Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Hard time following directions

"Simple tasks he turns into something completely different and does them incorrectly."

My big question is, is it an incorrect way? Or just his way?

Like other posters, your first comment that "he does not seem to understand directions very well" took me straight to auditory processing, which itself has significant overlap with ADHD-I symptoms. Both will leave a kid missing a lot of instructions. Auditory processing issues can also make it hard to develop good phoneme awareness, and therefore can also impede early phonetics/ reading. (We've just finished an auditory assessment BTW; happy to share details if of any possible relevance).

But other than the teacher's comment, virtually everything you mention does seem explainable as his likely HG+. Especially if you throw in a heavy dose of visual spatial. So I would wonder about your own experience: in every day life, do you also feel like he doesn't *understand* instructions? Or that he hears something different than what was actually said? Or that he isn't able to pay enough attention to the instructions? Or - the $20,000 question - that he actively chooses to go his own way, regardless of the instructions?

Your description rings a lot of bells with my extremely visual-spatial DS10. Very out-of-the-box. He thrives on teachers he calls "eccentric, like me", and has had a lot of trouble with the more linear, conventional thinkers. He will never take a straight line to do anything, and even when very young, would chose incredibly hard, convoluted routes to get from A to B (simple example - with a toddler counting book, he'd jump all over the place counting the 20 fish, and never systematically work his way across, down, or through clusters. He was never wrong, though.) He avoids doing things the way everyone else does, on principle: his art was never recognizable because "I made it interesting, so it doesn't look like everyone else's." I can still instantly find his work on the classroom wall, as his will be ten times more complex than anyone else's - and unusually unfinished ("complexity" was his favourite word for several years). His clothes and long hair set him out from the other kids, on purpose. Even as a toddler, he was noticeably impervious to peer pressure (even when you wished he would, just this once, try something just because all his friends were doing it.)

There were a lot of things we thought he couldn't do, simply because he wasn't interested in doing what everyone else did. Then he'd do it once, you'd realize he was perfectly capable - but you'd never see it again, and sometimes we'd think we just imagined it. A seriously divergent thinker can be rather bewildering to live with at times. A teacher-pleaser he ain't.

Worksheets and repetition make his anxiety levels go through the roof. He never finishes the simple tasks at school, so his grades are so-so, regardless of his knowledge of the material (he got his first-ever real differentiation in math this year - and his first-ever As). He too desperately needs that big picture, or the material just doesn't mean much or engage him. He thinks in visuals and concepts, and putting those into words for other people can be slow (and writing them down veeeerrrrrry slow.)

But given our school is generally a very bad fit for a divergent, math-y thinker, I couldn't begin to tease out how much of his school challenges are simply boredom/ bad fit vs. learning challenges. He does have slow processing speed. It's highly likely that he is ADHD-I like his sister (but much more so!). These surely contribute to his being slow/ off-task, but we don't see them much when he's doing something exciting, like programming (but then, LDs are notoriously inconsistent). And maybe there's also something going on in expressive language that's impeding his writing (we're still struggling to tease all this out), or maybe it's really just the visual-spatial thing a la Linda Silverman (she may be pretty skimpy on evidence, but she sure can describe the men in my house - and a recent STB suggests we were not wrong in suspecting that DS is a pretty extreme example of the VS species).

So this isn't too helpful, I know! First I tell you its all just giftedness, then I throw all these possible LDs into the mix. Your own intuition is probably the best starting guide. Do you feel like he's struggling with certain things? Do you sense that some stuff is actually too hard for him, or just harder than it seems like it ought to be? Or does it feel more like he's actively seeking out ways to make simple things harder, in order to liven up an otherwise tedious task, or simply to exert his own very sideways approach on it?

Thank you all so much for your insights!

When I think of it, it really seem as though he doesn't understand simple tasks because he is always expecting something more complicated. I will give him instructions and say this is all it is, he will follow up with " you mean I just..", "I just have to do..". Confirming over and over that what he is supposed to do is really just what I am explaining. It is like he is always suspecting there is more to it.

Even when I ask him to go get something it might sound something like this:

Me: Could you go in your room and get ........,it is on the dresser.
DS: You mean the dresser in my room?
Me: Yes, the dresser in your room.
DS: Right by my bed?
Me: Yes, dresser by your bed.
DS: It is on top of the dresser in my room?

Like he is having to confirm things over and over to make sure he got it right.
This is a bit different than how he complicates things overwhen we do schoolwork. Almost seems as though the auditory processing is not working right.

He is also very insistent upon things being done right. One sheet of homework was counting fruits. The answer was supposed to be five, but one of the fruits was a cherry, not just one cherry but two stuck together like they are. But it is was still supposed to be counted as one. He refused to say they were only five fruits. He got very upset and kept saying there are actually 6.

On a test in school there was a question where you had a group of five books and a group of two cats. The question was what is less than 5. You were supposed to circle the group of 2 cats. Instead he draws 4 things and puts 4 as his answer.

Overall it seems a lot of the time he does not see things for what they are. He always dissect the question and completely complicates it. Does he get it right when he does it the way he figured he was supposed to? Yes, absolutely. When he complicates the question and does it, the answer always makes sense. Of course it is not the answer that was expected though.

MichelleC , any details about the auditory processing results would be appreciated.

Chay, interested to hear about the test results!

A couple more weeks.... the suspense is killing me

This is what used to be called "a lack of common sense." I think of it as an information-sifting problem-- this is a person who takes in a lot of information and thinks of many possibilities but has trouble choosing the most relevant or reasonable possibility.

It is also a perspective-taking issue (inability to think about the most likely meaning in someone else's head).

It is a serious hindrance. You can work on it by prompting him on how to think the task through. It's not an easy skill to teach.

This kind of rigidity is also important to work on. I would try not to cater to it-- we cultivate situations where rigid thinking is challenged. It is useful with worksheets to prompt thinking about "remember the main idea of today's lesson" and then "what do you think they are asking you to do here?"

Left unaddressed, this can become a problem with taking tests down the road, as well as a serious annoyance to co-workers.

This combination of features is often seen in people with autism spectrum disorders.

DeeDee

This sounds a little bit like anxiety to me. I recognize some of what you are talking about in my DD, who has anxiety. Also, it does sound a little bit ASD-ish...the behavior is also not unlike my DD who is kind of gray area for ASD.

At the same time, my other child is really just NOT ASD BUT is HG. He will overthink things because he is bored/trying to make it more interesting. It can be hard to tease apart, but having the two children, I now kind of see one as one thing and the other as the other, if that makes sense. Yet they are similar!!

My DD did this occasionally when we gave her permission for something, and she'd ask us over and over again. "You mean I can have an ice cream?" "YES! I've told you three times you can have a stinkin' ice cream!"

We came to understand that it was associated with disbelief. She was sure that she shouldn't be allowed whatever she'd asked, we'd said she could, and it didn't make any sense. In some of those cases, it was because she didn't understand the rule, or she didn't understand why this particular case should be an exception, like, "It's a party. We're allowed to eat unhealthy at a party. Just don't over-stuff yourself." Most of the time, this behavior was a signal that she knew something we hadn't thought of, and we needed to reconsider... "Wait a minute. You had cookies earlier. That's enough junk food for one day. No ice cream."

Hmmmm... you definitely pose questions that need expert assessment and real-life experience. We're WAY out of my knowledge base here. But I might hesitantly posit that a conversation like you describe is what I imagine could happen with someone who doesn't trust some form of the input they experience, and wants to confirm it as many ways as possible? The Eides Mislabeled Child goes through a gazillion ways input and memory can glitch (it's a rather overwhelming book); it might be a helpful starting point to see what resonates?

With respect to our auditory processing assessment, we went for three reasons: (1) to see if auditory processing could be contributing to DD's reading issues, in addition to the dyslexia; (2) to confirm whether attention issues were in fact ADHD-I and/or ADP; and (3) because DD had a few specifically ADP symptoms (asking us to repeat things; hard time modulating voice levels; both of these noticeably worse in noisier environments; very noise sensitive; psych noticed she misheard "m" vs "n" a few times).

In our medium-sized city, there is, as far as we know, only one audiologist who can assess auditory processing as opposed to regular hearing issues (ditto for visual processing), so make sure you specialist can actually do the right kind of assessment (ours was recommended by our psych). The testing took about three hours, and was exhausting for DD. Our audiologist was fabulous at explaining and demonstrating all the different tests, and showing us exactly what they measured, and how they related to specific real-life experiences. We could easily see how she used the various tests to distinguish between ADP and ADHD, for example, and clearly showed DD's issues were with sustaining attention rather than with auditory. And while DD came up negative overall for ADP, there were two tests where she was at the bottom of the "normal" range and should be monitored: these were consistent with our experience, and good flags for her teachers. Specifically, her two challenge areas were focusing on a distant voice and tuning out a closer one (i.e. hearing a teacher when student closer to DD was also talking) and understanding a somewhat muffled voice (i.e. one that mimicked a teacher's voice bounced off a wall because they were at the blackboard with their back to the class).

Note that while we came out OK with respect to auditory processing, the audiologist did a quickie check and flagged visual processing issues instead.... eyes not tracking together at the same time, or converging on an approaching object. So that's a whole 'nother assessment and remediation merry-go-round we're into. Again, top-notch optometrist never noticed, we needed the one and only guy in town who specialized in visual processing, not vision.

Not sure if this hits on what you were looking for, but hope it helps!

Our older son had a convergence vision issue. It was corrected with 7 months of vision therapy. The tester did say that he might also have a mild auditory issue. We will have him tested at a place recommended by the psychologist. I might also see if we can test my younger son. Is there an age they have to be to do that though? I thought I read that somewhere. Thank you for the information MichelleC .

DeeDee, I agree it looks like he has no common sense when dealing with certain tasks. But then, a lot of the times he has incredible common sense. We always laugh when looking at both kids saying ourge younger is so much more street smart than ourge older. He has an incredible ability to pick up on the way people are acting and their feelings and respond accordingly, I am not kidding. It is like you are dealing with an adult. An adult who has this ability, that is.

Another interesting point is that when he is offered material that is at the right challenge level he does not question it the way he does with easier materials. He does not complicate at the way he goes with easy material. It took me one time showing him how to do addition multi digit carry over a few months back, he got it immediately. No questions asked. Also the other day when he wanted to find out what PI really meant, he just sat there, completely focused and listened. He did ask a couple of questions but completely legitimate ones. Come to think of it it really seems its must be that when the material is too easy he tries to complicate it. Maybe out of boredom, maybe just because he can't imagine something being that simple.

Dude, you are right. A lot of times I think he keeps asking those questions because he wants to make completely sure that we mean what we are telling him. He is a rule follower and probably wants to be 100% sure he is allowed to do something.

Ultramarina, he definitely has some anxiety going on at times. It has gotten better as he has gotten older. It used to be in a new situations, when things are unknown. He would over analyze everything that could happen in that situation. He still does this, but now he is better at thinking about past experiences and realizing it will be ok.

I am not familiar with ASD at all. How would we get this checked out? I guess it would have to be with an experienced psychologist who also specialize in gifted kids right? When we took him in for evaluation about 2 years ago, the psychologist did not think that there was anything out of the ordinary except him possibly being well into the gifted range. I guess it is possible if he only has mild ASD that it could have been missed?

If you feel it is important to rule in/out ASD, then yes, you would want an experienced psych who has worked with GT, ASD, and GT/ASD kids, so that the distinctions in presentation will be noticeable to him/her.

I would say that the likelihood of it being HG behaviors vs ASD behaviors is increased by your observation that the complicating-directions behavior is restricted to tasks that are mismatched in instructional level. And on repeated disbelief/clarification/confirmation of directions you've given him: I agree that this may be an attempt to fit a discordant piece of data into the data set he's previously established about the situation or the person giving the direction. In addition, it also sounds like there may be an element of a need for precision. It reminds me of childhood stories I heard about my PG sib, who did something similar when reporting observations. "Look at the car! Look at the red car. Look at the red convertible-top car. Look at the red convertible-top car. Look at the red convertible-top car under the billboard...etc." Of course, by the time you get to the end of this sequence, the car is 5 miles behind you... Kids who can see more angles, I think, are more likely to need specificity.