My four year old was refered to ped for anger issues and pediatrician diagnosis is that he is highly intelligent and needs to be placed on the schools gifted and talented register

[kaz9601]

Hi this is my first thread and im not sure how i go about this site but im in desperate need!!
My four year old has been assesed by a ped because the nusery felt that he showed signs of autism/adhd the ped said that he is in fact highly intelligent with advanced cognitive skills and directed the school to place him in the gifted and talented programbecause his disruptive behaviour is caused by bordom, so he needs to be stretched. The senco called me today( my son has just started reception ) and said that they dont have a g&t for eyfs there is no framework until keystage 1 and, she has never had a child identified as gifted this young so she wants to raise him at the l.i.f.t meeting . My reason for posting on here is because i feel so alone everyone else with a child who is advanced seem to have very well behaved gifted children and my son is not, he struggles with his emotions especially anger. does anyone else have a child identified as highly inteligent before reception? and does anyone now what l.i.f.t stand for?

kaz
There is a gifted and talented section in Education too.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gifted_and_talented

They may be able to help.

No idea about l.i.f.t. but DD1 once hit a child with a book for identifying letters too slowly in nursery age 3 (she had already taught herself to read) and had two little girls believing that she was the prime minister and they had to do whatever she said and had days where she wouldn't speak to anyone for the whole day or would stare at a point on the wall until her teacher thought she was having petit mal fits. Although the nursery was brilliant and taught her on her own, we determined that a mixed ability enviornment was not for her. It was constantly frustrating to be so hungry to read and write and not have peers who she could relate to. Once she was at a selective school, all the problems disappeared. This may not be an option for you but you might see if you can get a statement- sounds like the SENCO is in your corner.

Oh i know its possible and im open minded but at the moment the pediatrician has ruled both adhd and autism out because he did not meet the criteria required for diagnosis and has discharged him.

A statement?

Very similar to my ds, school thought aspergers, paed and ed psych said definitely not just very intelligent. I ended up moving to selective with bursary and no more issues since. Senco will need to write a plan for him as gifted and talentedIs also a special need

Being on the G+T programme does not mean they're stretched. Am surprised the Ped is so ignorant. G+T just creates extra paperwork. School will be the first to say that his emotional problems hold him back academically but they can't do much anything about that (they are educators, not emotional counsellors). So treating it as g+t situation doesn't help with emotions.

Around here can't get a statement until 7yo typically AND they don't do barely any support for kids who aren't behind academically. So if he's that bright he won't be behind academically, even if his behaviour is atrocious.

Yes it all sucks.

But I think forget about the G+T part and focus on his emotional development & coping skills. I guess you've seen the GP; mine managed to refer us to a charity that does anger management classes for kids (9 month wait) Could you afford to contact CAMHS or private counselling services?

thanks for you replies the senco said he is going in to the group for social and emotional development to try and help him and the lift is a meeting of about ten schools in the area getting together. the reason she is bringing my son up is becauce she has never come across this before she assured me someone there will have and will be able to help im just not sure if i can trust them because of the nurseries (its attatched to school) disbelif when i told them what the pead said, the teacher in the nursery actually said we can get a second opinion then went on to question me bout qhat id said to the ped. then his current teacher called me in and said my son wasnt listening so she had got advise from nursery and they told her to try a listening tool they had used where he gets a thumbs up sticker and good listening in a super patronising voice every time he shows signs of listening which she didnt feel was working so she was wondering if i had any ideas i told her the reason it wont work is because there is too much room for manipulation he needs firm boundaries. i dont want him labelled i just want him to be happy in school.

Something that worked for my son when he kept trying to run his class.

Give him 5 cubes. The target is 'l can listen to my teacher' (positive language)

If he doesn't listen, he loses a cube.

The aim is to keep all of the cubes for a set period of time, so to start with might be until morning break or even smaller chunks of time, building up to all day.

For each chunk of the day all cubes are kept, he earns a tick.

Each tick = a set amount of time earnt.

All 5 cubes kept and he gets to choose something to do for the time he's earnt.

This worked because he couldn't argue or debate with the teacher and was very visual. The ed psych came up with this as the teacher and senco flatly refused to believe the professionals!

LIFT = Local Inclusion Forum Team

wow it seems a shame that the 'difficult'label is so easily believed when the gifted and talented isn't!

It is very possible to be g+t without being autistic... and yet to teachers unaware of what being gifted and talented means some behaviours normal in highly intelligent kids may seem 'autistic'.

I'm so pleased you ahave this great kid that will finally get some deserved opportunities.

Keep an eye out for strategies of pretending not to understand and self-sabotage in learning to allow him to 'fit in'.

Gifted & talented is a very poor label, which doesn't help. After all, it no doubt doesn't feel to your child or anyone else at the moment that he has a "gift," he's just stuck in an environment that doesn't suit him. It would probably be easier for teachers to understand it as very uneven development - his cognitive skills are very advanced, so he is bored stiff, but his emotional and social development is normal for a child of his age. He is therefore not autistic, but a child behaving as you would expect for a child of his age who is bored stiff and exceptionally frustrated. Unlike a child who is autistic, your child's social and emotional skills should continue to develop, but he needs support at the moment to deal with the mismatch - it is not fair to leave him bored and frustrated, just because the other children around him are not bored and frustrated doing what they are doing.

ps sorry, I didn't mean an autistic child's social and emotional skills wouldn't continue to develop, because they would, I meant that your child's should continue to develop within what are considered normal parameters (and if they don't, then you will probably be going back for further assessments at a later stage)!

labro t
he cube thibg sounds like a muxh better idea removes the manipulatiin element because he would lose somethibg rather than gain it thanx im going to suggest this

notdead
unfortunatly i think he may already be self sabotaging to fit in.

rabbitstew
thanks for yr reply it sounds like you really understand
im not ruling out the possibilities of havibg him reasessed at a later date when we got the diagnosis i definatly quetioned it but after putting in firm boundaries because the pediatrician said he was able to manipulate my husband and i, he has improved dramatically i wanted to test and see if he is advanced so i decieded to see if i coyld teach him to read( i was going to leave it to the school because i didbt want to interfere with their methods ) and he learnt to blend and segment phonetical words in 2 hours the reason i did this was not to advance him further just so i could believe because how can i fight for somethibg i dont trully believe in and with all the doubt from the school i felt i had to be sure. if his behaviour at home hadnt improved i would have got hin a second opinion.

I think you need to have a word with his teacher and find out how they are going to stretch him.

It is quite easy within a reception class (with a good teacher).

DD (now yr1) was identified as G&T within the first few weeks in reception ( in literacy only) she had taught herself to read before starting nursery and could do her yr2 brothers spellings when she was in nursery (not taught by me - just gave her a pen/paper to shut her up!)

Her reception year was fab and she had a great year, enjoyed it and learnt with her peers about sharing, taking turns, making the right choices etc but had extension lessons in reading, phonics and writing to push her.