play and conversation she fit perfectly, achievement wise they were worlds apart. Now she's heading back into the ball park and at speed but who knows what her future holds.bi am hoping that now she can read and is no longer dependent on auditory skills she doesn't have that she will start to perform more in line with her potential. It's a beautiful thing to see her calm and confident (true or not she believes herself to be one of the best in the class now).

She was so shut down when she did her WISC two years ago (the report states how hard she was to engage, easily tired, disinterested, etc), I am really curious to see what shows up when she's retested. She scored 99+ on the Ravens I sat her infront of last month so I think the potential is there but it's hard to trust an internet test result is "real".

I completely agree with this, from my own experience! I was always the smartest kid (or one of two) in my class, but there was no accelerating, and since my whole family was made up of really sharp cookies, it was just normal. I have thought in recent years that it would have really helped to have been accelerated and challenged, as I grew up with a really lousy work ethic (learning-wise) that I still have to force myself out of. And just this past year I have self-diagnosed myself with ADD, from recognizing attributes discussed on this board. (Boy, do I know what "itchy brain" feels like!) I haven't tried to get any medication for it or a diagnosis from the doctor, but I might just try it one of these days to save my kids from the impatience of their mother. Knowing these things earlier would indeed have been enlightening and helpful. It's good to know what makes one tick.

After listening to a college writing professor/published poet/song writer/musician speak at a poetry contest my son entered, I decided to write to him and I included a copy of my son's poem with some background about some difficult things my son was dealing with as a twice exceptional child with motor dysgraphia and dyspraxia and scoliosis, which made it difficult for him to fit in with kids his age. My son's poem didn't win, and the winner was a happy poem that sounded like it was written by a child. My son's poem sounded more like it was written by someone older. It was about a difficult journey, his journey to the place of his dreams. Some of the metaphor sounded like it was referring to difficulties he encountered as a twice exceptional child, like "as I slowly tire, like an animal caught on a tangled wire." He sometimes referred to his problems with motor dyspraxia and low muscle tone as having tangled wires. The "tangled wires" thing would happen sometimes in piano when he was tired or getting a migraine and it didn't seem to matter if he practiced or not. Sometimes he did better with no practice than he did when he had practiced a lot. I think if he didn't understand that he was twice exceptional, that it would be even harder to deal with. In his poem there was also a line that said "I was distraught, but I had a thought that I should try another way." With his disabilities he will have to find another way and I have no doubt that he will.

The professor wrote back about the poem and said my son did a beautiful job with his words. He said he didn't find out that he had an ld until he was older. He also said he never fit in--not in any grade, ever. He said the K through 12 state-run institution has never known what to do with students like him and quite possibly my son. He said they do not fit the mold and learn in very different ways.

The professor also said that creativity was the therapy that got him through his early years and encouraged my son to keep writing.

I also wrote to a woman who is a university graduate student doing research on pain management after seeing an article about her in the paper. She has pain from scoliosis and arthritis. She had to learn to focus on her work instead of the pain and my son is working on that. My son doesn't have ADD but pain does distract him and make it harder for him to concentrate on things like math and piano. He proved this year that he can make high grades in language arts even with his disabilities. He is also doing really well in musical theater and he gets lead roles now. My son has gifts and disabilities and he needs to know about all of it so he can learn to compensate for the disabilities but spend more time on the gifts so that he can be the best he can be.

I am finding smart, successful people with some of the same disabilities my son has. So far, the people I have talked to are very helpful and willing to share their stories with us and it is helping us get through a difficult time.

I think my son was better off knowing that he is twice exceptional, but I remember he was surprised that his dysgraphia was a learning disability when he felt he had never had any trouble learning anything, it was doing things (like handwriting) that he had trouble with. Now that we have the health issues, I think it is a little harder for him to learn because it is a distraction but I still think he would benefit by taking accelerated classes, especially in language arts. His writing composition teacher things he would do well next year in the high school class if we can find a way to manage the health issues.