Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Need advice for teacher meeting

To recap - my son just turned 7 and is a first grader in a Montessori. We had him privately tested last summer - WISC IV GAI was 129 but his scores were so scattered that they said the scores weren't really meaningful (a lot of not interpretable). His processing speed is abysmal (9th percentile on coding subtest) but matrix reasoning was 99.9. His WJ-III score was 143 and closer to what I think his IQ really is - he scored 98-99+ in many of the other subtests. Any tests that were timed were not as good, I noticed. We have not had him evaluated for ADHD or anything else.

Anyway, his teacher did decide to move him up with the 3rd graders early in the school year for most lessons including reading and math (even though I think he can do even more than that in some cases). Well, I've had many discussions with her in the hallway about DS and how he just not working well in class, talking to the other kids, generally wasting time and sometimes being rude (or what she perceives as being rude). He even had to sit out in the library with a teacher last week to work on his stuff and he couldn't even stay on task then! Sometimes he says he doesn't like school and all he does is work, work, work. He says he gets bored but the teacher wants him to finish all his assignments before he can move to other stuff.

This kid is not generally motivated to achieve anyway - he will spend hours on a new interest at home but whines about schoolwork that should be a no brainer. So the teacher wants to meet again formally next week and I'm not sure what I should ask her to do for him. I can tell my son 100 times to pay attention and finish his work but he clearly has executive functioning issues. She already has "work plans" for all the kids so they know what they are supposed to do doing the week and cross things off as they go. I thought that would help DS but he dislikes the work plans because well, they make him work LOL He can't prioritize time or tasks and gets distracted easily.

Any thoughts on how I can help improve this situation? Even if she did give him more challenging work, I fear he would fight it anyway because he would perceive it as "too hard" or it would "take too long" (that is his big thing - everything "takes too long" in his world!)

I'm not sure I have any advice, but I sure do hear "it takes too long" a lot from my 6 year old! Sounds like they have similar "work ethic." I am interested to see what others say.

I am interested in what ever you figure out because we are dealing with the same problem with our five year old. He also attends a Montessori school.

Your son sounds a lot like my DD9, who is now in fourth grade/ upper elementary in a Montessori school. She has dysgraphia but can write okay; it just takes her longer that other kids and she tries to avoid written work, so her school work doesn't reflect her academic potential. One psychologist recommended that she be allowed some accommodations such as not being required to write full sentence answers when possible and being allowed to use a computer for written work. Her current teacher is great but has been resistant to any of those suggestions. I'm not too worried because everything else is going really well. Have you noticed that your son takes longer to write than other kids, or does he have any trouble with it? What it took to get DD doing her work passably was to set up an incentive system. One teacher had her do three 'works' in the morning work cycle (or produce an equivalent amount of work that the teacher approved) or she had to stay in for recess. The current teacher was having her do some of her overdue works before she was allowed to do a 'dessert work'--i.e., something fun. Both of these motivated her well. Also we set up an at-home point system so she gets rewards for doing well at school. This requires some help from the teacher in letting us know how she did, so we discussed with the teacher and came up with a 'home report card' where the teacher circles yes or no for five objectives--we print out the form that we made up each week and DD is responsible for having the teacher sign it each day. Then she can use the points for whatever--in her case, movies. It helps that she's older because in first grade/lower elementary I don't know if that would have worked, but it's been a miracle this year and her behavior is just amazingly different since we started that. I hope you can work with the teacher to come up with something positive. Good luck!

I agree with mon and dbat, I suspect that your son is having some other issues. Did your private testing include achievement tests or any suggestions for further assessments based on his largely uninterpretable IQ test? It sounds like he has some real output issues but I don't think that you have enough information to determine whether it is dysgraphia or some other expressive disorder. I would not assume that this is all "executive function" issues. Your kid is 7. It is perfectly normal for this age to have minimal organizational skills and short attention span for boring tasks. What I think you need to figure out is why he is avoiding the certain tasks. It sounds like something more than just boredom.

When we were sorting our DD's dyslexia and dysgraphia issues in first grade, she exhibited many similar behaviors. At home, she could spend hours engrossed in a book about sea creatures and even made her own models out of clay or Lego. At school, she looked distracted, unmotivated and avoided doing the work. Her teacher knew that DD was smart and saw her unwillingness to "just write a short sentence" as a character flaw. We knew that DD had an ever-changing, odd pencil grip (which we kept being told would work itself out - bah!). We didn't know that DD was suffering from headaches due to eye tracking issues or that she had dyslexia issues that made spelling and conventions extremely difficult. Her combination of challenges made that "short sentence" sheer torture. BTW, DD's WISC-IV provided no clues re DD's challenges, nothing under 97th percentile. An IQ test alone often is not enough to sort things out with these kids.

OK, I'm going to see if I can answer all the questions.

First, the private tester was a grad student at at university. They did the WISC-IV, WJ-III, behavior checklist, Aspergers checklist and one attention test (CPT-2) which showed a 93% chance of an attention problem but cannot say what the cause of it is (whether ADHD or just gifted behaviors). They suggested following up with more testing in a couple of years to evaluate for ADHD.

DS has great cursive handwriting, which they teach at Montessori. His printing can get sloppy if he is rushing but overall I would say his handwriting is fine. He gets 100% on his third grade spelling tests (the only "tests" they take other than Scholastic comprehension tests on the computer).

He is always drawing and writing stuff so I don't see a problem there (other than doodling on his stuff sometimes). It seems to come naturally to him. He didn't like having to do his comprehension questions though (which were only HW because he didn't finish at school). He did have a hard time learning how to hold the pencil correctly in pre-k, K but he seems to have figured that out now.

He is at least a couple grades ahead in math and loves it but only on his terms! He doesn't like doing math worksheets, although I have to keep on him not to get distracted so he finishes them. One thing I tried this week was letting him check his answers to his 4 digit subtraction problems HW (his is learning how to carry) on my calculator. Boy, did he light up after that! So maybe we need to get more creative?

He did have surgery for strabismus and wears glasses with bifocals now. His eye dr gave him the 100% cured stamp of approval so I think he eyes are working fine now. He did tilt his head for a long time to compensate for the double vision but I don't think there is any residual issue (he had the surgery right before he turned 6).

I will ask the teacher next week if there are specific "works" that seem to cause him more issues or that he avoids (I have a feeling she will say all of them!). I generally don't see most of what he does at school. He only has spelling and math HW to do. We may need to do a daily check-in with the teacher (this worked with my DD4 who was not behaving in pre-k *sigh* LOL) The only thing he has expressed interest in is getting more pieces for his Snap Circuits set. Maybe this combined with altering the approach on some of his school work will help. But you are right knute, I don't really have enough info - only educated guesses.

Thanks all!

I agree with knute (and mon and dbat!)... and I've read your follow-up to knute. You'd really benefit (jmo) from further testing to tease out what's up with the discrepancy in processing speed - it could be fine motor, it could be vision, it could be something else. Most of us who's kids have been through neuropsychologist testing have had a few additional tests done that you don't mention - tests that give details re fine motor function (not an OT type of test, but looking at how the brain controls fine motor) and vision (again, not the type of test an eye dr would give, but tests that give clues re how vision is actually working in a setting similar to skills needed for academics). My kids also had other executive function type of tests as part of their neuropsych evals. Soooo... you've got a lot of good information so far, but there are tests out there that could possibly help you understand what's up with the IQ subtest discrepancy in more detail - and that could be very important detail.

Knowing that your ds has a history of strabismus, I wouldn't be surprised if the low processing speed is tied to a vision issue. I have an adult relative who had strabismus as a child that is well-corrected as an adult with contact lenses... but she still struggles with reading. Not in a huge way - she's been very successful in school... yet not quite as successful as she'd hoped to be or as most of her professors who know her well enough to know her intellect think she would be. I also have a dd who's been through vision therapy to correct vision challenges due to muscle weakness (which showed up as a huge dip in processing speed on her WISC)... my adult relative realized through learning about what my dd has been through that she is probably still having fall-out in her vision due to her history of strabismus, even though it appears on the surface to be corrected.

polarbear

I have been Googling looking for neuropsychology in my area. What should I be looking for or ask about? What are the tests that they will do? It seems as if there are not many options here plus I want someone who knows gifted kids, right? He taught himself to read at 2 before he was diagnosed so I just don't know what to think! Off on another adventure now!

Where are you located? If you look through the Regions section on this site, or on Hoagies, you'll see some recommended doctors.

I'm in VA - there is only one listed and I think he is 3-4 hours away. I'm sure there are more than that but it requires research to find them!