Can you please explain when he uses Google maps? Does he use it in the car while driving, or does he use it in his room the night before?
What are his interests?
Only when he is in his car.
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What are your son’s interests?
Thank you for the clarification. This isn’t unusual. Related question…would he be able to find his way to school without using the navigation system?
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What does your son like to eat, and does he eat with the family? What does he eat at school, and who does he eat with?
Does he participate in activities?
Why does he need to use Google maps every day to get to school? Do you live far away and there are a lot of different road closures due to construction?
How many different routes are there that would require Google maps every day?
What makes him happy is solving problems and talking about math concepts. He wants to study Applied Math or Statistics, he’s not sure yet. I think that his GPA is a problem, because to get into a good grad school he would need a high GPA in undergrad.
And what does he want to DO with a degree in this area…as a job. Has he given any thought to that?
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Yes, he would. I haven’t ever noticed that he has any trouble with directions.
I’ve discussed it with him. He’s said that he either wants to follow me and my husband into the financial industry, or he wants to get a graduate degree and do some kind of data analytics job.
The good news is that he can study this at a variety of schools – he’ll have lots of options.
Quantitative skills are always in demand in the workplace and there’s a big variety of careers he could explore with just a bachelor’s in one of these fields.
If he’s good at solving problems, and doesn’t do much outside the house, I’d be looking for ways to exercise his soft skills. I think having a job, any job, would be the best way to do this. Has he ever been employed? It would provide some great benefits to him and give him valuable experience.
More good news is that, should he decide this is what he wants, math PhDs are typically fully funded in the US.
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Well you asked for advice and here it is:
As I stated above, I would go back to the neuropsychologist and let them know that you would like more information, and I would ask a lot of questions.
I might also seek out a psychiatric evaluation and/or a developmental pediatrician…depending.
I would get some information as to how he is studying and how much time is actually spent online.
Why does your son need to use Google maps every day? Can he remember the routes? How far is the school?
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Somewhere upthread you mentioned that he had excelled in gifted classes. When did that change? Do you have any sense of why?
I am also struck by his reason for not participating in class- that he “didn’t have anything to contribute” (I am paraphrasing). For a student as obviously bright as yours, that raises a red flag for me. Sometimes people have so much information at their disposal, they don’t know to organize the most important part first. Has he had term papers to write? Has he struggled to organize them? This is what an executive coach can help with. What did the neuropsych eval say about executive function? I used to explain to patients and families that the executive function skills help you to plan your work and work your plan. If this is a problem, it contributes to difficulty with output of information from their knowledge base. It’s like dipping into a big morass of information and having to outline the information.
I know people here are wanting to be helpful, but from what you have described and what the evaluation showed, he does not sound like he has any difficulty with processing speed. While it also sounds like input of information is fine, have you seen any difference whether the input is auditory or visual?
For classes where the grades aren’t affected by participation, what is pulling it down? Failure to turn in HW or papers? Test scores? Failure to finish tests? Essay or multiple choice or fill in the blank?
Happy to try to problem solve this with you.
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Why does everyone care so much about his GPS use and navigational abilities??!! I use a navigation system to drive pretty much everywhere — including routes I know well. There may be traffic or obstacles that I want to know about.
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Could it just be that he’s not interested in school or in classes too rigorous?
Maybe he’s a 3.13 student?
Maybe the test was an aberration?
I think since OP had the student tested, they’ve got to trust the expert they paid.
But maybe there’s nothing wrong here - except expectations or rigor are wrong?
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Thank you. I was going to say the same thing, it’s a bit strange that people are questioning this.
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He may change his mind a hundred times between now and when he has to declare his major in college.
I am inclined to agree with some others here, especially given that he has had extensive testing. Maybe there’s a problem, but maybe he just needs to find his own way of doing things.
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There is nothing wrong with using these devices. We use them all the time.
That being said…using Google maps every day for an hour to go to and from school…could be symptomatic of another issue…depending.
The OP has not answered the questions- does he have trouble remembering routes? How far is the school? Are there frequent road closures and detours?
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His high school doesn’t have ‘gifted’ classes, per se. They have regular, honors, and AP. He took 2 AP’s in freshman year but struggled a lot in them. He’s taken a few honors classes in subjects that he’s been interested in.
He’s had term papers to write, but I don’t exactly think he’s struggled to organize them. He struggles to get above the minimum number of words, and has always said that “he doesn’t have any ideas.” The neuropsych eval said that based on his score on the WCST-64 test, the Clock Drawing Test, and the Digit Span test, that his executive functioning is strong.
He’s said that he prefers to learn through textbooks, and that when he hears his teachers talking, he finds it a bit more difficult to follow. However, he used Khan Academy to learn when he was younger, and he found it very helpful.
He loses points all across the board. He will finish tests but his answers will be completely wrong - not so much that he’ll make dumb mistakes, but his understanding of the concepts that he’s applying is fundamentally wrong. I am unsure whether he does better on multiple choice questions than essay questions.
Well…the SAT is a multiple choice test, and he did very well!
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He’s interested in school, or at least that’s been my perception of him. He reads ahead in his textbooks and will talk with me and my husband about what he’s been learning in school.
I don’t think he’s a 3.13 student. I understand that IQ is a flawed measure of academic success, but his IQ is at the 99.97th percentile. I don’t think his SAT was abnormal either, he scored 1510 on the PSAT with no studying, and then scored 1600 on two practice tests before taking the actual test.
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