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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You need to have your son evaluated.

My son was like this in 4th grade, got marked down until he was failing and it was a horrible year for his self-esteem. 
At the same time he won the Young Author's Contest for his school.
That summer he was diagnosed with severe inattentive ADHD, and the IQ test included in the assessment showed he has abysmal processing speed, which explained why he could not finish anything on time. Not everyone with ADHD has slow processing speed, but it is common for the inattentive daydreamer-kind of ADHD.

The school gave him accommodations (extra time etc) with an IEP. Now he is doing much better in 5th. The IQ test also showed he was gifted and under medication, his grades have shot up.

[/quote]
Where did you have your son tested? We have talked to the school about testing because my DS is a poor speller, but they have said that it isn't necessary and he just needs to learn to use his resources to compensate (which we are working on). They have never suggested that he may have ADHD. His grades are A/B, except for a C+ in writing because he still isn't good at using the resources and he gets behind because he avoids it. I think that he may be immature and bored, but I am not sure about the ADHD. Is this something to raise with the pediatrician or demand that the school test him? A lot of this I think is a basic problem with the educational philosophy and teaching by worksheet. I think he's just sick to death of worksheets. [/quote]

Not sure if you're the OP or not. I'm PP you quoted.

First: no teacher is allowed to tell you that your child has ADHD, even when it's completely obvious. They will use words like "attentional issues", "distractible", "needs redirection", etc.

Second: 20 minutes of boring homework is the norm nowadays. You can boycott it if you want and if he doesn't get marked down, so that you can focus on the classwork he needs to finish which does get graded. Our son was not allowed to take his classwork home, so he received failing grades in a snap, since he couldn't finish anything at all during class. This year my son doesn't do spelling homework, for ex, because he's in the advanced spelling group and already knows all the words.

Third: not finishing classwork during the school day is a huge red flag. The teacher has already been flexible enough to let him take his work home, and has said he needs redirection. She cannot do or say more. You need to take it from here. We used Stixrud for a full neuropsychological

Fourth: please read up on ADHD, specifically the inattentive kind. By definition, it is an attention regulation issue where there are not enough neurotransmitters in the frontal cortex of the brain to signal effectively. As a result, the frontal lobes in a person with ADHD take longer to mature, sometimes several more years. The frontal cortex is the seat of judgement, reasoning and higher functioning. Kids with ADHD have incredible difficulty concentrating on tasks they dislike, and incredible capacity to focus on tasks they do like.

Fifth: ADHD is correctly diagnosed by a developmental pediatrician or a psychologist - both need to be experienced with ADHD diagnoses. A general ped can give you a reference, but should not do the evaluation themselves. A test just for ADHD may take a couple of hours and cost $700, a more full-picture kind of evaluation such a neuropsychological eval. will take 8 hours and cost a few thousand. We went to Stixrud, which has a great professional reputation, and only does neuropsychological evals. Paid $3.2K out of pocket.

Good luck.

PS: my best friend also has a child with inattentive ADHD. It's obvious to everyone, but for the longest time my friend and her husband were convinced that the school system was at fault, the teachers were bad, the work was boring, etc. The child is in 5th grade and not doing well, and the parents are slowly coming to the realization that there may be ADHD going on. It's difficult to observe a child's suffering as a third party, especially when you have an understanding of what's going on and can't help beyond giving gentle suggestions.
[/quote]

Thank you very much for all this information. I had not considered that my son may have an ADHD diagnosis, but I don't want to stick my head in the sand either. I will bring it up with his pediatrician and go from there. The $3k out of pocket is pretty daunting, though. That would be a challenge. [/quote]

Some pediatricians will do the assessment for ADHD based on forms filled out by the teacher and parents.   If you can do that, it would be a lot cheaper than 3k.[/quote]

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