to think comparing G&T to sn is

[saint2shoes]

bloody silly.
how can you compare it to a child who has no speech and is in a wheelchair, suffering from epilepsy.
makes my blood boil.

yeah. Always makes me want to pound someone!

oh please do
threads where people do that make me want to run people over

are there any in particular at the moment that we need to chime in on?
Comparing G&T to SN is fightin' talk!

Of course you are right, but really really really gifted children probably do have particular needs that some schools don't meet. (Ds, thankfully, is not a budding genius so I don't have that problem.)

yes Edam they might have SEN but to compare to sn(as some one did) is just plain daft imo.

they have 'needs' yes, for a decent education (my eldest is extremely bright and did Y6 sats in Y2 and beat the 11 yo's) but they are not 'sepcial needs' or can be compared to the sort of life those with disabled children lead.
They are bright, ask questions and get bored at school. Not such a big deal really and a pice of cake compared to epilepsy and tubes etc etc

But then 2shoes not all children with Sn are as you describe. (I know you know that of course )

As an ex teacher I can see why a G&T child could be described as having SN, but SN in a different context (does that make sense)as in they have different needs to other children in the class. That in a way could be compared to children with LD who also require lots of differentiation to the school curriculum.

I agree. If DS was G & T rather than language delayed I could just get more difficult books from library for him and get DH to talk to him about science stuff. Much easier and cheaper and FUN than getting private SALT and dragging myself off to any course/group SALT department let me access. I was G & T in one particular high school subject (able at the others, but there was one where I was massively ahead of rest of class). Didn't do me any harm to be a bit bored, and at A Level to let others take their turn in class rather than me dominate.

Recognising that very bright children might struggle to get their needs met is one thing (fair enough). But what I hate on those threads is the ridiulous whimpering 'oh it's not faiiir all the children with SN get extra help". No love. Put in the hours we've put in dealing with the system, put in the money we've put in getting help from the states, spend the hours reading the books we've read to try and help our son, put in the hours of one to one work it takes to try and teach my son to read and write. THEN come on here and complain about your kids needs not being met because of kids with SN.

Grrrr.

I agree that they can have SEN....special education needs. but to say they have sn in the context sn is now used. iw wrong imo.
of course all sn is not like cp. but most sn is very restricting and in a lot of cases will lead to a child never being able to live an independent life. I hardly think G&T will have the same affect on a persons life(I do accept in extreme case it may)
being "cleverer" than the rest of your peers is not sn.

I was on that thread mentioning my niece who is 'g&t' (I do hate that term though) and saying that it is a special need. So I am one of the people you are mad at sorry about that! But I stand by it. I have 2 sons with autism - again, that is a sn in no way comparable to the physical disabilities of cp, but it is sn.

I can only speak for my niece but I can tell you that she SUFFERS! As does my sister. My niece is bright, yes, but that's neither here nor there. She doesn't fit in with the other kids (like my boys) she has sensory issues - eg sock seams, labels on clothes etc (like my boys). She can't relate to her peers (like my boys). In many ways she is isolated (like my boys). She struggles with the difference between her intellectual age and her emotional age, she really struggles! She is very emotional and oversensitive, bordering on paranoid at times!! She has rages, out of control rages sometimes, she does get wound up bless her! (like my boys). She feels things so deeply, she overanalyses everything, I could go on and on....

Yes she will lead an independent life. It'll be a bloody independent one since she'll struggle to make any social connections because she's so different from her peers.

To me, she is clearly sn. I just think that the name G&T is what causes problems because it just gets peoples backs up. But if you met someone who really has serious problems because of it, you'd see that they need help and support and understanding, because the world is just as confusing for someone like my niece as it is for my sons!

I have no doubt that there is a small minority of children like Hecate's niece who are inteligent to the point of having severe difficulties in many areas. But I think this is a tiny, tiny minority, and by no means applies to (10% is it?) of children in schools.

I've always thought the majority of people on the g&t threads were a bit barking tbh. And competitive.

The one person i know whose dd is on the g&t register lives totally vicariusly through her child and puts down all other children in the process.

Agree 2shoes the terminology is a bit muddled!
In a perfect education system all kids would have their learning needs met. Unfortunately ms state schools rarely acheive this - in part because they are under budgeted (and therefore also understaffed).
I could moan in the same vein - my sons sen were certainly never met in ms school (nor were his basic non educational sn met either), but I didnt know what to think when I realised the brighter children in his class (of 30 with no TA) had extra and differentiated homework (as of course they should) whilst I had to differentiate my sons! MS Schools seem better able to accommodate broadly average children with milder sen than the more unusually gifted, those with sn or those who need to learn at a different pace or method.
So although the mix up in terminolgy is rather unfortunate, I can see where a frustrated parent of a G+T child - perhaps getting demotivated (or worse) might be coming from. It is a similar distress to that many of us feel when our children are neglected in different ways! (Ps haven't read related the thread!!)

I was also on that thread. I am sorry, 2shoes, but you are ignoring a whole group of children who are both G and T and Special Needs. I have sons who have Asperger's and are labelled G and T by their schools. I would say that their needs are beyond SEN-they have acute anxieties and numerous other problems that go with Asperger's. There are different types of Special Needs.

not really, he has aspergers so he has sn.
I was only ever talking about the G&T not the sn.
your surely not telling me that all G&T have a disability as well

like 2shoes i see the excelling academically as different from the other issues that may happen alongside- sensory/social anxiety etc.

Tiggiwinkle but a child can still be g&t and not have sn, or can have sn but not be g&t. The one does not equal the other.

To say that g&t children have sn is wrong quite frankly. A child can be exceptionally bright but that does not make them disabled. And a child can be disabled but that does not make them exceptionally bright.

We need to separate the two.

Wannabe you are so right.
Do you suppose unmet sen needs could lead to later sn - eg anxiety or behavioural sn?

wannabe as usual you say it right
I should take lessons from you

I agree saint2shoes and I have a G&T child. She has different needs but then every child has needs, not the same as those called Special Needs.

wannabe-you are missing my point. In some children, you cannot separate the two.

but Tiggiwinkle your ds' are not necessarily bright because they have asberger's. You said yourself that the anxieties they suffer are as result of the fact they have asberger's. They might have had asberger's regardless of how bright they are.

Imo it's very dangerous to associate certain disabilities with high inteligence or to associate high inteligence with certain disabilities. because one does not always live up to the other.

If we make the asumption for instance, that children with Asberger's are exceptionally bright, what happens to the child with Asberger's who isn't?

The two need to be separate. We need to acknowledge that some exceptionally bright children also have disabilities, but we should never assume that because one factor is present, so the other will be too.

Fwiw when I was a child I was considered to be gifted in maths and music.

In terms of maths all I can say is:

hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha

but musically ... I am predominantly self taught, I play by ear and can listen to a song and go back and recreate it, so maybe that is a gift... I dunnow. But i am certainly not musically brilliant like some people I know.

sometimes i think giftedness is relative. What to one is exceptional, is just average to someone else.

sadly I think part of it is a sort of jeaoulosy.
people see the sn world as being a clib that is warm and freindly, where dc's get help and looked after. if their child is strugling because of G%T they want to join the sn world.
thing in sn means disability not just being clever. and not all G&T have a disability. so the jealousy remains.
often the two go together(or seem too) like with KM whose dc's dc's have g&t Aand sn and Tiggie who's son has aspergers. but to have one does not automaticly mean you are going to have the other

can't imagine why they are jealous. Its so very lonely having a disabled child.
And they don't realise how we struggle to get help for years. Least witha G&T child you can take them out of school, as I did with dd1 and home educate them and buy books to help them with voracious learning.
Schools are crap for most kids, not just G&T.

agrree about schools. ms is crap.even with a average child.
but imo the way people moan about sn and how we are a clique and crap like that, then make comparisons like this, reeks of jealousy to me.
because we do support each other, and people don't come into the sn topic and take the piss, apart from trolls.