How do I find out what the problem is with my second grader??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a Master's Degree in Special Education and it is my philosophy that getting a MDT assessment is NEVER a bad thing. An assessment provides the parents with information about their child. Asking for an assessment (which the school is legally obligated to provide) does not obligate the parents to anything. For example, the WISC V test not only provides full scale IQ, but the sub-tests provide information about:
Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI), Visual Spatial Index (VSI), Fluid Reasoning Index (FRI), Working
Memory Index (WMI), and the Processing Speed Index (PSI)

I think it is wrong to assume that practitioners just want to diagnose and label children, nothing could be further from the truth. We want to help children and do so by assessing their strengths and weaknesses. When their is a clinically identifiable problem, we identify and seek to remediate it so the child can be successful, not only in the educational arena, but in life.

I think that the posters here who say it's ADHD probably have kids who have already been diagnosed. Once you know what it is and what it isn't, it's actually fairly easy to see it in other kids.

Definitely get an assessment so you'll know how to proceed.

My DC had the full neuro assessment- total was about 8 hours. The first 1.5 hours of it was a parent interview. I sat with the psychologist and she asked me questions on family history, my pregnancy, how DC was as an infant, toddler, school years, etc. We also went through years of teacher feedback- starting from preschool. What you need to look out for are patterns of behavior. When I was talking with the psychologist, I realized that the patterns had been there all along but there were always justifications that we had to as to what they might have been-- normal terrible twos, hard time adjusting to kindergarten, etc. I started to see the symptoms in 3rd grade. None of her teachers ever mentioned ADHD and I wish we had her evaluated before 6th grade.

What has been so eye opening and a bit heartbreaking is that there are so many things going on below the surface that is associated with ADHD.
Since DC was already 11 when she was diagnosed, she was able to tell me what had been going through her head starting in 3rd grade. She knew something was "off" but didn't know what it was. She was actually really relieved when we told her she has ADHD. She said she thought she was totally stupid and just going crazy. Her classroom was a swirl of information overload. She showed me a youtube video of an ADHD simulation and she said that's what it looked like to her everyday. Just like your kid, my DC had really good vocabulary and she was passing all her classes so the teachers never flagged her. Things were just out of her control and it just exhausted her mentally to just make sense of information coming in.

What you see on the outside- a hyperactive kid, a kid who can't focus. What's going on inside- a kid who can't control their impulses and experiences sensory overload because they can't make sense of information coming in. It's like watching static on tv.

Other things that are going on in the inside-- anxiety because they realize they can't control their bodies and their minds, daily damage to the self esteem when they see that other kids are not being told to sit still, or that others are not getting in trouble like they are.

Good luck OP, there are a lot of things to educate yourself with and there will be many decisions you'll have to make along the way. But you will be very thankful when you know where to start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a Master's Degree in Special Education and it is my philosophy that getting a MDT assessment is NEVER a bad thing. An assessment provides the parents with information about their child. Asking for an assessment (which the school is legally obligated to provide) does not obligate the parents to anything. For example, the WISC V test not only provides full scale IQ, but the sub-tests provide information about:
Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI), Visual Spatial Index (VSI), Fluid Reasoning Index (FRI), Working
Memory Index (WMI), and the Processing Speed Index (PSI)

I think it is wrong to assume that practitioners just want to diagnose and label children, nothing could be further from the truth. We want to help children and do so by assessing their strengths and weaknesses. When their is a clinically identifiable problem, we identify and seek to remediate it so the child can be successful, not only in the educational arena, but in life.

I think that the posters here who say it's ADHD probably have kids who have already been diagnosed. Once you know what it is and what it isn't, it's actually fairly easy to see it in other kids.

Definitely get an assessment so you'll know how to proceed.

My DC had the full neuro assessment- total was about 8 hours. The first 1.5 hours of it was a parent interview. I sat with the psychologist and she asked me questions on family history, my pregnancy, how DC was as an infant, toddler, school years, etc. We also went through years of teacher feedback- starting from preschool. What you need to look out for are patterns of behavior. When I was talking with the psychologist, I realized that the patterns had been there all along but there were always justifications that we had to as to what they might have been-- normal terrible twos, hard time adjusting to kindergarten, etc. I started to see the symptoms in 3rd grade. None of her teachers ever mentioned ADHD and I wish we had her evaluated before 6th grade.

What has been so eye opening and a bit heartbreaking is that there are so many things going on below the surface that is associated with ADHD.
Since DC was already 11 when she was diagnosed, she was able to tell me what had been going through her head starting in 3rd grade. She knew something was "off" but didn't know what it was. She was actually really relieved when we told her she has ADHD. She said she thought she was totally stupid and just going crazy. Her classroom was a swirl of information overload. She showed me a youtube video of an ADHD simulation and she said that's what it looked like to her everyday. Just like your kid, my DC had really good vocabulary and she was passing all her classes so the teachers never flagged her. Things were just out of her control and it just exhausted her mentally to just make sense of information coming in.

What you see on the outside- a hyperactive kid, a kid who can't focus. What's going on inside- a kid who can't control their impulses and experiences sensory overload because they can't make sense of information coming in. It's like watching static on tv.

Other things that are going on in the inside-- anxiety because they realize they can't control their bodies and their minds, daily damage to the self esteem when they see that other kids are not being told to sit still, or that others are not getting in trouble like they are.

Good luck OP, there are a lot of things to educate yourself with and there will be many decisions you'll have to make along the way. But you will be very thankful when you know where to start.

Great explanation. Sometimes discounting signs does harm.

[Anonymous]

He sounds like a normally outgoing friendly kid. Maybe in needs a little more exercise. The age kids read varies a lot and doesn't mean much.