Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 2e - school not responsive

Yippee!
Big Smiles,
Trinity

Good to hear that someone was using their listening ears! I have a 2E son age 8. It has taken me 4 years to finally get to the point that his school will consider Gifted and Learning disabled as a combined difficulty. The biggest issue we have is that his processing and organization scores are significantly lower than his Verbal and Non Verbal scores. However, they are not the required 2 standard deviations below normal that would qualify him for services. But they are low enough that they hold him back in his other scores and on his Full scale IQ so that he doesn't meet the magic 130.
Oddly enough getting a possible ADHD and possible Bi-Polar DX label did get him services and they are working on the processing and organization under a designation of Other Health Impairment.
I think my point is don't give up and sometimes a back door approach works.
After observing him, the school is convinced that he is most likely in the PG range of gifted and is working on figuring out what to change to provide a challenging education while still meeting his social/emotional needs. That meeting is set for later this month...

EandC,
I'm curious what measurement was used to evaluate his abilities? I'm also curious, with scatter that would cause a full standard deviation+ drop between VERBAL and Overall IQ, what the other scores were. If it was the WISC IV, then what were his VCI, PRI, WMI and PSI scores?

The test was the WISC-IV and I'm not completely sure what the VCI, etc. you asked about are but I'm assuming this is verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, etc. Going on that assumption, the VCI was 138, the PRI was 119, the WMI was 107 and the PSI 85 and the full scale was 120. The very low PSI was the killer. We have since found out he has a visual perception/tracking problem which causes problems with the way he perceives things. This causes problems with lining numbers up, patterns, etc. This is what I believe caused the skew in the scores but of course I have no proof of that.

Any opinion or advice would be most welcome!!! :-)

The PSI was 6 in coding and 9 in symbol search. They told me he had very, very slow performance and was just determined to do it all perfectly but couldn't do it quickly at all. So I don't know if what he did get finished he got right or if he was slow and still missing things. They didn't tell me that. Knowing what I know now, it all makes sense to me that his visual issues really hurt him in these areas, but again, that doesn't seem to count.

He is progressing with his visual problems and we are seeing some improvement already which is very exciting!!! I don't know - I guess I could request that he be tested again in the spring but I'm not sure they would do it. Also, he has gotten kind of discouraged with the whole process and when we talked about it the other day, he said he just wanted to quit pursuing it. I don't know of any other options I have anyway (other than private testing and I'm just not sure what good that would realistically do him) so I guess I'm going to have to let it go at this point. Unless anyone has any other suggestions???

I appreciate your interest as "an intrigued third party"!! :-) He has taken the TerraNova test and that is it. They take them every spring so he'll take them again about April. The supervisor I talked to was hopeful the results would be wonderful this time (I'm not convinced they will be) so that that would start the ball rolling again. But we'll see!

He does know too much about the whole thing. The problem is that about 1/4 of his class is in this program and just about all of his good friends are and he wants to be in there too. He understands what it is all about because he has asked and asked and he won't be put off by little answers! LOL!!! This is the kid that at 4 told me "I know you're my mom because I grew inside of you, but how do I know my daddy is my daddy?" and I started off with small answers but he would not be put off until I had explained the whole thing! :-) He will not be put off when he wants to know something and I try to be as honest as I can be with my kids, so I have answered his questions, for better or worse. He might be freaked out if we tried again, and that is another reason I'm not sure that it is worth it. I just don't know. Sometimes it's so hard to know what is the right thing to do!

My nine year old is similar in some ways, especially the advanced vocabulary, sometimes reversing letters and numbers, long attention span (at least for things he is interested in), interest in very unusual things, but he skipped lines instead of words and would lose his place while reading, problems lining numbers up (long division was difficult for him until we just let him have a whole sheet of paper for each problem and he had plenty of room to write) and we use Aleks for math now so it doesn't require that he do very many problems before it lets him move on. But my son's problem is visual motor integration and focusing when his eyes are tired.

When my son was tested at age 7 he could read, at most, one paragraph from a magazine like Newsweek as he did at the optometrist's office, before he would start skipping lines. But even with vision focusing and tracking problems he scored high on visual perceptual, so apparently his eyes were not tired at the time he took this test. If his eyes were tired I don't think he would have been able to do this. The educational psychologist and developmental pediatrician noticed that he seemed to have some vision problems when they tested him, so we took him to a developmental psychologist and we did vision therapy with flipper glasses at home. It helped some but he still doesn't read a lot on his own except on the computer--he likes text based rpg games, mmorpg games, and simulation games and I found that some of these require fairly high level reading ability and comprehension. He prefers reading magazines like Game Informer or Popular Science and National Geographic so the things he does read contain a higher vocabulary level than the books his older gifted friends read so I think this is why his vocabulary level and comprehension are probably higher than theirs even though one of his gifted friends (4 years older) reads all the time. My son often uses this advanced vocabulary in his speech and last year at a Cub Scout event this friend, who was at the event to watch his younger brother and my son compete in the pinewood derby, asked his mother (a teacher) why my son knew so many words and why he seemed so much smarter than the other kids he knew (including gifted kids). I loved it that the special education director was sitting right in front of her when he asked this and I am pretty sure he heard us talking. When we took the results of my son's WIAT to this special ed director he told us that they had never seen a child like my son before and it would be difficult to provide an appropriate education for him at our small town school, so we got nothing from our school. When we complained to the superintendent, he told us we needed to continue homeschooling. When we contacted the state gifted coordinator's office, they told me there is no law in our state requiring an appropriate education for 2E kids, so we have no choice but to homeschool.

I guess I hoped that the special ed director might be interested in how he was learning, and what simple things we did to allow him to learn--like typing and using the computer and doing spelling and tests orally instead of having to write and not requiring that he "color in the lines." I thought he might be interested, just in case they did see another kid like my son. But the sad truth is they don't care. In my state, they are not going to do any more than they have to do, which is one reason we have mediocre schools where we live.

My son has never had an IQ test because in addition to our not being able to afford it, I don't believe the results would be accurate because of his sensory and motor problems. The certified educational psychologist who tested him told us that my son would need to take the test over more than one day because of his issues. He also predicted a score that is in the range of what Davidson requires but we still don't plan to have his IQ tested. He will, however, take the Explore test and I am trying to figure out what accommodations to ask for.

I talked to some of my son's gifted public schooled friends about their "gifted classes" and they don't sound like much to me, just a one hour pull-out. His friend said they ask questions that my son would be really good at answering but they are not allowed to work above grade level in regular classes unless they take a test to skip a grade and score above 90%. Since each school is allowed to come up with their own tests and they don't like kids to be working above grade level and therefore discourage it, nobody passes them. So almost all gifted kids at this school are only doing grade level work and they are not challenged. I think these tests might be even harder for 2E kids to pass.

Dottie,

Can you tell me what kind of supportive documentation they want? We don't have an IEP since my son has been homeschooled since he finished Kindergarten. One of his problems in Kindergarten was that he couldn't color in the lines, so filling in bubbles will be difficult. He can do it now, but slowly, and if he has to erase something he will be in trouble.

He will be seeing the developmental optometrist tomorrow to see if he still has vision problems. If he does, I will try to get a statement from him about vision issues. I have referrals to see the developmental pediatrician and neurologist so maybe I can get statements about his issues from them, if we can get in to see them before the testing date. Do you think this will be enough?

Lori - My son does visual therapy on a computer program at home every day for 20 minutes and then once a week for 30 to 45 minutes at the therapist's office. I found the doctor on this website http://covd.org. You may have already gone through these kinds of hoops since your child has received some vision therapy but it doesn't sound like the same kind of thing my son does. I hope Dottie's information helps you get the accommodations your DS needs! :-)

Dottie - thanks for your encouragement. Maybe one day his abilities will be recognized, but you're right, when they get older it really isn't that important, just as long as they are getting appropriately challenging work. His teacher gets it at least and she is very supportive. Thanks!

Dottie,

Thank you. That is helpful.