Gifted and Special Ed...

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Does anyone have experience with having a child in Gifted education while also receiving Special Ed?

My son, who is in first grade, just got into the Gifted program at school. I'm really excited for him. I think he's going to like the expanded curriculum. He's going to get extra instruction in Social Studies and Science. They cover the weekly curriculum for the regular class in a couple of days and then they get to expand on that with projects the rest of the week.

I went to speak with the Gifted teacher casually the other day to let her know that he has an IEP. She told me she has no experience working with kids with IEP's, but she was very happy to talk to me about it and figure out what he needs.

I'm really not sure if he'll need extra support or accomodations in there. My main concern was if there was a lot of handwriting or a lot of extra homework. Apparently, those are neither one going to be issues this year. I do wonder how he'll do during project time when they are working independently. He gets really distracted. Maybe I should just give it a few weeks and see how he does?

When I speak with the Special Ed teacher,she really doesn't understand what they do in gifted, so she doesn't have immediate advice...

Any advice or insight is appreciated.

When we first found out DS had AS, we were given this article to offer his teachers. I've found it to be an extremely helpful overview, and I keep it in our "file." http://www.casenex.com/casenex/cecReadi ... ntTips.pdf

It has a good, broad overview of how to handle a student (and note that it is from the journal Teaching Exceptional Children.) You can go through it yourself and highlight the parts that particularly pertain to your child.

The important thing is having someone who is willing to work through things. Our son's teacher last year would basically threaten to stop giving my son gifted work if I asked for any accommodation in it. Luckily I got my son to do the adjusting or I would have had to escalate it. I do believe that if I had escalated it, I could have gotten accommodations.

(He didn't want to do the coloring that was on the gifted pages, because of fine motor skill issues, and she was real old school and not accommodating about it, even though coloring has nothing to do with being gifted.)

My 12y/o is in both GT and special education for anxiety/AS. He was only placed in Sped at the end of fourth grade when he changed schools. The elementary GT we had was a great teacher and always did a great job incorporating and nourishing all the GT kids talent. She let him work alone or with a certain job when almost all the projects were group. She did more than I ever knew until he had been in the program 4 years. She was just one of those teachers who accommodates to all children's unique learning styles.

misstippy - Would it be too much to ask for GE and the SpEd teachers to talk to eachother?! This situation is pretty common these days. Google "twice exceptional" My DS is also TE but unfortunately our district's GE program in early elem is practically nonexistent. While I have argued that kids who are above grade level should have a right to be taught at their level, the fact is they don't . Your child has a right to his or her IEP and SpEd but not to GE.

His IEP meeting is actually coming up in April, so I am definitely asking the Gifted teacher to attend.

In the meantime, I was just planning to check in with her periodically to see how he is doing.

I know it's pretty common to have kids in gifted AND special ed, but I find it strange that neither teacher has dealt with it before.

Yes. My daughter is extremely gifted, in the gifted program, and also has an IEP.

During the development of the IEP they tested her IQ and it was in excess of 140. Ordinarily they dont' put kindergarteners into the gifted program, but they made an exception in her case.

The gifted program is actually now written into her IEP. They have said that she is one of the most gifted students they have had at her school. We are trying to get them to entertain the idea of letting her skip a grade. They have agreed to try, starting next year, in stages. They will let her go to second grade for half days to start. IYAM, that is setting her up for failure because she doesn't deal well with transitions and "half" anythings. She is already reading at the level of a third grader, and doing math at the second grade level. I don't see the point of dealing with first grade. Emotionally and socially she is like a 2-3 year old, so what difference does 1st vs 2nd grade make in that regard? I'm not sure. I guess I see it as a way to get her through the torture of school faster.

ANYWAY
The gifted teacher has a very difficult time with her though. The biggest issue being that the gifted class is only one day a week, so that is hard for dd5 to get used to. We have told them that if they tough it out for a few months, she will get used to going to that class on tuesdays and she will settle in and "Behave" a little better once she gets used to tuesdays being the gifted class day. I'm thinking the other part of this issue is that, from what I've heard, the gifted class is boring to her. It isn't advanced or interesting enough so instead she likes to run laps around the room and read her books in her head... So she tells me.

Anyway they haven't dealt with a situation quite like this at her school before. She is both incredibly gifted on one end, and then on the other still needs a lot of attention... So based on the other posts we are very lucky. Unfortunately I believe it is because the school psychologist finds her "interesting" if he didn't, I doubt she would be getting half the help or attention that she is.