Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Dyslexia, inconsistent performance, and chess

Does he take notation? That helps so much in reviewing what happened afterwards. If you know something about chess, you may be able to spot some patterns. Maybe he's moving too fast?

Sometimes issues in chess are emotional, too, not psychological. I have seen kids lose due to overconfidence and due to being "psyched out" from a previous loss.

Ratings are awfully deceptive sometimes, so losing to a 200 might not be as bad as it sounds. And the 900 kid could have blundered badly. I find you can't learn much about the game from ratings and win/loss...have to look at the notation.

He has been notating for years and goes over all games with his coach. The issue isn't inconsistency per se, it is inconsistency in excess of other boys of a similar age and rating class. His coach, who is excellent, works with lots of kids, and has known DS for years, says "he is not like the other kids. I don't know what to make of him." The coach says his rating should be about 1100 based on his chess reasoning ability, but his actual rating right now is in the 700's. He chronically underperforms in tournaments, but he loves to play in them, and does not get particularly anxious.

Does he ever play online? I wonder what his rating might be in that environment. Is he better (or conversely, much worse) with blitz? I mean, obviously his coach would be much more knowledgable than I would!--just thinking there could be a lot of ways to get at the "What's going on here?" problem. It's an interesting one.

Aeh, I cut and pasted your paragraph and sent it to his coach and said "is this what you see?" And he said, "Yes! where did you get that?!" So now I think we can develop a plan to help him. Thanks so much to everyone who replied. I am so, so grateful!

I had another "aha!" about this subject that I thought I would share here in case someone finds this thread in the future who has a similar question. DS started playing chess when he was 5, and was almost immediately good at it, winning many tournaments easily when he was 6. At that point, chess was largely about spatial relationships -- a strength for dyslexics. At his current level, chess involves more procedural memory -- memorizing complex openings, and tactics and such. This is a weakness for dyslexics.

So actually, his inconsistent chess performance makes a lot of sense when considered from this angle.

I am really hopeful that we can help him "overlearn" the chess strategies he needs so that he can continue to enjoy playing and competing -- and learn some valuable life lessons into the bargain. Thanks again.

My son was inconsistent too. Fyi he has ADHD and a language processing disorder. He's never played competitively, but he was kind of obsessed with it when he was six. He was sometime spot on (he'd beat me and his older sister) and other times he was totally on the moon and couldn't win to save his life.

A third variation is sometimes he'd take a dive to prematurely end a game if he thought he couldn't win. Then he'd want to start a new game, and sure enough, if he got too far behind, he'd place himself in checkmate to end the game. It was very obvious (I even called him on it and he owned up to it). The whole thing felt very perfectionism related.

Anyway he was six, so at that age inconsistency is par for the course with most things. Plus he was playing purely out of interest whereas Gabalyn your son has a more mature objective (ie competition, skill building, self-improvement, etc)

You mentioned this: "I do think it is the retrieval/automaticity/procedural learning deficit." ...this rings true to me. With my son's language processing issue and his ADHD, part of his challenge in many things is generalized application of a previously learned skill. He too is now ten, and behaviorally and emotionally is much more stable but still has this automated retrieval issue sometimes. So... it's relating to the LD and not the age.

They say that LD never goes away, but arrrgh... I hate that!!! There must be something we can do... like exercising a weak muscle. I think the concept of neuro plasticity conflicts with the "LD is for life" idea. So which is right? Plasticity!! I like your perspective of it being a life lesson. Sometimes they need to overcome a challenge so they learn that challenge is ok.