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Inconsistent Performance: Sometimes It’s
Up and Down and All Over the Map
By Joan Kasura
Inconsistent performance is the hobgoblin of all
students struggling with learning disabilities. But, it seems
to particularly plague Gifted LD students.
A recent conversation with another mom** brought that point
home to me with a resounding crash. Her son, a senior in high
school, who had finally been identified with dysgraphia and ADHD
in 6th grade, had been invited in November to apply for his high
school’s chapter of the National Honor Society (“NHS”).
She was ecstatic for her son, especially as he had worked incredibly
hard the prior year and managed to pull his grades up to the minimum
cumulative GPA of 3.4 required by the NHS. Getting in would be
the final feather in his cap and would serve only to validate
the “Yes, I can!!” attitude her son had espoused on
his applications to three carefully selected colleges, including
a nationally top-ranked engineering university.
Unfortunately, her wish was not to be granted. Citing “a
lack of academic character,” the high school faculty selection
committee turned down her son’s application. Her son initially
puzzled over the rejection letter’s doublespeak and then
shrugged it off, saying it was just as well as he would have less
than half a year to complete the chapter’s required 20 hours
of community service – a feat that would be a stretch given
his heavy academic load and internship class. His mom, however,
was livid, as she knew precisely what the letter referred to.
Obviously, the faculty selection committee had access to the
entirety of her son’s grade transcripts, not just the final
grades, which were sent with her son’s college applications.
Therefore, they knew about the incredibly rocky start that her
son had experienced when he first entered high school, and that
his grades that year had been literally all over the map. They
would also know about the recent, somewhat disastrous progress
report. However, they would not have taken into account that her
son’s final grades for that particular quarter no way resembled
that progress report due to the combination of redoubled effort
on the part of her son and understanding teachers willing to give
her son the benefit of the doubt as well as a second chance to
prove himself.
In short, the only thing the faculty selection committee saw
was the inconsistency that made up her son’s stellar grade
point average. And, as Dr. Mel Levine, the nationally known pediatric
education expert, frequently notes in his books and seminars,
the faculty selection committee did what most teachers and schools
do, they held up the inconsistency as evidence for the prosecution.
‘Hey,’ they contend, ‘we know he can do it.
We’ve seen him do it! Obviously, he’s not really trying!’
In the eyes of such teachers and schools, the negativity generated
by a student’s inconsistency outweighs the positives of
everything else – in this instance, the fact that the student
had managed, despite the odds, to accomplish an overall GPA that
many average students would give their eye teeth for. Talk about
the quintessential double-edged sword!!
In discussing the issue of consistency, Dr. Levine uses the
analogy of the basketball player trying to make a free throw during
a game, citing it as “one of the purest tests of attention
control.” He then goes on to compare his free throwing basketball
player to a math student with attention problems, noting that
students “with attention problems don’t have trouble
all the time.”
Obviously, the player knows how to sink a free throw. In a similar
vein, obviously the student knows how to solve a particular multi-step
math problem. However, when a basketball player misses the free
throw, does his coach berate him saying, “’If you
know how to sink a free throw, why can’t you do it all the
time?!? I think you’re really NOT TRYING!!’ Of course
not.
And yet the math teacher of the student solving the multi-step
math problem on a test will say precisely that. ‘I know
you know this material,’ they say, ‘How could you
make such a stupid mistake? Obviously, you’re really not
trying!!’
Just like the basketball coach who would never chastise his player
for not trying, every parent of a Gifted LD child knows this type
of blame game is totally unproductive. Rather, Dr. Levine points
out, it’s better to “talk about the inconsistency
as the issue and figure out how to increase the consistency of
one’s performance.” |
| Inconsistent
Performance: Sometimes It’s Up and Down and
All Over the Map |
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(continued)
[ Gifted Youth Articles ] [ ADHD
Articles ]
In the instance of the basketball player, maybe
he just had an all around bad game and the coach just chalks it
up to one of those things. For the math student, we all have days
when nothing seems to go right. If that seems to be the case,
then go through the test, make sure the student really understands
what the mistakes are, make sure he used all his testing strategies
and accommodations, and if he did, chalk it up to a Bad Hair Day.
Agonizing over split milk isn’t going to
make the student feel better about his performance. Even those
of us without learning disabilities have days when the world seems
to be against us. Rather than berating the student for their failings,
it’s far better to help the student see the inconsistency
as an aberration and allow them to move on.
Or, maybe the player needs to change his shooting
style to achieve more consistency in his performance. The same
may be the case for the math student. Just as a coach would work
with his player on feeling his way through the free throw shot,
a teacher needs to enlist the student in figuring out their inconsistencies.
States Dr. Levine, this means “having students become detectives
into the contributing factors to their inconsistency and helping
them to look for strategies to overcome the bad days.”
For instance, maybe in an effort to avoid writing
everything down, the student tried to do too much of the problem
in his head. Perhaps using a computer or one of the functional
calculators would solve the writing problem. Or maybe the student
rushed through his reading of the problem and missed that last
critical piece of the direction – “Simplify all answers.”
Perhaps slowing down and using a highlighter, or different colored
highlighters, to highlight the various portions of the problem
would help clarify the problems sequence and directions.
No matter what the solution, Dr. Levine recommends
that “any interventions that are implemented should always
be worded as ‘experiments,’ otherwise the strategy
can become another failure if it doesn’t work out in the
kid’s mind.” This particular aspect is critical because
students realize that an experiment can always be changed based
on the outcome.
In the end, it helps to try not to dwell too much
on the up and down nature of your child’s academic life.
Find activities outside of academia that can make your child feel
successful and give them the feel-good vibes they need to move
forward and put those inconsistent Bad Hair Days behind them.
Try to help your child see that inconsistent performance
is just that – inconsistent performance. Everybody, with
or without learning disabilities, has good days and bad days.
Sometimes it seems like the bad days outnumber the good; but,
sometimes we can turn bad days into good days by pointing out
the lessons learned.
Inconsistency is all a matter of perspective.
In our family, this is usually summed up by a question often asked
just after someone has finished relating what seems like an especially
rotten day – “So, other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how
was the play?”
** The facts related here are actually a composite
of situations experienced by several students that were either
told to me by friends, encountered in my practice, or related
to me through other special education resources.
[The author expresses her sincere appreciation
to Dr. Mel Levine and his staff, especially his publicist, Merri
Oxley of Devillier Communications. For more information on Dr.
Levine’s work, books and upcoming conferences, check out
his website, www.alkindsofminds.org .]
Joan Kasura is a parent advocate/attorney and
a professional writer on special education law issues. Over the
last ten years, her work had appeared in both national and highly
regarded regional special education publications, including Baltimore’s
Child: A Special Edition, and 2e: Twice Exceptional Newsletter.
Through her workshop forum, “The Write Stuff,” she
conducts workshops and seminars to assist parents in navigating
the paperwork maze of special education. She currently is working
on a book, Letters to School, to accompany her interactive workshop
of the same name. In her advocacy practice, she specializes in
assisting parents of students identified as Gifted LD as well
as consulting with parents on their written communication problems
with their schools.
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