Advice on how best to meet DS's dual needs in school environment

[MadAboutTheBoys]

DS1 is nearly five and is, we believe, gifted. He recently did a test called the Griffiths Mental Development Assessment (we volunteered him as a favour to help on a paediatrician's training day), which assesses children up to the age of eight and he was found to be above the 98th centile in all areas. He is also due an assessment in four weeks at which the paediatricians expect to formally diagnose him with Aspergers.

One way in which the Aspergers is manifesting is with prolonged toilet training, which the teachers have obviously had to direct a lot of attention to. DS is also very withdrawn at school and doesn't interact well with his peers, which is very difficult to see when he is so lively and full of curiosity about life at home. We are in the process of writing an IEP and a first action plan (i think that is the name) with a view to maybe getting a statement of special educational needs so that they can get more resource in the classroom to help his social and toileting needs.

My problem is that I'm having difficulty convincing the teacher to acknowledge his potential and include this in his plan. She has told me that while she is not disputing the test results as such, she hasn't witnessed those abilities in the classroom setting. My feeling is that the classroom setting is overshadowing his natural abilitties, possibly because his Aspergers tendencies mean he is easily overstimulated and thus tends to withdraw, which is why i want his needs to be explicitly mentioned. I worry that the school think I'm looking to hothouse him or something but really i just want them to focus on his positives as negatives and draw out his natural talents so that he doesn't become disillusioned.

Sorry for such a long message. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

It is utterly infuriating when teachers tell you that they haven't witnessed abilities or skills in the classroom setting ergo the teacher refuses to acknowledge that those abilities or skills exist within the child and need to be served. Classroom settings are not designed to test a child's full potential and sometimes a teacher needs to go out of her way to understand an individual child better, in particular when there are whole facets to his/her personality that the classroom setting does not give him/her the chance to reveal.

I would say (as a teacher) that the fact that his abilities are not manifesting themselves in the classroom is exactly the reason why it should be in the plan! Of course he - and his teacher - need the plan to address his physical needs and help him become independent in those areas. But it should also address the fact that - for what ever as yet unidentified reason - he is not achieving his educational potential at all. His emotional welfare is of key importance and ignoring his educational needs will not benefit him educationally or emotionally.

good luck.

Griffiths isn't an academic performance tool, though, is it? Covers developmental issues but doesn't target iq at all? (disclaimer - not entirely sure - were you given a full scale iq and breakdown into verbal reasoning etc?)

I might be tempted to get a full psycho Ed assessment done, including wechsler or similar?

There are loads of kids who test well into the gifted zone with 99.9th centile results who have issues being recognized as such at school - some are 2e, some aren't (it happens to nt kids too)

At nearly five, I honestly would let him settle into school and give him a chance to shine - what level is he reading etc? This sort of thing gives concrete glimpses for teachers, and is more likely to be seen as 'evidence' of cognitive ability than an external test. Iq testing for tinies can be slightly problematic, but not a reason not to do it if you want to be taken seriously.

Fwiw I have two 2e kids, one who at 10 is not yet fully continent. Schools can be very slow to put supports in place, but your ultimate goal would be to have two keeps running, one for the sn, and one for the gifted targets. At this point it may be more useful for you to get a full psycho Ed done to see why he is not reaching his potential.

That said, he's v young. Plenty of time to blossom and get to Oxbridge at 13.

(I should add, if griffiths is the test I think it might be, dd2 scored appallingly. She has cp. on the cognitive testing at 5, with full assessment, she was above 99.9th across the board. So the developmental scales often have nothing to do with academic ability)

Thanks very much for the replies and support. I spoke to DS's teacher again today and she has agreed to include some mention of his potential in the IEP. I'm going to see it tomorrow so I'll know more then but I'm thinking that at least if i can get it included in some form now it will be easier to tweak it at the review. I didn't realise it's possible to have more than one IEP though. I think I might sk her about that.

I agree that the ideal is to develop him both emotionally and academically (i used to work with occ psychs and they used to say that this was key to achieving full potential) so hopefully this will go some way towards that. I'm temtped not to push too much harder at this stage as i currently have a good relationship with the teacher and have found out that she will be the new SENCO next year, so don't want to rock the boat too much!

Madwoman - the Griffiths is intended to be an allround development model and measures: locomotor, personal-social, hearing and language, eye and hand coordination, performance and practical reasoning. I don't know the Wechsler very well but i imagine its a different setup to that. I didn't think the Wechsler could be used until six years old though.

I do feel that although the test he did may be a different structure to a typical IQ test that it gave enough of an indication of his potential that some notice should be taken, butyou have got me wondering whether an educational psychologist assessment would be useful, not least because it would be criteria recognised by the teachers. Would the refer me for that or would i have to go privately?

He's only reading Level 2 at the moment. Again the school don't think that he has any particular skills in that area but i think that's partly because he gets bored in the group reading sessions so when it gets to his turn his mind is somewhere else and this has been translated as not being able to keep up with rest of the group. Perhaps it's worth doing more over the summer with him on this so that as you say it gives them something concrete to base their own opinions on.

Haha about Oxbridge. If we find a degree dedicated to the joint areas of cloud formations and insect collections we'll be there!

Oh and Madwoman - any tips on staying sane with the continence thing? I feel just about ready for a breakdown already!

I am sorry to say that my son's junior school were pretty uninterested and dismissive of his high IQ results. I think they would have been more interested in the more obvious such as high ability in maths, rather than something like verbal reasoning and creative thinking.

Just to update: spoke to DS's teacher today and she has included the results of his assessment in his first action report. Although this is not exactlythe concrete plan to identify and develop his potential that I would have ideally liked, I feel like it is at least a step in the right direction. She also told me about some ways that they have worked his special interests into the classroom environment as they had noticed the positive impact it had on his behaviour.

I asked about potential involvement of an educational psychologist and she said that this would happen if we progress to first action plus, as we can't move onto a statement of needs without it. Just realised i forgot to ask about the idea of having two plans. Oh well, more to discuss at the first review!

You won't get an iep for gifted on the back of a griffiths - it is the test that dd2 did, I had a wee look. There's no iq testing component.

There's a preschool wechsler which is used prior to 6, although they used the standard one for dd2 as they knew she would top out on the preschool one, even though she was a bit young for it in real terms.

Griffiths is done for sn kids. It's never used as a diagnostic tool for gifted - so if you are interested in pursuing that, you would need to think quite hard about why you believe he falls into that category, and make the decision whether you want to test privately - the senco is really talking about getting the EP involved if he needs statutory assessment for his sn. Different kettle of fish.

In your case I would be tempted to put iq testing on hold for a year or two, and see where you get to. The attention deficit suggestion sounds as though she's suspecting ADHD type issues as well?

Why do you think he is gifted, out of interest? His verbal reasoning etc?

I was following a different mn thread about the connection between Asperger's and giftedness, just in the last week or two. He does seem to need a SEN statement, and Asperger's diagnosis may be the easiest route towards a statement. Of course his giftedness needs to be acknowledged, but imho giftedness and Asperger's may manifest themselves in slightly similar ways (e.g.unusual mindset). So, given that gifted children's needs are not so well acknowledged as other SEN children's needs, perhaps the important thing at this stage is to push for the SEN statement.