Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional I think I made a mistake!

Hi,
I had my son evaluated in June and the psychologist diagnosed a NVLD and verbally gifted. His WISC IV: VCI=142, PRI=113, VMI=109; PSI=100. He did part of the WIAT for reading comprehension (he tested as grade 9 level) and writing (he tested at grade 3-4 level). I wasn't convinced by NLVD initially, but after alot of reading, thought that enough things fit that perhaps a NVLD or at least some aspects of it combined with boredom with parts of the curriculum could explain the difficulties that DS10 had during grade 4 (very oppositional, disorganized, low motivation, attention problems). Academically he keeps up, and loves reading especially, but doesn't like school and acts out. He is in a Montessori school.

So I decided, in consultation with the psy., who seemed like a pretty smart, articulate person who specializes in child psychology, to have a meeting with my son to talk about some of the frustrations he had at school and to let him know that he is not "dumb" (something he said to me alot towards the end of the year).

The meeting with the psychologist was a disaster. He did not connect at all with my son and began by telling him that he had a "learning disability" etc but that verbally he is "gifted". This is confusing (even to an adult) and not at all how I wanted things to be presented to him and thought that we would be talking in a more child-friendly way about how he feels at school and what we could do to help.

Afterwards my son said that the man was lying and that he (DS) is just as average and normal as everybody else. He also said that he probably says to anyone who is a bit above average that they are gifted so that he can make more money. This was a pretty disturbing response, but I think DS was just shocked by the way the whole thing was presented. DS is very concerned with being normal and fitting in -- not always easy for him, but he makes a big effort. He really does not want to be "different"

Now I'm not sure what to do. I tried to repair the damage by re-explaining the situation in a way I thought was more appropriate. I also apologized and told him that I probably made a mistake taking him to talk to that particular doctor.

Any suggestions about how I can talk to him about this would be appreciated. I thought that the session could open the door to some interventions like OT, etc, if he understood why we were doing it.

OMG Verona! My heart goes out to you. That is quite a painful spread your son has going there - and I don't doubt that he is confused.

Questions -
1) Is his school a pretty 'above average' crowd? If so, he may be average 'in that environment.'
2) Was complete achievement testing done? That's going to help you see if he is functioning closer to his highs or his lows.
3) Any ADD/ADHD in his behavior or the extended family?

I have a lot more to say about how to manage the emotional aspects of this but I have to run. Do a search on 'nurtured' and read some of my previous threads on 'nurtured heart approach' or the book 'transforming the difficult child.'

You may want to post all the scores and ask Dottie for some comments.
My son is similar in Verbal and Processing speed, but more 130ish in the working memory and non-verbal, and he had a heck of a time at that age. He called himself 'dumb' too and it broke my heart.

You know after this sort of set back, if my son already had a working knowledge of the bell curve, I would be sorely tempted to draw one and make little stars showing how he measured on the 4 subscales. Or if he has a lot of scatter in within the subscales then I'd put data points for all the subtests. He has a lot to live with. Don't do it yet, just think about doing it. I always found that after mess ups, full disclosure was the best route.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Hi Grinity,

Thanks for the post. I feel better just being able to describe this dreadful experience!

In fact, the psychologist did show DS a bell curve with his FSIQ (not very meaningful), VCI and PRI. His explanation was unclear (even to me, and certainly to DS) so this morning I drew a new bell curve for DS with more meaningful words on it. I put the VCI (language, logic, reading) at 99.7, the PRI (math, lego, puzzles) at 83 and lumped the rest together at the 50th percentile (organizing, speed, attention). I also drew a picture of a brain with the left side full of dots (thinking, logic, remembering) and the right side with drawers (organizing, retrieving, processing) and showed that his left side was really strong but his right side needs more exercise. He studied the page for quite a while, as he lay on an exercise ball, and then quietly placed it face down.

He does show signs of ADD (going upstairs and forgetting why he is there, saying �huh� a lot, taking a long time to respond to questions, hard time following multi-step instructions, amazing hyper-focus when he is interested in something). However, I read that ADD and NVLD can have some similar symptoms, so I don�t really know. I guess he has �information processing� problems, and maybe it doesn�t matter too much what we call it (although I understand that medication doesn�t help for NVLD the way it does for ADD.)

We have not done any more detailed academic testing, but the school does standardized tests every year (full scale of 9, normed to provincial wide results) and his, at the beginning of grade 4 were: 9 in reading comprehension, 9 in vocabulary, 8 in mathematical problem resolution, 6 in spelling, 6 in math calculations. He writes sophisticated and creative stories, but has lousy spelling and grammar.

Since mid-grade 3, �fitting in� has become very important to him and he now seems to think that it is �not cool� to be too interested in learning and he has become very disengaged at school. There are some really bright kids in his class, but he seems to relate to the ones who �don�t like school� and act out. I find this worrying, but maybe I just need to be patient and hope that his spark for learning comes back.

It's possible, but I think that problem solving to change something in his envirnoment to help kindle that learning spark is a better idea. I yearn to type and type on this topic, but the real world calls.

Usually the school tests only test on what the child was expected to learn that particular year. IF that is true, then they put your child at a severe disadvantage.

Can you find a place that will administer a Woodcock Johnson Achievement test to see what he has learned? Are you comfortable to say what country you are typing from?

Love and More Love,
Grinisleepy

Anyone?

I love the way my husband explained to my son that he had a learning disability.

"Not everyone learns the same way, and not everyone's brain is wired the same way. And for us (he's pretty sure he had the same issues as a child), different parts of our brain are used to do tasks than in other people's brains. And the cool part is that it means that our brains are also wired to do some really cool stuff, too. But the bummer part is that some things that are easy for some other people is harder for us, so we just have to work harder on those things to figure out how our brain will do that job."

We've tried to keep it very matter of fact that he had a learning disability, but we've also tried to reinforce that it didn't make him different in a lacking sort of way but in a unique sort of way.

If there is any way to have a gentle conversation and help redirect the information to making him realize he can still fit in and be "normal", he may not fight so hard against accepting the news. I know as a mom you must be terribly frustrated with maneuvering through this news; hang in there.

I will say that book for parenting NVLD kids and ADD kids have been very useful to me. What I like about NVLD, is that they don't claim to have any medication or fix for the underlying cause. They just say to journal what seems to be a problem for the child in daily life, pick the 'leading edge' issue that would cause the most growth if it were handled and work on that. This is also what I hate about NVLD.

I do believe that there are some children who actually have NVLD, but personally, our experience was that our local psychologist, who is a caring and intelligent fellow, looked at DS's behavior at age 7, and the IQ tests, saw the spread in the subsections, told us that it was like 'having one leg longer than the other and could cause anxiety' and told me he had NVLD, so read up on it. That was it. Psychologist also said: It isn't ADHD.

We went back to the school and they said: 'No, we just attended a class in NVLD, it isn't what he has. He has ADHD."

((If your eyebrows are raised, they should be - I finally ended up crying in the Principal's office and some 'corrections' were administered. It was awful, but the moral is: If you feel like crying in the Principal's office, it's worth a try to do so. Apparently it isn't normal for 2nd grade to be so hard on families that Mom's are in tears. It seems normal to me.))

LOL - at age of 14 there have been several further evaluations and the NVLD is not currently part of his alphabet soup. ADD is.

I'm not saying that is the case for you, although if your son has to interact with the outside world, I believe that things will go better if you tell them you are investigating if he has ADD. sort of like those long engagements where the girl has the ring but no date for the marriage is set. It just explains in what a profile like your son has would pretty much have to look like to a layperson. Right now ADD and ADHD is a description of behavior, not a biological error like diabetes. There is no blood test or brain scan to see if a kid really has ADHD, only 'behavior surveys' that say - Yes or No: This child is built is such a way that drives adults crazy in the following ways. I'll bet any a dollar that in 20 years we have 16 different disorders that are now all lumped together in this category.

NVLD is sort of a leaky bucket of a diagnosis, and (perhaps others have has other experiences) although it was very helpful to me in offering specific parenting strategies for 'difficult' kids, in never got me much help from the school systems. It wasn't on their list of real disorders at that time. I'm sure it's different in different places.

I did however get the spark of learning to come back. It started with afterschooling - we worked together 30 minutes 5 days a week afterschool on ALEKS.com because I was so upset that he 'hated math' in 4th grade. I found a few summer day camps for gifted kids so he could spend the summer 'fitting in' with kids who were 'like him on the inside.' Eventually he started attending CTY overnight camps. Because we were able to join Davidson YSP, we did weekends where he could socialize and fit in with other kids who are 'like him' in that particular way. My son is still very interested in 'fitting in' and I believe that in the long run that will be a very valuable skill, but I have kept trying different schools and grade skip or no grade skip combinations to try to keep him 'fitting in' to a group of students with good work ethic.

Just the fact that you child is aware of the world enough to create the hypothesis that the tester tells everyone that they are gifted to make money shows a really precocious world view. Yes he sounds sophomoric compared to an adult, but that's still pretty amazing.

I hope I'm not making your head spin. Please ask whatever questions come to mind.

Love and More Love,
Robin from Connecticut

Yes-- that is how we are trying to approach this. We are gradually making DS aware of his differences (I know, you didn't have the luxury of "gradual"). We frame this as "everyone has things that are easy and things that are hard for them; this is one of the things that's hard for you."

Hard doesn't mean you don't do it-- it means you rise to the challenge. We try to exemplify this for our kids.

I like what ABQmom offered above, too.

DeeDee

My son went through testing last year. I wanted his dysgraphia and dyspraxia documented so he could get extra time on tests if he needed it and OT and PT if he needed it. Although we homeschool, I just like to be prepared, just in case he had to go back to public school. I wasn't prepared for the aftermath of the testing. My son was also told he had a high verbal IQ and a learning disability. This came as a shock to my son who said he didn't have trouble learning anything. People had always made comments about how smart he is.

After the shock wore off, he said he did realize that he learns differently. We did online searches to find other people who are also twice exceptional and this board helps because I can read about other kids who sound a lot like him. I read some of the posts to him so he knows he is not alone, it just seems like it where we live.

We used to have trouble explaining his differences (to them he looked lazy but he talked like an articulate adult) to Cub Scout leaders. They said they could not allow any accommodations for him when he crossed over to Boy Scouts unless he had documentation of the disability, so this was another reason we thought testing would be a good idea. It always felt like people thought we were lying about the disability and since he didn't fit in with this group anyway, he was constantly reminded that he was different. It was too hard to fit in and it wasn't right for him. He wanted to quit and I let him.

There was no denying that my child was different so I started pointing out all the ways he is different and how I love these differences. If he hadn't had dyspraxia, he might not have discovered musical theater and his ability to sing and act. He would have been too busy with football to read as much as he does and we would not be able to have all the wonderful conversations we have. He might not have learned as much about music. He would want to talk about football instead of books or things that are happening in the news or the wonders of new technology and neuroscience.

We went to a community event for kids recently. A local church had organized a "mudfest." Since my son wears a brace, all he could do was watch, but we listened to the kids speak, we watched how they acted, and we later saw things they wrote on Facebook and I told him how happy I am that he is the way he is.

He discovered on his own that he can perform better than someone without a disability if he tries really hard and this discovery helped him a lot. In his musical theater group he doesn't get the part if he can't do the job, disability or no disability, and I think this is true in real life so this is good for him. He got better at explaining the accommodations he needs (like extra breaks) so that he can be successful.

A year after testing he knows that doctors can be wrong, that tests don't tell the whole story, there are exceptions to the rule and because of neuroplasticity he has the power to change some things that are difficult for him. He believed in the power of neuroplasticity, which he had read a lot about, even though the neuropsychologist told us it was too late for OT or PT. He proved her wrong. We have videos of him dancing in musical theater from the time he was four. His coordination and balance are so good now that he is not a back row dancer and the boost in confidence he got from this carried over to singing solos.

Thanks to all of you for the posts. I�m glad I found this forum.

I will try to talk more to my son, using a gentler more thoughtful approach. You have all given me some great ideas. I think I�ll give him a few days though . . . He is very self-critical and sensitive and can really shut down when I try to talk to him about anything that he perceives as �criticism�. I think really that�s why I took him to the psychologist � I thought he might be more receptive to a professional, and I mistakenly also thought that someone who works with children daily would have the right tools and language. I also worry that DS is becoming depressed � he is very low key much of the time and doesn�t talk much � and thought that a professional might be able to get him to talk about how he feels. One side of DS is insightful, vulnerable and thoughtful; his �outside� can be impulsive, irritating and lacking in empathy.

BTW, I am in Canada (Quebec) and DS goes to school in French.

I have a D (now age 15) with a NVLD. She is also highly gifted, and it can be a crazy combination. She is sooo smart. But she is also disorganized (got an F on an assignment yesterday because she forgot her foreign language workbook at home...). For my D it has been important to find ways to link her up with other gifted kids so she feels more "normal". She attended Davidson's THINK in Reno last summer, and also has some contact via a CTY-related forum. I am wondering whether you should be looking harder at your school situation, too; that might be more important that continuing to try to communicate with him about his diagnosis.