Tag: 2e

Review: Getting gifted homeschoolers (almost) right

Posted on by Suki

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl
by Stacy McAnulty
Random House, 2018

As a teacher of gifted learners, I am always interested in how they are portrayed in kids’ books. Generations of smart kids had to see themselves portrayed as clueless, clumsy, antisocial idiot savants. The Great Brain aside, it was definitely not cool to be smart.

And then there’s what mainstream writers do to homeschoolers. They’re weirdo Christian separatists who have never learned how to behave in polite society. At least sometimes they get to be vampires, too.

Stereotypes don’t come from nowhere—there’s almost always a kernel of truth. But it’s a writer’s job to go beyond the stereotype and find the real person.

Stacy McAnulty does just that in The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl.

This middle grade novel presents us with a familiar gifted homeschooler: Lucy is very weird. Struck by lightning when she was younger, she’s now a middle schooler who’s never been to school, whose OCD makes her stick out in any crowd, and who is immediately the target of Maddie, the alpha dog bully of her grade. Lucy is in school because her grandmother, who’s her guardian, believes she needs to be socialized. Yet another homeschooler/gifted kid stereotype.

But that’s where the stereotypes end, and the real child emerges.

First of all, Lucy does not buy her grandmother’s arguments for a minute. She knows that she’s not the problem—other kids and adults are the problem. Her grandmother (a wonderful character despite her stereotypical belief in the fallacy of socialization) has raised her well. She’s a self-possessed, thoughtful kid who makes the thoroughly believable choice not to let anyone know just how smart she is.

As she tells the girl who becomes her best friend, Windy, her OCD already makes it clear she’s weird. She doesn’t need any other baggage.

Charmingly, Lucy thinks her way through the problem and calculates how to get through this mandatory year of socialization. Just the fact that she’s able to do this disproves her grandmother’s opinion that she needs to be socialized—she gets what the other kids and the teachers need, and she sets about giving it to them.

She purposely becomes an A student, good enough to get into the college she wants to attend—but not a perfect A student. She calculates how to do just well enough not to gain too much attention.

She knows she’s not going to be acceptable to most of the other kids, so she doesn’t try. She presses on fulfilling her own needs for order (she has to sit and stand three times before sitting down in class) and cleanliness (the kids call her “the cleaning lady” because she wipes down every surface she comes into contact with using disposable wipes she carries in her backpack). But she’s thoughtful and kind to the other students, and soon at least two of them notice and accept her.

The miscalculation in the title does not refer to her attempt to deceive the others—she fits in well enough that the kids and teachers don’t guess just how smart she is until various circumstances lead to her unmasking. Her miscalculation is that she’ll be able to ride out this year without forming real friendships, experiencing real growth, and actually learning something (though not necessarily what her teachers think she’s learning).

I loved how realistic Lucy is, how all the characters (even the bully) are well-drawn and sympathetic, and how the book gets past almost all of the usual stereotypes and gifted homeschooler tropes.

I finished with only one question: Why does it take a strike of lightning to make Lucy smart? Why can’t she just be a generic smart kid, born that way? I know that the lightning offered a fun opportunity for characterization. But it’s a bit like writing a story about a white kid who wakes up Black and has to face racism. Why not just write about a Black kid?

Gifted kids are real. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them do have disabilities (called twice-exceptionalities in the gifted world). Some of them are socially awkward.

But they’re all people, and they deserve to be integrated into our schools—and our literature—as fully human and deserving of the same care and respect as everyone else. The fact that the author chose to make Lucy homeschooled gets at an ugly truth: Our society can be very, very nasty to kids who don’t fit in. Teachers largely don’t like being corrected. (Lucy actually keeps her mouth shut when her math teacher makes a mistake on a problem, for good reason.) Kids don’t like being bested, especially when it’s so easy for the gifted kid to do it. (Lucy is careful not to be the best at anything.)

But gifted kids are not an accident, not a strike of lightning. They’re just one side of the wonderful rainbow of human variability. Let’s just accept them and move on.

So yes, this is a great book for your gifted kid, but when they ask why they are the way they are, make sure they know that they are no accident. They are exactly the way they’re supposed to be.

Related:

The Search For The Girl Scientist In Literature

Books Featuring Homeschoolers

2e: Twice Exceptional Movie Review

Posted on by Suki

2e: Twice Exceptional is a low-budget documentary with heart. There’s nothing fancy about this peek into the lives of twice-exceptional teens, their parents, and their teachers.

But just the existence of this documentary is revolutionary enough.

2e?

The average reader’s first question is obvious: 2e? What’s that? I wrote a long discourse on the topic which you can access here. However, the short answer is that a twice-exceptional child is both gifted and has a disability. That disability could be physical, emotional, neurological. But no matter what the disability, the end result is that the disability often masks the giftedness.

There have been some movies made about 2e people without identifying them as such. The most prominent that comes to mind is My Left Foot, about a child so physically compromised, he couldn’t communicate what was happening in his very active brain. It is a dramatic and beautiful movie.

In contrast, this documentary focuses in on real, everyday teens fighting the battle between their intellect and the issues that compromise their ability to access education, communicate, and achieve. There’s not a lot of drama here, just a clear look at the hard work of supporting these students into adulthood.

What you’ll see

This one-hour documentary is long on direct interviews. Parents explain their journey from thinking they were raising typical kids to being plunged into the chaos of raising a child with special needs. Teachers talk about their experiences working with this difficult, but rewarding, population.

The focus, however, is on the kids themselves. And in this movie, they make a compelling argument for why we need more educational flexibility. Many of these students argue that without their 2e-dedicated school (Bridges Academy in Los Angeles), they would have been lost in a system not equipped to handle them.

The drama centers on Pi Day, when the students compete to memorize Pi to the furthest amount of digits. Punctuated with students struggling to perform the digits they have memorized, we hear from the students themselves about their challenges and their dreams.

Limits exposed

The limits of this documentary mirror our society as a whole. With its dense population and surfeit of wealthy donors, L.A. is the sort of place where such a school can exist. In most places, such as my county where our only school serving 2e students just closed, there is neither the large number of 2e students nor the concentration of wealth to support such a school.

The limits of this documentary point out the limits in our society as a whole. In most places in this country, a 2e student is lucky to get a couple of teachers throughout their school years who understand and connect with them. It’s hard enough for gifted students to find teachers trained in the special needs of giftedness. (Most teacher trainings do not require study of gifted learners.)

But most teachers have absolutely no training in how to serve the needs of gifted students with disabilities.

Awareness is key

Documentaries like this one can help by spreading awareness of these students’ existence, their great potential, and their educational needs. By the end of the movie, it’s clear how much these kids have to offer society. Many similar kids, spread around the world, are not receiving the support they need. They are languishing in special education programs that do not support their academic needs. They are bullied and emotionally harmed by fellow students and teachers in regular education. Their parents are told they need medication and therapy.

The teachers in the documentary make a strong case for an educational approach that is sadly rare in our society: instead of focusing on these students’ deficits, they focus on their strengths and interests. This is messy, complicated education. It’s expensive and the payoff is sometimes not obvious. It’s very hard to quantify.

But when you see these students move past their disabilities as they shine in their abilities, you can see that it’s all worth the trouble.

Learn more:

Visit the film’s homepage to learn more, join their email list, and find out about screenings.

11 steps to guiding difficult gifted kids

Posted on by Suki

This is Part 7 of a guest series I wrote in 2012 for Great Potential Press, which published my book, From School to Homeschool. A change on their website made it inaccessible, so I’m republishing here in celebration of National Parenting Gifted Children Week. To read the complete series, click here to start with post #1, “The Role of Parents in Identifying Gifted Children.”

Parenting a gifted child presents unusual challenges. Parenting a gifted child with behavioral differences places new burdens on top of those challenges. Although no one has the one magic ticket to make your life easier, experienced parents of gifted children offer variations on the following advice to help you negotiate the process of raising your wonderful, difficult child.

1. Don’t depend on one theory of parenting.

It’s unusual for a well-loved parenting theory to work without alteration for kids with behavioral differences. Take the parts that work, get rid of the parts that don’t.

2. Keep records.

A parent’s point of view about her child’s behavior can vary widely over only a matter of months. Children tend to coast along for a while then go through rapid periods of change. Parents often find themselves saying, When is this EVER going to end? Then some months later they realize that whatever it was had ended and they hadn’t noticed.

3. Expect regression.

This is totally normal, even for neurotypical kids. It happens in every area of life: potty training, academic learning, sleep habits… Parents of unusual children should try not to be disconcerted by normal regression.

4. Get the help of a good occupational therapist.

The best ones will have some background in issues of giftedness, though the very best will be eager to learn whether or not they have the background. A good occupational therapist will be interested in the whole child.

5. Find a general Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) whose approach works well with your family.

Your LMFT will be able to help you work through ideas and also give you a sense of how unusual your child’s behavior really is. Once parents become sensitized to having an unusual child, they tend to lose perspective. In other words, “usual” kids aren’t perfect, either.

6. Don’t jump on every new theory you see, but then again, don’t discount everything as out of the question.

There is so much more information available to us now than to parents in previous generations. In one way, this is blessing. Parents today have access to advice from a wide variety of sources. But on the other hand, parents can go crazy trying to follow every piece of advice. Your child, and your family, will stay more sane if you take each piece of advice under consideration, but don’t jump on every train that passes.

7. Some simple nutritional changes can make a big difference.

Fish pillsThere are a few dietary changes that every parent of a difficult child should try. These changes have been shown to work well with a large number of gifted children, and they are not difficult ones to implement:

– Supplement with Omega-3 oils. They influence brain function, and parents often see an immediate difference in their kids, especially in their ability to maintain stable moods.

– Try to up the protein intake and lower the simple carbohydrate intake. Simple carbs are really bad for kids whose brains are on overdrive. Protein, especially early in the day, gives them something to work on.

– Try to avoid artificial colors and preservatives, especially sodium benzoate. These have been shown to exacerbate problems with kids who tend toward hyperactive behavior.

– Have “hyperactive” children’s ferritin levels checked. Recent studies are showing that kids who have normal general iron levels but very low ferritin (stored iron) levels show ADHD-like behaviors. (See ‘Relationship of Ferritin to Symptom Ratings Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder’, Oner, 2007) Iron supplementation is easy and may show large benefits.

8. Be willing to give your child the support he needs to succeed.

Some parents fall into the trip of letting their children fail because they assume that kids “should” be able to handle what other kids handle. But a gifted child who fails repeatedly because of inadequate support will never learn the joy of succeeding. When possible, set up enough “successful” activities to balance the challenging activities. If the child is in school, work with the teacher to provide positive feedback on progress, no matter how small.

9. When possible, make reasonable accommodations for your child’s differences.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASometimes parents expect gifted kids to be more resilient than neurotypical kids. But simple accommodations for common problems can help gifted children thrive. For example, many twice-exceptional children have difficulty with handwriting. This translates into the child being unable to express herself in writing. In this case, a reasonable accommodation would be for the child to learn keyboarding or dictate homework to a parent. Handwriting itself can be worked on separately, when it is not interfering with the creative process.

10. Be willing to call him a child with special needs.

This is a big step for many parents of twice-exceptional children to take. Your child does have special needs, even though he also has special talents. And all children deserve to have their needs met so that they can reach their potential.

11. Put on your mask first

Finally, don’t forget that the parents of gifted children need help, too. Find a support group, in person or online. Getting input from other parents who have similar challenges will help you be the best parent you can be.

Are we doing better? A mom, a daughter, and a small press.

Posted on by Suki

I went to a reading the other night at Bookshop Santa Cruz. It was the most fabulously successful reading I’ve seen there, literally standing room only. But it wasn’t Jonathan Franzen or Suzanne Collins that pulled them in.

It was a mom, a daughter, and a little independent press.

The mom is Dena Taylor, famous in Santa Cruz for her many-year run with the great gathering of women writers, In Celebration of the Muse. (I read at The Muse once. I got to wear my fabulous red dress, a color which I admit that redheads should not wear, but I felt pretty darn fabulous and I got a laugh out of the friendly audience of local women and some of their men, so it was great!)

The daughter is Becky Taylor, also somewhat famous in Santa Cruz for being amongst the first mainstreamed disabled people in our public schools.

The press is Many Names Press, which has been run for years by my friend Kate Hitt. Kate selects poetry and prose by mostly local writers who write from the heart and with a unique (and usually not very marketable) point of view.

Kate introducing Becky and Dena at the reading. I had to crop this photo pretty seriously because of the sea of grey and balding heads that were in the foreground! What a crowd! (And a few were neither grey nor balding!)
Kate introducing Becky and Dena at the reading. I had to crop this photo pretty seriously because of the sea of grey and balding heads that were in the foreground! What a crowd! (And a few were neither grey nor balding!)

Kate has been telling me for months that she’s been so excited about working with Dena and Becky on their memoir, Tell Me the Number Before Infinity. The book is written in alternating chapters by Dena and Becky about their experiences. The first experiences are Dena’s, finding out that her daughter had suffered brain damage at birth and would be disabled, then realizing as her daughter grew that her “differently abled” daughter’s abilities included a very advanced aptitude for math. Then we start to hear from Becky as she learns to navigate a world that assumes that a woman who uses crutches and speaks slowly and with a stutter must be stupid, deaf, or a combination of both.

Dena and Becky’s story was familiar to me. I have written before about the term “twice-exceptional” and the difficulties of raising a child who has both unusual disabilities and unusual gifts. Becky’s differences were at the extreme ends. At a time when Americans were unused to disabled people expecting to be allowed into the mainstream, Becky was unique—and often unwanted. And although our public schools in the 70’s were sadly probably better equipped to handle a brilliant child, she faced the stigmatism and misunderstandings that many gifted children face.

Listening to them talk about their experiences made me wonder: Have we improved at all? Are we doing better at accepting twice-exceptionality?

I think to a certain degree, things have improved. Certainly, the general public is much more likely to have interacted with a disabled person now than 30 years ago. Most people are at least aware that physical disabilities don’t necessarily correlate with intellectual disabilities.

On the other hand, schools are probably doing a worse job at integrating brilliant children of any flavor. Our focus on tests and standardization comes at a price: creative, unusual thinkers are devalued. They are bored at the repetition and emphasis on rote knowledge. And teachers often note that such intellectual brilliance doesn’t always correlate with high test scores, so these kids are often dismissed as unteachable.

I am glad, in any case, that Dena and Becky wrote their book, and that at their first reading they—and Kate’s press—were received so warmly. I hope that this book adds yet another little bit of strength in the resistance to the corporatization, standardization, and dumbing down of our education and our literature.

Related:

Forging new teacher relationships for your twice-exceptional child

Posted on by Suki

Note: This article was originally published in the Winter, 2012 issue of the Gifted Education Communicator.

Parents of gifted children have it hard enough: each time our children interact with a new adult, whether a teacher in school, a camp counselor, or a new violin teacher, we have to be prepared to train yet another adult in how to work with gifted children.

Parents of twice-exceptional gifted children face a much higher barrier: Most teachers have never even heard of the term “twice-exceptional.” Not only will some of them have no training in giftedness, but most of them will believe that a child with learning differences could not possibly be gifted at the same time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe first hurdle parents face, therefore, is whether to mention the word “gifted” at all.

“Mention giftedness, and be mentally prepared for eye-rolling,” advises J. Marlow Schmauder, founder and executive director of the Asynchronous Scholars’ Fund (asynchronousscholars.org), “although there are definitely teachers out there who will respond with an open mind and intent to help.”

“Mentioning my child is gifted has never really helped,” says Linda Hickey, mom of a profoundly gifted six-year-old. “Even a teacher who was a developmental specialist and was the head teacher in a developmental preschool my son attended, and who claimed she has worked with lots of gifted kids, did not truly understand.”

Marté J. Matthews, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works with families of gifted children in San Jose (martejmatthewsmft.com), suggests that it may be a matter of wording.

“Teachers are less likely to be receptive to parents using terms like ‘gifted’ or ‘twice-exceptional’ or criticizing every fault their child has,” Matthews explains. “’All or nothing’ descriptions tend to be a red flag for teachers that this parent is going to be a handful to deal with all year.”

Lyn Cavanagh-Olson, GATE Coordinator for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, agrees that the starting place for parents should be to clarify their intent to support the teacher rather than to define their child and appear to predict failure.

“Most teachers welcome insight into their students,” Cavanagh-Olson says. “If parents approach the teacher not with demands but with information and support they will be doing their child a great service.”

Whether or not their training included giftedness, most teachers will likely have little understanding of twice-exceptionality. Linda C. Neumann, editor of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter (2enewsletter.com), says that parents need to be strong advocates for their 2e students.

“Teachers may not realize that a student’s strengths are helping compensate for the deficits and that this compensation can use up a lot of the child’s energy, making it hard to keep up a consistent level of performance,” Neumann explains. “If a teacher becomes aware of this situation right from the start, it can save the child from embarrassment, discouragement, and even worse, anxiety, depression, and loss of self-esteem.”

Offering information can backfire, however, if the parent implies that she believes that the teacher is inexperienced, or gives an overwhelming amount of information that the teacher will not be able to use. Parents need to draw on the teacher’s previous experience, be good listeners, and offer information in a non-threatening manner.

“Parents need to be respectful of the teacher’s time when sharing information,” Neumann advises. “Instead of saying, ‘You should read this book,’ or ‘You should read this 50-page report about my child,’ it’s better to provide the teacher with a brief summary of the situation and suggestions for accommodations and strategies.”

“Write out a short summary with the highlights of your child’s strengths and needs to share with your child’s teacher,” advises Matthews. “Bring the additional testing, grades and reports, but don’t lead with them.  Ask your teacher about successful approaches they have used with kids who ‘love math but avoid spelling’ or ‘tend to distract others when they need more intellectual challenge’.”

When giving advice about working with a 2e child, try to stay very specific. A generalization like “too many options overwhelm him” will not necessarily result in the teacher changing his strategies, but a specific suggestion like “please assign him to a learning station rather than asking him to choose” will help the teacher adapt in actual classroom situations.

“I will alert teachers of specific things they might want to watch out for with my son like how he gets wound up easy and gets really excited,” Hickey explains.

“Mention strategies you find helpful at home,” Schmauder suggests. “Provide fidgets and such similar assistive things from the start, if not against the rules.”

“Goal setting and organizational strategies are important for all students,” says Cavanagh-Olson. “But most 2e’s need specific instruction and tools, so if parents can share past success in these areas, most teachers will be open to building on what has worked in the past.”

In acting as advocates for their children, parents will benefit from refocusing from the negatives of the past to the positives they hope will come from the new relationship. Lyn Cavanagh-Olson says that parents she works with see greater success when they frame the discussion in the positive.

“The concept of 2e may be foreign to some teachers,” she says. “So stressing the need to focus on the child’s strengths and compensation strategies will keep the conversation constructive.”

“Often, the strengths aren’t easily recognized,” Neumann explains. “2e children can appear to be uninterested, lazy, distracted, or disruptive; and their inconsistency can make it look to others as though they can achieve when they want to, but they don’t always want to.”

Schmauder, who developed “The Healthcare Providers’ Guide to Gifted Children” for the Gifted Homeschoolers’ Forum (giftedhomeschoolers.org/professionalresources.html), is in the process of creating a similar brochure for educators.

“Tell the teacher you are so happy to have them be able to help your child succeed, and that you’re willing to help in any way, and that you appreciate their support,” Schmauder suggests.

Teachers say that this approach completely changes their ability to work with students. Rebecca Hein, who teaches cello and wrote a memoir about raising her two profoundly gifted children (caseofbrilliance.wordpress.com), offers testimony that learning about a student’s learning disability made a huge difference in how she approached teaching.

“I had a young Suzuki student whose progress was quite slow for her age,” Hein remembers. “I had no idea why until the mother finally told me. It was much easier for me to work with her, knowing that she had this particular issue in her learning. I was grateful to have the information because it helped both me and this little girl.”

Cavanagh-Olson has seen a lot of gifted students in her district suffer from their other exceptionalities. She reminds parents that 2e students need even more support after they have suffered difficulties in school.

“They often feel defeated about school because their deficits have defined them. Focusing on the whole child with the balance tipped toward their strengths is a good vision for parents and students to work toward.”

New teacher checklist:

  • Set up a brief meeting to talk about your child’s learning needs
  • Offer a short summary of your child’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Do not overwhelm with information, but be prepared to offer other resources such as testing/diagnostic results, articles that define your child’s exceptionality, and suggestions for modified teaching strategies
  • Be a good listener, and make it clear that you want to draw on the new teacher’s experience
  • Offer specific advice that has worked in other classrooms
  • Be your child’s advocate, focusing on success
  • Offer strong support to your child

 

 

2e Resource List

Resources regarding twice-exceptional children and adults are changing daily, with new research, treatment options, and understanding of what comprises giftedness and learning disabilities. Hopefully some of the resources below will be helpful as you seek to understand your 2e children and students.

Books:

  • Academic Advocacy for Gifted Children: A Parent’s Complete Guide by Barbara Jackson Gilman MS
    This general guide helps parents navigate advocating for their gifted students in school, and offers advice on homeschooling when advocacy fails.
  • Helping Gifted Children Soar by Carol Strip & Gretchen Hirsch
    This book is a general guide for parents and teachers on the educational needs of gifted children. It offers a basis for understanding the educational and emotional needs of gifted children, with some mentions of issues specific to twice-exceptional students.
  • Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults by James T. Webb et al
    Because giftedness itself often leads to behaviors shared by such disabilities as ADHD and autism, this book is an important guide for parents and educators of the gifted. Misdiagnosis is common in gifted children because so few psychologists and therapists are trained to recognize the traits of giftedness separate from disorders that present similar behaviors.
  • Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties by Rich Weinfeld et al
    This is a straightforward guide to navigating the public and private school experience with a gifted, learning disabled child. The book includes information on a range of disabilities including Asperger’s, ADHD, Dyslexia, and social/emotional difficulties. Each chapter includes tips for educators, parents, and students, and is accompanied by helpful worksheets and guides for identifying and solving problems faced by students in school.
  • Successful Strategies for Twice-Exceptional Students by Frances A. Karnes and Kristin R. Stephens
    This resource book useful for parents, teachers, and homeschoolers, offers focused advice for a variety of learning challenges. Rather than starting with the source of the disability (e.g. autism or ADHD), the book is organized by the educational needs themselves: difficulties with mathematics, writing, reading, spoken language, and social-emotional issues.
  • Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom by Susan Winebrenner
    This book addresses a wide range of learning difficulties that teachers may encounter in the general education classroom. Winebrenner addresses twice-exceptional students early in the book and emphasizes teaching to the strengths of all children, regardless of ability.
  • Twice-Exceptional Gifted Children by Beverly A. Trail
    This book aimed at educators presents detailed research about the characteristics and learning needs of twice-exceptional students in school. It offers concrete guides for identifying needs, selecting strategies, and developing a comprehensive plan for each student.
  • Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner by Linda Kreger Silverman
    Though the visual-spatial learning style is not defined as a disability, it can manifest itself as one when a VS learner is placed in an inappropriate educational environment. Silverman’s book offers tips for identifying, teaching, and parenting VS learners.

Websites:

  • Davidson Institute for Talent Development Database: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/browse_by_topic_articles.aspx
    The Davidson Institute offers this enormous database of articles about all aspects of giftedness. On this page, take a look at the far right column to see the list of twice-exceptional topics that they have categorized: ADHD, Asperger’s/Autism, Asynchrony, Dylexia/Dysgraphia, Learning Disabilities, and Sensory Integration. The breadth of this collection may seem daunting, but you can find unexpected gems here.
  • Gifted Homeschoolers’ Forum: http://www.giftedhomeschoolers.org/2eresources.html
    Whether or not you homeschool your child, this resource page will point you to many organizations, websites, support groups, and books about your child’s specific disability.
  • Hoagies’ Gifted 2e Page: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/twice_exceptional.htm

Hoagies’ offers their own comprehensive list of 2e resources, with links to websites, books, and magazines with a variety of approaches and target audiences.

An online database of articles, webinars, and speeches on all topics of giftedness.

Specific articles available for download:

  • “The Paradox of Giftedness and Autism,” from the University of Iowa: http://www.education.uiowa.edu/belinblank/pdfs/pip.pdf
    Designed for educators, this detailed discussion of educating gifted children with Autism/Asperger Syndrome will be also helpful for parents who wish to offer specific tips to teachers working with their children.
  • “Strategies for Teaching Twice-Exceptional Students,” by Susan Winebrenner: http://www.2enewsletter.com/article_strategies_winebrenner.html
    This article offers tips for parents and educators that can help students with a variety of exceptionalities succeed in a classroom setting.

Newsletters/magazines:

  • 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter: http://www.2enewsletter.com
    2e offers a free semi-monthly e-mail briefing as well as a fee-based semi-monthly PDF newsletter. The magazine’s accessible articles are written by expert educators, psychologists, and others who work with gifted children with learning challenges. 2e also offers a series of Spotlight on 2e booklets, which cover a variety of issues of concern to parents and educators.
  • Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities Newsletter: http://www.smartkidswithld.org
    This newsletter offers short articles on news, research, and support for parents and teachers of children with learning disabilities.

In person:

SENG groups are run by a facilitator (a parent, teacher, or counselor) who has been trained by SENG. This can be an excellent way to connect with local resources, including learning more about other parents’ experiences with your schools and teachers.

For twice-exceptional kids:

  • Free Spirit Publishing’s books for kids: http://www.freespirit.com/
    Free Spirit offers lively books written for kids on a variety of topics of interest to twice-exceptional learners: ADHD, autism, anxiety & fear, etiquette & manners, social skills, and more.
  • The Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide by Judy Galbraith
    For kids 10 and under, this book helps kids understand giftedness and why they may feel different from other kids.
  • The Gifted Teens’ Survival Guide by Judy Galbraith and Jim Delisle
    This is a general-use manual for gifted teens. It covers what giftedness is, how different gifted children’s lives look, school, homeschool, college, and careers. There is a lot of good advice in the book, which encourages teens to see themselves as a full person rather than an IQ. The book also covers topics such as sexuality and depression.
  • How to Talk to an Autistic Kid by Daniel Stefansky
    This touching book is short and to the point. Written for neuro-typical children who interact with kids with autism, it could also be used to help an autistic child understand better how others perceive him and what he can do to help them understand him. The book is most suitable for adolescents and teens.
  • Neuroscience for Kids website: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
    This fun, free newsletter features links to interesting articles that help children understand their brains.
  • The Smart Teens’ Guide to Living with Intensity by Lisa Rivero
    Rivero’s book is like an owner’s manual for the teen gifted brain. It presents teens with information on what intensity is and how to manage their emotional and social lives. It also helps teens learn about learning and how to become more self-directed in their studies.

 

Now available