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

I have learned more on this message board than from the doctors we saw. The inconsistent written work is what I saw with my son and this is probably why one doctor said dysgraphia but another said low normal. But then I think motor dyspraxia is the same way, causing inconsistent performance in motor related activities like writing or piano or dance. All I was told by the developmental pediatrician was that if I made him practice enough my son could grow new neural connections and he would improve. He did improve a little but it has always been lots of work for just a little improvement and I was left feeling like it was my fault when he didn't improve as much as I thought he should and this led to more anxiety for both of us. I hated when he asked me if I even liked him. He thought I was looking at him like he was a big mix of problems that I needed to fix when I should just accept his differences. But I had "forming new neural connections" stuck in my mind and couldn't let go. I found motor dyspraxia and dysgraphia hard to explain to teachers and scout leaders. I felt they didn't believe me sometimes and thought I was just making excuses for him. I don't have anything in writing from a doctor explaining my son's difficulties. The developmental pediatrician we saw didn't seem to have any experience with kids like mine. So we decided to wait for months to see a doctor at a child study center and since the doctor also teaches other doctors and is supposed to be an expert in some of my son's issues I think we might finally get answers.

I always thought it was unfair to give kids with dysgraphia timed pencil and paper tests. My son would make a much higher score on any test he takes on the computer. Does he suddenly become smarter when he's taking tests on the computer? I don't think so. But on paper his mild disability might make him appear to be less smart, like on the spelling portion of the WIAT where he had to write the words and he quit when his hands got tired. That score reflected not his actual spelling level but his motor ability, yet he was stuck with that score. The tester said he thought he would have scored even higher than several grade levels ahead on the math portion if he would have used a pencil and paper instead of trying to do everything with mental math, but the dysgraphia made him reluctant to use pencil and paper. I made my son spend a lot of time trying to get to the point where he write out the multi-digit long division problems and keep those columns straight even though he got math concepts quickly and easily and was able to come up with his own way of getting the answers with less writing. I finally let him use a calculator, while continuing to use mental math on educational computer games, and I should have let him do this a long time ago. I don't use a pencil and paper to figure out 9854.85 divided by 23.8. I grab a calculator. But I thought I needed to make him do this by hand because he would have to do this if he ever went back to our public school. My anxiety over this got in the way of my common sense. I finally told my husband if something happened to me, he would have to take over homeschooling.

That is so sad and it makes me angry. I think too many teachers at our public school have this attitude toward twice exceptional kids. I am thankful to the first grade teacher who made me understand that sending my son to our public school would almost be like child abuse and that I would have to homeschool. She didn't really even know me. She had no way of knowing if I could homeschool my child. She told me I could and I had to do it and I did.

I know I was impatient with my son a few times and told him to just try harder, but he knows I am trying to help him and most of the time we have fun learning together and that makes up for the bad times.

I applaud you for jumping in! When he was 6, I thought homeschooling would be impossible, and a bad idea for us. Now at 11, I can see we may be there by next year. My job outside the home may make the situation unusual, but then we have an unusual situation!


Sometimes I wonder if I try to intervene too much and then your comments remind me of why I'm doing this! Thanks for sharing. Please, keep talking and educating people about this! I don't think a lot of people really believe that a six year old could feel that depressed.

And master of none - [/b]Disorder of Written Expression![b] Those are the words I've been searching for!

One more comment - on another thread I started on VLBW babies I posted this link. For those interested, it discusses the effect of pain in early childhood on the development of the brain. I don't know how many of your kids had multiple medical interventions, but this really helps explain what I think my son is experiencing. Disorder of Written Expression, ADHD, and then add in what seem to be "overreaction" to any perceived threat of discomfort and/or pain.

http://www.nature.com/jp/journal/v23/n8/full/7211010a.html

Thanks everyone! This has been quite a week of research for me! I'll still be around, but probably a little less obsessive for a while.

Benny

Someone was kind enough to refer me to this old thread, and I would now like to revive it. The profile on the first two pages of this thread fits my ds7 perfectly. It would seem that NCmom2 and I have the same child.

If any of the OP's would be willing to share what has transpired in the two years since this thread was started, I would very much appreciate it.

Were any (new) diagnoses made after this time? Any therapies or techniques discovered that you found especially helpful? Have your child's issues improved, worsened, stayed the same, or morphed into something new?

TIA

Mom: Check out my thread on Kinetic Konnections.

BTW, I worked at a charter school for a couple of years - every kid I tested for sped was gifted with low processing speed. A very fustrating learning disability. One of the recommendations I always make is "Have the student focus on improving the quality of shorter assignments."

Good thing I clicked the "watch topic" button on this thread. It was funny getting a notification on posts from several years ago

My DS is doing well. We did vision therapy for a year at great expense and effort. It did seem to help some. I don't see a date stamp on the original thread, so I don't totally remember where we were in DS's educational timeline at that point. We homeschooled for K, then sent him to a charter school for 1st. He just started 3rd at the same school and seems happy and reasonably challenged.

The school we ended up sending him to is based on an experiential educational philosophy. They do lots of hands on learning, PE, drama and music. The classrooms are multi-age and all academic subjects are ability grouped. The philosophy is very focused on seeing the whole child, seeing the individual child. DS has an IEP for his reading and writing, sees the OT once a week and has a two year grade skip for math. He plays trumpet in the school band and had a speaking part in last years play. I think he is happy. I have his sister in a serious full day gifted program. I occasionally wonder about moving him over there, but I think the output demands are too high. I did finally make them accept the his GAI scores and offer him a spot last year. But it was the PRINCIPAL of the thing. He is just as gifted as his sis, he just expresses it differently. I think they were relieved when I declined the spot.

We started meds for the ADHD last spring and they really, really help. I felt we had done behavior modification and therapy out the wazoo and he was still not really reading and having behavior problems nearly every day at school. After the meds, he never got another red or yellow on the behavior log and his reading jumped a year or maybe a year and half. Dunno if it was the meds, or if he was ready to make the leap, but he was suddenly a much happier, successful student. He has no side effects on the meds. He is the same vibrant, creative boy he always was, just able to focus better. They worked so well I am considering trying them.

So it is good. It has been hard work getting him to where he is, for both him and me. But I feel like we are in a good place for now.

How is it going for you DS? Is he at a regular school or do you homeschool?

Thanks for that input. We homeschool and that's what we've always done, but in January when he was re-tested, the psych really wanted us to push him to do more at one sitting. I questioned this since it was working for us, but he really thought we should push him more, but only a little at a time... stretch him in small increments, I guess.



Sorry for chopping your message to bits, NCmom2. Thanks so much for that reply. It really sounds as if you've done the hard work and that it's paying off. Your son's school sounds great. I'm really glad to hear that he's settling in and that he's happy.

I suspected that my ds had convergence insufficiency when he started covering one eye while reading. (I have it,too, so it jumped out at me.) He started wearing glasses two weeks ago, and we're trying some at-home vision therapy. I hope we see some improvement. The eye doc said, "He is really smart. He's compensated so well." I didn't get into the particulars of his smartness, but that compensating thing is what concerns me all the way around. I can see how excellent he is at compensating in all kinds of things. So far it seems as if this is going to work in his favor, but it has also hidden things from us that have caused a lot of strain and stress in the earlier years.

We do homeschool and I'm thankful for that. I'm just trying to figure out how to compact his curriculum right now, as we pull our own materials together because of issues with asynchrony and other glitches. These little glitches that pop up as we continue to school are so tiring because there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to them much of the time. That's what I was so excited to read the first few pages of this thread. Another huge issue for us that we are geographically isolated and do not have easy access to doctors, services, and activities. So, I spend hours online trying to mine information from others, and then I experiment and see if it's going to work for us.

In the past few months I've seen changes in my ds that make me think that things are taking a turn for the better; your post gives me hope that we'll get this figured out. Thanks!

No new diagnosis here, my ds didn't have a super high gai when tested a few years back, but the descriptions fit him, and of course many of the frustrations of being able to understand tons of stuff but only spew things back at fairly slow speeds.

One major thing we tried was just bypassing the math curriculum which was massively repetitive and disastrously discouraging for him. We did online algebra last year with him, and while he wasn't over the moon about it, he didn't fight tooth and nail when I asked him to do a few lessons. He REALLY appreciated how quickly he could move through the coursework, do a few problems and move onto another new concept. I appreciated how it sort of helped clarify for him that he is more than capable in that area, and way more capable than the school could see.

I'm glad to hear this. I tried doing this with our regular curriculum by skipping over the things that I knew were too repetitive. It helped a bit, but not a lot. I noticed that he liked doing Khan Academy when we played around with it, so I just started an online program with him. It's way too early to tell, but he immediately loved the idea that he could work on a concept, master it quickly, and move on. We'll see.

I just found this thread. I am having many of the same issues with my DS (age 6, just finishing kindergarten)... His coding score was 4 on the WISC!!!

I am exploring dysgraphia (he is reading above grade level and scored "average" on spelling and is above grade level in math too. But I am concerned is smart enough to compensate - I think he is hiding a disability and I fear it will catch up to him and I think it is possibly surpressing his WISC scores). I am getting further tests done by a pediatric neuropsych... I am not sure how good she is but she accepts our insurance, has good credientials and DS likes here so we went with her.... She came up with a battery of tests to specifically test for dysgraphia. I am also taking him for a developmental eye exam ( i suspect he may need vision therapy and have for well-over a year now) . We'll see what these results yield.


I am really concerned for my son... I think he is gifted but *something* is wrong ... I am really hoping it is something that (a) we figure out soon and (b) is easily addressed/treated,ect . I am really worried about him and feel lost.