<p>@mathyone My daughter does not have “slow processing.”</p>
<p>She has an output issue, and only when utilizing completely outdated technology: the pen and paper. </p>
<p>She had reading issues which were resolved by the time she entered college. She also has an IQ of 165 measured. Re measured. Measured yet ag. ain. You have to be tested on this stuff every two to three years for it to be valid.</p>
<p>By the end of college, she didn’t need any accomodations. The brain tends to create new nueral pathways in the early twenties. Einstein, Patton, etc… had this experience and it is usual. But… It’s not until the late college years that this happens.</p>
<p>There are many tests administered to get the hang of the difference between the child’s IQ and how the child performs on work based on the archaic way it is still administered in schools. </p>
<p>As for the work environment, most dyslexics and dysgraphics do just find in the work environment. In a classroom setting my daughter would have to write two extra pages for a paper in a class than she actually needed to write to demonstrate mastery of the subject. When she got into the work world, she was praised and promoted for her pithy and concise writing. A lot of the stuff kids are asked to do a “certain way” in school situations has nothing to do with the way we want it done in the real world.</p>
<p>Possibly. But plenty of lawyers who do not have diagnosed disabilities get “counseled out” for not meeting expectations as well. Plus, what about a student who got accommodations for an LD that gave them extra time, but they really only needed it on math? And they go on to a strong career with a law firm? </p>
<p>@mathyone at least the way I think of it, a disability is present when one skill is very different from what would be expected based on a student’s learning potential. So a student with high IQ (or whatever measure is being used) but slow processing would be disabled, because there is a mismatch in abilities, whereas a student with an average IQ and slow processing might not be because their processing speed is more in line with what is expected with their IQ. These two students could have the same processing speed, but one is (for lack of a better term) “smarter” than the other, and that’s where the disability comes in</p>
<p>@poet girl, great, I’m all in favor of letting her type her SAT essay, provided <em>everyone</em> is offered the option to type their SAT essay as well. Everyone should be allowed to put their best foot forward, no? </p>
<p>there are plenty of stellar attorneys with an LD. there are people in every field with an LD. And, frankly, many of the people you consider “experts” or innovators have an LD. You just don’t know. </p>
<p>The LD only becomes a concern in the workplace if it has a serious impact on a particular type of work/career path or word leaks out due to prejudicial stigmatization. </p>
<p>The latter is one reason why a friend who is a labor lawyer has advised clients and friends like myself to avoid volunteering any health conditions/disabilities not mandated under law to potential employers until after the job offer is extended and accepted as that way, it’s easier to prove any discrimination on that basis under the ADA.</p>
<p>I’m legally blind (not black-blind), and I got extra time on my SAT and ACT.</p>
<p>At first I felt guilty. because I’m a good test taker. I didn’t necessarily need it. The only sections I used all the time on were math and science, because it takes me a long time to differentiate numbers. With my large print and 50% extended time, I got a 35 composite. </p>
<p>However, I truly believe that extended time levels the playing field. Maybe I got a better test score than I otherwise would have; I also was manhandling a test booklet larger than the desk on which it sat. In school, although I legally should have had accommodations, teachers didn’t have time to make things large print. I never got extended time. </p>
<p>One of my best friends is severely ADHD. She is high achieving, her meds help a ton, and her family has decided not to disclose her disability to the school. She studied more than anyone I know for the ACT. We’re of similar intelligence. She just can’t sit still. </p>
<p>She did not receive the extended time, and her score was a 28 on her third test, after hundreds of hours of work. Why should I have the opportunity of getting into a more prestigious school than her because my disability is more evident?</p>
<p>I understand the bitterness, but one more person getting into your dream school from which you were rejected will not change your potential for admission. If the playing field can be leveled, level it, and instead of being upset about others’ unlikely success, focus on your own.</p>
<p>@mathyone 1. I’ve said repeatedly on here that I’m fine with everyone being offered the same accomodations as my daughter was on her standardized tests. 2. You should have your kid tested by a psych professional and get an assessment of her IQ and learning disability since she seems to be having trouble finishing her work.</p>
<p>Also, I really don’t care if “you” have a problem with the way things are done or not. The number of ways things are done in the educational system which I was not fine with when it came to my daughter’s dyslexia (including the UChicago written math) are numerous to say the least. Nobody cared about that either.</p>
<p>Actually my kids are better than most kids at finishing their work, and yet even they have had difficulties. My point is that it often happens that kids don’t have enough time to do their best work and that parents who say that more time would not benefit non-LD kids are just wrong.</p>
<p>“These two students could have the same processing speed, but one is (for lack of a better term) “smarter” than the other, and that’s where the disability comes in.” I guess I just don’t understand this because I consider things like processing to be part of intelligence. Different people just have different strengths and weaknesses and some are more even and some are more lopsided. </p>
<p>The SAT is specifically trying to test processing speed and reading speed. That is part of this particular test. I don’t feel it’s right for some students to say, that’s my particular weakness so I don’t need to be evaluated on that. Whether or not you personally think it’s a valid or worthwhile thing to be testing, that is in fact what the test is testing and that is a test the colleges care about.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from Xiggi’s legendary thread on SAT prep: “Getting a good score does not require a deep knowledge of math nor a very large vocabulary. For example, you can solve most -if not all- of the problems without ever using a calculator. So, what does it take? What is needed is the ability to recognize the questions and patterns without much effort, and especially without wasting time. In other words, the key is to know how to solve the problems FAST.”</p>
<p>You don’t really get to make these decisions, oddly. My daughter disclosed her dyslexia in her essay even though she was told not to by her guidance counselor. She was admitted to an HYP along with other top 25s. </p>
<p>You just cannot believe that my normal kid could have problems finishing work? You think it’s an undiagnosed LD? The fact is that one of my kids is a very fast worker. The other is the slow perfectionist type. Neither one has an LD although the slow one says she reads slowly. Both have had problems finishing work at times, because what I am saying is actually true. Normal kids often would benefit from more time.</p>
<p>No. I can totally believe your kid needs extra time. I can also believe your kid doesn’t have dyslexia. I just don’t know why you resent a high iq dyslexic, who spends so much extra time learning how to do these archaic things, getting one tiny little break in their long school career. </p>
<p>Your persistent resentment is odd to me and the fact that you think you, who are not a professional in this field, would know more about what the “colleges care about” than they know is also odd to me. </p>
<p>One interesting thing I keep finding out in my STEM-oriented public magnet HS alum get togethers is how many classmates and older alums had undiagnosed LDs of the types like dyslexia, ADD/ADHD, etc and yet, still succeeded in gaining admission to our HS, academically while in HS, college…including HYPSMCC, and recounted horror stories of how many old school teachers gave a hard time about reasonable accommodations and being told how “stupid” and “dumb” they were.* </p>
<p>One account was from someone a few years ahead of me who had one jerky teacher who had to literally be ordered by the NYC Board of Ed to give him extended test time he was entitled to under the NY state/City education regulations in the late '80s. It’s an account I can believe as I had many encounters with this teacher myself. </p>
<p>However, some LD were accommodated better than others. For instance, those with executive function disorder issues wouldn’t have fared well at my HS considering how most teachers/admins back when I attended were serious stickers for meeting deadlines or else the work will be severely penalized/counted as a 0.</p>
<p>Heck, I even had one teacher for an early morning who would literally lock the door at the bell and any student who came in even a few seconds late after the bell signaling the beginning of her class. If you came in after that bell, she won’t let you in and would mark you absent for that period which will then need to be explained to the dean when they find a discrepancy between an absence in an early morning class and the rest of the school day. Any late work was given the same treatment. </p>
<ul>
<li>I was a recipient of those same comments at a greater frequency due to my subterranean HS GPA…especially early in my HS career. Unlike many friends who took it hard…including one who almost dropped out who now is a tenure tracked Prof at a top 20 U, I laughed them off and sometimes turned the insult back onto those teachers. Ended up getting to know the dean very well in my first term of HS as a consequence.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>poetgrl, I don’t care to enter into a cat fight with you. I don’t resent anyone. I believe every child should get the best education they are capable of. The only point where I believe we differ is that I believe the SAT and some tests are designed specifically to test not just what students know but also how fast they can answer the questions. I am not necessarily supporting this type of test design. But it clearly is part of the design of the SAT and of some other tests, including many that I took in college. On such tests, I feel that if speed is being tested, then speed should be tested and some students should not be exempt because they are slow. If speed is not being tested then all students should have the same right to extra time. Why some and not others? That’s all I am saying. </p>
<p>As far as knowing what colleges care about, many of them do require SAT scores to be submitted so I presume they want that info. I don’t need any more snide personal insults from you and I won’t respond to you further.</p>
<p>My son, with an IQ measured at 138 by the school system and 142 by a Mass General neuropsychologist two years later flunked every spelling test the year his class learned cursive. The teacher insisted that all students do the tests in cursive, and despite knowing how to spell every word, he simply couldn’t do it. His m’s looked like n’s, his o’s looked like e’s, and he couldn’t see from looking at the cursive words whether he’d spelled them correctly. He practiced for hours on end, even worked with a handwriting tutor, but nope, he could rattle off the spellings in a snap but would get 40’s and 50’s on quizzes.</p>
<p>As a second grader he also couldn’t tie his shoes, tell his left from right about half the time, draw a diamond or give you directions for the 3 block walk from his home to his school. That was the year he was diagnosed with a learning disability.</p>
<p>He would have qualified for testing accommodation but never used them because he didn’t take the SAT at all. His PSAT scores were so abysmal that it was clear he would never score in a range commensurate with what he could do in the classroom, so he put together a list of test optional schools and was admitted to his first choice.</p>
<p>Right now our biggest challenge is encouraging him to stay in school, not because he isn’t doing well but because he already has a employable skill and has gotten job offers that would earn him more than what most college grads earn. Our compromise is to let him teach a free course at his college. He’s limited it to 12 but has a waiting list as of now. Kids with LDs tend to choose professions in which they will excel, not fields in which they’d be heavily impacted by their LD.</p>
<p>@mathyone you don’t have to reply to me. But you really might consider reading the admissions blog I posted from MIT. They discuss the fact that dyslexia is sometimes missed until college when a kid who thinks they are “Slow” reader turns out to need some extra time due to having no DX. Really smart LD kids do fly under the radar a lot of the time if the dyslexia isn’t egregious.</p>
<p>As a high IQ(136) student with very minor ADD, I had a hard time finishing the ACT in the normal time limit. I felt like the questions were stupidly easy but I ended up having to give a best guess on the last 5-10 questions of each section. I only got a 32 while the practice tests I took with a less strict time limit were almost error-free. I think the solution to the problem in question is to have two different tests. One would be the ACT or SAT, a test with easy questions but a short time limit. The other would be a new test with much harder questions and no time limit. Students would have the opportunity to choose a test based on their strengths. This could potentially eliminate the extra time issue. </p>
<p>“Really smart LD kids do fly under the radar a lot of the time if the dyslexia isn’t egregious.” </p>
<p>Amen to that. My son doesn’t have dyslexia, but a processing disorder which led him to underperform all throughout middle and high school despite an IQ in the profoundly-gifted range. Simply, his other skills and unusual abilities masked his LD until college, when he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. The breakdown was caused by depression and near constant anxiety linked to just how much stress even easy classes caused him. Subsequent testing showed this kid with an IQ in the 99.9-percentile range had a processing speed in the 10th percentile. The doctor couldn’t believe he went through a (demanding) science and technology school before having his meltdown. </p>