So if my kid has learning differences, why didn’t the school notice?

As I’ve mentioned before, my anxious learners have a history of school success. Their strong academic intelligence can mask learning barriers, such as ADHD, slow processing, OCD, and perfectionism, so teachers don’t suspect a problem.

To be assessed for special education services, a learner needs to test two grade levels below their same-aged peers. Most learners present this deficit in elementary school, so they get support throughout. If a learner never slips below grade level, there’s no reason to assess, so they fall through the cracks. 

Children receiving special education services learn strategies to manage and overcome the interference caused by learning differences. I deliberately write “interference,” because that best describes what’s happening. Children with learning differences have no problem building knowledge, skills, and understanding. The problem is access; something about the way their brain functions literally gets in the way of the learning process.

Students whose intelligence enables them to compensate sufficiently to stay at grade level are - understandably - not taught strategies to manage their learning differences because they don’t appear to need them. Until they do.

These struggles tend to appear rather suddenly in high school or early in college, puzzling everyone - the student most especially. Undiagnosed neurodivergence, unfortunately, presents with the same behavior as academic disengagement: missed or late assignments, sporadic attendance, depression, avoidance through other activities. 

Typically, adults respond to academic disengagement with increasingly firm requests to change the behavior. The learner is now in a position where they have no idea why they can’t seem to do work they’d really like to do AND all the adults around them are angry, disappointed, and worried. 

Boxed in a corner with no idea how to improve the situation, who wouldn’t get anxious?