I�m new to this forum and not even sure I should be here but really hoping someone with more experience in this area can give me some advice or suggestions about DS8. He�s now in third grade and because he was born the day before the cut off he is the second youngest in the class.

He�s always needed extra help to keep up in some areas but with this help usually ends up around average for his grade by the end of the year. I have asked the school repeatedly whether they think he would be better off in the year below. My argument is that if he needs all this extra help to keep up with the class then perhaps he�s more suited to the younger grade.

They always advise against it � their argument is that he is very happy socially, �on paper� he�s a solidly average student and they�re happy to give him additional support where he needs it � so what�s the problem? Part of the issue for me is that the extra support he gets happens during art and sport classes which he really loves. I don�t want him to miss out on a part of school he enjoys just because he�s been forced into a higher grade.

So in an attempt to get some clarity on this issue we had him assessed by an educational psychologist over the holidays. When the psychologist gave us the results we were staggered to find out that according to the IQ test she did he had an IQ of 130 which she said is around the 98th percentile - on this basis she recommended that he stay in his current grade. She also said that she would expect a child with his profile to be one of the academically strongest in his year and to be considered for a gifted and talented program.

This was a month ago and we are still totally confused by this. Part of me still wonders if she just got him mixed up with some other kid. If not, then both we and all his teachers have completely got him wrong. So my questions as someone who knows nothing about this area are: am I over-reacting? Is it possible for a kid to have a high IQ and just not be very academic and for this not to be a problem, i.e. should we just leave things alone? Regardless of his IQ, should we still consider putting him back a year where he might not struggle as much academically? Or could there be some hidden (very hidden!) disability which is masking his IQ which no-one has picked up? If so, what sort of tests/investigations should we do to try and explore this further?

Any advice/suggestions/input gratefully received!

Bump

What academic areas are his weakest and his strongest? Did you have any other testing done at the same time as the IQ testing - achievement testing or other? If he had achievement testing, how did he do compared to (either grade or age), and were his results relatively similar across subjects or were there relative highs and lows? Were there highs and lows on the subtests of his IQ test? If you *don't* have the subtest scores, it might be very useful to see them.

High IQ kids don't always look like what we tend to think of as high IQ - the world often expects high IQ kids to be extremely driven, exceptionally organized, and to do very very well in school. In reality I think that it's usually the kids who are motivated and driven that do well in school, regardless of IQ. That motivation to succeed is something that seems to click in a bit later in schooling though - so I wouldn't expect to see it yet at your DS' age. What I also wouldn't expect is that achievement would fall well below ability in the early years of elementary school - even if there's not any signficant differerentiation happening. A gap between achievement and ability *might* indicate the presence of a learning challenge - also the note that your ds needs extra help in certain areas points to a potential challenge.

Best wishes,

polarbear

If these data are accurate, then it does seem that you may be looking at a twice exceptional situation, where the giftedness and the disability are masking each other, which suggests that further evaluation would be warranted, either through the local public school (which, if he is attending his community school, appears to acknowledge that he has learning needs already, based on his history of receiving extra help), or through a private evaluator, such as the psych who did his IQ testing. Further evaluation might include academic achievement, executive functioning (attention, organization, planning, etc.), fine/gross motor, vision, etc.

What kind of academic needs has he displayed in the past? And was there any variation in his cognitive assessment results, or was everything right around the same range as his FSIQ? That might help us tailor suggestions.

Hi Pirion,

I'm no professional here - just another mom of a gifted kid. Our DS7 was also born just before the cutoff - 2 days, but we "red-shirted" him (icky pejorative term). His challenges are all social/emotional, and prior to this year I couldn't imagine him handling the next grade up. His executive function just wasn't up to it. He's getting there, but really not quite yet. And he gets minimal support, so he'd probably flail, whereas your son is hanging in there.

It's very common for a gifted kid not to peg the meter on achievement in school, especially in the early grades. Achievement in class is different from mastery of basic skills, and is dependent on executive function and other non-academic skills, so you need to parse it all out. The parsing will help you decide which way to go on this decision.

For example - DS is PG, has dysgraphia/stealth dyslexia, and reads and does math/science multiple grades ahead of his class. To date, he has mostly been learning nothing academically in class. But, unless a teacher was paying awfully close attention, she wouldn't have known that, because he refuses to do work sheets/assessments to show it. So he shows up as being middling to poor wrt achievement, notwithstanding his abilities.

On the other hand, he is growing by leaps and bounds with respect to EF and social/emotional stuff. And that growth will hopefully, ultimately, allow him to demonstrate what he can do, engage more fully in his classes, and gallop ahead according to his ability. For now, we're content to keep him at the grade level he's at, knowing that the achievement demands are going to ramp soon enough, and hoping that his EF/social skills will ramp before that time!

For other kids on this board - the issues are flipped. They have ability and EF and are simply stifled in their classroom and need to skip ahead.

You don't say what your child's supports are for - but if you read much on this board, you'll see that our kids struggle with a wide variety of developmental issues, many routed in the "asynchrony" of the gifted mind. That is - development doesn't follow the same pattern as neurotypical kids, so things in school often don't fit them well.

If you can give more details of what your child's strengths/challenges/supports are all about, there are some brilliant folks here who can weigh in on how to get him optimally situated in your school. But keep in mind that with a very bright kid, most classrooms (whether you go down a level, stay where you are, or accelerate) aren't going to be an ideal fit, and you'll need ongoing support and flexibility from the school. Sounds like you may be getting that in some ways already. Folks here can help you nudge the support network more in the direction that will let him develop his strengths as well as tackle his challenges.

Welcome to the board!
Sue

Thanks so much Sue, polarbear and aeh - that has given me a lot to think about. I always (obviously very naively!) thought a kid was either smart/not smart and I had no idea it could be so complicated!

Sue - your DS sounds like an amazing little individual, what a puzzle to have to figure out! I agree that social and emotional issues are the most important to look after first - if kids aren't happy in school they probably won't be learning much. That said, I can't imagine being in an environment for 6+ hours a day and expected to fit in with people that are just out of kilter with me developmentally or academically, which is what your DS (and probably lots of really gifted kids) have to do. They really deserve a lot of credit!

In answer to your q's - I dug out DS8's report and he did something called the WISC-IV. His scores were:

FSIQ - 130
VCI - 130
PRI - 120
WMI - 125
PSI - 115

The individual subtest scores were:

Similarities: 16
Vocabulary: 15
Comprehension: 13
Digit span: 14
Letter-number sequence: 14
Block design: 10
Picture completion: 11
Matrix reasoning: 15
Coding: 14
Symbol search: 10

Does this all make sense? The report doesn't say that much - just that he as an 'even profile' with block design and symbol search sources of 'relative weakness'. The psychologist didn't do any other tests but I could go back and ask her to do more if there was anything in particular that stood out as needing more investigation. She is employed by the school mostly to work with kids with behavioural problems - I'm not sure how much experience she has with gifted/learning issues.

In relation to the extra help he has had at school - it has been for reading (he was in reading recovery for two years), writing, spelling and some areas of maths (telling time and something else I can't remember - geometry?). His academic strengths as far as I can gather from his reports and teachers are reading comprehension(once he learnt to read!) and some areas of maths. His weaknesses are spelling, writing and more complex maths problems. His teachers say he does particularly well on timed tests and multiple choice tests and not well on anything open ended and which involves writing. But he has never done super well at anything - even in his 'best' areas he never gets more than a B.

If he stands out in any way I think it would be in art or sport- he does heaps of drawing and painting and loves sport, especially athletics. He's also really sociable and flexible - the sort of kid that fits in anywhere and always makes a friend. He does have pretty poor executive functions - he loses things all the time and never seems to know what day it is. I'm not sure how much this would impact his academic performance though at grade 3 level - he doesn't have homework or have to do much independently.

I've had his eyes tested because both DH and I have worn glasses since we were his age and they seemed fine. I would be surprised if he had any fine/gross motor skills issues given all the time he spends drawing and playing sport but I guess there could be something that I'm missing. I don't really know what else we could look at - would achievement testing be anything different from the tests he does at school? I did think for a while he might be dyslexic but the school said no, they thought he was just a late reader. Now he reads all the time and loves it so they were probably right. Is there anything else you think I might be missing?

Thanks again for your help - really appreciated!

Block design and symbol search both involve an element of vision skill of the type involving how the eyes work together. Was his prior vision testing with a COVD optometrist?

I didn't realise that about the block design and symbol search tests so thanks for pointing it out. I'm pretty sure the eye test DS had was just a basic eye test. I didn't know there were other sorts of vision tests that you could have actually. I've looked into it now and see that vision problems can be much more complicated than just short/long sightedness. I'll make an appointment for DS to have a comprehensive assessment ASAP. Thanks for the suggestion.

Agreeing with snowgirl--I would have him evaluated by a developmental optometrist.

Actually, Picture Completion is vulnerable to vision issues as well (test of attention to visual detail, among other things). So is Coding, which he did well on. I wonder why the alternative PRI subtest of Picture Completion was administered, instead of the standard Picture Concepts subtest. The latter is a better measure of fluid reasoning (which might have been more in line with Matrix Reasoning).

It might have been informative if the psychologist had reported whether his BD score changed when scored without bonus points for time (de-emphasizes speed in scoring).

And yes, formal achievement testing would be considerably different from the classroom and group testing that he likely experiences at school. It is individually-administered, and should cover a range of higher-level and lower-level academic skills, such as in reading (decoding skills and comprehension), writing (spelling, written expression, and possibly handwriting), and mathematics (computations and problem solving).

Thanks aeh - very useful. There's nothing in the report about the impact of timing on his scores but I remember the psych told me that he 'timed out' some of the tests that he got lower scores in and she thought he would have been able to complete them if he had had a bit longer.

I'll look into achievement testing too - it might help pin point where he is at academically and identify areas that he is weak in.

Welcome!

Giftedness does not necessarily equal high achievement in the classroom. If the work is too easy, the child may refuse to do it, somehow "lose" it, or overthink it (and therefore get a completely different answer, or fail to finish).

Giftedness can also mask learning disabilities. A gifted kid who is, say, dyslexic, may be able to keep up for awhile because he can figure out what is going on from classroom discussion, or synthesize answers on the fly without having read the text, but this gets more challenging with each year. He may never get tested for dyslexia because he manages to stay at grade level.

Yes, it is possible for a highly gifted child to not do well in school. The trick is figuring out why.

Gosh - this stuff is making my head spin! Do you mean that DS might have above average abilities in some areas and below average in others so that they cancel each other out and he ends up as average? I can sort of see that in theory but I really can't see how this would work with him - there doesn't seem to be anything he's really great at or really terrible at.

I definitely don't think he finds school work too easy - I've seen him in class and he does seem to try, he just finds it quite hard. I think dyslexia might be more likely as he did really struggle to learn to read but is there any point getting him tested for it now given he is a really good reader? It's not like he would need to go back re-learn to read using a different method. I mean I don't have problem at all getting him tested for something but there doesn't seem to be a point unless it's going to change things. Or is dyslexia something that can keep on being a problem even after you learn to read?

Yes, a few PP have been suggesting that he might have strengths and weaknesses that appear to cancel each other out. You might not be able to see them as literal strengths and weaknesses, because what many 2e individuals do is work very hard using their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses, just to get an average product. Rather than having mental or emotional energy left to excel in their strength areas, they spend it all on buttressing their weaknesses, often using strategies that are much less efficient than their neurotypical peers use.

For example, learners who struggle with phonetic decoding ("breaking the code"), but have very good visual memory, may laboriously memorize the shapes of all the most frequently encountered words. Eventually, they build up a repertoire that is functional, and may even be able to read reasonably quickly, but are still stumped by novel vocabulary, especially if they haven't heard the word in their oral vocabularies. So they look like readers who started slow but caught up, until you challenge them with low-incidence or technical vocabulary. If they have strong enough visual skills, they may even manage to memorize the spellings, but usually, they spell much more poorly than they read.

Another common situation is individuals who manage to learn the rules of phonetic decoding, but have a deficit in attaining automaticity, which restricts them from reaching reading fluency. They often read very slowly, fatigue easily, and may lose comprehension in lengthier text. They also tend to read better than they spell.

And yes, dyslexia can continue to be a problem even after an individual appears to be reading within the average range, especially with regard to reading comprehension, spelling, and written expression, for some of the same reasons described above. It also can affect vocabulary and general language development, especially beginning from grade 3 or 4 and up, when vocabulary acquisition starts to shift from oral (environmental) sources to written sources. If reading is slow or laborious, or if comprehension is compromised, then the dyslexic learner may be exposed to fewer and less sophisticated words, with the gap in vocabulary widening year on year. In your DS's case, the gap, if there were one, would be between his acquired vocabulary and his verbal cognition, not so much between him and age-peers.

It sounds like your DS is using his higher-level reasoning skills to manage reading comprehension, even though his decoding skills are only average. This is a good compensatory strategy, and one he will probably use all his life, and suggests that the most likely significant complications would probably arise in written expression--of which he has probably not had much demanded, so far.

And, btw, some research has found possible benefit to re-training dyslexics to read using more cognitively parsimonious strategies than the ones they typically use. (More brainpower freed up for other things, like comprehension.) Though he is probably too old and too good of a reader to bother if it is not otherwise called for.

Thanks aeh - that makes a lot of sense. It does sound like there might be some type of decoding problem going on with my DS. He reads fast now and can read for ages without getting tired but he did really struggle to learn at first and his spelling and writing are really poor. As you said, he probably is past the age of re-learning to read using other strategies so is this just something he needs to live with? Or is it something that we should do something about? And when he gets help for his weaker areas (writing, spelling, maths etc at school) is it likely that the sort of help he gets (in a mainstream public school) will be targeting his specific difficulty or is it likely that all the kids needing help will have different issues which the school can't possibly address? Sorry if these questions sound naïve - obviously I want to so what I can to support him but I don't want to replicate what the school is already doing. I don't want him to feel that there is anything wrong with being an 'average' student or needing extra help with things but also don't want him to be frustrated if he is in an ability group that he feels is too easy for him because they are addressing problems he doesn't have(he hasn't ever said this so perhaps it's not an issue).

I would suggest that, since his spelling and thus writing currently are compromised, and because of the apparent achievement gap, it would be helpful to him to be evaluated for stealth dyslexia (also known as compensated dyslexia), by a school-based or private psychologist (neuro, school, or clinical). If this is his learning profile, then it is likely that reading/spelling interventions based on the Orton-Gillingham method would help him, and may allow him to show more of his ability in written expression. In the schools, either OG, or the closely related Wilson, are the gold standard for remediation. Even though he is a very effective reader at this point, it would help his spelling. You could also, if he is willing to work at home, try the OG-based home program, All About Spelling, which is fairly affordable, and designed for an untrained parent or other tutor to use. www.allaboutlearning.com. Barton is another home or tutor-provided program, though somewhat pricier than AAS. There are also private OG and Wilson-certified tutors, often speech language pathologists, special education teachers, or reading specialists.

If he has not been identified with a reading disability by the school, which is not uncommon for those with the profile we are hypothesizing, he is probably not receiving the appropriate OG-type reading/spelling intervention. If he has not received individual or very small group reading support, then he has almost certainly not received it.

You may or may not find the school receptive to evaluating and qualifying him with dyslexia or specific learning disability in reading/writing. Either way, there are other paths to supporting his educational success, as many parents on this board can attest.