Hello, all. I’m very new to this. My questions pertain to my oldest child. She is 17 1/2 and in the 2nd semester of senior year. I will try to summarize quickly…. She was moved from K to 1st after 6 weeks. While she didn’t struggle accademically, she had a great deal of difficulty socially, controlling herself in class, and with poor handwriting. She never quite felt that she “fit in” with peers. We were told (4th grade in IL) that while she qualified for their G/T program, they “have no place for gifted [b]underachievers[/b] in this program”. She was our 1st child, and we had no experience to know that we did not have to allow this. At the end of 5th grade, we were transferred to another state, and took that opportunity to register her for her “original” grade level at the new school. That seemed to help somewhat. And she was tested and qualified for the Gifted program at this school ~ notably with a Torrence of 99. All seemed fine 5th - 7th, but by 8th grade she was not doing homework, talking/disrupting during classes, etc. This continued into high school. She was still placed in all Honors classes, and while we knew she was capable, her performance didn’t show it. She had a GREAT deal of difficulty controlling her behavior in classes, and we heard this regularly from certain teachers. Yet no one ever referred this to an evaluation team at school. I don’t know if they didn’t think she was smart enough to be in the Honors classes to begin with, or if they just thought she was a smarty pants underachiever. We were also having a lot of trouble with her attitude at home. I didn’t feel that it should just be chalked up to typical teen hormones ~ something did not seem right. We took her to a psychologist for evaluation. The Dr. [after teacher rating scales (all {but math} indicating that daughter was unable to control herself in class, didn’t to work, etc), parent rating scales, etc] said that she did not feel that a full evaluation was indicated ~ but therapy might be helpful. We did not continue with this more than a couple of months. Daughter went from a Gifted B student to being in “regular” classes with a C average.
In December, daughter came to me in tears. She had been trying to read an assignment and had re-read the page “20 times” and did not even know what she was reading…. and was worried because she had been visiting friends on college campuses and KNEW that she would never be able to study for the 6 hours that she needed to! So we made another request for a referral from our pediatrician. This time we went to a different Psychologist who [b]did[/b] feel that a full evaluation was indicated.
Basically, the results were:
MENTAL ABILITY TESTS ~ WAIS-III Full Scale IQ 123, Verbal IQ 125. Subtest scores all 11 - 18
EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT TESTS ~ W-J III majority of broad results were Average (4 Above Avg, 6 Avg), while subtests were mostly average - low average, with 3 Above Avg.
Summary was that, while her educational proficiency is generally average and at grade level, it is substancially below what would be expected for someone with her verbal mental ability. He feels that her work habit problems are characteristic of ADD rather than any other learning, behav, emot problems.
She has been on Daytrana (10 mg) for 5 days now, and we have both already seen a difference in behavior, attitude and ability to stay with a task (be it homework, putting away clothes, filling out college apps, etc) until it is finished. And I have done a lot of research online, and I am working on showing daughter that this “dual exceptionality” can be a positive if she can learn some compensation strategies for weaknesses and work on her strengths.
My questions are this ~ she is now into her final 4 months of high school. I am concerned that IF I go the the school, they will drag their feet and NOTHING will come from sharing our private evaluation results. Not only does daughter want NO classroom accomodations at this point (heaven forbid we look “odd”), but I don’t think accomodations would be beneficial. BUT, should we look into 504 for college purposes? Will the school ONLY make this determination from their OWN testing results ~ or do schools ever accept private results? And re: college applications, unfortunately, she is still left with an 1150 SAT, a 26 comp ACT, and a 2.5 GPA. How should she address this in Essays… or should she?
I would truly appreciate any suggestions or direction you all might provide. Many thanks!
I doubt that you could get anything meaningful from the high school at this point. Quite a few colleges now have their own units that do LD testing, determine accommodations, etc. When looking at colleges, I would ask about this.
Check the college board websites for information about testing dates. She may be able to take the SAT, ACT over again soon.
Consider community colleges for the first two years also. Some of the cc also have LD departments, and cc can make the transition into a four-year college easier for some students.
Nancy