DS, 6 years, not listening/understanding in class

[winterrabbit]

DS3 is 6 years old (7 in June) and in Year 2. He is a happy, well behaved and kind boy with lots of friends and enjoys going to school. However, his teacher asked for us to come into school yesterday and basically told us that she has concerns that he has issues with working memory and/or processing and he doesn't seem to understand what is being asked of him and if left to work independently either doesn't know what to do or does it wrong. The examples she gave were that he wrote a page and half of beautiful handwriting (she herself acknowledged that his handwriting is lovely) but without any punctuation. Another example was when he was doing a maths worksheet on charts, he coloured in all of the chart rather than the lines showing the quantity. Another time he volunteered to give an answer on the white board but when he got there he forgot what it was. He is not disruptive in any way and focuses for long periods on drawing, is very physical/good at PE etc. At home he loves drawing, playing etc and we don't see any signs of lack of focus. The teacher says he is very behind in Maths (he is having Maths support) and only scoring 2 or 3 out of 12. I did his homework with him this week and he did it well without much support. The teacher says is may be ADHD but I really don't see it (my eldest does have ADHD and it was quite obvious from an early age but with very different behaviours). DS3 is fully bilingual (english/spanish) so his speech was a bit late and the teacher doesn't think this has an impact. His reading is good and was meeting expectations (he's on level 7) but his teacher says even though his reading is good she is not sure he understands everything so he may not be meeting expectations in that either. I read regularly with him and don't agree with her but obviously she's the expert. We are both really worried and at a loss as to what it could be. Does anyone have an ideas?

Have they actually assessed working memory / processing speed, or is this just her hypothesis? Issues in those areas are often a sign that something lose is going on - brain is working hard elsewhere and results in delays / limited capacity in completing a task.

an ed psych can to a more holistic assessment and narrow down / quantify any issues, which might be helpful in terms of directing next steps though they cannot diagnosis on their own. ADHD can have different presentations, so it might just be a case of adhd but looks different from brother. Or it could be something else entirely. Or nothing at all - 6 is still quite young.

my dd has a specific learning difference (spld) and first signs were slower processing speed. It’s one very specific deficit, but can affect many aspects of her performance at school, even aspects not directly affected by her deficit, as she is working so hard to compensate that everything else becomes harder. Once identified there were some specific adaptations put in place that have made a massive difference.

Thank you so much for replying. They haven't conducted any assessments so it's just the teacher speculating. I have already contacted an Ed Psych to assess him after Easter as apparently the waiting list at school is very long. May I ask, how would slow processing manifest itself? What were the signs with your DC?

Has he had his hearing checked?

Definitely get his eyes and ears checked, DS needed glasses and we had no idea until he said to his teacher he had difficulty seeing the board. He couldn't believe the difference himself when he put his glasses on for the first time.

I guess there are lots of possibilities, he may have ADHD - but perhaps inattentive so he just misses things and presents differently to his sibling. He might have ASD - mine had lots of friends at that age too, he didn't struggle with friendships until around age 10. What he did struggle with was filtering out distractions, so unless he was sat at the front of the class, ie right in front the teacher he would sometimes miss the input and not always be able to work out what he was supposed to do. He could have dyscalculia - could explain the maths struggles.

There's a good chance he's ND in one way or another if your other child is so definitely get that looked into, but also definitely get eyes and ears tested too.

Hi OP, your little boy sounds like exactly like my DD7. What I am doing is, getting school to sort an educational psychologist review for and going for an ADHD diagnoses. I don’t know if she will get a diagnosis as she’s super easy and happy and seems perfectly bright and able to focus (outside of school). I don’t want to derail the thread but @Labraradabradorwhat sort of adjustments are in place for your child? My daughters school are really happy to try different measures that might help.

A while back but just booked another test so that we can rule that out.

Also to add, at the last parents' evening in October, the same teacher didn't raise any issues. Reading was meeting expectations but Maths and Writing were working towards. She said not to worry as lots of kids not meeting expectations in handwriting and we know he is behind in Maths but didn't think he was that behind. We had a tutor start with him at home who assessed him as being at year 1 level. Last year there was a few instances of DS not being sure of instructions but nothing out of the ordinary. I suppose it has gotten worse or expectations are increasing as they go through year 2? For me he seems right on track for a 6 year old.

@winterrabbitYour son sounds almost identical to my DD, same age too. She received her ADHD (inattentive) diagnosis in January of this Year. We went down the ‘right to choose’ path with our GP and it took just under a Year.

None of the problems the teacher used as examples of an issue would strike me as worrying for a child of 6.

He may well have an issue in math but it's likely that is related to needing a different style of explanation. If he is art focused, the instruction to colour parts of a chart may have come across to him as a colouring activity instead of a primarily math activity.

His reading is perfectly normal, and a page of writing without punctuation is also completely normal. If the content made sense and he is not showing signs of misspelling basic words like 'with' as 'wiff' or 'wiss' he's probably doing fine with his short term memory too, and absorbing some of what hes reading. Spelling 'with' as wiff or wiss would indicate he's still sounding out words he should be able to retrieve from short term memory.

The beautiful handwriting is associated with his focus on art. He is clearly a child with strong hand-eye coordination and excellent fine motor skills.

Children develop different aspects of reading, writing, and comprehension skills at different speeds. It can be an unbalanced progress. Sometimes decoding proceeds well ahead of comprehension or it takes so much focus that comprehension requires a second or third read through. Sometimes punctuation falls by the wayside when other parts of the skillset are coming along well. None of that is an indication of an overarching problem.

Please remember that children in other English speaking countries are not being academically hot housed the way British children are in early years education. The teacher's expectations are unrealistic, imo.

I'd take it all with a big grain of salt, in other words.

Keep him interested in math at home. There are math aids that can help children visualize concepts (cuisenaire rods, for example), and plenty of activities available online too. Baking is loaded with math skills - concepts of half, a third, a whole unit, relating volume to numbers, adding, subtracting, dividing, doubling, etc.

Hi OP, I am a primary teacher in Year 3. While you will get posters saying, “Don’t worry, he’s only six!”, I know that help can be notoriously difficult to come by, especially as they get older.

Have you had a chat with the school’s
SENCO? This is often a good place to start. Let me know if you have any questions. My DD is also in Y2 and 7 in July, so I can relate to you from that perspective!

she was initially really struggling with phonics / reading and so senco did a few assessments, one of which was looking at processing speed. I think it was just showing pictures and getting her to name them as quickly as she could, but this was a few years back so don’t hold me to remembering correctly! In terms of what I noticed at home, and piece of written work took ages - in the classroom as well she often needed extra time to complete tasks. She’s not very quick with recalling facts and also needs time to process instructions.

i was worried that ‘slow processing speed’ was just a nice way of saying not very bright, but actually when we had her assessed she tested in the highly gifted range on a lot of the cognitive stuff, there’s just one specific area of processing where she is significantly below average. She looked like a slightly below average student when in reality is is an incredibly bright little girl with one very specific weakness that we have now identified and can work around.

adaptations will depend on the root cause - my dd has a specific processing deficit, but some things that have helped include

• No copying from board (she gets print outs)
• Verbal check in from teacher to confirm understanding
• minimising visual noise on worksheets, breaking worksheets up so that she receives same content on 2-4 pages instead of all on one page
• she has a lot of trouble getting things down on paper quickly, so removing that as a barrier to allow her to complete the assignment more quickly (TA will sometimes scribe for her, spelling is largely ignored, over time we will likely be accelerating touch typing and maybe exploring dictation tools)
• instead of memorisation, focusing on teaching strategies for figuring out things like multiplication tables - we focus on all the different ways to get a correct answer regardless of time.

things like wobble cushions or bands around chair legs (so they can bounce) can be helpful if movement helps maintain focus. Lots of movement breaks are also key, as when you are working g twice as hard as everyone else you get tired more quickly and need a break.

Some of what you described sounds like the inattentive branch of ADHD (ADD in old money). Not sure if this is the same diagnosis as your other child but in my experience it gets a lot less focus from teachers than the hyper branch as it's not usually linked with disruptive behaviour. I'm not normally one for jumping to a ND diagnosis but perhaps something to look into.

Without knowing your son, it's hard to say. A lot of those things do still sound age appropriate, on the surface, (I'm a teacher) but only those who know him in person will know the extent of his difficulties.

Is he able to parrot back what he needs to do, immediately after hearing an instruction? Whenever you ask him to do something, add on the end "what do you need to do?". Even if he can do this for individual instructions, it could be that he finds it hard to focus in a classroom setting, where there are many distractions. Does the teacher check in with him before he starts a task, to check he has understood? It's not always possible in a class of 30, but if you have 2 or 3 who you know won't have been fully attentive during the whole class input, it often saves time to go through it with them again in a small group while the others get started, to save them from having to start again because they've completely misunderstood the task. Does the class have a TA? Good practice is to ask the TA to mirror teach during explanations, so while the teacher is demonstrating to the whole class they go through it greater detail with a small group who need support to stay on task and focus, so they don't zone out and miss the instructions.

It might be worth clarifying with them what sort of support is available and how much he is receiving, to establish whether there's a processing/cognition issue, or an attention/concentration one. If you don't have major concerns about his understanding at home, it could just be that he really struggles to give the same level of focus in a bigger group at school. That's more likely to be an immaturity he will grow out of with the right support. If he genuinely can't parrot back instructions and carry them out 1-1 in the home setting, I would be more concerned.

I’d want to know if these are isolated incidents or if he’s doing the wrong thing all the time. What’s he like working with others? Is he in a group with TA support? He’s surely not on his own all the time? From my observations as a governor, most schools have paired or group working. The punctuation comment for y1 is ludicrous. What has he actually been taught? This sounds like a big over reaction and I’d certainly test his memory at home. Pretty easy to do.

Thanks all, really helpful comments. DH and I have spent time every day with DS over the last few weeks working on his Maths and have arranged sessions with a tutor and all three of us think that he just needs practice and to build his confidence. He seems to work well when we give him tasks but will sometimes get stuck on a question. He has already made a lot of progress in the last few weeks and his understanding has improved a lot. Also, his reading at school jumped up to level 9. So, we both feel that the teacher has overreacted, especially with her comments about lack of punctuation. She didn't mention how he works in pairs or in groups and she didn't comment on his performance in other lessons such as Art and PE, both of which he loves. He absolutely loves drawing and will sit for hours drawing at home and is really talented. I am going to check in with his teacher in the next week to see what plans she has for him (she said he would go onto 6 weekly monitoring, or something like that) but not heard anything further. I have also arranged an assessment with an education psychologist in early June (first available appointment) just to be sure but my gut feeling is that there is nothing wrong with him. I am also remembering that his teacher in year 1 said he was behind with reading by the end of year 1 he had caught up to the expected level and is now meeting or exceeding it.

@winterrabbit great to hear you feel he has
made some progress with some 1:1 time at home.
What was behind your comment about art and PE? Was it just you felt the teacher was doing him a disservice by not recognising he is doing well in those subjects (versus her concerns about English)? I’ve found that teachers will often only focus on the “negatives”, because those are the areas they are concerned about and want to help the child.
Also, just because he can focus for hours doing art doesn’t rule anything out - ADHDers can absolutely hyperfocus on something they enjoy; it’s being able to focus on stuff that doesn’t inspire / motivate them that is the issue!
And development can be spiky (re your
comment about catching up on reading level).

But sometimes it can be over-vigilant teachers! We’ve had our fair share of teachers over the years being quite doom and gloom about DS’s prospects, but it hasn’t worked out as bad as they envisaged… it was just a question of understanding him better and knowing what he needs to succeed. Teachers will often have their own experiences that lead them to consider neurodiversity in a child.

I honestly think the EdPsych is a great next step - they will be able to give you a very tailored picture of your DS’s strengths and weaknesses, and make recommendations if there are any adjustments that can be made to support him.

To me, it sounds like, if he is struggling at all, it’s not massively significant - which means with extra support in whatever areas he needs, he should do well. Time is on your side here.

Hi all, just coming back to update and get some more advice. Since last posting, we have had DS3 assessed by an educational psychologist. We are still awaiting the official report but we have her verbal feedback. She said that she did not find any problems with his numeracy or literacy (reading or writing all fine). Verbal IQ was 125, all tests seem normal apart from the spatial tests (can't remember the exact name) which we find a bit odd plus there were some red flags in the executive functioning questionnaire that the teacher completed (our questionnaire did not show any). She said in her view it looks like ADHD but of course she cannot diagnose. She said she noticed issues with focus and concentration during the assessment. We have a meeting with his teacher tomorrow so will get back her feedback on how he has been since we last spoke in March but I am expecting it not to be good. I am surprised that the school has not put in place any help or extra support given her concerns and intend to raise this tomorrow. Also, I am not sure where we go from here as I don't think the ed psych report will be hugely helpful either. What should we do if she says he is really behind? I have already asked the GP to refer for an ADHD assessment but the waiting list is super long so that won't happen any time soon unless we go private. We would not medicate him so it will come back to how he can be supported in the classroom. From our perspective, we just don't think he has ADHD but do think he has some mental block around Maths as he just seems unable to do certain tasks. Just goes massively off track and starts saying wrong, wildly wrong answers. DH and I both agree that his working memory in Maths seems poor as you'll teach him something and you ask him a minute later and he's forgotten. Appreciate any advice on where we go from here.

I have a child with adhd who is now grown up.

she has always been capable of “zoning out” on a conversation and while it looks like she is forgetting what she has been told she simply never took it in in the first place.

there are strategies you can use to work on this - the most obvious is to make the child repeat back the instruction/task and if they can’t they probably lost focus.

you can also do stuff like:
call their name to get attention
work in very small snippets with movement breaks
if it’s really really important get down on their level and quite close and keep it short and simple.

this sort of stuff is quite difficult to implement in the classroom but probably the best way is to ask the teacher to check in with your child as soon as they have been set off on an independent task and make sure he can repeat back the instructions. This is VERY time consuming though - I once had four students who all needed this which was very tricky.

Maybe he’s just not that good at maths? It’s not always possible for dc to be good at everything! He’s 6. I’d sit tight a bit longer and then see if a 1-1 tutor might help. I had a DD who couldn’t do mental maths but she was fine with equations. Not everyone is great at everything. I think you are over worrying and ed psych tends to see him as ok. Can you just not get specific help for maths?

We would not medicate him so it will come back to how he can be supported in the classroom.

If he does have ADHD, perhaps combined with dyspraxia/dyscalculia, how are they going to be able to teach him if you've already decided that something he may be able to benefit hugely from is completely out of the question?

It would be like saying the teacher just has to make your child listen harder because you don't want him using a hearing aid or teach him to swim despite being superglued to a chair and not allowed anywhere near the water.

He doesn't have dyspraxia or dyscalculia. Whatever he has clearly isn't impeding him to such an extent that we need to consider medication. I would never medicate a child that young without extremely good reason. My eldest son, 17, has pretty severe ADHD and we got through without medication apart from during his exams. With so many people being diagnosed with ADHD, perhaps the way ahead is to consider different ways of teaching and assessing these kids instead of immediately suggesting medication.

And the examples you give are not the same. There are many ways to treat ADHD which don't involve medication. With my eldest during GCSEs he had a lot of 1-1 tutoring as he really struggled to find the motivation to study. Lots of prompts and reminders.

As your child’s teacher was the first to raise this, why hasn’t she flagged it up with the school SENCO? She seems to have dumped it on you. If school feels that your child has a problem, then what is school going to do to address it?

That's exactly how we feel about it! She raised her concerns in mid March and since then he has had no extra support and we've had no updates other than when I went to talk to her to tell her I had arranged for an ed pysch assessment, as she suggested so she needed to complete questionnaires etc.