Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New here! WPPSI and other assorted q's, sorry long

Grinity

Thanks for the link. I'll give your method a try over the next week and let you know how we go. I was worried at first given I think my boy is a visual learner with some aural sensory issues but the single click maybe the sort of sound that will break through. Anything more complex and he'd probably just screen it out.

DeHe
We too have been through the 'you do it better'. I have an amazing picture DS did when he was 15 months which we had framed. We thought wow perhaps a budding artist here. Then a couple of months later DS noticed my DH, who is a talented illustrator, could draw better. DS point blank refused to draw from that point on - 'you do it better'. I'm not sure what's changed but it's only this year he has started to show any enthusiasm for drawing so there is some hope.

Funnily enough the overriding issue with education for me is to see DS in a class of mental age peers who are preferably age peers too (I can but dream). At this point I don't really care about the academics that much - I figure we can extend him at home if necessary. So we're trying to get him into a localish school that have an excellent gifted program but we live just outside their intake area so have to wait to see if there are any vacancies. On the plus side the principal is very keen for him to attend, mainly so he has some peers and isn't isolated.

thanks Freya! You could use a quick burst of light from a small flashlight like they do for dolphins if you think he'd like that better. I think that the key thing is that our voices convey so much dissapointment, frustration, whatever, but the click is just a 'yes.' And my son never wanted to hear any negative 'helpful suggestions' and research is bearing this out. He only wanted to be told when he got it right.

I think stencils are a great idea because it keeps your child's hands developing. We went to the computer - Microsoft paint - which lowered the frustration level just fine, but did nothing to solve the finger and hand development problem. Opps!

Smiles,
Grinity

G
I don't know if my ds would respond well to the click, reward based things never work with him and he would probably just focus on the click, why are you doing that mommy? what was fabulous I did today your instruction without the click part. We went to the pedi today and ds wanted to write her a note, actually he wanted me to write her a note! So we stenciled the dear dr part and while doing it, for each letter I showed him the grip and had him hold up the proper position. I am going to make a commitment to do your lesson 15 min a day with the stencils or without because it worked, he held it correctly for about 9 letters consecutively but then fell back as he got tired. At the dr it was so sad as he tried to write for her his name on the line, he knows that it is what started all this, he couldn't fit his name on the line for the wppsi tester!

Freya

Wow, a principle who wants your kid to go, that sounds fabulous! I hope it works out

DeHe

Well done DeHe!

ummmm from that story I get that your son is very motivated by rewards, but that his rewards aren't the typical 'candy and stickers' of other kids his age. He wants to DO things in this world, and your help is a huge reward for him. See what I mean? My son was like this too. He would work hard to earn....my respect. For a week or two I walked around telling DS that he had earned 1,942 respect points for brushing his teeth. My DH looked on in amazement because the points were totally arbitray, and couldn't be cashed in for video game time or anything. DS just wanted concrete proof of my respect. Odd, but adorable!

Wink,
Grinity

It's so interesting you say that! Potty training was the first clue, he accepted the reward, chocolate, his favorite, until he decided the chocolate just wasn't worth it to do what we wanted him to do. I agree that he wants to DO something (and definitely the capital DO), but his willingness to accept help is tempered by his stubbornness and desire to do it himself, plus the perfectionism which says he should be able to do it already. He capitulated to writing after I got new workbooks, and a triangular shaped pencils with a pencil sharpener. (he had one which didn't have a plastic catcher for the pieces so i was cutting him off and then i realized how stupid that was as it required a lot of dexterity!) He loves doing work books but always wanted me to write it down or to answer verbally. I've only done 3 days of the new regime, first day was him fighting me but I am learning! I got the new stuff, made the writing him doing the workbooks not me making him do practice and i stopped after 15 minutes and some successes. But I don't �disagree that he wants my respect I just never thought of it in terms of anything beyond pride or esteem or something along those lines. �More interesting, he of the amazing reading skills, will just wait for me to define a word or pronounce it and he never takes it personally, and that's how he took to the correcting of the grip, so maybe the tears and frustration were about just making him do it with how giving him the help that actually helped, and he didn't know how to ask for the help, lots of food for thought!! But it is such a relief to hear from people who get this, so many other people say just wait he's only 4.5! Don't pressure him! And we were, but not to be good at it, but to try. But we weren't listening to the response, I won't try because I don't know what to do differently. I figured he would react negatively to the constant, correct the grip, but he isn't.

��And you are right, they are such odd buggers!!!!

Really though do you want him in a program that expects 5 year olds to have well developed fine motor skills. That may be the first flag that it isn't a very developmentally appropriate program.

Ideally with a 4.5 year old if I planned to do structured activities trying to work on fine motor, I would not focus it primarily on pencil and paper work. I would think about: tug of war, wheelbarrow walking, working with clay - real clay - not playdough as it is too soft, activities that strengthen pincher grasp, etc. Building upper body tone and hand strength are all important foundations for further development. Tricking, bribing, coaxing the child into writing letters may ultimately backfire.

As a general teaching approach it worked best for the personality of our child to allow him some private space to develop with as little commentary as possible. One thing we've seen again and again and again is there is a method to the madness. Often the way we'd think to teach it (the in the box method) really was not well suited for the way he learns. That isn't to say we offer nothing, but I'm much more likely to ASK if my thoughts are welcome along the lines of "there is a traditional shortcut many people like, would you like to hear about it?" Honestly though this does take a leap of faith to let go of this level of control. In the long run we've seen this develop into a lot of confidence and motivation in learning.

I don't know, it doesn't seem all that unreasonable to expect a kid at 4.5 to be able to make a mark in box. DS was doing it and couldn't generate enough pressure to have the tester see it with a regular pencil. Plus, isn't it the point of gifted programs to not be developmentally appropriate - it expects the students to be beyond what is in the traditional classroom. By all accounts, tester, pedi, and teacher, are now in agreement that he is below developmental and its causing tension as it is at odds with his other skills. So its not the test or the program, we need to get him help.

I do like your approach of non pressure, seems like it could be quite effective to wait till they come to you and also offer your help as an option. Although as I mentioned in my aha post to Grinity, I did not realize that he was asking for help, we just didn't understand it!

No, quite the opposite. It's to present academically-advanced material in a developmentally-appropriate way. For instance, it's not developmentally appropriate to expect an 8yo to sit through a 3-hour lecture (as you might get in a college-level course), even though the 8yo might have the intelligence and background to otherwise do well with the material.

Weeell ... it's to present academically-advanced material to those children to whom such material is developmentally appropriate, surely - that is, appropriate to the development of those particular children. I imagine that what you're getting at is that it's silly of a programme to assume that because it is aimed at children whose development is unusually advanced in one respect, it can therefore assume that the children's development is unusually advanced in other respects, and there of course I agree.

I really dislike the blanket term "developmentally appropriate" because it leaves out the individual, and I don't think we should encourage that in any respect. There is, after all, no law that says that no 8yo can sit through a 3 hour lecture, just as there's no law that says that any Xyo can't do Y for any of the various Xs and Ys we sometimes encounter such claims about. FWIW my DS6 has been able to sit through one-hour lectures reliably for well over a year now, simply because we have often needed him to do this, and these days he'll pay attention throughout on the rare occasions when the material is of interest to him, although other times he reads. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in two years' time he could sit through a 3-hour lecture on material that was interesting to him [although my throat aches in sympathy with the lecturer who actually lectures for 3 hours solid!!] Of course, it would be a foolish school that decided this was a good way to teach.