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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Expressive/ receptive language impairment-- primarily abstract language and social pragmatics. The best way way I can describe it is "spectrum" light. Poor social skills, exceptionally gifted IQ, and not great at attention regulation (often either locked in, or inattentive to tasks). Impulse control is much better but there are still a few issues. Except for the language impairment, he's undiagnosed. We're planning to keep it that way unless it's clear he needs the school support.

I'm not sure I gave a "straight answer" to your question. Yes, expressive/receptive language impairment as it relates to social pragmatics and abstract language can be overlooked up until about the 2nd grade, provided there are no obvious speech delays. Here is my experience of why:

1. It's easy to attribute it entirely to something else-- giftedness, ADHD being two big ones.
2. In the younger years, kids tend to run, scream, play tag, etc. The social issues aren't as apparent until the games become more organized, the other kids have learned to sit quietly, and some divergent developmental trajectories have evened out.
3. A big vocabulary and longer sentences are considered "smart" in young kids. When you think about the purpose of language however, it is to understand/be understood by adults and (this is really important) by your peers. in practical terms, my son uses ten words when he could have used five, and he masks his lower level capabilities to join groups, play reciprocally, compromise, take another point of view etc. behind words, explicitly learned rules/manners, etc.
4. Abstract language comes into play when social rules become more complex. It can also begin to affect academics as written language assignments move from beyond the concrete and rely on higher level abstract/inferential thinking.

My DS almost to a T, so what approach are you taking to help work through pragmatics and writing?

DS is starting intensive 1 on 1 language therapy and progressing to social group therapy. This summer, I am considering a writing class/summer school designed for kids with language issues. I want to get on top of it- DS is an advanced level reader, but I suspect he won't be advancing as quickly when comprehension relies on abstract language.

I'm reading books at home that are more character driven and asking him a few (very few) open ended questions about the characters. So far, I don't personally see the problem in academics but time will tell.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Expressive/ receptive language impairment-- primarily abstract language and social pragmatics. The best way way I can describe it is "spectrum" light. Poor social skills, exceptionally gifted IQ, and not great at attention regulation (often either locked in, or inattentive to tasks). Impulse control is much better but there are still a few issues. Except for the language impairment, he's undiagnosed. We're planning to keep it that way unless it's clear he needs the school support.

Different PP with child who has gotten in trouble for what would be labelled "aggressive" behavior incidents, which are primarily due to language. My DC has MERLD and high IQ and social pragmatic language difficulties, but is not anywhere "on the spectrum". In our situation, the expressive language and social pragmatics are what contribute heavily to misunderstandings and stoke rising tempers instead of cooling them. DC is quite verbal when speaking freely, and can talk at length with a large vocabulary. But, DC has difficulty responding in situations that require highly on point and immediate responses and where the conversational circumstances also require interpretation of body language and tone of voice. DC told me the other day, it's like a stutterer who can curse bad words fluently but stutters when he has something he has to think about saying. When DC has to think more about what to say, DC becomes more tongue-tied.

Examples would be -- a teacher who asks him why he did something and he isn't able to respond immediately, so the teacher interprets that his silence as sullen indifference, rather than an internal struggle to get the explanation out. Or a teacher says, "why did you hurt X" and he says, "I didn't do it." When he means he didn't mean to hurt someone or it wasn't on purpose but the teacher interprets it as "lying" because literally DC did do something. DC also has a very short-hand way of saying sorry which comes off as insincere, and DC doesn't understand the body language and tone feedback he gets that this kind of apology isn't solving the problem.

I think most of this is due to the MERLD, but some could be ADD making it hard to attend to and organize all the elements of explicit and implicit speech that are being sent at the same time and creating difficulty organizing a properly sequential response.

All this is very deceptive because DC can be very chatty (if not with the correct grammar or words always), so no one imagines that language is the root of the problem. If I had a penny for every speech/language person from the school system who did a superficial "language assessment" and said "everything is fine," I would be a rich woman. A complete speech and language evaluation at the Lab School with a great SPL who answered tons of questions for me finally helped us understand the ways in which speech can cause behavior problems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Expressive/ receptive language impairment-- primarily abstract language and social pragmatics. The best way way I can describe it is "spectrum" light. Poor social skills, exceptionally gifted IQ, and not great at attention regulation (often either locked in, or inattentive to tasks). Impulse control is much better but there are still a few issues. Except for the language impairment, he's undiagnosed. We're planning to keep it that way unless it's clear he needs the school support.

I'm not sure I gave a "straight answer" to your question. Yes, expressive/receptive language impairment as it relates to social pragmatics and abstract language can be overlooked up until about the 2nd grade, provided there are no obvious speech delays. Here is my experience of why:

1. It's easy to attribute it entirely to something else-- giftedness, ADHD being two big ones.
2. In the younger years, kids tend to run, scream, play tag, etc. The social issues aren't as apparent until the games become more organized, the other kids have learned to sit quietly, and some divergent developmental trajectories have evened out.
3. A big vocabulary and longer sentences are considered "smart" in young kids. When you think about the purpose of language however, it is to understand/be understood by adults and (this is really important) by your peers. in practical terms, my son uses ten words when he could have used five, and he masks his lower level capabilities to join groups, play reciprocally, compromise, take another point of view etc. behind words, explicitly learned rules/manners, etc.
4. Abstract language comes into play when social rules become more complex. It can also begin to affect academics as written language assignments move from beyond the concrete and rely on higher level abstract/inferential thinking.

My DS almost to a T, so what approach are you taking to help work through pragmatics and writing?

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, pp. I was the one who asked the language question and I appreciate your response. I'll be back tomorrow to read it again when I'm more awake!

Thanks--I'm the one you asked, and I'm glad you asked the question. We got the language impairment diagnosis just very recently. Typing it out helped me think it through. I think language impairments are often co-morbid with attention issues-- being gifted confuses it more because (at least in my son's case) he was able to disguise his struggles.

This speaks to OP's child as well- kids with expressive/receptive language issues can have huge problems in preschool. Combined with attention or sensory issues, I could see a child having a limited ability to cope in a preschool environment. High intelligence (it sounds like her DS's cognitive abilities could be advanced for his age) could make the issue worse because cognition is ahead of coping skills and (at least in my son's case) giftedness brought out some willful, tenacious personality characteristics.

Thanks, pp. I was the one who asked the language question and I appreciate your response. I'll be back tomorrow to read it again when I'm more awake!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Expressive/ receptive language impairment-- primarily abstract language and social pragmatics. The best way way I can describe it is "spectrum" light. Poor social skills, exceptionally gifted IQ, and not great at attention regulation (often either locked in, or inattentive to tasks). Impulse control is much better but there are still a few issues. Except for the language impairment, he's undiagnosed. We're planning to keep it that way unless it's clear he needs the school support.

I'm not sure I gave a "straight answer" to your question. Yes, expressive/receptive language impairment as it relates to social pragmatics and abstract language can be overlooked up until about the 2nd grade, provided there are no obvious speech delays. Here is my experience of why:

1. It's easy to attribute it entirely to something else-- giftedness, ADHD being two big ones.
2. In the younger years, kids tend to run, scream, play tag, etc. The social issues aren't as apparent until the games become more organized, the other kids have learned to sit quietly, and some divergent developmental trajectories have evened out.
3. A big vocabulary and longer sentences are considered "smart" in young kids. When you think about the purpose of language however, it is to understand/be understood by adults and (this is really important) by your peers. in practical terms, my son uses ten words when he could have used five, and he masks his lower level capabilities to join groups, play reciprocally, compromise, take another point of view etc. behind words, explicitly learned rules/manners, etc.
4. Abstract language comes into play when social rules become more complex. It can also begin to affect academics as written language assignments move from beyond the concrete and rely on higher level abstract/inferential thinking.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Expressive/ receptive language impairment-- primarily abstract language and social pragmatics. The best way way I can describe it is "spectrum" light. Poor social skills, exceptionally gifted IQ, and not great at attention regulation (often either locked in, or inattentive to tasks). Impulse control is much better but there are still a few issues. Except for the language impairment, he's undiagnosed. We're planning to keep it that way unless it's clear he needs the school support.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

NP here with find of the same issues as OP.

The post above about language rings a bell for my situation. Would you be willing to share what sort of language impairments could be masked by a big vocab and long sentences?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear OP- my DS had some problems in preschool too. A few hitting incidents and defiance. I agree with the posters recommending a dev pediatrician.

I wanted to say that it didn't end up as severe as I feared it would be-- turned out my son has some language impairments that he masked with long sentences and a big vocabulary.

We also suspect mild ADHD (un diagnosed as of yet).

My point is that preschool issues can seem quite dramatic and level out to something more mild as a child matures.

I smiled when you said "privileged." My DS comes from an environment that would be considered privileged- it didn't change his behavior one jot.

Thanks. My privilege reference was to the parents who have not had to deal with some of the "lesser" daycare settings

In my former job I have seen some of those "lesser" daycare settings, and there were definitely a lot of workers who didn't understand what was developmentally appropriate for children of different ages. I was horrified at some of the places, actually, at the lack of appropriate interaction with the children. So I wouldn't assume it's your kid.

+1. IME, even the "good" daycares have employees who don't really understand child development or appropriate behavioral interventions. I think this happens because daycare workers are poorly paid, and have very limited educations and on the job training. Everyone always complains about how teachers don't get paid enough and don't get enough respect in our society, but I think that our focus should be daycare workers. Pay and train them well and give societal respect, and you will see far fewer learning and behavioral populations in the K-12 population.

But, that would mean that we would also have to fundamentally upwardly revalue "mothering" (or parenting or child-rearing) in our society ......