what help would be given to g & t and dyspraxic dd

[blossomhillontapplease]

my dd started high school in september and is currently waiting to be assessed for dyspraxia. she has been classed as G&T by primary school and is excelling in only some of those areas at high school. the teachers have noted some discrepancies in her learning and believe this assessment would be helpful.

many of her ways we felt were just quirks but now looking at the dyspraxia foundation website we now know that she has been compensating for the things she has been struggling with

i would be greatful for advice off those of you who have had similar experiences with your dc's.how have the schools helped?

thanks in advance

If you haven't already heard of the term "twice exceptional" then I would recommend you do a search on Google. My son has dyslexia but has compensated enough for him to be within average expectations which has made it difficult for his problems to be recognised and for him to access the extra help he needs. It's very positive sign that your school has flagged this up. I have found secondary school to be a lot more on the ball than junior school but it's still early days for us.

My son is in Set 1 maths and science now in year 9, he worked himself there from set 4 in year 7, after proving himself to be top 5% in those subjects. He has Dyslexia/fine motor dyspraxia. All he has received in terms of help is extra time and each teacher is notified of his SEN- all homework can be typed if he wants to. The school only moved him to Set 3 in English last year on the insistence of the Ed Psych. Humanities, languages and everything was tied to this set! He is at the top of this set now and is butting up towards set 2, it's all been a struggle on this side of things.

Lelly, I was so interested to read your post as we are in a similar situation. It's brilliant that your son is working his way up! It's awful that he had to start off in Set 4! My son is in Yr 7 and they only set in Maths and English at the moment. They have recently moved him up from Set 3 to Set 2 for English which is very good news. Intellectually speaking, he really needs to be in Set 1 but obviously his writing (not content) is a problem so I don't know if/when this can happen. He said he was bored in there yesterday. Maths is his biggest problem - blurring numbers, not knowing left from right and basically not getting the plot - I think he's solidly stuck in Set 3. In Science he's really taking off and on the strength of his enthusiasm and marks so far, I really hope he will get into Set 1 at the end of Yr7. He is currently getting some extra help with planning and spelling. He sits at the front and his maths tests are typed in a large font on coloured paper I think.

Hi Blossom and Niceweather, only top sets get any G&T input in our school. It's called More able and talented in Wales and covers the top 20%of the year (with top 5% being designated extremely able!). So not too difficult to get in unless of course you have an SEN.
But the 2 set 1 classes x&y seem to get all the extra trips for science, and maths quizzes. My son missed the yr 8 trip and yr7 trip even though he was outperforming many of the set1 .
Blossom at least your daughter has been recognised by her primary, my DS was SEN table throughout primary so couldn't show his ability, as he was dumped with the low ability work.
All the struggle, together with all the OT he has willingly practised has made him a very hard working enthusiastic learner. His "newly discovered" ability is something he wants to keep after being the "dumbest" in the class- (his words).
Blossom you could try for a laptop- you don't really say what your DDs strengths and weaknesses are?

Hi thank you for your replies!

Dd is in set 1 for English. Her handwriting and spellings are atrocious, they've not really improved over the past couple of years. She seems to beable to add the content but can quite easily get distracted and veer off the point.

She is in set 2 for Maths but can have complete meltdowns when faced with something she doesnt understand. Dd is trying so hard as she would love to beable to improve and get to set 1. Dd still struggles with the time and can barely remember her times tables.

In Sciene they are not setted as yet but will be after easter (i think). She is able to understand the concepts quite easily and can discuss topics when there is no pressure. Her teacher has said to her many times that she waffles 'unneccesarily' and should 'think before she speaks'.

History Art and P.E are strong subjects and thoroughly enjoys these. Although she has had difficulty with her memory she seems to be doing very well in languages where she will be in set 1 for both when they go back next week.

Dd struggles with fine motor skills such as using scissors, tying shoe laces and can't keep hold of money in her hands as she always drops it!

One subject where there is such a big difference is Music. She plays keyboard and can play music if she can see which keys to press or hears the piece first but cannot read sheet music. Her subject teacher cant understand why her levels are so low as her extra music lessons should make her level higher than the expected for her year.

It would be nice if there was a separate forum for "twice exceptional" children.

Lelly, I share some of your awful experiences of primary school. My son was on the bottom table and was observed by a EP to be leaning back in his chair to hear what they were doing on the top table. The G&T Group at his secondary school only starts in Yr 9 but luckily, my son encountered the G&T co-ordinator early on and she told him that he would be joining when the time came. They get to do debates and go on trips. He is slowly beginning to shine now at secondary and he's getting good marks for science and anything where he has to talk or express his opinion etc. Unlike Junior school, they do seem to be able to see beyond the spelling mistakes.

Blossom, I share some of your experiences too. My son can waffle for England and his spelling is absolutely horrific. It's been a learning curve for me as well. I used to be appalled at bad spelling but now I just think, "oh, perhaps they have dyslexia" and I can carry on reading regardless. At the end of the day, content is more important but not necessarily when you are in the education system. He is hideously disorganised!

Hopefully your assessment will help you find some strategies to help. I am currently trying to get my son to touch type using the BBC Dance Mat Typing website. I was wondering if he might be able to use a laptop at school but I think he may not be bad enough to qualify. He uses one at home but he needs to do a lot of checking and correcting - even the spellchecker doesn't pick many of the spelling mistakes.

Dd would love to use a laptop but i doubt she would use it for school work . She would be able to cover more typing and her presentation would be neater! I would like to think she would get more time in tests/exams as she ends up leaving half of the paper unanswered.

Its very hard for her at the start of a new school year as she only settles in around January/February and now she is in high school assessments are on a regular basis.

I do believe that with the right help some of the problems, if caught early enough, can be ironed out. I am trying to think positive. Its hard at the moment though just coming to terms with it all. When she finally has the assessment it should shed some light.

niceweather and lelly88 well done to your dc's for perservering. Its frustrating watching them works so bloody hard though!

Hi OP thanks for coming back and elaborating on problems, the school seem very on the ball suggesting an assessment to sort things out All will become clearer once that's sorted. You can then all get together with your DD and make suggestions to what would help her to progress. She could have some dyslexia mixed in but that will become clearer as well. Come back and let us know the general result?
I don't think my DS is "G&T" (hate the term Gifted) for 1 minute but he's brighter than any one thought he was in primary- I'm more comfortable with the "more able" label as he IS clearly more able in some areas (clearly NOT in others).

I realise this is a slightly old thread, but I would like to know your experiences of having a 2e child.

My DS (a young yr 3) is extremely bright and is top of the class in Maths, science and reading, yet has been dx with "Specific learning difficulties in spelling, writing and fine motor control" so is bottom set for literacy (7 year gao between reading and writing ages). He is on SA+ to access 1-1 spelling tuition. He has access to an Alphasmart (having taught hi to touch type - he's slow but improving) and writed with a slope and pencil grips. He also has/had a serious vision tracking problem, but this is being treated successfully by vision therapy.

Have your children in this position been treated more as SEN or G&T? My worry is that school will focus so much on the SEN that they will not be providing the extra stuff that he needs at the top end of the curriculum. He soaks up information like a sponge and remembers everything that he reads at home. He has an amazing memory!

He has always been treated as ' average' before this year as the writing and vision problems masked his intelligence (though quite how they missed his brightness baffles me as it's obvious within a minute of talking to him)...

Just wanted to compare experiences, really....

I think it could depend enormously on the school and their experience with 2E children. My experiences of 2 junior schools hasn't been good but my son is now at secondary school and they have been pretty good so far. I think junior school's idea of G&T was anyone who got a Level 3 in Yr2 rather than anyone say showing incredible originality. I don't see why they cannot be both G&T and SEN as this is what they are but I'm thinking of one very traditional Head who would have fainted at this idea! As your son is on the bottom table for literacy, I would be worried about the work being boring and not aimed at G&T level intelligence. My son is doing literacy support at the moment and I don't think it's targeted quite right as it includes things like vocabulary which is one of his strengths. He's also getting spelling and punctuation help which he really does need. My son was always seen as average at junior school as well, and like you, it's incredible, as it's obvious when you talk to him for a minute.... or even 30 seconds. Luckily, he was picked up by the G&T co-ordinator at secondary as she knew what signs to look out for. I think junior school was very much focused on the 3 R's which is great and important but they were unable to see beyond spelling mistakes to the content beneath which I found very frustrating and upsetting. Secondary school on the other hand, can see it!

hmmm....I see your point about bottom set for literacy. Unfortunately he has a real problem with written expression at the moment. School are letting him just do spider diagrams which is helping as he can just jot down ideas without stressing about sentence formation and spelling too much (he was getting so wound up about it in yr 2 he refused to write anything at all). Ask him to TALK about whatever they are doing and he would have absolutely no issues at all....

Thank you for sharing your experiences :)

usually schools deal with each aspect in isolation, but with corssovers where they occur, iyswim. so it's not unusual for a child to have ieps running, one to deal with/ target setting for the more able stuff, and one to deal with any additional needs caused by disability etc.

dd2 uses a laptop in school as she has cerebral palsy and her fine motor is a bit pants, but her work is differentiated anyway because she is more able. and ds1 has an array of stuff at school to aid his concentration (adhd with some optional asd type extras and anxiety) but in theory (if they ever get round to it) will be moved up for math and access the mentorship programme for gifted kids.

there are gazillions of 2e kids. there's stuff on the nagc website, and seng has loads too.

that said, there are always a few special moments with schools who do.not.get.it. dd2 was told she couldn't be on the gifted programme because of her handwriting. presumably they would have the same rule for stephen hawking.

You would hope that your son's abilities in maths and science would qualify him for any enrichment or G&T activities. My son's problem is that his talents and problems lie in the same field. He is definitely not G&T in maths. Now he's at secondary, he's doing well at science as well but not to a G&T level. I remember one Head saying that if you can speak well then this should mean that you can write well. It sounds like this also applies to your son. My son also sounds very articulate when he speaks or dictates work but he finds writing very difficult - it must be so frustrating for them. There are lots of dyslexic writers out there that give me optimism for the future. I think Oscar Wilde used to hand in his manuscripts and say "you can deal with the where's and there's". Agatha Christie was a notoriously bad speller. Perhaps your son could dictate or record some of his verbal talents so that he has a chance to express himself in a different way?