please point me in the right direction for my 9th grader's challenges

[flmom79]

Having heard that learning challenges in boys usually dissipate with increased maturity during the high school years if the boy is willing to apply himself, we were expecting our 9th grader to improve on his extremely slow times for completing schoolwork, particularly as regards English or mathematical work.  Straightforward answering of multiple choice or filling in a blank is not so bad; it's his having to write language, whether prose or mathematical displays of process, that becomes truly dysfunctional, and not only is necessity not proving the mother of invention with handling the increased high school workload, but he is actually seeming to regress in terms of appropriate processing time.  He is not unintelligent but becomes seemingly paralyzed in triggering situations (basically any time when he must generate any type of language, whether writing a sentence according to a pattern for foreign language class, writing an essay, or displaying a sequence of thought on a math test).  Obviously, this also impacts his note-taking ability for his live online classes.  We have considered putting him in public school for the potential sink-or-swim solution, but my concern is that he could sink instead of swim and the sinking could look very bad indeed (he does NOT want to go).  Although his study habits and focus could improve -- he is not great about staying focused if I'm not around (unfortunately given that he's in high school!) but does not generally give me any grief for keeping him on task -- for the most part his problems do not stem from procrastination but from lengthy completion times when he is actually sitting down to do the work.  What should we do?  Please help!

[Rosie_0801]

Sounds like you need to lighten his schedule, reduce the amount of writing so there's time for quality. You might also try helping him to find and note down key words and other ways of dividing his thinking between what is necessary now and what can be delayed until later when he has time to think about it properly.

 

Public school sure won't help.

[Storygirl]

There is help available for various learning issues, but the first step is to figure out what is going on, so that you can target the intervention in helpful ways. Have you thought about getting evaluations? Processing speed is something that can be measured, for example. And there are links between a slow processing speed and the ability to get thoughts onto paper.

[ScoutTN]

Seconding getting a psycho-ed eval asap. You need official specifics to get targeted interventions rolling.  

[kbutton]

Evaluations are key to supporting him. Processing speed can affect language, but I would encourage you to consider a language evaluation—those are rarely included in a full psychological evaluation, so it’s often overlooked. Language issues can be very specific and narrow but really glitch things up.

18 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Sounds like you need to lighten his schedule, reduce the amount of writing so there's time for quality. You might also try helping him to find and note down key words and other ways of dividing his thinking between what is necessary now and what can be delayed until later when he has time to think about it properly.

 

Public school sure won't help.

I agree.

That said, if you cannot afford full evals, if you are in the US, you can use the public school to get them for free. If you that route, I would still do private language testing because the public school usually uses very basic language testing that doesn’t tend to turn up subtle language issues.

[EKS]

For my son with dyslexia, we found that improvement didn't happen until the late teens.  Things got progressively better from age 17 through the early 20s.  

If you haven't had him evaluated, do that.  It's important that you know what he's dealing with--and it's even more important that he knows what he's dealing with.  In the meantime, read aloud, discuss, do his writing with him, sit with him during math, whatever it takes to keep him on task.  

That said, one thing that really helped my son was going to school (first a private high school and then dual enrollment at the CC).  He definitely tightened up his act when his act was playing out in front of someone other than me.

[PeterPan]

On 11/3/2022 at 5:48 PM, flmom79 said:

learning challenges

He doesn't sound like he has a learning disability necessarily so much as low processing speed. If you get evals by a psychologist, they can quantify the issues and write a report with proper accommodations. He can use those accommodations in his dual enrollment classes, etc. 

 

On 11/3/2022 at 5:48 PM, flmom79 said:

he is not great about staying focused

That's ADHD and it's pretty common to have low processing speed as a disability with the ADHD. They do IQ testing and the processing speed is assessed. If there is a significant discrepancy between his overall IQ and processing speed, then he has a disability requiring accommodation. This is what you are describing. While he will continue to mature relative to himself, his brain is what it is. The processing speed is due to the spacing of the mini-columns in the brain, literally the way it is wired. It's what makes him unique, creative, etc. but also what is making the work tedious and possibly fatiguing.

If they diagnose ADHD, you can talk with your doctor about meds. 

On 11/3/2022 at 5:48 PM, flmom79 said:

What should we do?  Please help!

Get evals, learn about ADHD, consider meds, and connect him with an educational therapist to get him up to speed on his best strategies/accommodations and how to self-advocate. Right now you're doing a lot for him, but he's going to have to do that for himself. The best way for him to do this is for HIM to be self-advocating. To do this he needs the correct terms for his disability, the list of accommodations, and the confidence that it's right for him to self-advocate and let who he is and what he can do shine.

And yes, he'll probably end up being advised to do a reduced course load, etc. I also suggest considering whether he has any sensory issues, vision issues (difficulty with his eyes when converging or focusing, things he might not have mentioned, headaches when reading, etc.), and any indications of retained reflexes. They're issues that would be pretty common with people with ADHD so he may or may not have them, just stuff to check. 

[SanDiegoMom]

Don't underestimate growth spurts and puberty.  My son's ability to time manage, go through the writing process, and basically anything using executive functioning took a real hit during 8th and 9th grade years.  Once he was through his major growth spurt he leveled out, anxiety dropped, and he was firing on all cylinders again.  

He went from a full on shut down in ninth grade over a multi paragraph assignment which just overloaded his brain (and this happened regularly in 9th grade) to 10th grade writing a 10 page research paper and 11th writing timed essays on demand.  

Other things were in play as well -- he was zoom schooling in ninth and went to full in person school by 10th, and does SO much better with anxiety and writing in person.  

[73349]

I also recommend evals; I'd tell the evaluator I'm concerned about processing speed, dysgraphia (also known as Specific Learning Disability of Written Expression), and possibly challenges with sustaining attention.

Depending on results, there may be recommendations that include...

• scribing for him in subjects where just writing it down is the problem (often math)
• building typing speed (my recommendation: readandspell.com)
• formatting some work as matching or choosing from a dropdown menu instead of writing answers in
• extended time to complete tests and writing assignments
• spending more time on short assignments (such as single-paragraph writing) with extra support, rather than failing at longer assignments.

If a learning disability is the issue, willpower will not resolve it, and increased maturity will be most helpful if there are appropriate supports in place.

Edited November 14, 2022 by 73349