what to think of this?

Post Reply New Topic

this is my first post so please be patient with me:

I have a 6 year old son with ADHD and SPD and are going for Aspergers testing March 12 ( I beleive we will get a aspie DX at that time)

He is repeating K aned doing well this year he gets ST and OT at school and OT outside of school, and is on Adderal 10 mg

Our Dev. Ped. wanted education and IQ testing done, which we had done and got the results of today : "Wyatt has significantly above average intellectual ability"
thats great but here is my worry/problem:
"Academic skills are developing quite well when comparisons are made to grade level expectations but they are not quite as proficient as might be expected for a child of Wyatt’s age and intellectual ability."

What do I do with that? is it because of the ADHD/SPD/Aspergers that his skills are not where they should be for his intellectual ability? or do I need to push him, get him a tutor? I just don't know what to think/do? I just want him to do his best. Is this typical for ADHD/SPD/Aspergers? thanks!

Usually, when there is a discrepancy, the evaluator has a theory about the reason, and when there is a diagnosis (or when any issues are uncovered), there are recommendations made in the report. Did the evaluator say why s/he thought your son was not performing at the level that his cognitive abilities would predict? Are there processing issues that are impeding his performance? Is there "scatter" between the scores in his sub-tests? Was he having difficulty in the testing environment and therefore not producing at the level that he may have been capable of?

Without knowing where you live, or where your son is in school, it is very hard to give you any advice as to how to proceed. The laws and procedures are very different in different countries. If you are in a country that provides special education services to children who need them, you should not have to hire a tutor - you should get the appropriate educational support from the school, assuming it is a public school.

Knowing whether or not your son has Asperger's won't tell you whether you should be "pushing" your son or not. Every child with Asperger's is different, just as every other child is different. You will need to determine more about how your son learns, what his particular challenges are, and how to address them in ways that will challenge him without unduly frustrating him. Some children shut down, academically, if the work is too hard - and if it's too easy. Some need extra time for writing - many have dysgraphia and need extra support in writing (scribes, use of computers/other keyboards, voice-to-text software, graphic organizers, modified assignments, etc). A good evaluation will help pinpoint where your son's strengths are, as well as areas in need of support. His areas of strength can sometimes be used to help fortify the weaker areas, if both are properly understood.

Once all the evaluations are completed, you will have a clearer idea of what, if anything, is missing from your reports, and you can proceed from there.

Well typically public school does not typically give one the opportunity to really put their true intelligence to use. So I would recommend you let him do as well academically as the other students and maybe look into some other educational activities he could get involved in that focus more on whatever interests and skills he really does have...or encourage him to pursue his interests when outside of school. But pushing him to do better academically then kids his age simply because he has a high intellectual ability in my opinion could do more harm than good. Also I don't know what sorts of programs the school has but do they have any higher level classes he could take if he ends up bored in typical classes for kids his age? or do anything to help accomidate kids with things like AS and ADHD?

I wish I could say the schools where really competent about things like this but in my experience they aren't....I mean i did not really learn anything at school but most people who know me think I do have a lot of intelligence. So yeah sometimes my grades did not exactly match up with my intelligence.

I would not worry about this. It seems to me that the clinician is saying.... although his academic skills are behind for his age, this is to be expected as he is repeating kindergarten and they are at expectation for the material he has been presented in kindergarten. You can't know what you haven't been exposed to.

I was wondering, why did they want him to repeat kindergarten? Was it for academics, or social immaturity?

It is especially hard for children who are twice-exceptional (I think that is the right term - someone correct me if it isn't), kids who have a gifted IQ and something else like ADHD, SPD, AS, dyslexia, dysgraphia, LD et cetera. It makes meeting their needs more challenging and requires you be more creative, rather than more demanding.

^^This! It is much more challenging to engage a twice exceptional student, often because thier weaknesses may not be readily apparent, for example, if they have trouble articulating their sensory difficulties and this causes them to shutdown or act out. This challenge is apparently too much for many schools.

If the person who evaluated you son does not know much about autism this could be the problem. Its very typical for kids to be above average in some areas and way below in others so then the say inane things like they are not working to their potential. Basically what you or the school needs to do is work with him in the things he is lagging behind in and give him more advanced work for the subjects that he is above average in so he does not get bored and get annoyed with school.