Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Immature or something else?

I am wondering if the behaviors you and the teacher are seeing in the 3rd grade reading class and on the bench at soccer games be related to anxiety.

According to the psych, his math reasoning scores are very superior range, and his calculation scores are lower, athough still high average. He has above average ability to perform paper and pencil math computations but he score falls to average when placed under timed conditions. He explained that the lower WM/PS scores were likely due to the fact that he has not been challenged thus far, at least not much and that may well be why there is an issue when a time constraint enters in. Challenging him could improve the WM/PS and thus improve his response to timed conditions. Higher math exposure would provide that challenge.


He knows the math facts. He simply cannot produce them when a timer is involved. The answers he does produce on the timed test are nearly ALWAYS correct. The lowest passing score he has received was 99. If he does not pass the test it is due to insufficient problems completed, not incorrectly answered. When you simply ask him any random math fact he answers immediately with the correct answer. DH and I have BOTH tested this.


Do you mean something more physical in nature is the issue? If so, would that not have been observed by the psychologist during testing? And if it were a physical (or physiological) issue, would it not manifest in other situations than ONLY timed math tests?


It was simply because after a certain point, he would not even attempt the span. He said he could not do it and would not try. We have seen this same thing. He decides it's too hard because it doesn't come easily to him. He needs to experience challenge so he understands that he CAN do it.

He knows the math facts. He simply cannot produce them when a timer is involved.

That, coupled with the other behaviors you mentioned, leads me to wonder if anxiety might not be worth an additional look.

ETA: How does he do if YOU time him-- on the sly? That is, if he doesn't know that he's being timed, how does he do?

What changes if you then let him know that you're tracking how long it takes him?

What is different if he is running OUT of time, instead?

If it's anxiety driving things, those three situations should result in progressively worse performance.



Perfectionists are very prone to anxiety, and your last statement above is a classic 'tell' for perfectionism (the outcome is no longer certain, this feels hard-- time to quit while I'm ahead rather than risk failing).

Ah. That is important. That does tend to support HK and others' hypothesis of anxiety/perfectionism, as obviously he does have math fact fluency. But that is also oral assessment, so it doesn't rule out the fine motor explanation detailed below.
Yes, I am suggesting the possibility of a motor speed question. The reason the Coding/Symbol Search dichotomy raises this question in my mind is because both tasks are timed. The directions wrt timing/speed are exactly the same. The primary difference between the two is the fine-motor aspect of Coding. (For SS, all you need to do is make a tick mark, while for Cd, you need to draw a small symbol.) On the WJIII/IV, the math fluency task is also distinct from, say, the reading fluency task, in its inclusion of fine-motor skills (writing numerals), rather than marking a true/false item. Are there other fine motor speed tasks among the array of assessments? E.g., reading fluency (WJ), writing fluency (WJ), visual matching (WJ), cancellation (WISC). Are there disparities among them, or are they consistent? (Well, we know there is at least one disparity, since SS is noticeably higher than Cd and MF--are there others?) If it is not motor speed, how is SS different from the other tasks (in, e.g., not provoking as much perfectionism/anxiety)? It would be interesting to know how he views these different timed tasks.

As to manifesting in other situations: he is still performing in the average range on fine motor speed (under this hypothesis)--this is a personal weakness, not a normative weakness--so the relative weakness wouldn't necessarily be noticeable in naturalistic contexts, because most settings don't ask him to perform above average in handwriting speed or fine motor manipulation speed. How's his handwriting in general? His attitude/preference toward extended writing?

And no, the psychologist would not necessarily observe it in testing, since, again, it is not a normative weakness. Unless other fine motor assessments were administered, the weakness would not necessarily be exposed. This is usually the purview of an occupational therapist. Psychs do sometimes give fine-motor-vulnerable instruments, like the Beery VMI, RCFT, and subtests of the PAL-2. Certain subtests of the DKEFS can also be revealing of fine motor issues.

Please be clear that I am not knocking the psychologist or his/her work or clinical skill. (That would be unprofessional toward a colleague.) Just pointing out that there are additional pieces of (unknown) data that could affect the diagnostic picture. I certainly don't have all the information necessary to make a clear assessment one way or the other! I am guessing that the indicators of perfectionism fit more with the psych's clinical instincts. And he/she was on the spot, so naturally one defers to his/her observations. But in the absence of more fine-motor data, that doesn't actually rule out fine-motor speed/automaticity issues. Which can cause anxiety in themselves, especially in a child whose mind moves so much more quickly.
That sounds most like perfectionism.

I wouldn't worry about the soccer game behavior. As a soccer dad myself, I can say that goofing off/not paying attention on the sideline is an age-appropriate behavior.

My DD did have a teammate whose mom confirmed she had an ADHD diagnosis, and that was more noticeable when the child was on the field than when she was on the bench.

Pretty much the same. The reason I thought ADHD is that he would stare at a single problem for up to 30 seconds, and he sometimes couldn't sit still while doing practice tests. And in many cases it's a problem he has already correctly answered earlier on the same page.


We have tried each of those scenarios, and nothing changed. When we simply had him do all 100 problems in whatever time it took him, he usually took 13 - 14 minutes to complete.

Now there IS recent progress, in that he now confidently skips a problem he can't recall the answer for immediately, and comes back to it later. He is successfully completing the 100 questions in 7 minutes or so. The first time he did this was last week, and he passed his -4 on first try. While I was writing this post, he was working on his -5 for the first time. He got all 100 done in 7.5 minutes.



I can see how it may be some perfectionism causing some of his issues, but I haven't really observed anxiety. I also wonder if maybe it doesn't keep his focus because of the monotony of it. Does that make any sense at all?

[quote=aeh]Please be clear that I am not knocking the psychologist or his/her work or clinical skill. (That would be unprofessional toward a colleague.) Just pointing out that there are additional pieces of (unknown) data that could affect the diagnostic picture. I certainly don't have all the information necessary to make a clear assessment one way or the other! I am guessing that the indicators of perfectionism fit more with the psych's clinical instincts. And he/she was on the spot, so naturally one defers to his/her observations. But in the absence of more fine-motor data, that doesn't actually rule out fine-motor speed/automaticity issues. Which can cause anxiety in themselves, especially in a child whose mind moves so much more quickly.[quote]

I will admit at first I read your replies as knocking or questioning our psychologist. But as the discussion progressed I realized your probing was causing me to think it over more carefully. Anything that helps me to better understand what I am seeing, and help me learn to speak the language of giftedness and testing is welcome. It only benefits my child in the long run, and that's what this is about. I am still confident in his diagnosis, but moreso now, and not due to sheer stubbornness! (DH will tell you I have a bit of a streak of that!)

I agree. That's what it's all about. The better you understand your child (and, ultimately, he understands himself), the more effective your efforts will be, creating an optimal match between him and his environment.

I just didn't want you to overlook any alternative interpretations. I've walked into meetings with my formulation all prepared, apparently supported by my data, presented my findings, and then had a key interpretation flatly contradicted by the student, rather convincingly. I listen very attentively when that happens; it's a good learning opportunity.

One of my guiding principles is that parents are the experts on their children. The corollary to that is that children become the experts on themselves, as they mature.