Gifted and Talented

[KarenT]

Hi all

 

Yesterday I received a copy of James' assessment of cognitive functioning from the Clinical Psych who carried out IQ and Psychometric testing in the past few weeks (using WISC-IV) as part of his assessment for AS. The results were generally as expected and consistent with AS in many areas and his Full Scale IQ was set at 96th percentile.

 

One thing that was emphasised both at the time of testing and in the report, is the importance of ensuring that James? academic needs are catered for in school. So far his Y1 teachers seem to be doing just that by providing more demanding work for him, and I believe that he performs well in school because of their attitude to his condition and their keenness to cater to his needs, but obviously I have no guarantee that this will continue to be the case as he progresses through school. He?s in mainstream and so far has had no emotional outbursts there and thoroughly enjoys it.

 

My concern is this. I?ve taken this from the website of the charity Children Of High Intelligence: �CHI concerns itself with the specific needs of children of high intelligence. This we broadly interpret as those who are performing, or can when the conditions are right, in the top 2% of the general population (5% under 7 years of age).� Now, if I take James? IQ score then he fits into this category, so does that make him a Child Of High Intelligence despite (or indeed because of) his AS? Or would he have to be in the top 2 (5)% across all scores?

 

I?m hoping that some of you have been this route before and have enough experience to answer some questions:

 

Is this figure of 2 (5) % the standard for recognition of G&T as far as the DofE are concerned?

 

If James is indeed of High Intelligence, should he be on the school?s Gifted and Talented register? Are they even legally obliged to have one?

 

Can a child be on the G&T register and the SN register at the same time? Can both needs be met on the same IEP or should he have two?

 

Please understand that I?m not being a pushy mum or suggesting that he?s a complete genius, I?m simply taking on board the psych?s advice and trying to find out how to ensure his academic needs are catered for appropriately. If he IS G&T then surely that should be acknowledged, but is he?

 

Karen

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[nellie]

Karen,

 

Sorry I can't offer any advice. I suggest putting gifted into the search engine, there's been many discussions on here on this subject.

 

Nellie xx

[Hectorshouse]

Unfortunately I can't help with this one, T has an IQ score of 87, but is only working and achieving on the 1st centile, 6 years below his age, his AS is compounded by Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

 

But I have read somewhere about high achievers also having statements, Advanced Educational Needs I think is the term, I'll google it and see what comes up.

 

HHxx

[KarenT]

Just spent most of the morning googling Gifted, Talented, SN, Asperger... just getting lots of dead ends. If anyone finds anything I'd be grateful.

 

K

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[nellie]

Karen,

 

Have you tried Krism search engine, sorry if I'm stating the obvious.

 

Nellie xx

[Viper]

Hi Karen.

 

I can't answer your questions about schooling yet, my son won't start until September but I can tell you that an AS child can be on the G and T register as my son is, I don't know if schools have a register, it is a local council/education thing I think. I have had people visit my son from the local G and T and they will be going to the school when he starts, to sugest ways to help him acheive his potential. I was put in touch with them by my sons psych.

 

hope that helps a bit.

 

Viper

[Zemanski]

I have 2 G&T children; one with AS and dyspraxia (12) and the other with dyslexia and dyspraxia (9). Both are in the 99th centile.

 

their experiences have been very mixed.

LEAs, schools and individual teachers are all different and have different strategies and understanding with regard to high ability.

It is often difficult to persuade a teacher or head that G&T and SEN needs can be present in the same child for a start - there really are very few of these children and it's difficult to get your head round, for example, Dot being gifted in language but unable to read and write effectively.

Then of course you get the problems caused by lack of communication in ASD children, written and verbal - how does a teacher know a child can do something if they don't participate in lessons properly (not joining discussion, not putting their hand up, not connecting with a lesson because it doesn't grab their interest and attention), or if their written output is poor, or they work slowly so never get to the G&T stuff that's supposed to extend them and show their talents?

 

Dot, with dyslexia, finds it much easier to gain recognition because her verbal and physical communication is excellent - she expresses her interest and knowledge in a very mature way verbally and is obviously keen to learn because her eyes shine and she behaves in a way that shows it.

So Dot gets lots of input and attention and her school and teachers feel very positive about her because they get constant feedback from her.

Having the list of cognitive scores along side her diagnosis helped because it explained he lack of performance and showed just how much the SEN affected her but she was doing it for herslf anyway.

 

Poor old Com though can't easily express himself, either verbally, physically or on paper. His AS means that he is prevented largely from showing his strengths - he doesn't know how to ask for help effectively, never mind how to join in a discussion and doesn't even answer direct questions if they don't start with his name so actually volunteering information and opinions in class is very rare unless he is angry in which case the contribution is unlikely to be positive.

 

So the teachers don't find him easy to teach, they don't feel excited by his curiousity, they don't respond to him in the positive way they do to Dot.

 

even with the bit of paper to wave at them it's hard for them them to make the connection between the boy they teach and the numbers on the page.

 

we understand all this but it can be very frustrating.

 

Be prepared to have to fight for G&T provision and be aware that it may need to be more individualised than for NT kids - Dot gets general G&T provision and it suits her but Com has to have an individual program including things like a maths mentor (6th former), acceleration - doing AS level maths next year, extra time to do indepentent work for assessment for ICT because his output is too slow in lessons to show his skills ...

Until high school you will probably have to talk afresh with each teacher about how to get the best out of your child. Once in high school this is harder but I find I need to see at least the teachers of his strong subjects and usually the head of department.

Com's provision both for SEN and G&T has become so difficult we now deal with the head about it all and she is being extremely supportive, actually taking advice from the advisor on autism and is coordinating all the rest now which is why he is finally having his strengths recognised and we are no longer considered 'pushy parents'.

 

about time too

 

Zemanski

[KarenT]

Thanks Viper and Zemanski. I actually made a bit of headway on this today when I picked James up from school. Chatting to the teacher about the classroom visit by the Autism Liaison Worker today, we got talking about the psych's report and she asked about it. I mentioned her concerns about school giving appropriate level work and she mentioned that he'll definitely be on Gifted and Talented Maths programme from Y2, so I guess that'll be documented somewhere. Onwards and upwards. So glad I have supportive teachers onside at the assessment stage. Believe me, I appreciate how lucky I am.

 

Karen

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[jomarie]

When I had a meeting with the deputy head of M's school, she said that they were setting up a gifted & talented programme in the school from this coming September & she said that M definitely would be one of the children who would be included in it.

[Corcaigh]

Karen, your son should be administered the Stansford-Binet test too, is much more complete than the WISC and can give a better overview of your son's intelligence.

AS children are often talented and with high IQ but often they cannot express their abilities with "normal" intelligence tests for several reasons. For instance, they do not pay attention to the test. They tend to get tired and after a while and they do not give a damn about continuing. They get anxious about "scoring the best" and therefore miss the questions. And so on so forth.

That's why the Stansford-Binet, which is a very long test, can give a better overview.

 

In my opinion, Asperger people MUST be stimulated more then NT children as they tend to get fed up early with the usual school stuff, therefore need a bigger variety of material.

 

For instance my son could not give a toss with his school curriculum but gets stuck on the Smithsonian web-site reading about Big-Bang theories.

You see, if u find an intelligent teacher who understants the way their mind work it's fine, otherwise your kid is labelled as dumb because woun't learn his tables by heart.

 

Intelligence is a much more complex construct to be measured with sterile IQ tests. for instance, on average dislexic children are highly intelligent but because they have problems with the schools curricula they are labelled as "slow learner" by teachers

 

It is not a question of being "pushy", but to be sensitive to your child needs, as you seem to be.

 

You seem to be lucky about his teachers' sensitivity too...

 

Why don't you get him a MENSA package too? You can get it though the internet.

 

What kind of information are you exactly looking for, Karen?

 

Martina

Edited May 29, 2005 by Corcaigh

[Jericho]

As far as I know (although I'm ready to be corrected) the 5% total is based on the individual class/school rather than IQs across the country. The problem with this is that it means that a child may be classed as G&T in one school but not in another.

 

Ideally their needs should be met via an IEP but many schools have found that their budget is used up by helping those with difficulties and so those who are G&T fall by the wayside a bit. It's worth discussing this at the next IEP meeting and perhaps asking whether a G&T target could be added.

[LittleRae]

Hi Karin

 

Have you checked out the National Association of Gifted Children website? www.nagcbritain.co.uk.

 

This page deals with Gifted and learning difficulties http://www.nagcbritain.org.uk/giftedness/character.html

 

There have also been a number of articles written about Aspergers and Giftedness:

Lynette m Henderson - 'Asperger's Syndrome in Gifted Individuals'

 

and

 

Cindy Little - 'Which is it? Asperger's syndrome or Giftedness: Defining the Difference'

 

It is interesting to see that here in Ireland, the schools website has now listed gifted and talented in the special needs section.

[KarenT]

Thanks for all your input on this - sorry it's taken me a while to get back, it's been a sh*te weekend but that's another story.

 

Corcaigh, thanks for mentioning that test, will look it up and mention at our next meeting. Also have it on my list to ask for G&T to be included on J's IEP which is due to be reviewed in July. I'm not really sure what info I'm looking for, I just want to be certain that J's needs are being met properly. I admit I'm a bit nervy about this because it's his second assessment in as many years, the first being botched by a useless psychiatrist and a head teacher who was keen to prove that she could handle any child ... Thanks for the Mensa suggestion too, will look into that.

 

D's mum - thanks for the NAGC link - I've looked on there too but I'm still not sure. So many of those characteristics ring true for AS anyway! Will check out the other articles you mentioned as well. Ta.

 

Mucho thanks

 

karen

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[Zemanski]

When I first looked at the criteria for giftedness (long before Com was diagnosed) he did seem to fit so many. Now he has the diagnosis I can see so many of them as AS related but to be honest they are pretty irrelevant - if your son is functioning beyond his peers in at least some areas then he is G&T - in the primary classroom we look for the top 10% or about 3 kids per class. Cognitive scores will back this up.

 

unfortunately G&T provision will vary and is difficult to get. In one school you might have acceleration (but this might not be good for a kid that already struggles socially) in another they may run group activities like theatre workshops and it will change from year to year. as I said before what is on offer generally may or may not suit your particular child.

 

Com's statement actually says he must be taught at his level!!!!

This means if we can get them to assess properly then they must provide teaching at the level of the assessment (which is why he's doing AS level maths) but getting them to assess beyond the age group is very difficult and we've only managed to get it done in maths. - schools are not interested in cognitive scores as much as levels and if they don't assess beyond the age group then they can safely say they differentiate to those levels normally anyway(for eg. you can't get higher than level 5a in maths in the KS2 SATs so when Com went to high school they refused to provide extra because his scores didn't show he needed it even though he was in the G&T cohort and had been assessed at Level 6 in Y4!)

 

If you want individualised in-school provision you have to get them to assess above the age range first.

 

NAGC and CHI both provide out of school provision but it's not cheap (�40 for a saturday class from CHI and only if you live within reach of Derby or London!)

 

good luck

 

Zemanski

[lisa]

Our son doesn't seem to get any provision for G&T and I don't even think he's on the register even though he's a member of MENSA. Jack scored on the 99th percentile on the cognative assessment but he's performing average academically. He amazes me with his knowledge but like a lot of AS kids he hates writing and has to be specifically interested in something to participate, hence it doesn't show in his school work. Does anyone know what the school should be doing? I'd feel a bit silly asking the school to give him more challenging work when he hardly ever finishes the normal class work and quite often says it's too hard or boring. I don't think he has ever said it's too easy. The teacher just thinks he's lazy because some days he'll do really well and on others he struggles. I'm so sick of the "I know he can do better if he tries because he's proved he can do it when he wants to..." lectures

 

Any advice?

 

Lisa

[Corcaigh]

Jack scored on the 99th percentile on the cognative assessment but he's performing average academically.

This shows, once again, how performing well in school and having a high IQ are factors TOTALLY UNRELATED.

I really have no suggestions, Lisa, schools just seem not to get this basic law....

 

 

Martina

[mossgrove]

I have mixed feelings about Gifted and Talented programs.

 

I have never had a diagnosis, but I am pretty sure that I would do if I was at school today. I am currently reading 'Martian in the Playground' by Claire Sainsbury and much of it seems to decribe my own childhood.

 

When I was at school I was identified as someone who should go on and do great things academically, I excelled in many subjects (especially Maths/Science) and I had an elder brother who was clrearly on the fast track to Oxford or Cambridge from a very early age. (He subsequently studied maths at Cambridge). My father is a retired University Professor who got a 1st class degree and Phd from Cambridge and my mother is a retired high-flying hospital consultant.

 

Given many of the issues I was facing I can look back and see that it was quite an achievement to do much better than average academically. Being singled out as someone from whom great things were expected meant that 'better than average' was never good enough, and I spent almost my entire school career feeling I was an underachiever who was letting everyone down by not trying hard enough. I vividly remeber one school report where my headmaster said that "What Simon needs is a well-placed kick up the backside".

 

This, along with the social difficulties familar to any child with an ASD in a mainstream school, caused issues with my self-esteem that have taken me until well into adulthood to unravel.

 

We have finally managed to get our 7 year old (Aspergers) into a Special school. part of the reason we had to work so hard to get him there is his academic achievement, which meant his teachers etc. though he should remain in manstream school, despite the fact he plainly cannot cope there. He stress levels are sky high and his self-esteem is in tatters, if that can be rebuilt in the months and years to come, and he can reach the point when he is not frightened to go to school the academic side can look after itself in due course as far as I am concerned.

 

School is a hard place for any child to be. It is so much harder for kids with ASD's.

By all means provide extra support for a child to follow their special interest, or to prevent them getting bored. But be very, very careful not to creat a weight of expectation upon the child that may prove too much, and make sure you are doing what they want to do, not imposing your own hopes and dreams onto a child that may not cope.

 

 

Simon

[KarenT]

I'd feel a bit silly asking the school to give him more challenging work when he hardly ever finishes the normal class work and quite often says it's too hard or boring.  I don't think he has ever said it's too easy. 

Lisa, I really relate to this. James does do quite well in school and often performs well beyond the rest of his peers, particularly maths, science and ICT, but his literacy work is quite poor considering his level of vocabulary, ideas etc - he simply won't put it onto paper even if it's catered to him specifically by giving him work on a favourite topic. Like you, I've never heard James complain that his work is too easy or boring. I think he likes having a similar level to everyone else because he wants to be better at it than his peers, and if it was different work it would be harder for him to make that comparison. And yes, it would sound odd to ask for something more challenging when it appears that he can't even do what's being set at the present time.

 

Simon, I strongly agree with what you're saying about encouraging the child's interest and being certain it's not for the parent's benefit. Someone once asked me what I wanted for James in the future, and when I said that I wanted him to be happy and have choices, I was accused of choosing the 'politically correct' answer (this was before his prov dx, by the way). But it's how I feel - I want him to be able to go in his own direction but I don't think he'll be able to do that without a decent education, so I guess at the moment I'm trying to cover as many bases as I can. I appreciate that I'm at the bottom of a long learning curve and my opinions might well change as I progress onwards and upwards, but atm I just want to do my best for my boy. If he has a skill then I want to encourage it, but I'm not sure what's the right way of doing it.

 

I'm not even sure how James is coping in school - he seems to be doing OK both academically and behaviourally, although he does have his moments. OTOH he's crazy when he's at home and I believe this could be a sign of stress that even he isn't aware of, arising from keeping a lid on things and conforming to expectations through the day. Yet he seems so relaxed and he loves going to school - even on the days he's missed an hour in the morning for assessments, he's made me race back to school so that he didn't miss numeracy hour. AND he's asked the teacher for the literacy work he's missed to be given to him for homework at the weekend, even though he really struggles with it and often can't manage it - the enthusiasm is obviously there but the ability to actually deliver isn't. I have to admit I'm finding it all very, very confusing at the moment, which is why I was interested in other people's experiences in this area and how they've dealt with them.

 

Karen

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[mossgrove]

Karen

 

It is a good sign that your son likes going to school. Both our autistic children (7 and 5) cannot be made to go anywhere near school without a major battle, tantrums and tears, so I have become a little battle-weary when it comes to Autistic children in mainstream schools and this tends to colour my opinons.

 

Simon

[KarenT]

Yes, I appreciate how lucky we are that this is still the case, and I guess I want to take advantage of that while we still can so that he can get the most out of school while the enthusiasm is still there. But it's very hard to know what to do at a given time because if you make a mistake or a wrong decision it could last forever. I aim to open doors for James rather than close them, but I'm finding it such a heavy responsibility.

 

Karen

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[Zemanski]

Simon, so much of what you say is true - I tried very hard not to teach or push Com (Dot does it for herself so that's OK) but he is actually much happier in school when the work is at his level. He gets so much more frustrated when he has to do stuff he's really so far beyond.

 

When he was in Y1 I walked into the classroom at the start of lunchtime (parents had free access in his school!!!) and found him sat working with bright red ears.

Without speaking to him I asked the teacher why he was angry(red ears) - she replied that he hadn't finished the work that even the bottom group had finished in 10 mins so he was having to do it in his own time.

I walked round behind him and looked over his shoulder - he was drawing round pennies to add up to amounts under 10p.

This was a child who could calculate equivalent fractions at 2, do long division in his head at 4, understood infinity and negative numbers, and could think in algebra.

I went back to the teacher and explained why he was angry - since then he has been accelerated for Maths and we have had far fewer problems with frustration in school.

 

It is important to meet G&T needs but you do need to be very careful how it is done

 

Zemanski

[CarerQuie]

I have an NT 10 year old who is on the G and T register-but that's all it is.He has been marking time in maths for over 2 years,having reached level 5* at the end of year 4.He is for ever saying that school is 'boring'.xx

[Lucas]

In my experience, 90% of the population seem to be in the 98th percentile.

 

What the hell is going on? The only way this is possible is if there is a small group of people who have IQs in the minus.

 

I hate statistics!

[Elouise]

I was ambling through the web trying to find some information to help my youngest son and found this forum and this thread.

Hence me joining.

 

 

I apologise if this post is a little disjointed. I have my teens back at school and the younger ones at home and not enough sleep over the past week.

 

My youngest son has a diagnosis of Aspergers Syndrome, ADHD, fine motor dyspraxia. That was always going to be a fun combination but over the past year I have watched a level of frustration build up that has become scary.

Sam has a full statement. His difficulties were so obvious they were picked up by 18 months [he has an elder VERY autistic but bright brother] I used his DLA to pay for a part time place in a private special nursery for two years until he ha da statement and he then spent a year in an autistic specific school nursery before being unleashed on a very accommodating inclusive main stream school. His behaviour was explosive and non stop and his word finding difficulties required help but with TEACHH he learnt there were things called adults and he was a thing called a child who would become an adult.

 

Bens year 2 SATS were unexpected. Thanks to the problems his ADHD brings I would have been happy with 'working towards level 1'. His English is level 2 thanks to suspect dyslexia but his maths had shot up from below level 1 to level 2a in a year and his science was awarded a 3 but his answers where far higher than expected from a 7 year old and his teacher was of the opinion that his knowledge went far in excess of the questions posed by the papers. Orally his ability to explain and comprehend as long as it steers clear of emotions feelings and pitfalls like talking animals is higher than most in his class. He struggles to record his work.

 

A year on. Sam is displaying increasingly difficult behaviour to his teacher who is struggling to keep him busy. If the aspie side is not occupied out comes all the ADHD and he goes to find a class being taught a more interesting lesson. She has been using extra hard maths sheets as a reward for staying and attempting English we are looking at having to add a 'gifted' in science to his statement.

I had considered he had aptitude for sciences and mechanics. Thanks to dealing with his elder brother 24/7 I had missed his ability to not only hold on to all the 'facts' but his very unusual problem solving ad reasoning abilities.

For now he is working on building a theoretical time machine and is chasing the concept of finding a way to ride a bubble in space to go faster than light and ways it could be achieved without the universe imploding. This seriously went over my ability to keep up. Then he switched into a debate on evolution with a detour into how steam engines could be improved to be more efficient and why his teacher and school science was idiotic and he was not going to do'babyscience' anymore in between playing Spyro the Dragon and twiddling blutac.

He wants to go to secondary school now as they have real laboratories to use.

 

Sam has use of the specialist support team for autism in mainstream available locally (old VTS) his worker is liasing with his head teacher, his educational psychologist and others and we will be scheduling an early annual review to go through his entire statement that was made when he was 3 and overhaul it to include specific support in recording ; this should allow him to have a computer .They will also be looking at compiling a SULP (social use of language group) group made up of the other ASD kids in the school as poor Sam took it into his head he was the only one of his species in the school which was why he had taken to insisting he be called Doctor and hiding in a box.

It has taken a few weeks to work out just what was wrong.

The boy is working so far ahead of his peers in science he is permanently bored silly. His ability with pure maths is not being stretched but because of the problems with English this had been missed out.

For now he is doing some science in the year above as a reward for good behaviours but hopefully next year with the amendments to his statement and his very accommodating headteacher there will be advanced science available along with the advanced English and maths for gifted and talented children. For Sam this means working on similar subjects to the rest of the class but with much higher set achievement goals and opportunity to do more advanced work with other 'gifted in science in his year children. There is another gifted child in his class (no ASD) and they tend to pair up easily for maths and science projects as they both take their work seriously and want good results.

 

I would far rather have Sam with his age peers as socially he is gauche in the extreme and have the support he needs to record and the opportunity to sail high above in subjects he is interested and good at. School is hard work for him as he his asked to study subjects he does not like or see the point of.

 

My sons stress and anxiety levels on 'pretending' to be like other kids means I get payback as soon as he comes home. He has been asking to be home educationed but I can not consider doing that until I have his older brother in his 52 week college placement.

His school has consistently done their best and pulled in extra support for him hopefully over the next few weeks they will be doing so yet again.

If I find anything out regarding support for gifted ASD kids in junior school I will let you know.

Sam loves BAYS (British Association for Young Scientists) and for others dealing with Einstein wannabes this is a good outlet for interests and abilities.

http://www.the-ba.net/the-ba/ResourcesforLearning/

 

*sighs and just when I thought I had him settled down enough to concentrate on his brothers post 16 placement, sort out how bad his younger sisters dyslexia truly is and try and persuade my eldest daughter to think a bit before she tells the teachers what she thinks.(And yes she can have a diagnosis if she wants but she does not want it and prefers to go round dressed as a Goth and tell everyone if they think that she is weird they should meet the rest of her family.*