What's with being really smart and having learning disabilities too?

Parents Forum Learning Differences and Challenges - LD, ADHD
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<p>AnonyMom, thanks for the suggestions. Getting an application in for extended time for math on the ACT and SAT is a great idea. Right now, D doesn't want to either retake the ACT or even take the SAT (she says since that's 1/3 math, she won't do well and wants to avoid it), but she could change her mind later and if she does, the extra time will help. </p>

<p>She knows that ACT/SAT accommodations aren't indicated to colleges, but right now she just wants to be done with math, and unfortunately, she won't have any math junior or senior year. The psychologist said that she really needs a good teacher to succeed, and at her school most of the math teachers aren't very good, and some are barely competent. The only thing that saved her last year was that I got lucky in finding a terrific college student to tutor her. She won't even take SAT prep with pass/fail option (an elective at her HS) because she wants to be done with math.</p>

<p>The psychologist was very helpful at our feedback session. She told us about a client she had with a profile similar to D's who almost didn't finish HS because of math, went to the local CC and flunked math, got evaluated and diagnosed only then, and now is an honor student at an elite college. That, along with seeing that she has significant strengths, gave D hope. I just wish I had known earlier. D was in a gifted program where all were expected to take Algebra in 7th grade. She should never have been accelerated in math.</p>

<p>This is all so new to me. I didn't know that ACT/ SAT look at the testing psychologist's report rather than any accommodations from the school. She recommended extended time for math, and I'm sure she would request that for D. Unfortunately, D really disliked getting pulled out to take her math test in another room, so much that she decided to take the final exam with the class (she finished the exam, but admitted she was the only one who needed the entire time).</p>

<p>D is still adjusting to the diagnosis. The psychologist suggested she come in, without me, to talk about it, and I'm trying to convince her to go. Hopefully she will go. She did like how the psychologist said no more math unless D chose to take it (more because of the stress level than anything else) and thought that D should focus on her strengths in languages (she will have no math but three foreign languages junior and senior year).</p>

<p>I know D won't want to disclose the NVLD on college apps. She doesn't realize that disclosing it will increase her chances of getting accepted - I think it could make a huge difference, because no math junior and senior year will look awful unless she discloses the NVLD and math anxiety. </p>

<p>Going to college LD support websites is a great idea. Maybe she just needs more time to come to terms with it, and see that knowing this and having the diagnosis will work to her advantage. I just wish she knew other gifted/LD kids and that her school was better prepared to help.</p>

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<p>As the saying goes "fine line between genius and insanity" not saying your son is insane but most genius are lacking in some area. Albert Einstein lack in language and couldn't even do his own taxes but yet never the less was still a genius. As long as he excel at in at least one area their would be good schoosl that want him</p>

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<p>My friend was born with a slight LD but was forced to take a "special" class through middle school, maybe even a year in high school. He's since broken away from that group and is in all the mainstream classes, and this year, his senior year, he's even enrolled in an AP class. He's always had some trouble that most people don't worry about, like a slight speech impediment, grammar trouble, or problems with math but he also has the most random mental abilities. For example, one day he sat down and read a page that listed all the national flags, and now he can remember almost any flag in the olympics... He also loves writing.</p>

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<p>I know a kid from my high school with aspergers who wound up going to UPenn.</p>

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<p>I believe is a overdevelopment of the brain.And some parts of your brain cant "catch up" with others.</p>

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<p>Be very, very concerned about academic accommodations in college. My D was diagnosed at age 10 with a physical disability later reclassified to a learning disability. Her college has denied academic accommodations as their "experts" claim she is not disabled.</p>

<p>Student received academic accommodations grades 5-12 plus extended time on the ISEE, SAT and ACT.</p>

<p>Complaint to Office of Civil Rights resulted in response that said university's experts say student is not disabled therefore there is no basis for a complaint as the university followed the law. It is not the role of the OCR to decide if a student is disabled or not. University hired experts who claim student is not disabled and therefore no law has been violated.</p>

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<p>Being very able in one area, but not in others is actually quite common. My ds 7th grade CTY engineering program was full of kids who couldn't spell cat or multiply 7x8. </p>

<p>Drop "Accommodation" from your vocabulary. Prep schools, college and job don't accommodate. Instead, find resources that will focus on work rounds and coping mechanisms. Propping up kids doesn't help in the long run. Give them the tools to do it themselves</p>

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<p>I have autism, and I'm very different since I recognize the world as mainly sounds. I can hear a song played once, and I can memorize every part of the song; lyrics and all. I can tell what type of car is behind me based on the hum of it's engine. I know people by their voice, not by their face. When a chorus is singing, I can seperate all the voices and concentrate on a single voice that I really like. I'm also really good with building, physics, math, and finding patterns. However, I'm really bad at socializing, art, and writing.</p>

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<p>I am very sad to hear about singersmom's experiences wth the Department of Education's OCR. We got very different info from them. I, too, was concerned that if the university had some sort of evaluation process that sounded reasonable from the outside, that there would be nothing we could do about it. The OCR attorney, however, told us that if the outcome of the university's process is clearly ridiculous (Ridiculous is my word; they had a more legalese term.)then that cast doubt on the process itself and the OCR could conceivably respond to the complaint and become involved. In other words, if the testing results clearly show an LD kid and the ETS and every school the kid has ever attended have agreed that this is an LD kid and accommodated accordingly, the college can't just have its own "expert" claim that this isn't an LD kid, flying in the face of objective evidence to the contrary, and therefore not be required to accommodate. The same way the university couldn't have an "expert" claim a deaf kid wasn't deaf and leave the family with no legal route to gain accommodation for the kid.</p>

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<p>Hi BIGAPPLEDADDY</p>

<p>Last night I posted my first question on the parents forum. You should take a look. My question was exactly identical to yours. 9th grader who is smart but bad in math. It's funny that you always think that your alone out there and then find out it's not true.</p>

<p>My 9th grade s is also very smart...... 680CR in 7th grade but he is doing terrible in algebra 1 this year.....mostly C's and D's. He got a D for his semester grade. He feels like he understands the material but bombs the tests. He also feels ashamed and stupid because he attends a top private college prep school and almost all of his classmates are either in Geometry or Alg.2.</p>

<p>I worry about his self -esteem and after posting on this site I am going to go ahead and get him tested. I know there is going to be a huge discrepancy between his Verbal and NV scores. </p>

<p>I also really worry about college acceptances and his lopsided SAT scores. I'm glad I found this site because I had no idea that they could get all that help. I just hope it's not too late.</p>

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<p>Califa-- My son also is in the top 1% IQ. I too thought his weakness in math was just something that didn't come as easy to him or he was just being lazy and he would overcome it with time. Boy was I wrong. He is in 9th grade and almost failing alg.1 and feels horrible about it. He does great in his other classes... except maybe latin, that also entails atten. to details. I feel so bad now because I'm almost sure he has NVLD.</p>

<p>Thanks so much to everybody who has replied on this post. You have been extremely helpful and for the first time feel like there might be hope for my son. I hope he is receptive to it.</p>

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<p>I've been lurking on this site for a long time, but, your post finally inspired me to join. I have been where you are with both of my sons. Both are very bright (one literally off the charts that they had for intelligence tests at out public school) and have LD. I just want to let you know that it can work out great. I even think it can teach the kids a lot of great lessons about perseverance and compassion. But, now you are probably worried. My oldest son just got accepted ED to Oberlin, so I feel great about how it worked out for him. My youngest is on track to do well in high school, after a rocky start freshman year. As someone who has been there (and still is) here is my advice:
1. Fight. Fight. Fight. Don't put up with the schools not giving the accomodations they are required to give and that your child needs.
2. Be prepared to get professional help. Even with both my husband and I being attorneys we had to hire a respresentative for the meetings with the school, until they starting complying. It was like night and day with the representative. Without one the principal ignored the law, even when I sited it to her. When we brought in the representative they suddenly gave us even more accomodations then we had requested.
3. Be prepared to change schools if the staff just doesn't get it. My oldest son had to go to a private school for bright LD kids. It was a life saver (though a financial hardship).
4. Teach your kids to self-advocate. They will need to know how to do this in the future and it will help them get more of what they want now. My second son now handles all of the issues with the guidance office and his teachers on his own. It is a terrific life skill.
5. Remember we all have different types of disabilities. Your child is fortunate enough to learn early what theirs is, so they can learn how to work with it.
6. Reach out to other parents in the same situation.
7. Hang in there it really can all work out. I remember when my son was first diagnosed, in third grade, I didn't understand LD and was worried about his future. Now I understand that it will not limit his ability to do what he wants to do. Also, what is a disability in middle school/high school can be advantageous later. I read my son's evaluation to a friend who is a psych professor at a major research university and she said "That sounds like most of the professors here." Your child will find their niche, where their unusual way of interacting with the world is an advantage. And it will be all the sweeter for you because of all you have gone through.
Sorry I went on for so long.</p>

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<p>Hey BigAppleDad --</p>

<p>Please update on how it's working out for your son in his new school. Hoping for the best!</p>

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<p>Its been several months since I started this thread and I would love to report that things are rapidly improving in my son's new school, that he is overcoming his math difficulties with the extra help, online learning programs that have been found for him, his educational psychologist, and a tremendously supportive school staff. </p>

<p>Alas
Things have gone from bad to worse and I have come to the conclusion that the problem is not learning disabilities or the school he attends, but the kid himself. He has rejected all help from school and parents and is in full-fledged absolute teen rebellion, which has resulted in fistfights with myself, minor police incidents, getting high, staying out late with questionable friends and, needless to say, failing virtually every course at school--not just math. The temper tantrums of a two year old in a high school kid are a terrible thing to behold and we have the broken furniture and holes in the walls to prove it. S was so out of control one evening we had to call the police and have him taken to the psych patient emergency room at a local hospital. And all this has been happening as my own dad was dying ( we buried him last month) and I was often on the road between my home and my parents'. </p>

<p>We've started family counseling and not a moment too soon. To be bluntly honest I have grown to hate my own son and what's worse, feel guilty about feeling that way. The only reason I have not put him out of the house entirely is that a) he has absolutely no skills to survive on how own and b) the wife would hate me forever. </p>

<p>Supposedly this is, our therapist says, the far end of adolescent rage; manageable and curable, though not without much effort from all parties concerned. So I am ready to get down to some hard work with a kid who says that nothing he does will ever be good enough to satisfy me, who may be suffering from clinical depression, who says that he is failing his courses because he doesn't give a f*** about any of them, who regularly curses out me and his mother in the vilest possible language, and who seems to be angry at almost everything, all the time. </p>

<p>It is the time for the teenager to separate and I know this intellectually. Emotionally it is a whole other thing. That he will mature and snap out of this phase, as most kids eventually do will not happen, I am almost sure, as a natural matter of course. The basic brain power is there, but the emotional maturity is not. Though his academic problems clearly play a part, his psychological health (and my family’s) are now the paramount issues for all of us, as this is tearing up our family.</p>

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<p>I'm so sorry. This sounds like a painful time for everyone concerned. I wish you the best.</p>

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<p>Dear BigAppleDad,</p>

<p>I am so sorry about the loss of you father and about what you're going through with S. I'm glad that you're getting some therapeutic support; your stress level must be over the moon right about now. Again, so sorry your family is going through this. Good luck getting to the other side, and being able to look back when things are stablized and the whole situation is history.</p>

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<p>Dear BigAppleDaddy,</p>

<p>I wonder if your son's rage could be the result of relentless frustration he may feel. This can happen when a child is highly intelligent but at the same time constantly struggles because of a disability in executive functioning (problems staying on task, unable to complete tasks), or he struggles because of a wide discrepancy between his high intelligence and low functioning in a particular subject. Try reading "The Explosive Child" by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. - a book that saved our family. After reading the book, I understood how my son felt. (I never knew before how his relentless frustration was affecting him. He was in a state of frustration 100% of the time, so even little things would set him off.) The book taught me how to change the way I reacted to his tantrum episodes, and to become his coach to teach him why it was happening and work with him to re-train his reactions, calm himself down, and to instead think about options for solving the problem/conflict. After 2-3 weeks working this way (all day long, as a new way of life), we could see dramatic improvement. Sticking with this as a new lifestyle has eliminated his rage. He has now developed the habit of calming down when frustrated, and instead of raging he starts thinking about the various ideas he has to solve his problem. I felt like a guardian angel or coach during this process, but it saved our relationship. I also remember telling him many times, "I will never give up on you", which really strengthened his trust in me helping him through this. Now, instead of fighting all day long, we are very, very close.</p>

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<p>Dear BigAppleDaddy,</p>

<p>Also, ask your therapist (hopefully a psychiatrist) about oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD), which could be contributing to your son’s problems. ODD and techniques for training your child to react differently are also discussed in the book “The Explosive Child”.</p>

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<p>Hi Anony mom do you know know what kind of tests they gave your son? i’m a student with LDs and i need a reeval. and by the way could you by any chance have advice for someone who has a learning disability that’s transitiong to college.</p>

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<p>Hi Anony mom do you know know what kind of tests they gave your son? i’m a student with LDs and i need a reeval. and by the way could you by any chance have advice for someone who has a learning disability that’s transitiong to college.</p>