<p>I'd appreciate any suggestions you might have to help my daughter. She has long ago been diagnosed as highly gifted (in the 99th percentile), and with a particular, significant learning disability. She has been receiving accommodations at her school but now is at an age where she is mortified about it and wishes no one knew and goes to great lengths to hide it. The kids in her school are very competitive, its a very selective school and so she is pretty much the only one with an LD. They can be very judgmental. </p>
<p>The PSAT is coming up, she qualifies for 50% more time, and she is very concerned about others noticing, commenting, challenging her as to why. Even arguing with her about it. To the point where she is thinking of abandoning the accomodation to avoid all of this. </p>
<p>I wish I could come up with a good way for her to respond. I've suggested she just say "I would rather not talk about it." Her learning disability is very extensively well documented, has been repeated demonstrated since she was 5, has a gigantic impact on her, yet it is very complex for a highschool peer to comprehend. She wishes it were something more straightforward like blindness or dyslexia, because then they would 'get it'. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for how her peers will react, because I know how cruel high schoolers can be, but here’s my experience:</p>
<p>I also went to a fairly competitive high school - I frequently heard kids bragging about their high scores on exams or the SAT. My senior year in high school, I was diagnosed with a learning disability. I get 50% more time on exams. However, I was never allowed that in high school because I got A’s and B’s (they would only help out kids who were doing poorly). In college, I received extended time on all of my exams and I took the exams in a separate location that was proctored by the disability services office. None of my friends noticed that I wasn’t in the same room as them on exam days. It wasn’t until I told them that I took the test elsewhere for extended time that they realized I wasn’t there. No one teased me about it - everyone was very understanding. If anything, I think people were a little jealous that I got more time. Personally, I have never been embarrassed about it. I like the perspective that even with my disability, I still do well in classes. I’m a smart person, it just takes me a little bit longer than most people.</p>
<p>Again, I know high schoolers can be mean, but I really hope your daughter can see that it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Once she’s in college, she’ll realize that no one cares. Many people struggle in college and no one will make fun of anyone for getting a bad grade. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I’ve only witnessed teasing for a stupid comment. As long as people see your daughter as a smart person, and I assume she is for being in a gifted program, no one will care at all about the extended time. When I was asked why I got more time (and most people sounded jealous), I would either explain why or I would jokingly say “because I’m special”. Most people wanted to figure out how they could be special too.</p>
<p>Also, I would strongly recommend taking the PSAT with accommodations. It’s very silly to miss out on a higher score because of embarrassment. I don’t remember if the PSATs count for anything, but the SATs definitely matter for many reasons. I wish I had known that I could have gotten accommodations on the SAT because I’m fairly certain that I would have gotten a higher scholarship for college. My scores were fine for getting into college, but at my university there are 3 levels of merit-based scholarships, and I’m fairly certain that if my SAT score was higher, I would have gotten the middle scholarship instead of the lowest one.</p>
<p>definitely for the sat take extra time. i took the act not sat but for the act i didn’t take it at my school cause they didn’t offer it there and i don’t even think i knew anyone in the building. also, they make it descrete. you just sign in at a different table and take it in a different room. trust me know one will notice. especially if she doesn’t go in with a friend. there are so many people there and everything no one will notice. i know the psat was administered at my school. i signed up for it last minute and didn’t have time to get accommodations. i did bad and the colleges i was applying to didn’t care whether i took act or sat and i heard act is easier to get extra time for so i just took it. i did bad on the psat though cause i only finished half or less of every section. talk to who ever coordinates extended time for the psat and see if she can do it discretely. im sure the guidence counclor would know. maybe she can tell her friends that she decided not to take it or forgot to sign up or something. then she could just report to wherever she was taking it with extra time and they’d never know. no one will really notice or question her i am guessing. as far as accommodations go. i can completely understand. i dont like telling my peers especially cause i don’t want them to think i am taking advantage of the system or something. but i have found that they are always very understanding if i just explain very simply what i have trouble with. i just say i have adhd and have to read everything 3 or more times to understand it so it takes me forever to take tests. if i didn’t have the accommodation i would probably fail but i study really hard so i don’t think that would be fair. having a good understand of what your specific problems are is the most helpful when advocating for yourself. for instance, i know i can’t pay attention at all in class, drift off when reading and have to re read it a lot and don’t process information fast. i also have trouble getting out what i want to write down so it takes me forever to write things. this is helpful when i am trying to explain it to people. people want to know specifically what you struggle with cause a term like ld is very broad and can affect people in many different ways.</p>
<p>I think if your daughter assumes that the accommodations are proper and just level the playing field and she projects this to others, that may dampen the teasing. If she has had the accommodations all through school, when people ask, she should say, “It’s just like the extra time for tests I get in class because of my learning disability. I don’t talk about it too much, but I’ve had it since I was born and get 50% extra time on every test.”</p>
<p>My son is severely dyslexic and has slow processing, speech delay and other fun stuff and always got 100% extra time, but felt a) confident that he was one of the smartest kids around; and b) that the accommodations were appropriate and justified and just leveled the playing field. He talked a lot in class and everyone knew he was super-smart. I never heard that he was teased, not even once in HS (though I could ask). Then again, by the time he took the SATs, he was 6’4" 215 lb, so although he is very gentle, he may not have been the obvious candidate for teasing.</p>
<p>If she doesn’t need extra time in school, she could always take the SATs at a completely different school (although this wouldn’t work for the PSAT unfortunately). I agree that it is a complex matter because high schoolers are very cruel (there will be undoubtedly some competitive classmates who don’t believe that her LD exists or that she is gaming the system, or who believes it but starts this rumor). My advice is to talk to her GC about this issue.</p>