Is my child gifted or really learning disabled?

While it is possible that your son is both gifted and LD, I’m wondering about another possibility. Low processing speed is often associated with ADHD (especially the inattentive type). This might also account for his behavioral difficulties. Just a thought. You might want to try the free online behavior rating scale (FBA Profiler) at http://www.LDinfo.com .

Many children are both LD and gifted. Think of it kind of like writers block, the mind is there the page is empty just waiting for the imagination to fill it up but for some reason the blank page is just… too much for the writer to handle. I suppose that ends to be how i think about it.

If it were my kid, the last thing i would do is get them diagnosed with ADHD. Unless ofcourse there is now an offical DNA test or a test that is scientifically sound and based on physical material for measurement?

ADHD studies show goes down by more than 40% in classes that get more than 30 minutes of recess each day and it goes down over 80% in classes that get over an hour of recess each day or essentially so says a harvard study.

ADHD is totally ambiguous it is based on the worst stuff they can read into your child’s behavior and it is a lable your child wears for life. Then they pump your kid full of chemicals that cause serious long term damage when studies done by NIMH show long term drugging is not the cure all that they pretend and that the drugs are only effective for upto 3 years. It is a fact that one side effect of drugs for ADHD actually shrinks the frontal lobe with long term use. And though they will tell you it is genetic they can point to nothing, not even one half of the human genome over the other to give any legitimacy to this diagnosis which is why it is listed as a disorder in the DSM. There is no credible physically measurable evidence for it.

Here are my thoughts, it can’t hurt to read up on some of the other sorts of therapy for ADHD and apply them yourself at home with your child (non medication based therapies.) maybe it helps… But atleast that way you will not be destroying his brain by declaring him broken when the fact remains the human brain isn’t even done developing till the mid 20s. So maybe better to let it grow naturally and when he hits 26 consider medicating if he still is behaving exactly the same because then clearly something isn’t functioning properly. But i will always stand firm unless a child is a physical threat to themselves or others, medication is the worst thing you can do for them. So is a diagnosis of ADHD.

ADHD, is kind of a catch all these days. It seems many violent offenders have it. But many people who are scientists and who are kind caring compassionate decent people alledgedly have it too when the behaviors can not possibly resemble eachother or those of us with it who are not in prison would likely be there. The point is, you lable your child with this disorder and suddenly everyone is scared of him for things other people wearing this lable have done while your son has done nothing wrong and is judged so harshly by society. So i am against labling children especially. The worst though is when you grow up and you read papers by these alledgedly world class doctors who declare you as intellectually astitute as a cocker spaniel. Make no mistake the LD game is an industry and though sometimes they help children in the process more often more damage is done than helping. People are making massive fortunes off the medicating and quite literally abuse of children.

If your child has some other LD i would take it seriously. Not all LDs are as bogus as ADHD.

Don’t be duped! Your child will pay for it if you are. Read up learn what the non medication based therapies are see someone if you like get your kid help but don’t let them lable medicate and ruine your child atleast not with this particular lable, just the legitimate ones.

[quote=Jennifer]Hello I am looking for help understanding scores that were given to me during my 9 y/o son’s ARD meeting this week. They told me that his scores were too high for him to be considered for a learning disability but he does qualify for emotionally disturbed. My son gets C’s and B’s in class and they keep telling me that it is him that is holding himself back. He is fully capable and his scores show it. Yet when I try to have him read things about something he is really interested in and motivated to know he simply cannot do it. Either their scores are wrong or he has a learning disability….right?

Here are the scores that I was given:

The WJ-III/KABC-II test showed the following results:

Auditory Processing: 133
Processing Speed: 84
Sequential/Gsm: 140
Simultaneous/Gv: 126
Learning/Glr: 123
Planning/Gf: 132
Knowledge/Gc: 120
Fluid-Crystallized Index(FCI): 143 which ranked him at 99.8% for the nation

His achievment scores on the KTEA-II was as follows:

Letter & Word Recognition: 96
Reading Comprehension: 108
Math Concepts & Applications: 119
Math Computation: 108
[/quote]

Jennifer,
Sounds like they are using a significant discrepancy model to determine eligibility. In order to qualify for special education your son has to show an “academic need”. Which means he must be under-achieving. This is not the case with these scores above. They are all average to high average. So that will exclude him from qualifying as a student with a disability. This is not to say your son is not disabled. It just means that his disability is not negatively impacting on his education ENOUGH to warrent special education placement.

I know„,I know„,it is like splitting hairs but that is the law. Also, to address the gifted aspect of these scores. Depending on your state’s qualifying criteria for their gifted program, your child’s intelligence appears to be quite sufficient….HOWEVER, his achievement scores are not commensurate with his intelligence scores. If you pushed things you could probably get him in the gifted program, but why? It is going to be even more stress for him to compete with student’s who have 130 + standard scores on their achievement tests.

Your school is trying to help and do what is best for your son. However, it sounds as though you just need a little clarification as to why they are doing what they are doing. You do have another option though.

You could request 504 placement if you have a written diagnosis from a medical doctor. This would allow modifications in the classroom but would not provide for resource support or an IEP.

I know this stuff is confusing. I hope this explanation helps.

There is such a thing as twice exceptional students. Here is a resource that you should become familiar with:

http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/twiceexceptional.pdf

I would also suggest that perhaps this article found here at LDOnline would prove to be useful:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/6026

In addition, you might find this thread provides some specific useful information:

http://millermom.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Education&thread=10823

Just wanted to welcome you Jennifer! We’re happy to have you at the LDOnline Forum.

Thank you so much for the welcome and advice. This was very helpful so far and the article seems to be written about my son :) I was so lost on the internet trying to find information that related to our situation and very happy that I now have something to go off of. Thanks so much!!!