Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Vision? Or geometry weakness?

So DS6 is lightning fast at maths, but whenever we come to geometry units, I can't believe how much he struggles. Working on angles was torture for him. I am starting to wonder if it might be caused by a vision issue. My DH insists that it is just a weakness. Maybe it is just asynchrony, and geometry takes longer for the brain to see and grasp onto. Did any of your advanced math kids take longer to developmentally grasp onto geometry?Maybe he is having a hard time seeing what an angle is. And just when I think he has it, he shows he doesn't. Maybe part of the issue is the fine motor or using a protractor? Maybe I'm just over thinking it, and it is one of those humps that will take him longer to overcome than most? Or maybe it is a vision issue?
Also, the other day he was looking at two patterns which were obviuously different, and he thought they were the same.
He has been looked at by a regular eye doctor, and has minor far sightedness...not enough to wear glasses yet.

Maybe it is just asynchrony, and geometry takes longer for the brain to see and grasp onto. Did any of your advanced math kids take longer to developmentally grasp onto geometry?

That would be my guess.

Kids who are computationally fast may seem to FLY through early math concepts (which, let's face it, don't ACTUALLY get complex until algebra-- until then it's more or less the same five or six ideas done to death procedurally).

But yeah, there is a spatial maturity that has to come to grasp some concepts in geometry.

Other things that seem to be possible quirks related to asynchronous development:

sequencing
patterns
logic-puzzles and proofs
writing expressions that relate to real-world problems

Six is just really young still, even though I know it doesn't seem that way with one of these kids.

DD is 14, and we still run into occasional holes that seem more developmental than anything else. It's like she CAN'T actually learn them yet. I don't really get concerned about this sort of thing until she's looped back to it again in six to twelve months with no notable improvement in mastery or progress in learning it.

With that said, though, I did worry about it PLENTY at 3-7yo. DD simply COULD not extend patterns when she was four. She could not do it. She could divide fractions. She understood multiplication and negative numbers...

but triangle, square, circle, triangle, square, ? threw her into a tizzy. I can remember her just crying and crying with Reader Rabbit saying "I'm sorry! Try Again!" in the background.

A year later, it was as though it had never happened-- it was just EASY for her.

I worked for many years as a volunteer high school math teacher, and found that it's not terribly unusual for kids who are able to grasp algebra etc easily to struggle with geometry. One of my own children has a real variability in understanding math concepts - some come quite easily, others you'd think she was facing a flight to the moon to understand.

So in general, no, I wouldn't think that having issues with geometry in and of itself indicates a vision issue. BUT...



Things like this *would* make me wonder.

Which brings me back to my dd who has all the ups and downs with math. She also has a huge vision challenge (which honestly, I don't think is related to her math struggles... just a coincidence for this particular thread lol!). We first clued into her vision issues in 2nd grade when she complained about not being able to read the board at school. We took her to our regular eye dr and she had 20/20 eyesight. So we went home thinking all was well and dd continued to complain about not being able to read the board. Long story shortened quite a bit, we eventually landed at a developmental optometrist' eval where we found out she had extremely severe double vision, and one of her eyes was actually shutting down (vision) due to the double vision. So she had 20/20 eyesight but absolutely a huge struggle with *vision* - two totally different things. I was with her when she was going through the eval, and saw what they did to assess whether or not she was seeing double, and she answered as if having double vision was the most normal thing in the world - because, for her, it was. She literally up until that point in time, at 8 years old, had no idea that the rest of us weren't seeing two of everything also! So, fwiw, it's quite possible that a smaller challenge with tracking etc might go under the radar for years in a student who didn't realize they weren't seeing the world in the same way as everyone else. A typical eye exam doesn't check for tracking/convergence/peripheral vision range etc.

polarbear

HK, logic, patterns, sequencing are all strengths. Portia, he is great with Legos, following 3d building instructions. Handwriting is okay, probably on par for age, I think. Spacing is not great. Doesn't seem to have much coordination hand to eye, not great with balls. But is pretty coodinated as far as gross motor goes, ie, bike riding. Rather clumsy, but not cautious near other people.
As far as looking at a pattern shape, and telling if it is the same, shouldn't a six year old be able to do that no problem, no matter what, gifted or not?

Polarbear, would vision issues make reading issues? DS loves reading, and there is no hesitation to read on his part.

My DS was in an accident sledding when he was 5 and fractured his skull and had a severe concussion. His eyes were quite obviously pointing in two different directions and one was stuck and wouldn't move at all for months. I remember when he was in the PICU the ped. opthamologist came in and held up 2 fingers and asked DS how many fingers were up and DS said 4. I asked him to read a sign on the wall across the room (a whiteboard where nurses write things like their name and the patient's name) and he read that just fine. The vision issues went on for months. Usually he went to school with an eye patch on his good eye (the one that actually tracked), but he generally had it off at home. He was able to read fluently. He may at times have been shutting one eye to read, but I think most of the time he just looked at one of the images and ignored the other one.

The OT gave him a Test of Visual Perceptual Skills expecting him to do really, really bad and was shocked when he scored 3 or 4 years ahead of his age. We aren't sure how much he had recovered by the time he took that test.

One test to get done is depth perception. If the eyes aren't aligned, there would be no depth perception. DS did really bad on depth perception tests for about 6-8 months and then he got his depth perception back.

If you are worried about patterns, the TVPS would pick that up. DS scored very high on the WISC perceptual reasonaing section and I was worred his IQ would artificially inflate the TVPS score (so even if he DID have vision issues, the high IQ would mask the problem), but the neuropsych said that wouldn't happen.

Also one thing to keep in mind is that kids with vision problems sometimes have troubles tracking when they are reading, and lose their place. This didn't seem to be a big issue with my DS though.

DS10, who has some math talent, noticeably lagged in geometric concepts that depended on visual spatial ability at around age 6-7. It stood out because he was able to assimilate elementary mathematics without teaching/curriculum sufficiently that he was able to do well through 5th grade end-of-year math test for his first math acceleration to compacted 3rd/4th grade math in 2nd grade(age 7). At that same age, he was also able to grasp basic algebra conepts instinctively. The geometry lag really stood out altough he did not have quite the extreme difficulties evident with your DS. He could discern geometric patterns and area/volume problems were easy, etc. However, I did notice enough to sit down and spent a little bit of time walking him through some of the visual spatial stuff (flip, turn, rotate). Interestingly, his twin sister, who is not talented in math, really excelled with the geometry stuff, probably because she is very artistic.

In DS' case, the visual spatial issue was one of the reasons that I pulled him back and did not accelerate him beyond pre-algebra for 4th grade. Interestingly, by 4th grade (age 9), he had matured enough to excel in the geometry units in his pre-algebra course. At this point, I am not concerned with his ability to handle a geometry course.

I wasn't super surprised by his relative weakness with the visual spatial aspect of geometry around age 6-7 because he still had letter reversal issues at that age even though he was reading Harry Potter level books fluently. He was and still is (although not as bad) very bad at judging size/distance. His handwriting is still awful, including poor spacing. I think part of it is maturity and part of it as learning to compensate.

I would keep an eye on this issue for sure. The inability to discern patterns is the most concerning. You can work with him in pointing out subtle differences and see if he catches on. There is also a big difference between an inability to grasp the concept of angle (cognitive issue) versus the inability to accurate measure an angle (fine motor/visual issue) or the inability to scan/judge angle size (visual spatial issue).

I teach 1st & 2nd grade math. It's always interesting when we study geometry because there are kids who have great number sense, but struggle with geometry. This isn't a red flag to me unless I see other signs.

I've had a few kids with visual-spatial disabilities. My experience is VERY limited, but here's what I noticed with them:

- None had poor handwriting. Handwriting ranged from average to excellent.
- Pattern block puzzles were very difficult for them.
- They struggled with shape patterns (2D), but not color patterns. Patterns with the same shape (e.g., a triangle rotated different ways), seemed to be more difficult.
- Cutting projects were really difficult. (For example, making a snowman out of construction paper - cutting out circles for the body, a hat, stick arms, etc.)
- Symmetry can be tricky. They had a difficult time drawing the other half of a symmetrical figure. It's a difficult thing to do, but they seemed to struggle more than average.

Again, my experience is really limited with these sorts of issues, but I can say a discrepancy between ability with number concepts and ability with geometric concepts is normal.

This might not be relevant but DD had a weird blind spot when she was into jigsaw puzzles around age 2. Her father tried to get her to see that frame pieces have a straight side so it'd be so much easier for her to do the frame first then work from there. She didn't get it (or chose to ignore him) and did all her puzzles from inside. Spatial perceptional processing and reasoning ability are her strengths so this didn't make much sense. She could make hexagon using different shapes and read rotated words but she couldn't see a straight line? I figured it was developmental and left it alone while her father just. could. not. let. it. go. Eventually, she got it (or decided that it was easier to comply than argue with her father) but she still prefers to do puzzles inside first and work towards the frame, not that she is all that interested in puzzles anymore.

So I think it's normal for mathematical oriented child to have strange "lags" so to speak. With math, DD is so all over the place that we probably have to move ahead with certain areas and check periodically to see if she's ready to revisit other things later.

I would get him evaluated by a developmental optometrist. www.covd.org