Anyone else got DC who are both G&T and have some sort of SEN?

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DS is 6, and has some delay in fine motor skills as well as very good reading skills, maths and vocabulary, so on the one hand the school has identified him as G&T and on the other hand they are concerned about his awful handwriting and reluctance to use scissors. Anyone else got a kid like this, or any advice?

Dd is g&t but has joint trouble so has always struggled with motor skills and writing and was/is off school a lot with chronic pain. She is in secondary now, which makes life easier, but in junior they were very reluctant to give her support because she was coping anyway. The secondary school are far more into helping her to go as far as she can.

Ds has the same joint trouble- really cannot handle scissors and he is 10- but without being g&t; I reckon he would be average if it were not for his physical problems.

Personally, I think ds has a far harder time than dd, because he can't use his academic gifts to compensate for his physical shortcomings; she's always been able to do that.

I'd try posting this on the Special Needs Children board .... could be many things. I've aways felt that even a GT child has got a form of SEN because their needs are beyond what our state education system can provide them with iyswim

DS, now 12, was like that. At 6 he was reading Harry Potter and talking about square roots of minus numbers but his handwriting looked like a 3-year-old's, he couldn't cut in a straight line, struggled with buttons, zips etc, couldn't throw or catch a ball, hopeless on a bike etc.

From reading around I came to the conclusion he was mildly dyspraxic, but there wasn't really anything I could do with that - we were not in the UK at the time so no access to ed psychs or OTs etc. The school let him start learning to type rather than hand-write things, and I took a few tips about improving fine-motor skills from a friend who's a montessori teacher (a lot of the montessori method things are great for that).

We are now back in the UK and he has gradually become a lot more co-ordinated, though still a bit clumsy and his handwriting is more legible, but still very messy. I think his SATs papers were transcribed, and his current school says they will monitor the situation, and possibly get him to type rather than handwrite exams later on.

He has never had any special help, but if we had been in the UK in his early years at primary I would definitely have asked school to pursue an assessment and possibly got some help from an OT or similar.

My 6 yo DS is similar - extremely good at reading and talking but really struggling with his fine motor skills. His writing is like a 3/4 yr old. He's being given extra support at school with this and also with auditory processing difficulties as he can't follow complex instructions. Is all very weird as he was assessed as G&T due to speech and language at age 3

dd2 has cerebral palsy and an iq of 142. she's 7. her fine motor skills are pants, despite 7 years of therapy lol, so school are in the process of transferring her from pencil work to laptop/ netbook.

school can run ieps at both ends of the spectrum - one for the more able bit to set good academic targets, and one for the areas he struggles in - and get a referral to ot if you haven't had one already.

Have definitely had exactly same problem with ds. We are in the usa, but he was at nursery in the uk and had the same reaction...."your son is smart but he can't write his name so there must be something wrong with him" (lazy, unfocused, making bad choices, not trying hard enough.....are the descriptions that come up the most often). Ds is now 10 and in 5th grade and his teacher complains constantly about how his handwriting is sloppy and his homework is a mess (I don't deny any of this) and how he doesn't "pay attention" in class and how he doesn't understand how he is able to do so well on his tests despite all of this. I have tried over and over again to explain to his teachers that beginning of the year that he does much neater work on a computer and that if they have one in class, he would be better off using it rather than handwriting things. I try to explain that he might look like he isn't paying attention, but he is and takes in everything the first time around. I even paid a small fortune for private testing and there is a 3 page report (only a small part of the full thing) in his file explaining all these things in technical terms, noting that he is a genius and giving excellent descriptions of how to best teach him given his learning differences. None of his teachers have bothered to read it. So ds keeps getting poor marks despite coming home with excellent results on his tests (both in class and sats). I have stopped getting agitated and have never relayed any of the complaints to ds.

It is my understanding that it is not uncommon for very bright children to have problems with fine motor or other similar skills. I highly recommend several books by Mel Levine (american pediatrician) called A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness.
Good luck. I'm sure your ds will be an amazing productive creative adult. My father is like this and he is a famous amazing scientist discovering all sorts of things that have helped mankind.

I have to say I've no complaints with the school who are being marvellous- it was the school who flagged up the problem and referred us for OT initially, and they are doing daily sessions of OT with DS and a couple of other kids with motor issues.
I mostly think that DS will manage, that his hands will catch up with his brain, but O'm aware that it's something that needs keeping an eye on so he doesn't get frustrated or fall behind.
Thanks all for reassurance.