Anyone with kids who are NOT 2E? - Page 3

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by joensally 

  I would also highly recommend getting his vision checked by a developmental optometrist (ie specialized).  

Done. Genetics suggests we keep doing this testing yearly.  Both kids go in to the pediatric optometrist regularly, DS was in in May and tested at age targets.  Not a smidge above, though.  And a complete hearing workup because of his history.  

For reasons I'm trying to understand about myself at the moment, I'm finding myself quite resistant to more testing - IQ in particular.  Some self reflection needs to be there, but in the last 2 months of waffling over his issues, I've gone from "woah, there's something wrong here" to "the poor kid needs a chance to learn in school."  There are still some other weird things about his speech patterns that have me on high alert, but they're not things that appear to be treatable in a clinical setting.  

That's part of the internal mommy struggle which prompted my question.

I'm clearly starting to question the "differential abilities" part of diagnosis criteria.  

Interesting perspectives, joensally and WNM.  Thanks. 

[joensally]

Originally Posted by Geofizz 

Done. Genetics suggests we keep doing this testing yearly.  Both kids go in to the pediatric optometrist regularly, DS was in in May and tested at age targets.  Not a smidge above, though.  And a complete hearing workup because of his history.  

For reasons I'm trying to understand about myself at the moment, I'm finding myself quite resistant to more testing - IQ in particular.  Some self reflection needs to be there, but in the last 2 months of waffling over his issues, I've gone from "woah, there's something wrong here" to "the poor kid needs a chance to learn in school."  There are still some other weird things about his speech patterns that have me on high alert, but they're not things that appear to be treatable in a clinical setting.  

That's part of the internal mommy struggle which prompted my question.

I'm clearly starting to question the "differential abilities" part of diagnosis criteria.  

Interesting perspectives, joensally and WNM.  Thanks. 

Oh, I know all about the resistance and ambivalence.  I very much experienced this, but after the epically horrible kindergarten year, my thoughts shifted.  When there's a subtle interplay of things going on, with wild asynchrony and complexity, it's easier to get the testing and have things named by their right names rather than really unproductive approaches being employed.  IME.

And not to hyperfocus (mwa ha, vision joke), I wanted to clarify the vision thing.  When DS went to the regular optometrist, the result was simply that he was far sighted.  When he went to the developmental optometrist, we were given a further diagnosis (strabismus), which was later confirmed by an opthamologist (ie at children's hospital/surgeon level expertise).  We have not done vision therapy as I'm not convinced that the investment would be worth it, but the diagnosis has helped immensely in understanding.

[captain optimism]

I'm reading this thread with a lot of interest. I've been in some kind of denial about my kid's situation, both his giftedness and the problems he's having with language, and this summer I'm gradually coming to realize that I might need to have him tested. First, there was the issue of how his second grade teacher refused to give us his standardized test results. (She also lost (!) the journal with most of his in-class written work, so I couldn't see if his writing had improved over the year.) All along I was thinking of him as a normal kid who just likes math and science a lot, and now--well, I still think that, but I'm also starting to see that I have to be a lot more proactive about school because that mathiness is maybe a little more unusual than I realized. 

After I finally went over enough people's heads to get the standardized test results (it took more than six months to get them!) I realized that the gap between my son's math achievement and writing achievement scores is pretty wide--but I haven't tried to figure out how many standard deviations wide, and I'm not sure whether I should, because I don't know what I should do differently with what I would learn. Like Geofizz, I'm wondering whether to think of his asynchronous development as a quirk. I guess it depends on how well he does with school in the coming quarter--whether they make any effort at all to accommodate his math gifts or whether that continues to fall on my alarmingly ill-equipped head, and whether they figure out a way to help him with writing and language arts so that he can learn without having anxious freak-outs. 

The only thing I know I should do is phone the speech therapist at school to ask for him to be evaluated. He has this huge, impressive vocabulary but has a lot of trouble pronouncing words, and as a result can't spell at all. Or maybe not as a result, what do I know. 

[FarmerBeth]

captain optimism, I think that's a good idea to have the testing, if only because gaps in ability are really annoying to gifted kids.  My son (11 years) also has a sizable gap between language arts and math.  He was just diagnosed with ASD (being specific as to type is no longer the norm, here, but he'd definitely fall more into the Asperger's end of things).  Even without any other challenges, even if he was very "neurotypical", I think the gap would still have been frustrating.  Problems explaining your work behind your answers in math, spelling out word problems correctly and reading word problems properly can make the "fun" class (in this case math) less fun.  Also, low marks in language arts will feel even lower to a child capable of much higher grades in math and science.  The more help my son got for his reading, the less anxious freaking out we got, and a way better attitude about school. 

I also suggest finding and ally amongst the teachers who enjoys "mathiness" (I love that word you made!), it doesn't have to be the classroom teacher.  DS1 was very lucky to have a teacher (actually the reading recovery teacher!) who had a love for and background in math.  She was rewarding the tough reading work with doing some new things in math (at the time it was algebra, he was in grade two)once it was done, and it worked spectacularly.  I'm always encountering this weird attitude that enjoying math is almost pathological (and now that we do have a diagnoses I realize this might confirm it for some people) and it drives me crazy!  I was  one of the few girls in the national math competitions in my school, loved calculus, my uncle is a physical engineer (thermal dynamics), we have lots of scientists in the family circle, etc, so I've seen how great loving math can be.  I also know that even when not 2E, mathematical thinkers aren't the norm in our society, so finding a role model who thinks somewhat the way your son does could really help!

[captain optimism]

Thank you so much for this! 

Of course I coin words for my child's math-oriented gifts, because I'm his total mirror image--a word person, an early reader, a compulsive writer. I was never confident in math. In fact I mainly empathize with his feelings about writing because they are so much like how I felt about arithmetic--the terrible anxiety about getting it wrong. He just finds math fascinating and beautiful, and being around him when he's learning new stuff is an unalloyed pleasure. He can show me the beauty, and if I didn't already appreciate everything about being a mom that would have put me over the moon all by itself. 

We've found a lot of adults who support his math love, but so far his teachers haven't had a clue what to do with him, except sometimes give him puzzles. His 1st and 2nd grade teacher highlighted his difficulties communicating in part because he was impatient with her for not knowing what Pascal's Triangle was. (!) We have three math professors (all female math PhDs, how's that for role models for a mathy boy, boo-yah! ) several computer programmers who delight in talking with him about infinity and the fourth dimension, and some talented math teachers--who don't teach at his school. 

My plan for this year is just to be vigilant and present and proactive about math enrichment/remedial writing help.

Originally Posted by FarmerBeth 
I also suggest finding and ally amongst the teachers who enjoys "mathiness" (I love that word you made!), it doesn't have to be the classroom teacher.  DS1 was very lucky to have a teacher (actually the reading recovery teacher!) who had a love for and background in math.  She was rewarding the tough reading work with doing some new things in math (at the time it was algebra, he was in grade two)once it was done, and it worked spectacularly.  I'm always encountering this weird attitude that enjoying math is almost pathological (and now that we do have a diagnoses I realize this might confirm it for some people) and it drives me crazy!  I was  one of the few girls in the national math competitions in my school, loved calculus, my uncle is a physical engineer (thermal dynamics), we have lots of scientists in the family circle, etc, so I've seen how great loving math can be.  I also know that even when not 2E, mathematical thinkers aren't the norm in our society, so finding a role model who thinks somewhat the way your son does could really help!

[FarmerBeth]

Sounds like he's got really great support and modelling at home.  Proactive's the way to go.  Once the school's more on board, I'm sure they'd see pretty immediate benefits.