Bright but struggling in school
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I just found your site and think it might be a game changer for my 13 yo son who struggles most with the easiest homework assignments on a daily basis. He gets so frustrated and sits in dread of doing homework for hours. Once he actually gets started on the task though, he can complete it quickly. But it takes him several hours to just get started!
His school will not give him a 504 plan because he gets good grades. The good grades come at a considerable cost to him though. Although I explain in our meetings the struggles he has, and his therapist also attends and does a good job advocating for him, the school will not give him accommodations – based on his grades and the fact that he is accelerated.
Perhaps you can help me articulate to the school about my son’s learning profile so that they might give him the accommodations to help him. He does have a diagnosis of anxiety and ADHD – inattentive type. He takes medication – adderall which he self reports helps with paying attention in class but not at all with output. He does not find the content at school challenging at all. He never studies. What IS challenging to him is the work.
Here are his WISC-IV scores:
VCI – 142
PRI – 131
WMI – 116
PSI – 121
FSIQ – 137Similarities – 16
Vocab – 18
Comp – 17Block Design – 13
Picture Concepts – 16
Matrix Reasoning – 16Digit Span – 12
LNS – 14Coding – 13
Symbol Search – 14Block Design No Time Bonus – Raw Score – 42; Scaled Score – 13
Digit Span Forward – Raw Score – 11; Scaled Score 13
Digit Span Backward – Raw Score – 7; Scaled Score 10LDSF – Raw Score – 7
LDSB – Raw Score – 4Thank you for any insight you can provide.
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Melissa Mullin, Ph.D. says:
Your son’s scores fall into the gifted range. His verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, and processing speed indexes are all in the superior range. The only discrepancy I see is in his working memory index. HIs ADHD diagnosis explains the weaker working memory.
There is nothing in his WISC scores that would explain his difficulty in school. It sounds like his difficulty is with executive functioning, specifically with initiation of task. Given his excellent verbal and perceptual reasoning skills, my guess is that he has so many ideas and possibilities running in his mind that it is difficult for him to select one to use on his assignments. Therefore, he is getting stuck before he even starts. This is what I call a weakness in mental organization. Your son needs to be able to hone in on one idea to begin a task. The best way to teach him this executive functioning skill is to first make him aware of how much he is thinking and then help him realize that there are multiple solutions to any problem and it is okay to pick whichever one he wants to try. So we are discussing two things here: mental flexibility and mental organization.
I have found that for many students with this profile building flexible thinking and teaching pre-writing skills are extremely helpful. The software program Inspiration helps with brainstorming all the ideas and getting them out, and then pruning the ideas down to the one you want to use can enable students to get started on a task.
If you are hoping for 504, you would need to have some academic testing done to show that his achievement is not matching his potential. Clearly he has strong intellectual potential, is he achieving in school? The Woodcock-Johnson tests measures basic skills for reading, writing, math along with fluency within those subjects. It would be interesting to see if there is a significant discrepancy between his basic skills and his academic fluency. As well as if there is a difference between his academic achievement and his cognitive potential. If significant differences exist between these scores then the school may be able to provide you with a 504.
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- emmaschremmer says: November 11, 2014 at 12:02 pm Hi Dr Mullin, Thanks for all your interesting replies. They have give me plenty to think about. My 8 year old son has recently completed a WISC IV. He is a fun, confident boy with an very active, enquiring mind (with his current interests being gems and minerals and all things wizard! ). He has an aptitude for mathematics and science and makes remarkable insights about the world around him (last week he told me that he had been thinking about curved lines and had decided that curved lines were simply made of a series of straight dots of elements!?). He is very advanced reader, but a laboured writer/homework completer.
- He is also very strong willed and has previously been diagnosed with SPD. He can be very inflexible and has trouble controlling his emotions at times. He actively tries to avoid teamwork at school, as he doesn’t value his peers ideas. This has caused a few problems for him, in terms of generating close friendships. At age 3 1/2, he was observed to have delays in gross motor skills and some problems with fine motor skills. In his Griffiths developmental scores that he undertook at age 3 1/2, he was found to be approx 6 months developmentally delayed (mostly due to gross motor delays and self-sabotage!)
- His WISC scores were:
VC -136 (Similarities – 18. vocab -15, comprehension -15)
PR – 119 (Block design 16, picture concept, 10, matrix reasoning 13)
WM – 83 (digit span 11, letter-number seq 14, arithmetic -13)
PS -83 (coding 7 (not included), symbol search 6, cancellation 8)
(Arithmetic with questions repeated and with paper for one answer – 18)
Apparently the scores above may be deflated by lack of readiness to do the tests, lack of concentration and arguing about how best to do them! I am thus wondering whether or not he needs to do anymore tests. In particular, are we getting the full score in the VC? I am also concerned that he is telling me that his mathematics class is boring and too easy.
Any insights that you have into my son and how best to support his development would be appreciated.
REPLY
- Melissa Mullin, Ph.D. says: November 13, 2014 at 10:51 pm Looking at these scores and reading your description of your son, would advise building his flexibility and social skills as well as fine motor skills. He is a very bright child and he should be challenged in his math and reading, as well as his ability to relate to his peers. I would see if you can find him an afternoon lego robotics course to build his talent in math and building. I would talk to the teacher about extra math work for when he finishes his classwork. Make sure the extra work is not rote work, but rather problem solving activities that involve math. Sensory integration work with an Occupational Therapist will be helpful for building his motor skills. Since his verbal skills are so strong, he will have to be patient to get his ideas out on paper. Dragon Dictate is a good option to help once he is older, however at his age he is still building brain connections and research shows that motor skills help that mental integration so it is worth his continuing to write. REPLY
I have just spent the past few hours poring over your website, and I am amazed at both your understanding of children’s learning issues and your generosity in sharing that knowledge with others. Thank you!
I found this site because I was looking for help for my twice-exceptional son. He has been obsessed with reading since he was about 2 and a half. He is 9 now, and finishing up the third grade, and his academic testing puts him at the junior/senior level in reading comprehension, mathematics, and science, but his writing is below grade level, and he has difficulties with peer interactions and emotional dysregulation.
He had him tested to try to get a better handle on his education issues. His WISC-IV composite scores were VCI=118, PRI=153, WMI=141, PSI=80. He has also been diagnosed with OverAnxious Disorder of Childhood, which manifests mainly as perfectionism and an inability to tolerate frustration. He has been working with a play therapist outside of school, learning techniques to understand and regulate his overwhelming emotions.
He rarely completes writing assignments in the classroom. At home, it takes him several hours to write a 5 sentence paragraph. Some days there are lots of tears, and other days he is happy but cannot sit still – he actually runs in circles, jumps up and down and turns himself upside down in his chair while he is thinking about his homework. If we allow him to do this, he finishes his homework with minimal emotional disturbance, and does excellent work. Obviously he cannot behave that way in a classroom, as it would be extremely disruptive to the other students.
He has had the same teacher for the past two years, and she has come up with a number of strategies to help him when he struggles with writing tasks. He has made a lot of progress but we are very concerned about how he will handle the transition to a new classroom in 4th grade. His teacher has asked us to come to a meeting this week to create a 504 plan. What sorts of reasonable accomodations could we request for him?
Here are some of my articles that may help you:
Dysgraphia: Difficulty writing
504 Accommodations: Extra Time on Tests
Finding the Right Intervention to Increase Processing Speed