@3scoutsmom thanks! I am going to take a close look at that list.
@BeeDAre my daughter is one of the twice exceptional. She was tested in third grade and we have used the testing data to help figure out what might work for her. I would encourage you to go through the testing, but note that not every strategy works for every subject. we have taken the approach to try one strategy and if it doesnt’ work move on. She also understands that some things are just going to be much harder for her and that she may need to take some courses as stand-alones over the summer or only with a lighter and easier for her course load that semester in college. (She has not had any choices in highschool as everyone takes the same classes in her school, with the exception of language choice junior and senior year.) Some of the strategies that have worked for my daughter included coloring the notes and the piano keys to help her read the language of music. Having a list of words she likes and uses in writing so she does not have to try to figure out how to spell them every time, for greek she says she has had some success using a strategy she used in third and fourth grade for math - ie, making a chart of endings and conjugations before she starts the questions on any test or quiz. She used to do that for the timed tests for math. She would make a chart and then use the chart to answer the questions. She didnt’ always have enough time to finish the test but what she did she got right.
Thank you, @EastGrad.
I’m calling her pediatrician today to see if he can give me a reference for her to be tested.
@BeeDAre I too have a twice exceptional (S14). The diagnosis was ADD and while it is true he has difficulty staying on task, I’m not sure that’s the only issue. Tests are fine but homework is quite tedious. He knows he takes an unusually long time; papers are especially difficult (thank goodness he only needs to take one more writing class to graduate). It means he has less time for socializing and sleep. He seemed to cope okay as a first year, but I sense he’s having a harder time now. Hang in there – it helps to understand what you are dealing with.
My D is taking Calculus II and Statistics at the community college for dual credit. She is doing well in both, but the difficulty is hard for me to grasp since I am NOT math inclined. My H has taught HS math and computer science for over 20 years, but D rarely goes to him for help, much to his disappointment.
In general she like Stats better, but I think it’s more teacher related. She says the Calculus teacher never talks about how it relates or is used beyond the specific technique they are learning. The stats class uses lots of real world examples, so she feels like she is learning something beyond math. The other funny bit about community college vs high school, when the stats teacher passed back the latest graded tests, he still had to call out names because he didn’t know who was who. D felt honored he knew who she was…
Regarding statistics… “There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics” is well known words about statistics popularized by Mark Twain. It is very important to understand, otherwise, it misleads people very easily.
Last few years, there were a lot of concerns in scientists community regarding abuse or misuse of statistics, especially in medicine. Many scientists worries that huge chunk of findings were simply wrong because they used wrong statistics either on purpose or by mistake. Anyway, I always encourage kids to take statistics course and its importance seems obvious later in their career.
Joining the ranks of 2E parents. D went through probably six years of pediatricians scratching their heads and telling us “you know, there’s something…” before acquiring the alphabet soup that describes her educational diagnoses. She takes about twice as long to do her schoolwork and doesn’t test terribly well, but she’s managing. I’m a bit nervous about college, truth be told, but I also know that I tend to underestimate her.
@BeeDAre, chiming in as well about gifted/LD’s. My ex is one of those people. VERY highly gifted, but dyslexic and as he only learned late in life, also Asperger’s. Dyslexia wasn’t much recognized when he was a kid, so he made up his own work-arounds. Mostly this included taking notes in his head. But I imagine he’d have had a very hard time with the tons of HW the AP classes seem to have. He is also an engineer.
@mstomper , hope your S is better soon. My son got sick ON Thanksgiving years ago-thank goodness for the stores that open on that day! Luckily I was neither cooking nor hosting and he recovered quickl.y May the same go for your S!
@BeeDAre Another 2E kid here though mine is a bit different because it’s a physical disability. When they do the testing they will also give a whole long list of recommendations of things to do to improve and accommodations for the classroom which colleges will usually allow with the proper testing. There can be some things you would never think of that would really be helpful. One example that my son has is to mark in the test document rather than bubble in the little dots. He also gets a small amount of extra time because he has the slow processing speed but for him reading is slow but math is not. Even though homework (except for math) takes him far longer than his peers he just deals with that though we’ve talked a lot about needing to take a balanced work load in college with no more than 1 class with a heavy reading load at a time.
@mstomper I’m so sorry to hear about your S. Wishing him a speedy recovery.
Congrats to all on the additional acceptances. I can hardly keep up these days!
We had a very nice day touring yesterday. The university and the honors college truly exceeded all our expectations. Even D who did not go into the tour with high hopes (because of heresay) was very impressed and said she could easily see herself as a student there. D has been put off by people saying that it is a “party school”. However, she had the opportunity to meet quite a few students and while some may have fit the mold, many did not. She said that made her realize that at a large school, there will be people like her. She had an appointment with a professor in her dept of major that was supposed to be 30 minutes. D walked out an hour and a half later! They really clicked. Professor asked her where else she was applying and it turns out D is applying to the professor’s alma mater. A good deal of their conversation was about that particular school, differences she should be aware of before choosing to study her subject in the southwest or the northeast, about employment opportunities in D’s prospective field of study, it was a very good day.
For those of you with the 2E kids, how have you approached the issue of accommodations? We had taken the philosophical tact that eventually you would have to be able to compete in the real/non school world workplace setting so better to work hard on figuring out the coping mechanisms early. We did not ever ask for accomodations from her school. As it turns out that philosphy hurt my DD when dealing with the college board. They refused to give any accomodations apparently because she had not had an IEP. I am not sure if we made the right decision, and am curious what others have experienced either with the class of 2016 kids or older/younger siblings.
We did not ask for any accomodations either based on the same logic. Everything worked out fine for DD.
@BeeDAre Yes definitely have your D tested by a neurologist because my S and my D are both “twice exceptional”. My S noticed it first in 9th or 10th grade when he was realizing that it would take him two or three times a long to read an assigned reading than the teacher said it should or it took his peers. He had been previously diagnosed with an ADHD and Aspergers but prior to 9th or 10th grade he never had any difficulties completing assignments in a reasonable amount of time. He was put on medicine to help his focus and he was able to complete his school work in more realistic timeframes. He was then fine until last spring (second semester in college) when taking Linear Algebra and Calc 2 that he began not being able to finish enough of his exams to receive a passing grade never mind a grade commensurate with his ability. He would be tutoring other students on the math and then they would receive a better grade then him. We spoke to his doctor and he gave him the documentation needed to receive extra time on his tests. This helped him receive test grades appropriate for his ability and how well prepared he was. My D also has similar issues when she hit 9th grade but hers manifests itself in somewhat different ways. Never in an area of the amount of time it takes to do her required reading but more in the lines of remembering to write down her assignments in her agenda, keeping her longer assignments going on schedule, anxiety and just a constant feeling of being overwhelmed. She is a very intense person in general and has very high standards that she internally imposes on herself. She too was helped with anxiety medication and something to assist in her ability to focus. No magic solution in either case. My D will probably need additional testing time at some point in college and because of my S’s situation I will have her needs documented for day 1 (if she doesn’t need it then she won’t use it but if she does its available. It was a bit of a time consuming drama setting it up for my S initially so I will get it done right away for my D just in case.) I know many people are against the thought of medication but for my kids it helps them to feel good about themselves. Each was very upset, frustrated and felt horrible about themselves because their tests grades were not in line with their knowledge and ability. They were feeling an extreme lack of confident and it had begun to seep into other aspects of their lives and personalities. Its a very personal (and long discussed, researched and debated over) decision and not a solution for every everyone but in my kids situation it was what helped them tremendously.
Mstomper I hope your son is feeling better very soon.
Themommymommy Fingers crossed for grad school positive notifications.
Ballerina016 that is unfortunate that your schools do not recognize high achievements!
Thank you, everyone, for sharing your own kids’ LD experiences. Wow. Had no idea this was so common.
Called her ped and left a message, hopefully they will call back this afternoon…
@Themommymommy for DS, who is now a junior in college, we did the whole IEP thing & he received extra time on regents (NY), ACT & SAT. It did not effect his college application process - out of 12 schools he applied to he got into 11 including his reach. The college he is at gave him a lovely merit award & allows him extra time of tests. For DD she needs meds for focus, but not extra time.
D has had her diagnosis since second grade and her IEP since third. It was a fight getting it because her grades were straight As, but other parts of her school experience were impacted-- the district did not want to okay an IEP for non-grade issues until the meeting wherein we began quoting IDEA 2004 and handing out copies of the brief of a US District Court case which had just been decided on the same subject. (God bless the internet.) The fact that she had wandered off at PE and no one could find her for nearly forty-five minutes probably helped, as well. (She didn’t know she was lost, either. I’m thinking a small girl meandering through the parking lot and out to the street alone should have clued someone in, but apparently not.)
All that having been said, we’ve had a plan of slowly weaning her away from whatever interventions we can over the years, and at this point she rarely uses any of them except being able to turn in late work. We’ve discussed whether or not she will register with the disability office. She doesn’t want to, and I very much want her to, even if she never uses them, just as a contingency. Likewise, she refuses to (in slightly pejorative terms) “use the disability card” in essays or applications, but the guidance counselor addresses it in her letter. She didn’t want to appear to be asking for special consideration-- but there are a few things, like her relative lack of ECs, that make more sense if they’re put into context. So we’re acknowledging the disability, but trying not to make a huge deal of it, if that makes sense. Ultimately, because it’s often hard to know from the outside where disability begins and personality traits end, she’s going to have to compete on an un-level playing field-- so the plan is for her to get as good at doing so as she can before she has to be a functional adult. We’ll see how that works out.
At least she doesn’t tend to wander off alone these days!
(Disclaimer: our plan, for one kid. Other families make different plans for different kids. Not making judgments.)
@BeeDAre and @Themommymommy the idea that a person should avoid accommodations because they should be ready for the real world would only be true if school were like the real world. It is not. In the real world, people choose jobs and careers that play to their strengths. They typically don’t have tests at work. They typically don’t have to regurgitate information from text books.
Accommodations are specifically meant to even the playing field. It is unfair to expect a person with a disability to perform exactly the same as someone who does not have challenges. We allow people with physical disabilities to park closer to the store because walking is difficult or painful. Why shouldn’t a person who has difficulty with processing speed, or executive function be allowed to show they know the material. My son has dysgraphia. If he is forced to write by hand, he won’t be able to show what he knows. If he is given a tablet or keyboard, he can do everything his peers can do! So why not allow him an accommodation?
Twice exceptional people (or 2e) are very common. Many kids can get away without help in the earlier years, but as the work gets harder, and more is expected, the disabilities start to show. Even top schools like Stanford recognize this. Just take a look at their disabilities webpage.
It is important to get all your ducks in a row ASAP, however so your daughter can start out with the help she needs. She will also need to learn how to ask for accommodations because they will want to have her do this herself. I would start researching the various disability centers at each school your daughter is applying to. Schools have a variety of supports from simple accommodations, to full programs. Not all programs are created equal and when she makes her final choice, she will need to take this into account.
As you probably can tell, I have been dealing with two special needs kids of my own.
My 2E child has some accommodations, but he refuses to use them. He says that he doesn’t need extra time on tests or go to the testing center. The one accommodation that is invaluable for him is preferential seating. Our last name is toward the end of the alphabet, so guess where my older son sat in his middle school class? In the BACK row. I knew this would be a huge problem for DS2. So with his accommodations, the teacher knows to seat him with care.
A good friend’s son who has ADHD but no 504 Plan or accommodations has a last name starting with “W”. He tells his mom he can’t pay attention from the very back of the room. It is sad that accommodations are needed for this but that is the world of public schools.
Another friend raves to me about how wonderfully accommodating Colorado State has been for her son. He is a successful engineering major who takes tests in the testing center where he can concentrate better. This seems so minor but to many students, it makes all the difference.
This is all very interesting; very timely.
I approached my daughter, a junior in high school, last week and asked if she stays up so late because she is a slow reader, and she said yes, she is a very slow reader. It was new for her to concede this, though I have had concerns about her perfectionism, her need to check her work over three times (3x!), even on standardized tests, and her habit of rephrasing a very straightforward question before she answers it. (It was a flip between processing or tendencies toward being contrary as far as I could see.)
She just started wearing glasses this school year, and that has helped with some things in the classroom, but for the excessive checks and rechecks of her work I have asked her to choose one subject that she tells herself is “her thing,” and for which she will give herself permission to recheck only a quarter of the work, and then only one recheck. This, I told her, would allow her time to move on to the other content areas and perhaps salvage over an hour of her night. I asked her to believe that this is something she could do, and after assessing whether there is a change for her, we could try some other things.
She chose math, and promised that she would implement the strategy for about two weeks. We are less than a week into the approach, and will be interrupted by the holiday break, but she received a winning comment from her pre-calc teacher today, who told her he had put a question on a test to see who could stretch, and she was the only student to answer it correctly. He told her she had been working on an AP Calc BC level by answering that question, and I saw how much that affirmed for her that she’s “got this.”
After all of the talk in this part of the thread about testing and assessments, I will look further into some other approaches. I think there may be some OCD tendencies in the perfectionism, mixed in with some now-that-I-have-my-own Pinterest-account type issues at play. But there may be things beyond what I am gleaning.
“I think @PAO2008 meant that s/he has attended twenty back-to-school nights, @waitingtoexhale. An impressive number, indeed. I’d like to know if those are consecutive, cumulative, and/or whether they include your own, PAO.”
Yes, that was the nature of my inquiry.