Cross-post: ADHD and dyslexic and gifted?

[Maus]

ADHD (inattentive or mixed) and dyslexic and gifted?

 

What would this look like?  Trying to figure DD9 out.  She's not officially diagnosed with any of the above.  She's started seeing a therapist, but so far, she talks so softly, he's having a difficult time figuring out what's going on.  She's smart, but forgetful.  She spends a lot of time in her own inner fantasy world, and has since she was two.  She is quickly and suddenly angry and frustrated.  She fidgets and bounces.  She reverses letters and numbers still.  When she talks, she starts the same sentence over three or four times, and then in frustration, says, "Forget it.  It wasn't important anyway."  She's polite, but resists authority.  (When the therapist asks her to do things, she tells him, "No, thank you.  I don't want to do that.")

[AimeeM]

Have you looked into a complete psych ed eval?

[brownie]

There are a lot of books out there.  I would check some out of the library and see if it feels like a fit.  In the end though, we can be somewhat in denial or see our kids' faults as worse than they are, causing us to "mis-diagnose" our own kid.

 

BTW dyslexia is not just about reversing letters from what I've read.  I have an ADHD teenager (mild - inattentive).  I think ds9 is likely ADHD as well and he's the kind of kid whose lucky he is not dyslexic because his brain seems to work like that, but neither issue is bad enough to do anything about because he's home.

 

Either way, the things that might help academically wouldn't really hurt any kid, so I suggest learning as much as you can.

[Maus]

Have you looked into a complete psych ed eval?

I was only vaguely aware of them, so it hadn't yet occurred to me.  I was thinking of seeing what services, generally, our cover (charter) school offered next Fall, but I'm thinking I may not want to wait.

 

There are a lot of books out there.  I would check some out of the library and see if it feels like a fit.  In the end though, we can be somewhat in denial or see our kids' faults as worse than they are, causing us to "mis-diagnose" our own kid.

 

BTW dyslexia is not just about reversing letters from what I've read.  I have an ADHD teenager (mild - inattentive).  I think ds9 is likely ADHD as well and he's the kind of kid whose lucky he is not dyslexic because his brain seems to work like that, but neither issue is bad enough to do anything about because he's home.

 

Either way, the things that might help academically wouldn't really hurt any kid, so I suggest learning as much as you can.

I've read a little about each separately.   Dyslexia runs in DH's family, and ADHD in mine (though mostly hyperactive).  She didn't seem to quite fit either, which may be what threw us, especially not the stereotypical symptoms.  She didn't really struggle to learn to read, for instance.  She can copy what she sees, but struggles to write what she hears, and, even more so, can't seem to write what she's thinking.  DS11, two years older, has happily made his own "to do" lists for years, but she doesn't seem to be able to do that.  She likes it when I make her lists to follow, but when I've given her a notebook to make her own, she tells me she doesn't know how to write what she wants on there.  Sometimes, she seems to be indicating that she doesn't know how to spell any of the words; sometimes, she seems to be indicating that she can't hold the idea in her head long enough to get all the words down.  I'm not sure which she means.

[EKS]

Dyslexia by itself (or dyslexia with giftedness) can look like there is ADHD in the mix.  My son is diagnosed with all three, but I've never been entirely sure about the ADHD.  He did take medication for several years for the ADHD and it did help with academics, but it made him miserable, so he stopped about a year ago.

 

As for what it looks like... Read the chapter on Max in The Dyslexic Advantage and you'll get a pretty good idea.

[raptor_dad]

Dyslexia by itself (or dyslexia with giftedness) can look like there is ADHD in the mix.  My son is diagnosed with all three, but I've never been entirely sure about the ADHD.  He did take medication for several years for the ADHD and it did help with academics, but it made him miserable, so he stopped about a year ago.

 

As for what it looks like... Read the chapter on Max in The Dyslexic Advantage and you'll get a pretty good idea.

 

DS7 is clearly not dyslexic. However, I have found books like this useful for ideas... there seems to a constellation of traits that strongly overlaps between visual spatial learners and classic dyslexics. Likewise, there seems to a lot of overlap between asd, spd, adhd, and kids with anxiety issues; to say nothing of the putative gifted over-excitabilities.

 

The best book for us has been "The Mislabeled Child" by the Eides, http://www.amazon.com/The-Mislabeled-Child-Solutions-Challenges/dp/1401308996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398391370&sr=8-1&keywords=eide It provides a framework to consider the functional issues you are seeing without immediately trying to shoehorn it into a suspected diagnosis. It was more general and useful as a starting point than "The Dyslexic Advantage" by the same authors.

 

 

[Kathy G]

Dyslexia means something different for each dyslexic child.  DD here is dyslexia- no ADHD.  But at times the dyslexia mimic it as she becomes unfocused by the dyslexia.  Definitely more than a reversal problem.  We tried to figure her out from books, then got an eval.  It was so helpful to see specifically how the dyslexia affected her.  She deals with different dyslexic issues than her cousin who is also dyslexic.  Having the eval was great for us.  She can get overwhelmed easily in big noisy groups and now we know to help her focus with that instead of getting mad because she isn't behaving/interacting well. 

[brownie]

DS7 is clearly not dyslexic. However, I have found books like this useful for ideas... there seems to a constellation of traits that strongly overlaps between visual spatial learners and classic dyslexics. Likewise, there seems to a lot of overlap between asd, spd, adhd, and kids with anxiety issues; to say nothing of the putative gifted over-excitabilities.

 

Exactly.  This is what I've found.  DS9 is not dyslexic, but crazy visual and I've found these books helpful for teaching spelling, etc..