I have a question for the people here....
My 10 year old son was refered for testing through the schools for possible
learning diosorders.  Nick is very small for his age, has mild gross and fine
motor delays, mild hypertonia especially in his upper body, poor 
oordination,
grapho-motor delays causing poor handwriting, consistantly reverses letters
such as b and d, p and q, and reverses entire words.  His word attack skills
are on about a first grade level (he is in fourth) but his comprehension 
evel
is at 7th grade level.
However, Nick's ability is so great (tested IQ at 160) that he is able to
compensate for his problems and works at grade level. He is often frustrated
because he is unable to fully express his ideas in writing and is bored with
the material presented in the classroom. He has been placed in the gifted and
talented program, which he loves, and is in advanced placement for math.
The diaganosis?  ADD.  Treatment?  Medication.  No resource room, no OT or PT
for his delays.  No compensentory reading.
I really am upset about this.  Nick is not distractable at all,  In fact just
the opposite.  The doc called this hyper-focusing and it is a symptom of ADD.
It seems that children can focus when they want to and it is an activity they
want to do.  Nick hyper-focuses when he plays legos, draws, works puzzles, 
does
his spelling, math homework, does science projects, works on the computer (he
and his dad upgraded and installed OS2 on *my* computer then networked three
computers together for fun last weekend!)
When I asked the doctor why they had arrived at this diagnosis she told me it
was because Nick was very aware of extraneous (did I spell that right?) 
vents
while being tested and that physically he was constantly in motion, squirming
in the chair and eventually standing to do the testing.  Testing was done in 

large alcove off a main corridor at the school district offices.
As an example she offered: Nick heard a radio playing in another room.  He
remarked on the song, saying he liked it and his brother has the CD. Later he
looked out across the hallway to the window and told her the weather forcast
was for rain so we probably couldn't go camping on the weekend.
When I asked did his remarks keep him from doing his work she said no, he
worked steadily but she expected him to ignore such distractions.
The physical part was almost funny.  As I said Nick is very small.  Although
he is 10 years old he is the same size as my 6 year old.  They had him in an
adult chair at an adult size table!  That puts the table surface at chin 
level!
Of course he squirmed and stood up.  He literally couldn't see what he was
doing!
Nick's teachers (regular classroom, math, Phys Ed., and gifted classroom), 
he
school psychologist, his reading tutor, and the peditrician all disagree with
the diagnosis.  We are fighting to have the testing done through another
hospital.  ADD is not considered a learning disability in our state and
therefore Nick is not eligible for services.
We try to provide some support at a classroom level.  He has a 504 
accomodation
plan to address some issues. The OT works with another student in the class 
and
she includes Nick.  We have hired a tutor for reading and Nick is included in
the compensentory reading program on an informal level.  His phys ed teacher
has modified the program to allow Nick to participate at his level.
I figure the people in this conf. are the experts.  Have we missed something
here?  Are there other aspects to ADD that I am overlooking that could have
lead to the diagnosis?
Any information or comments would be truly appreciated.
                                       Chris
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