Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional gifted scores and severe processing speed issues

i'm rereading and came across this from rlsnights..

"Children with these difficulties tend to "grow into" their disability as they progress in school if they are not developmental artifacts."

can you tell me more what you mean. I am not sure if he's been "therapied" out of his PDD-NOS or if he was misdiagnosed. Is this what you are getting at.

sorry thought of this after i posted the last entry..

Does anyone have any thoughts about the fact that my DS scores are so different then 2 years ago when he was five and took the WPSSI. At that point he did not stand out in any subtest. They were all clustered in the 8 to 10 range.. with FSIQ= 89, Verbal 93, Performance 90. IS this highly unusual (see scores on my first post in the topic). or expected with kids with developmental "history"? I am thinking they should be very very interesting in two more years...

Whoa, we have many similarities. I also have a DS, age 6, who has a really low coding score, but other scores at the ceiling of the test. He also has an HG, uniformly gifted older sister. We are also in the thick of it, so I don't know if I have any great advice to share, but here is what I have so far.

DS had a WPPSI at age four with some surprisingly low scores (although not as low as yours). The psych we saw recommended having him evaluated by an OT and she diagnosed dyspraxia and fine motor issues. We did therapy for about a year, which did seem to help in many ways, but DS still has serious writing issues.

This year we had DS evaluated again and got score similar to yours. Some of the PRI and VRI scores were at the ceiling of the test, working memory was good but not gifted and processing speed, especially coding..... ouch.

The psych we worked with, someone who specializes in 2e, thought all his scores were somewhat suppressed due to the fact that DS was unwilling to really exert himself on many of the tasks, but functionally it was the best he was capable of at this time. In other words, he was capable of better, but refused to do it. She diagnosed ADHD and suspects dyslexia. She thinks that the fine motor problems contributed to the low coding score and that he might also have a visual problem, maybe convergence insufficiency. Our next step is to confirm or deny the visual problem with an evaluation by a developmental optometrist.

Here is where I am at with the placement issue. I believe that my son is gifted and also learning disabled. That means that although he has output issues, he has all the social and emotional needs of the gifted and will benefit from an academic placement that acknowledges those needs. If he was a child of average intelligence, there is no question that he would be in a regular classroom with his intellectual peers and also receiving special services for his areas of weakness. Because my son is gifted, I see no problem with him being in a gifted classroom with his intellectual peers receiving special services for his areas of weakness. The problem is getting the school to see it that way!

I guess a lot depends on the type of gifted programing offered in your area, too. If gifted services are mostly extra work sheets, then it may not be beneficial to your son. If they are offering more complex material and the opportunity to socialize with other gifted children, it might be worthwhile to pursue.

Good luck! Post if you find out anything new. It might be helpful to us since we are in a similar situation.

I was specifically talking about EF deficits which become more apparent as the child gets older.

If the psychologist thinks he's not PDD then maybe you should look at taking him back for re-assessment. Is he followed by a clinic or doctor for this?

Another option would be to look into having him participate in ASD research. That may be a way for you to get a fresh set of eyes looking at his issues.

Re: placement - I think you are wise to be cautious. Have you visited the classroom your child would be in if he were accepted into the gifted program? If not, you may want to start there and see what you think about the pace of the class, the way the teacher manages the class, and try to get a sense for whether your son would fit in OK or not.

You could also talk to the teacher about whether there are other 2E kids in her class and how they are accommodated. Perhaps he could be pulled out for math and have accommodations on homework or other aspects of class if needed without having to abandon gifted options entirely.

If there is a parent group associated with the gifted program, attend a meeting or two and chat with other parents. You may get a more realistic picture of the workload and methods/philosophy of the program this way.

ncmom2 thank you for letting me know all this about your experiences and how similar they are to mine. this board is great..i'm addicted! also i am rushing to google "convergence insufficiency" to see if it rings any other bells.

My psych did not officially diagnose anything - which we all as we feel a diagnosis made without 100% confidence would not help.. But he feels he has a combination of (unspecified) learning disability and giftedness and possible ADD. His teacher said he will have more time on teh qualifying test for the gifted program and she seems "on board" but unfortunately he gets a new teacher every year and we have to get everyone "convinced" he's bright so they will treat him that way.

His old PDD-NOS label, though it opens doors to lots of extra help, is not great because everyone at the school seems to think kids with PDD have some type of shallow/artifical intelligence and not truly gifted. We will probably pursue removing the PDD label when we have a better idea what is actually going on.

irene

irene

My ds has similar scores, and issues with basic math fact regurgitation, especially when timed. This may be somewhat a result of being 'beyond' 3+6. 2nd grade timed sheets on this were reaaaalllly frustrating. Now he's in 3rd, and we had him doing 'timezattack' on his own, he liked it, learned it and is doing great on all these worksheets. We also try to show how the comkutation part of math is just part of a larger very fun subject. So for him it has to be a combo of interest, not too much repetition, and self confidence. Math is again his favorite subject.

hey all
thansk for all the input

Last night i gave my son a bunch of montessori materials and gave him a four digit addition problem (that involved carry over) and no pen and paper. He is not anywhere near up to that in school - he is on single digit addition and subtraction!.. Well he worked on it for over an hour, smiling the whole time. And came up with the RIGHT ANSWER. When the carry over part came into play he just stared for a while and then regrouped.. He was so satisfied with himself.

I am very very happpy i finally figured this out- but also feel its going to get tough over the years to come...


irene

So we had a visit to the developmental optometrist. DS has a convergence issue that is so acute, his eyes actually were crossing when he was reading by the end of the exam. Perhaps that accounts, at least partially, for his low coding score. Don't know if this is any help to you, but for us, the next step is vision therapy, see if that clears some of the attention issues and dyslexia symptoms up.

I am hoping that my insurance will pay for a neuropsychological assessment because I think it might tell us if my son has processing speed issues and we will have more pieces of the puzzle. He has never had one of these before, he only an individual achievement test given to him by an educational psychologist almost four years ago.

My son with motor dyspraxia and handwriting issues is almost eleven and still can't write quickly and when I had him do dictation recently, he made a p backwards. I worry that this might cause him some embarrassment if he ever does this in front of other kids. He just does it once in a while, maybe one out of 50 times. I wonder if it is because he has the motor memory problems and the p is similar to a 9. I think he is still having to really think about how each letter is made when he writes and it slows him down. His cursive writing is still not as fast as printing because he has only been doing cursive for a year but I am hoping it will get faster. His cursive, actually a mix of printed capital letters and the rest cursive, looks more legible to me than his printing.

I think my son might have dysgraphia and one doctor agreed after looking at his writing sample, but he has never had OT for handwriting because in the six sessions he had over a year ago with the OT, she didn't think the handwriting was as much of an issue as his sensory issues and she wanted to work on those first. Our insurance wouldn't authorize any more OT because they won't pay for anything educational related--they say the school should pay for it--but my son can't go to the school because he is twice exceptional and there is no law requiring an appropriate education for him. So I just do the best I can do to help him, and try not to get wrapped up in how unfair this is to my child. Getting mad only takes the energy away from me that I need to help my child.

I try not to think about the therapy that everyone else seems to be able to get that my son couldn't get because we couldn't get insurance to pay and we couldn't afford it on our own.

I do feel like I continue to get better at jumping through hoops to get what he needs (although it will take months to get it) and my son and I are learning to do this together. I think learning to jump through hoops might be a better skill than some of the physical ones he needs to learn so maybe there is some good that will come from this. But my son told me my overexcitabilities become more apparent when I am hoop jumping.

There were about 5 multiplication facts that my son would sometimes miss on timed tests on the computer when he didn't practice for a while. He would sometimes go for weeks without doing math and he would have to relearn what we called his mental block math facts.

I remember memorizing charts and things like that for tests. I could keep it in my memory long enough to be able to recreate it on the test, but my son would never do this because it involves writing. He would rather use what I think is a combination of different types of memory to recall math facts and formulas and to write as little as possible. He learns so differently from me and it has been challenging for me to step back and let him figure how to do things the way that is easiest for him.