Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Dyscalculia Alone, or Part of AS/NVLD (Revised)

Mom2MrQ - you mentioned that your ds fits many of the symptoms on the dyscaculia list you linked - but did you mention which specific items you're seeing? I'm sorry if I missed that in the replies, and don't mean to cause you extra work in all of this, but the reason I ask is two-fold: first, there are many symptoms that overlap between different types of diagnoses that are associated with impacts on academics (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia in particular have many shared symptoms). My ds is dysgraphic and does not have dyscalculia, but I can check off quite a few symptoms from that list which I understand to be due to his dysgraphia (for instance, difficulty telling direction). Second - I tend to doubt your ds has dyscalculia based on his WJ-III math achievement scores. The only "low" score (and it's very relative) is the math fluency test - and that's a timed test, which you often see lower scores on for children who have low coding scores on the WISC (also timed). The issue causing both of these scores might be nothing more than slow handwriting speed.

The other thing I'll throw out there to totally confuse the issue with auditory attention - my dd who has vision challenges first *looked* like a child who had auditory challenges - she couldn't stand to be in a room with loud noises (not really all that loud - the tv at regular volume used to cause her to scream and we couldn't even *think* about turning on the vacuum cleaner while she was in the house), she freaked out in places where there were a lot of people and it was *loud*, and when she started in early elementary school she couldn't hear the teacher talk because the background noise in the room sounded so loud to her. She went through an auditory listening therapy program when she was in kindergarten, and that helped her learn how to filter out background noise and also helped her focus on her schoolwork. She continued to seem to have difficulty hearing though because she seemed to be unable to follow multi-step directions and didn't remember things we'd gone over with her etc and was still somewhat sensitive to noises none of the rest of us could hear. All of that went away when.... she had vision therapy... so I suspect at least a small part of what we were attributing to a hearing challenge was actually somehow related to her vision challenge.

Re the auditory attention score on the WJ-III - if the 97 score and the 3rd percentile is what's written on the report you have, I'd check back with the person who scored the test to be sure you have the right number for the 97 - I suspect that #s correct and that the 3rd percentile is the error, but you'll want to know for sure. If the 97 is correct, that's 3 points below 100, which is the mean for the WJ-III - so the score is just right about at the 50th percentile - which is still relatively low compared to the other scores. The other thing I'd do is to google a specific definition (or ask the tester) re what that subtest measures and how it's administered. That should give you a clue to what may be a relative weakness.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - the visual matching subtest on the WJ-III is very similar to coding on the WISC, so the relatively low scores there make sense... and both of those could definitely be vision-related.

pps - this may be tmi and hopefully won't sound disgusting and rude or whatever... but... my dd who had the listening therapy also has incredibly hard ear wax... it slowly builds up in way that we really can't see it and she's had to have it cleaned out at her ped's twice... cleaned out in a big way... and her hearing has improved dramatically both times Definitely not the full issue she was dealing with, but if you haven't had that checked and you're worried about hearing issues, it might be worth having your ped look at. I may come back and erase this so that my dd never knows I wrote it lol! But fwiw, her ear wax is different than my other kids' wax. Can't really figure out how to explain it, and I'm definitely *NOT* posting a picture.. but.. a picture would help to explain. YUCK... that's the last you'll hear on that subject from me

I agree, and those things can't be explained away as 'gifted quirkiness'. (Or can they? LOL)

I'm not sure how to answer that. If he knows how something works after having read about how it works, he can explain it well enough, but he's not great at walking up to something and figuring it out on the spot --at least I don't think so. Even when he builds and constructs things, which he likes to do, he doesn't use the best logic, imo. This is one area where I can clearly see that his mind works differently. It seems to me that he's more into the creative side of things than the functional side, though he does like to try to make things that work correctly. It just seems that he can't 'see' how to do that.

Heh, my youngest daughter needs to get her ears scraped out by the ENT every 4-6 months. Her speech noticeably devolves.

This symptom list is copied and pasted from http://www.dyscalculia.org/ I'm going to copy the things which apply to him, and strike those things I do not see. If it's a major issue for him --if it especially applies --, I'll put it in bold.

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• Normal or accelerated language acquisition: verbal, reading, writing. Poetic ability. Good visual memory for the printed word. Good in the areas of science (until a level requiring higher math skills is reached), geometry (figures with logic not formulas), and creative arts.

• Mistaken recollection of names. Poor name/face retrieval. Substitute names beginning with same letter.

• Difficulty with the abstract concepts of time and direction. Inability to recall schedules, and sequences of past or future events. Unable to keep track of time. May be chronically late.

• Inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Poor mental math ability.[....] May have fear of money and cash transactions. May be unable to mentally figure change due back, the amounts to pay for tips, taxes, etc.
  Poor with money and credit. Cannot do financial planning or budgeting. Checkbooks not balanced. Short term, not long term financial thinking. Fails to see big financial picture. Note: Financial planning to the above degree isn't something he's been exposed to, so I'm nixing it based on lack of exposure.

• When writing, reading and recalling numbers, these common mistakes are made: number additions, substitutions, transpositions, omissions, and reversals.

• Inability to grasp and remember math concepts, rules, formulas, sequence (order of operations), and basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Poor long term memory (retention & retrieval) of concept mastery- may be able to perform math operations one day, but draw a blank the next!
  
  May be able to do book work but fails all tests and quizzes.
  
  Note: He doesn't fail all tests, but it is rare that he gets all bookwork or quiz questions correct. His mistakes are almost always due to being off one number or reading the wrong sign. Sometimes, when we do oral math, he will blurt out an answer, then immediately catch himself and correct it --and usually he's correct with the correction, but not always. Then there are times when he knows it's wrong, but he can't quite 'get to' the answer. I stopped timing anything with him because he would have a complete meltdown and couldn't even think straight.

• May be unable to comprehend or "picture" mechanical processes. (Note: I addressed this in a previous post. I'm not sure if he's bad at this, or simply average.)
  
  Lack "big picture/ whole picture" thinking. Poor ability to "visualize or picture" the location of the numbers on the face of a clock, the geographical locations of states, countries, oceans, streets, etc.

• Poor memory for the "layout" of things. Gets lost or disoriented easily. May have a poor sense of direction, loose things often, and seem absent minded. (Remember the absent minded professor?)

• May have difficulty grasping concepts of formal music education. Difficulty sight-reading music, learning fingering to play an instrument, etc.

• May have poor athletic coordination, difficulty keeping up with rapidly changing physical directions like in aerobic, dance, and exercise classes. Difficulty remembering dance step sequences, rules for playing sports.

• Difficulty keeping score during games, or difficulty remembering how to keep score in games, like bowling, etc. Often looses track of whose turn it is during games, like cards and board games. Limited strategic planning ability for games, like chess.

Thanks again for your ideas and insight.

Quick thought, I could be wrong but it looks to me like his processing speed is declining relative to peers with age? All the processing speed tests trended down over the two year gap? The younger you are the less fast you have to be to look good against peers and cognitive ability being ahead would have given him a boost. The older kids get the more I wonder whether visual/motor speed is the bigger factor in doing well on PSI tests? Actually WMI was trending down too. Can you ask an expert about that?

That's something I was curious about, too. A frustration is that ds has been seen by different people in different settings each time. I wish I had more confidence in the results, but when I see the numbers changing so much, I don't know what to think. Last week I was toying with the idea of sending his records to A*end to review. He's good with the g and 2e issues, and he tested ds previously.

So have you gone through similar lists for dysgraphia and dyslexia and developmental co-ordination disorder? So many of these lists overlap. I am still going with "paediatrician didn't decide, neurologically odd son"... I'm not really suggesting PDD-NOS, but while I am no expert on dyscalculia I look at that list and I think all the stuff you've highlighted is too easily applicable to other conditions too. But pretty much all of it could be down to major visual problems weirdly overcome by a PG child - causing some quirks in other areas of development along the way as he tries to compensate.

Ideal auditory development is reliant on ideal development of the other senses too (surely?). I know blind people are supposed to be able to develop more acute hearing etc, but one wonders if whatever causes a visual processing difference (in the presence of "normal" vision) prevents a straightforward compensation via another sense.

My DD with CAPD, when tested at 7 by the OT for global sensory development had highly, highly developed visual skills in some areas (compensating for auditory weakness), most glaringly her visual speed was about 5 times her auditory speed (pressing a button in response to visual or auditory input), her visual was well above average, her auditory way below. So she definitely was stronger in some ways visually, compensating for the auditory deficit, BUT she also had some particular visual deficits, which I am guessing were either areas that needed better auditory skills to develop normally OR were impacted by the same root causes as the auditory issues... The OT got to the end of the visual tests and said "I can tell from these tests that she's amazing at Where's Wally and cant read."

Me again. Sorry to keep adding these random thoughts in dribs and drabs. My DD with CAPD is also dyslexic (and has AS). When we were first looking at the dyslexia something we were told was that dyslexia is now considered primarily an auditory problem (ie with hearing the sounds in words, phonemic awareness, phonetic awareness, and in my DDs case a major problem with the ability to sounds/concepts to symbols, but I read something yesterday that made me think this part was the AS at work). My DD did not particularly have problems with reversals etc, she simply did not comprehend the idea of symbols for sounds/concepts AT ALL, it was like the words weren't on the page. And she has major sequencing issues.

My DD has overt auditory processing issues, subtle visual issues and it adds up to dyslexia. I am intrigued that your son seems to possibly have a similar, yet kind of opposite pattern.

I see your son is 9, my DD mentioned above really started integrating and overcoming at about 9. She's improved dramatically 9-11. Which has been both miraculous and also illuminating in terms of the underlin issues that remain. My DH was a late bloomer, as was I, I can think of other friends too who were in remedial everything in lower primary and took of like a rocket somewhere around 5-7 grades. I wonder if this is a common 2e thing. The 2e is still there, but less crippling. Which leaves you to figure out - what does he need to know about himself to best support and maintain a happy and healthy adult life? It might not be the overt symptoms of his younger years. Though it may be related (same causes). That's not very diagnosic or practical I know. Just musing on his progress in areas you hadn't noticed (counting objects).

I'm glad that you posted this. I've heard others say this before, so I'm hoping we see it here too. I DO feel he has improved a lot in the past year.