My now-11th grader (will keep this gender-neutral for privacy) has academic struggles that I don't understand. This is a kid who presented as highly gifted as a young child - started reading at 3, seemed to love learning, was very creative and clever, great memory. They started a gifted program in the middle of elementary school and did well until around 5th/6th grade. At some point, their performance started slipping, especially in math but also in other areas (previously strong writing ability seemed to decline relative to peers, for example). Because kid seemed a little spacey and unfocused, we had them tested for ADHD. Evaluator found no ADHD or anything else that would impact learning. FSIQ was 142, with particular strengths in fluid reasoning.
During virtual school/Covid, kid started showing signs of depression and was prescribed meds. We also had kid reevaluated for ADHD. This time, the evaluator said they did have ADHD. However, this is an evaluator known for giving out diagnoses freely, so I've always been a little skeptical of that. Nonetheless, they started taking ADHD meds, which seemed to help with some things.
Kid's mental health is now better. In high school, they've had almost all As. They work pretty hard although tend to procrastinate. This year, however, they completely blew a couple of tests (getting grades of like 40/100) despite preparing for them. This caused us to look under the hood of their academics a bit with somewhat bracing results. A lot of their good grades seem to be the result of grade inflation. Kid is making extremely basic mistakes in math, science, foreign language, and to some extent with English usage. For example, kid is in an AP language class for a language that they have been studying since childhood. Some of their writing in that language shows extremely elementary mistakes with things like subject-verb agreement - things you'd expect that a first-year student in that language would know not to make. Same thing with math problems - kid is getting very basic things wrong.
We increased ADHD meds and kid is working with a tutor in the classes where they are underperforming. Things are going a little better and grades may be salvageable for college. However, I don't feel like I understand their learning difficulties at all, despite talking to them and working with them on a lot of their academic issues. The key issue seems to be that they have a very difficult time retaining information - will correct a mistake with guidance but then make exactly the same mistake the next time. If I didn't know any context, I'd say that the kid is in overly advanced classes and should drop down a level. But with past evidence of giftedness, I'm not sure that's the right answer.
Can ADHD have effects like this? Is there something else we should be investigating? I want to emphasize that we love our kid as they are and don't want to push them to be an academic superstar if that's not the right path for them. At the same time, their performance is difficult to reconcile with what I've always thought their abilities are, and if something is getting in the way of their learning, I'd like to address it.
Last edited by finca; 10/30/24 12:39 PM.
