2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2012-01-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

HIGH ACHIEVERS RUNNING INTO TROUBLE. A Canadian study of students who excelled in high school but ran into trouble at the university level indicates that some of those students could have reading comprehension difficulties. Apparently, even while the students may read fluently they have trouble making sense of what they read, probably through difficulties in working memory and simultaneous processing of the information. The researchers' recommendation? More reading, and practice at creating a mental map of the ideas in the material. Find out more about the study.

MORE ON AUTISM DIAGNOSIS. We've blogged about possible changes to the diagnostic criteria for ASD in the upcoming DSM-5. We've found two more items about the changes, one at Science Daily and one from CNN. If this topic is relevant to you, you might be interested in these two items.

SENG has issued a press release sharing its concerns with certain aspects of the American Academy of Pediatrics' new position on diagnosing AD/HD in younger children. SENG is concerned that pediatricians might confuse some traits of gifted kids with symptoms of AD/HD, resulting in misdiagnosis. Read the release. Separately, SENG is offering a SENGinar on February 16 titled "Taming the Worry Monster: Anxiety in Gifted and Twice-Exceptional Youth," featuring Dan Peters. Find out more. Finally, potential West Coast facilitators of SENG Model Parent Groups may want to check out a facilitator training session to be held Saturday and Sunday,March 17-18, 2012, in the San Francisco Bay area. The session is to be led by Kathleen Crombie, MA, M.Ed., with Dr. Dan Peterspresenting. Early bird reduced registration ends 1/27/12. Find out more about SENG Model Parent Groups.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER has issued its first newsletter of 2012, including (among other things) a preview of the 10th International Dabrowski Congress. Find the newsletter.

IN THE RENO, NEVADA, AREA? The Davidson Institute is offering a free presentation for educators on common myths about gifted students on March 28, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. on the Davidson Academy campus. Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2012-01-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

AUDITORY SAMPLING LINKED TO DYSLEXIA. Recent research indicates that the way the brain processes auditory rhythms in phonemes may underlie dyslexia. From a write-up of the study: "Our results suggest that the left auditory cortex of dyslexic people may be less responsive to modulations at very specific frequencies that are optimal for analysis of speech sounds and overly responsive to higher frequencies, which is potentially detrimental to their verbal short-term memory abilities." Read more.

NEWS ON AUTISM. Another recent study indicates that disorders such as AD/HD or LDs may often accompany autism, complicating diagnosis and treatment. The study also indicated that some kids "outgrow" a diagnosis of ASD. Read about the study. Separately, a study of twins where only one of the twins was affected with ASD seems to indicate that the twin with lower birth weight was more likely to develop the diagnosis. To the researchers, this indicates that environmental factors also play a role in the development of ASD. Find out more. Finally, Autism Speaks has responded to the recent reports of changes in the way ASD might be defined in the DSM-5, changes some feel would leave some children ineligible for an ASD diagnosis and resultant services. The organization states, "Autism Speaks’ position is that it will be vitally important to collect meaningful information on how the change impacts access to services by those affected by autism symptoms." Read more.

GIFTED IN HOUSTON. The Houston, Texas, Independent School District (HISD) has identified about 15.6 percent of its students as gifted, more than twice the percentage in other Texas schools and higher than the national average. The Texas Watchdog questions whether including so many students in the gifted pool allows gifted programs to truly serve the top learners. The article also includes figures indicating the composition of the HISD gifted pool: 42 percent of Asians in the district are identified as gifted, 40 percent of white students, and 7 percent of African-American students. HISD is 60-plus percent Hispanic and 25 percent African-American. Read more.

DISABILITY REDEFINED? Education Week notes that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education has issued a letter that might expand the range of students for whom schools must provide special ed services. According to the article, the OCR's guidance states: "Students who, in the past, may not have been determined to have a disability under Section 504 [of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973] and Title II [of the Americans with Disabilities Act] may now in fact be found to have a disability under those laws." Read about it, and if we find out more we'll pass it on.

2012-01-19T14:49:00.000-08:00

AUTISTIC PRODIGY. An alert reader pointed us to a "60 Minutes" program which has this promotional blurb: "At age two, Jake Barnett was diagnosed with autism and his future was unclear. Now at age 13, Jake is a college sophomore and a math and science prodigy. Jake says his autism is key to his success." Find the program. (Thanks, Ida.)

EDUCATION WEEK published an article titled "Special Educators Borrow from Brain Studies," noting as an example how kids with Asperger's can be taught to maintain self-control when frustrated. Another example: how an MIT professor is doing a longitudinal MRI study to try to predict which kids will have trouble reading. Find the article.

FUNDING FOR LD RESEARCH. The National Institutes of Health have announced funding for four centers that will conduct research on the causes and treatment of learning disabilities in children and adolescents. The centers are at:

Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Texas Center for Learning Disabilities at the University of Houston
NIH Multidisciplinary Learning Disabilities Center at Florida State University, Tallahassee
The Center for Defining and Treating Specific Learning Disabilities in Written Language at the University of Washington, Seattle.

As they report their new findings, the centers will also work to convey their findings to the public, through the media, community groups, and school systems. Read more.

DSM-5 AND AUTISM. The article's lead sentence will tell you whether you need to read this article: "Proposed changes in the definition of autism would sharply reduce the skyrocketing rate at which the disorder is diagnosed and may make it harder for many people who would no longer meet the criteria to get health, educational and social services, a new analysis suggests." The article discusses the proposed elimination of Asperger's as a separate category. Find the article in The New York Times.

ASPIES IN LOVE. We pointed readers a while back to an article about two young people with Asperger's who were navigating the difficulties of having a close relationship. NPR's "Talk of the Nation" included a segment on the couple in a recent edition of the program. Find out more.

APPLE AND EDUCATION. Apple today unveiled a variety of tools to facilitate learning using iPad tables, including a new release of iBooks 2 to support digital textbooks and an iTune U app for the iPad. Apple also announced partnerships with major textbook publishers. Read more. Note that the upcoming issue of 2e Newsletter will feature assistive technology and devices such as the iPad.

INCLUSIVE STORYLINES. Awards for children's books with inclusive storylines are to be presented at a CEC conference this week. Among the honored books is Mockingbird, reviewed by Bob Seney in the July 2011 issue of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter in his column "Bob Seney on Books." Read more about the books.

SENG has announced its new website with a new look and enhanced navigation. Read more about it in the current SENGVine newsletter or see for yourself.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2012-01-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

NAGC WOW. The National Association for Gifted Children offers "Webinars on Wednesday" -- WOW -- throughout the year. This spring the lineup includes two that deal with twice-exceptionality. On April 4, Lois Baldwin, Daphne Pereles, and Stuart Omdal present "RTI and Twice-Exceptional Students: A Promising Fit." On April 11, Lois Baldwin presents "The Intricacies of Twice-Exceptional Children: An Overview." Both are in the evening. Find out more about WOW.

THE APPLE AND THE TREE. Maybe you've heard us use one of our favorite 2e-related expressions, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Carla Crutsinger, in her Brainworks newsletter, addresses a mom's discovery that she, as well as her son, have AD/HD -- and offers a symptom checklist for moms who might be in a similar situation. Find the newsletter.

INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER is receiving attention from scholars, clinicians, and researchers. A recent study in China found that teenagers diagnosed with IAD performed less well on certain behavioral assessments. The also found that lower scores on those assessments were linked with a lower density of white matter in certain brain regions. In particular, IAD is "characterized by impairment of white matter fibers connecting brain regions involved in emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making and cognitive control." Got a smart kid at your house who spends a lot of time online? Check out the study.

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. The winter edition of this e-newsletter is out, and it contains an article called "Bringing the Educational Power of Steve Jobs into Your Gifted Classroom." Also in the issue: an article exploring what kids' familiarity with technology means for gifted education. Find the newsletter.

AND FINALLY, THIS, in the category of "parenting." Americans evidently consume over 13 billion gallons of sugar-sweetened drinks per year. That's about 43 gallons for each American, about two 12-ounce cans per day per person. A study estimates that a penny-per-ounce sales tax -- eg, 12 cents on a can of soda, almost $3 on a case -- would reduce consumption by 15 percent, leading to almost $2 billion annual savings in healthcare costs plus $13 yearly in additional tax revenue. Would you support such a tax? Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2012-01-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

FOUR BOOKS LOOK AT DYSLEXIA is the title of a story in the Boston Globe. The writer describes:

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, from 2007, by Maryanne Wolf, the director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, that offers a scientific/evolutionary perspective on the condition
In the Mind’s Eye: Creative Visual Thinkers, Gifted Dyslexics, and the Rise of Visual Technologies, second edition 2009, by Thomas West
The Human Side of Dyslexia: 142 Interviews with Real People Telling Real Stories, 2001, by Shirley Kurnoff, on the less-than-bright side of dyslexia
My Dyslexia, 2011, a personal account by Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Philip Schultz.

Read the article.

EFFECTS OF "TIGER MOTHERING." A professor at Michigan State University (and Chinese mother) refutes parts of the popular book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, saying that her research shows that happiness is important to a child's development as well as success. She found that Chinese students are more anxious and depressed than white students because of traditional Chinese parenting methods. Read more.

LDONLINE'S newsletter is out, containing articles on helping with homework, a review of The ADHD Book of Lists, and a legal column by Matt Cohen on the use of an IEP after high school graduation. Find the newsletter.

AD/HD IN CANDADA. Ontario's Ministry of Education has stated that kids with AD/HD and are having difficulty in the classroom may receive special education supports. The provision also applies to other "non-LD" conditions such as fetal alcohol syndrome and Tourette's. Read more.

COMPETITION. Got a middle-school science whiz? The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is now open for 2012. Find out more.

EDUCATOR'S RESOURCE. The UCLA Center for Mental Health in Schools has published "RTI and Classroom & Schoolwide Learning Supports: A Guide for Teachers and Learning Supports Staff." The Center says that the guide is designed to:

Broaden perspectives of response to intervention
Provide frameworks for contextualizing the work in classrooms and schoolwide
Generally enhance practices.

Find the PDF.

THE DANA FOUNDATION has published "Brain Imaging Technologies and Their Application to Neuroscience" for all of you neuroscience mavens. Need to know more about past and current imaging technologies? Find the 45-page PDF.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2012-01-09T15:34:00.000-08:00

DIET AND AD/HD. Does that gifted kid you know have AD/HD? A study at Northwestern University in Chicago reviewed past research on the effectiveness of diet in controlling AD/HD symptoms -- and the news isn't that promising. The study found conflicting claims, and suggests that nutritional interventions -- while simple and inexpensive -- probably should be considered only as an alternative to therapy and medication. Read more, or find an NPR program about the study, which appeared in the journal Pediatrics.

2e VALEDICTORIAN. A young man in Michigan diagnosed with LDs and autism as a child went on to be valedictorian of his high school class, and his mother has told the story in a book called My Child Wasn't Born Perfect, published by a Grand Rapids-area firm. Find out more.

WORKING MEMORY TRAINING. David Rabiner pointed us to a webinar from Cogmed on working memory training. Originally directed at professionals, the webinar is now viewable at no cost at the Cogmed website. Find it.

NC SCHOOLS CATER TO ASPIES. Two Asperger Connection schools catering to students with Asperger's have opened in the North Carolina, and a third is in the works. The founder of the school has Asperger's, as do her two children. An article on the school notes that "Each Asperger Connection staff member is required to either have the syndrome, have children with the syndrome or have worked with Asperger students for at least 10 years." Read more.

EXERCISE is good for the brain and grades. Maybe you knew that, but now there's a study backing up that conclusion. Find the ammunition you need to get that gifted kid off the couch.

ASPERGER'S AND DRIVING. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (which evidently calls itself CHOP for short) has studied teens with Asperger's and the way they approach driving. The study looked at characteristics of those teens who were likely to become drivers, and also touched on a couple things parents can do to make sure their teen with Asperger's is ready to drive. Read more.

COMPETITION. The 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition is underway. If your gifted high school child is interested in robotics, find out more about this competition.

MATT COHEN, special ed attorney based in Chicago, has formed his own law firm "to better serve my clients and to improve and expand the services I have provided in the past," he says. "We will continue to provide special education and other legal advocacy, risk management, policy consultation and related client services, as well as training that I have provided to countless individuals and families, advocacy and professional groups, mental health and social service agencies and private practitioner for thirty years." Find out more in his January newsletter.

AND FINALLY, THIS. The makers of Play Attention have developed and are marketing a wearable (on the arm), wireless sensor that can report levels of attention, cognitive processing, relaxation, or anxiety and stress to a nearby PC, allowing its use in a variety of applications related to education,attention management, sports training, driving safety, or stress management. At the moment, however, the device and system costs $1795. Find out more at the website of Freer Logic, the developer, or read a press release about the product.

From the Publishers of 2e Newsletter

2012-01-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Presenting our first blog items of 2012...

ACCOMMODATIONS ON HIGH-STAKES TESTS. Many twice-exceptional students would benefit from accommodations on tests such as the SAT, whether the accommodation be extra time or help in receiving or expressing test-related content. USA Today says that the U.S. Justice Department isn't enforcing laws that allow these accommodations. Read more.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND. When your child's AD/HD demands medication to help blunt its effects, will you be able to get a proper supply of that med? Increasingly, the answer is "maybe," as a result of actions by the Drug Enforcement Administration trying to cut down on pill abuse and, possibly, by drug manufacturers trying to increase profits. If your gifted child has AD/HD, find out more about pricing and availability of AD/HD meds.

DYSLEXIA AND AUDITORY PROCESSING. French researchers have found abnormalities in the left auditory cortex in people with dyslexia which might interfere with verbal memory and speech. The cortex processed higher-frequency phonemes less efficiently. Read more.

HYPERSENSITIVITY AND OCD? A new study suggests that children who are hypersensitive may be more prone to develop OCD. The link? The development of "ritualistic behaviors to better cope with their environment," according to researchers. Find out more.

ALLERGY TESTING may not be completely accurate, contend two allergists published in the journal Pediatrics. Blood and skin tests may lead to over-diagnosis, according to the article, and may not be definitive in determining whether an allergy actually exists. Read more.

EDUCATOR'S RESOURCES. Edutopia has compiled its "Best of 2011: Our Favorite Educational Resources." The resources apply to areas such as differentiated instruction, engaging under-performing students, and project-based learning. Find the resources.

RICHARD CASH is presenting a SENG webinar titled "Self-Regulation: Essential Skills for Adolescent Gifted Students" during the evening of January 19th. From the webinar announcement: "This session will offer suggestions as to how to develop self-regulated learners and ideas of how to encourage autonomous learning." Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-12-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

TWO ASPIES IN LOVE were featured in a lengthy article in The New York Times this week that examined the complexities -- and advantages -- of such a relationship. The writer obviously spent a lot of time with the young people, one of whom is the son of John Elder Robison, author of Look Me In the Eye: My Life with Asperger's. Read more.

ASPERGIRLS is the title of a book by woman who, in her 40s, discovered she was on the spectrum. She interviewed women formally diagnosed with Asperger's to fill "a gap in the literature on females on the spectrum." A Time "Healthland" interview reveals her findings from the interviews and gives a preview of the contents of the book. In the interview the author, Rudy Simone, addresses differences between girls with Asperger's and typical girls; challenges; advantages; possible connections to anorexia or sensory issues; socializing; and support. Find the interview.

MIDDLE CHILDHOOD. Got a kid between 5 and perhaps 12? You might be interested in an article explaining the physical and mental changes that take place during those years, set in the context of other species and other cultures. An excerpt: "Middle childhood is when the parts of the brain most closely associated with being human finally come online: our ability to control our impulses, to reason, to focus, to plan for the future." Find the article.

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS are important in shaping the relationships that kids have with their peers. According to Time "Healthland, "New research shows that adolescents who quickly backed down during an argument with their mother had a harder time resisting peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol than teens who were able to calmly, persuasively, and persistently argue their point with Mom." Evidently, the right kinds of arguments are beneficial. Read more.

PREMATURE BIRTH RISKS. A study of babies born three to seven weeks early showed sleep and attention problems in such children by age four. According to a write-up of the study, "Preterm boys suffered more sleep and attention troubles than their full-term peers, but the effect in girls was more dramatic. Preterm girls were significantly more emotionally reactive, depressed and withdrawn than full-term girls, and over all they had about 20 percent more sleep problems, attention problems and aggressive behaviors." Read more.

WE WISH "HAPPY NEW YEAR" to our friends and subscribers all over the world!

2011-12-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

GIFTED ATHLETE, AD/HD. We believe in Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, so a recent sports story was of interest to us. It's about a New York Mets baseball player who played in the minor leagues for decade before accepting a diagnosis of AD/HD and beginning to take AD/HD medications. After that, he blossomed and made it back to the majors. Read more.

PARENTING MATTERS -- especially if the kid has a short allele of gene 5-HTTLPR, a gene associated with a predisposition to depression. Dutch researchers have found that as far as parenting quality was concerned, “If the environment is bad, these children have worse outcomes, but if it is good, they have much better outcomes.” They called these susceptible kids "orchids" because they need a good environment to flourish, as opposed to weeds that will flourish anywhere. Read more.

PARENTING RESOURCE. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a site called HealthyChildren.org. Included on the site is a feature called "Sound Advice on Mental Health," a collection of audios by pediatricians on behavior, mental health, and emotions. Sample audio topics: adolescent mental health; how to recognize anxiety and depression; and AD/HD in children and adolescents. The site also offers transcripts of the audios for those who read faster than they listen. Find the site.

ABOUT.COM has a page called "Understanding Learning Differences" that's based on a presentation by Jonathan Mooney. Find out what he said.

AUTISM SPEAKS has issued its "Top 10 Science Autism Research Achievements of 2011." Find them.

SAYING THANK YOU is the topics of WrightsLaw's Special Ed Advocate this month. The organization offers to "learn how and why to say thank you to those who have helped your child succeed." Read more.

AT SENG. The organization Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted has posted an article by Melissa Sornik, a contributor to 2e Newsletter. The article is a primer on twice-exceptionalilty and is titled "Gifted and Underachieving: The Twice-Exceptional Learner." Find this and other SENG resources.

WE WISH YOU the best of the holiday season as you raise, educate, or counsel the twice-exceptional children in your life.

From the Publishers of 2e Newsletter

2011-12-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION in their children are very common concerns among parents in the 2e community. The Wall Street Journal ran an article about mental health issues in college students and how educators should accommodate them. According to the article, a rising number of students are registering psychological problems with college disability offices. Read the article.

LDs, THE ADA, AND COLLEGE. A woman student was dismissed in 2003 from George Washington University Medical School after repeated warnings that she was not meeting academic standards. Shortly before the dismissal, she sought to establish that her academic performance was related to learning disabilities, undergoing evaluation and receiving a diagnosis of dyslexia and a mild processing speed disorder. She contended the dismissal violated her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Recently, as U.S. district court ruled in the the university's favor, deciding that the student had failed to demonstrate that her difficulties were from her LD as opposed to study habits and a heavy schedule of extracurricular activities. Read the article.

DOPAMINE, AD/HD, AND MOTIVATION. Scientific American reviewed a study where researchers established a positive correlation between positive dopamine function in the brain and motivation trait scores on a personality test. They also showed a correlation between the CAARS AD/HD symptom test and the motivation score (i.e, fewer symptoms, more motivation. The conclusion: a disrupted dopamine pathway is associated with lower motivation and with AD/HD. The review does not mention that there are several types of AD/HD, but insofar as the study applies to at least one type it might be of interest to parents, educators, and clinicians who deal with AD/HD children. Find the article.

AN ASPIE'S MEMORY helps him connect with other people now that he's in his teens, according to an essay in the Washington Post. At first it was remembering birthdays... then addresses... then movie release dates... and then being able to connect names, birthdates, and movie releases to amaze family and friends. Read more.

THAT'S IT! More next week...

2011-12-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

A HARVARD STUDENT diagnosed as a child with dyslexia, AD/HD, and an expressive language disorder has written a wry and insightful account of the challenges he faced growing up and the key (for him) to overcoming those challenges. "Unlike my classmates and teammates who may have spent much of their youth trying to stand out, I spent most of mine trying to fit in," writes the young man. Through sports he gained confidence, and he is now an aspiring Olympic diver. Find the article.

LD IN COLLEGE. Education Week published an article on the expansion of college options for those with LDs, describing a variety of students and their situations along with the programs they chose. Read more.

SAVE THE BRAIN. If you've got a gifted child who plays contact sports, or even soccer, you might be interested in an online library about sports concussions. There's an article about the site at The New York Times site, which not coincidentally just published a chilling, lengthy three-part series about the life and brain of the 28-year-old professional hockey player who recently died and was shown to have severe brain damage. Or, you may go directly to the Sports Concussion Library.

AUSTISM RESOURCE. A new webite, MyAutismTeam, according to Time Magazine, "is more than just a repository of recommendations about local therapists and accommodating Taekwondo studios and barbers; it's also a social-media destination. But unlike Facebook, it's intended as a place where parents of children whose developmental trajectory has taken a different turn from most of their peers can feel understood." Nothing more to say. Read about it in Time. Or, go to MyAutismTeam.

ACCESSIBLE LEARNING MATERIALS. If the accessibility of learning materials is a concern for that twice-exceptional child you raise or teach, you might be interested in a a report by the U.S. Department of Education on the topic. The report concerns post-secondary education. You may read about the report at the CEC site.

LD ONLINE. The current edition of this newsletter focuses on tips for study skills: technology tips, resources for dyslexics, and more. Find the newsletter.

THE WEINFELD EDUCATION GROUP has announced the publication of its book Take Control of Dyslexia and Other Reading Difficulties by Prufrock Press. Find more information.

SENG has issued its December edition of the SENGVine newsletter. In it, Rosina Gallagher announces the end of her tenure on the SENG Board; Melissa Sornik offers an article on the twice-exceptional learner; and more. Find the newsletter.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER'S December newsletter is also out. It features an article on "the visual-spatial identifier"; observations about visual-spacial abilities, including that "twice-exceptional children are usually visual-spatial learners"; and observations from the TAGT conference earlier this month. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-12-07T12:05:00.001-08:00

AUSTRALIAN GIFTED CONFERENCE. The 13th National Conference on Giftedness is scheduled for July 12-15, 2012, in Adelaide, South Australia. According to conference organizers, "This conference will bring together experts in the field of giftedness and talent and combine these with the latest research from around the world." Find out more.

MEDSCAPE ON AUTISM. In a series called "Game Changers in Pediatrics 2011," Medscape pointed to key findings from research in the area of ASDs. Some of the findings show how much more there is to learn about ASD, some point out things that don't work in treating ASD. Find the Medscape article.

PANDAS. The Los Angeles Times published an article about pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus (PANDAS), a sudden-onset mental disorder marked by OCD-type behaviors. The article also mentions the possibility that other disorders, including cases of autism, might be linked to improper immune system response. Find out more.

GIFTED AND DIFFICULT. A small school in Torrance, California, takes talented students who have difficulties in the normal classroom. For many of the 21 students at the school, The Center for Learning Unlimited, the issue is Asperger's. One "graduate" of the school is at the top of his class in middle school. Read more.

BIOCHEMICAL IMBALANCE IN AD/HD. A recent study has unveiled a new suspect in the biochemistry of AD/HD, this one the receptor protein for the transmitter acetylcholine. Children with AD/HD have about half the protein that typical subjects do. According to a study author, "This indicates that several signal substances are implicated in ADHD and that in the future this could pave the way for other drugs than those in use today." Read more.

AND FINALLY THIS. Researchers in Finland monitored subjects' brains by MRI as the subjects listened to tango music. The results indicate that music affects many areas of the brain. From a write-up of the research: "The researchers found that music listening recruits not only the auditory areas of the brain, but also employs large-scale neural networks. For instance, they discovered that the processing of musical pulse recruits motor areas in the brain, supporting the idea that music and movement are closely intertwined. Limbic areas of the brain, known to be associated with emotions, were found to be involved in rhythm and tonality processing. Processing of timbre was associated with activations in the so-called default mode network, which is assumed to be associated with mind-wandering and creativity." So much for just "listening" to music. Find the write-up.

From the Publishers of 2e Newsletter

2011-12-02T15:23:00.001-08:00

GIFTED AND CHALLENGING. An article at the Washington Post website starts out, "What do Woody Allen and Steve Jobs have in common? Among other things (including brilliant, creative minds), they both hated school and were discipline problems." The article then goes on to cover a school in Colorado, Eagle Rock, that caters to "difficult" but bright students. Read the article.

ACCELERATION. Miraca Gross, director of a center for gifted education research in Australia, advocates accelerating children who would benefit from more intellectual stimulation, contending that "Kids who are intellectually in advance of their years have social and emotional abilities beyond their age and they tend to gravitate towards older kids for their friendships.'' Gross also addresses the issue of support for gifted children, saying "any child should be assisted to learn to his maximum potential." Read more.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Tamara Fisher takes note of NAGC's current "State of the Nation in Gifted Education" report, highlighting certain of the findings. See what caught her eye.

MORE ON AUTISTIC INTELLIGENCE. We posted a while ago about the use of the Raven test (rather than WISC) to evaluate intelligence in autistic people. A writer for Scientific American has done an article called "The Hidden Potential of Autistic Kids," mentioning the Raven test but going beyond that in terms of recognizing the strengths of autistics. In the process she relates her experience with her own two autistic brothers, one of whom used to correct her fifth-grade homework for her -- when he was in kindergarten. Find the article.

COMPETITION. The Dana Foundation is sponsoring a contest in the design of a brain-related experiment. Entrants don't have to do the experiment, just design it. The competition is for high school science classrooms. Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. "Sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games." Does that worry you? Read about the study that came to that conclusion.

From the Publishers of 2e Newsletter

2011-11-29T13:16:00.001-08:00

DISABILITIES IN THE U.S. The U.S. Census Bureau has released an analysis of disabilities in school-age children. About 2.8 million children (5.2 percent) were categorized as having a disability as defined by IDEA. Of those, perhaps 4.5 percent were cognitive disabilities. Find out more.

BLOCKS AS A LEARNING TOOL. A New York Times article about blocks in the classroom contained an anecdote about a presumably 2e child. After an apple-picking field trip, the child, described as a struggling second-grader, "went to the block corner and built an incredibly complex structure, a tractor engine, and she was able to talk about how all the parts moved,” according to a teacher, who continued: “We need to be looking at this student in a very different way.” Read the article.

WRIGHTSLAW'S current edition of Special Ed Advocate contains articles that might clear up certain questions and issues about RTI and how schools implement it. Find the issue.

AD/HD'S AFFECT ON MOMS is the topic of a study reviewed by David Rabiner in his Attention Research Update newsletter. As you might guess (or know), parenting a child with AD/HD can lead to stress, and the study documents how and when stress levels might elevate by taking an "electronic diary" approach to tracking events and stress. Find the newsletter.

EDUCATOR OF 2e HONORED. Ben Shifrin, Head of Jemicy School in Owings Mills, Maryland, was recently inducted to the Hall of Fame of the International Dyslexia Association (IDA). Jemicy School provides a highly individualized, flexible, and challenging education for above-average to gifted college-bound students with dyslexia or other related language-based learning differences. According to the IDA, Jemicy's philosophy is based upon building the academic and higher order thinking skills of bright young people through applied research and time-tested multisensory learning. Jemicy serves the whole child, celebrating each student's strengths while exploring individualized skills and strategies that will build the foundation for success in school and in life. Find more information here or here.

WORRIED ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC MEDS FOR KIDS? A member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has written an article for parents on concerns in children's meds, including "polypharmacy," when a child is on multiple psychiatric meds at the same time. Find the article.

AND FINALLY, THIS. A study has indicated that more creative people are more likely to cheat, but that there is no link between intelligence and cheating. According to the study authors, "people who are creative or work in environments that promote creative thinking may be the most at risk when they face ethical dilemmas." Got a creative kid? Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-23T08:25:00.001-08:00

ONLINE SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED. Stanford University is about to rename its online high school for gifted youth, calling it the Stanford Online Highschool. Five years old, the school has graduated 75, most of whom have gone directly to four-year colleges. Find out more about this and other online schools.

DOCUMENTARY ON ASPERGER'S. A video professional whose son "enjoys engineering and physics and studies Japanese for fun" but who has “zero friends” has created a documentary to fill a gap in resources for parents in similar situations. According to an article in the San Antonio Express-News, "the 68-minute documentary is aimed at families grappling with the realization that their child may take a different path in life than what they'd hoped for and dreamed of." Read more.

RESOURCE FOR CLINICIANS. The Centers for Disease Control have released "Autism Case Training (ACT): A Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Curriculum" to help future healthcare providers identify, diagnose, and manage ASD. The curriculum is PDF based but includes videos. Find out more.

RESOURCE FOR EDUCATORS. Edutopia has assembled a free PDF guide on the topic of brain-based learning to help K-12 educators learn more about the field. Find it.

GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER. If you're a fan of this non-profit organization, be advised that GDC is soliciting donations to upgrade its computer systems, among other needs. Find more about this and other news from the GDC in the Thanksgiving edition of their newsletter.

THE DAVIDSON INSTITUTE, in its November eNews-Update, shares information about the recently honored 2011 Davidson Fellows, each awarded scholarships ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. (Remember: this and all the other contributions that DITD makes stem from the generosity of two people, Jan and Bob Davidson.) Also in the newsletter: pointers to a variety of gifted-related news and resources. Read the newsletter.

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. Maurice Fisher has distributed the winter edition of his newsletter, which marks 25 years of publication. Among the articles: one on how Steve Jobs' ideas can be applied to gifted education. Find the newsletter.

MATH ANXIETY can be overcome, according to researchers at the University of Chicago. The trick: controlling emotions prior to doing math. Find out more.

EXCLUSION, BULLYING, FRIENDSHIP, AND STRESS. Having friends can ameliorate the effects of exclusion or bullying, according to the results of a new study of fourth-graders. The researchers measured the level of the hormone cortisol in kids who suffered exclusion or bullying. Read more.

TWITTER AS A RESOURCE. Two items came to our attention today that promoted Twitter as a way to connect with people of similar interests -- specifically, in the areas of education or giftedness. On the Education Week site, Peter DeWitt reveals how he became hooked on Twitter for exploring elementary education resources and connections. Secondly, Joel McIntosh, head of Prufrock Press and someone whose judgement we respect, emailed about the use of Twitter at conferences, and invited attendees at next week's Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented conference to sit in on a session on using social media to connect with gifted ed supporters; find his email.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Happy Thanksgiving (Thursday) to our friends and subscribers in the United States. For those of you outside the U.S. -- take a minute to reflect on what you have to be thankful for as well; eating turkey to go along with your thanks is optional.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

ON IQ. Today we found three items concerning IQ, a topic of some interest to those who raise and educate gifted kids with learning challenges. 1. A UK study found links between higher IQ at ages 5 and 10 with higher-than-typical drug use at ages 16 and 20. Researchers' conjecture? Boredom or feeling different, "either of which could conceivably increase vulnerability to using drugs as an avoidant coping strategy," Read more. 2. The American Heart Association says that in men, a higher late-adolescence IQ score correlates with a lower waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in middle age. A high WHR is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Read more. 3. Finally, a European study of breastfeeding and IQ indicates that preschoolers who had been breastfed longer had higher IQs. The conjecture: "It is the physical and psychological bonding and interaction between infant and mother during breast-feeding that nurtures development of an infant's cognitive abilities," noting that breastfeeding is not just a meal but "a dynamic, bidirectional, biological dialogue." Find out more.

SENG VINE. SENG's November newsletter is posted at Constant Contact. The issue's featured article is on parenting the gifted; it's by a woman who, as a girl, was featured in the movie Spellbound, about the National Spelling Bee.

RESOURCE. Education Week has announced that November 16-20 is an "open house" at its website, much of which is usually for subscribers only. Find the Education Week homepage.

THE SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE just concluded its annual meeting. A synopsis of some of the research presented at the conference is available at ScienceDaily; the synopsis features studies involving depression and schizophrenia. Another synopsis at ScienceDaily dealt with studies on ASD, Fragile X, and bipolar disorder.

AND FINALLY, THIS -- ON PARENTING. The New York Times obituary section (we often learn interesting things there) noted the death of a Czech-born little person, 93, who had acted as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz. According to the obit, his father tried "witch doctor" treatments to make him grow, but then, when the child was 9, sold him to a traveling show. For his stint in Oz, he earned $50 a week, supposedly less than Toto was paid. Read a longer AP version of the obit.

2011-11-15T10:59:00.001-08:00

NEGLECTING THE GIFTED. The Wall Street Journal has concluded that the "national focus on the lowest-achieving students has helped boost their academic performance, but it has left the country's brightest young minds behind their international counterparts." The article quotes NAGC's Jane Clarenbach on the myth that GT kids are fine on their own. Read more about the problem and possible solutions.

LD ADVOCATE. A world-class lacrosse player and Johns Hopkins graduate is focusing on athletics as a way to help kids with LDs succeed. Paul Rabil, who has auditory processing disorder, was featured in an article about the Washington, DC, Lab School for kids with LDs. Also featured in the article is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former "dummy table" occupant, Philip Schultz, who learned about his own dyslexia when his second-grade son received a diagnosis. Read the article.

MEMORY AND OCD. People with remarkable autobiographical memory may be more prone to OCD-like behaviors, according to a new study. It turns out that two areas of the brain that are larger in people with exceptional memory are also larger in people with OCD. Find out more.

GIFTED HOMESCHOOLING PIONEERS. The New York Times Magazine contained an article about a couple who were homeschooling pioneers in the 1970s, four years of which focused on travel. The article is titled "My Parents Were Homeschooling Anarchists." Find it.

AD/HD AND THE BRAIN. A particular area of the brain works much harder in children with AD/HD. The area in question is the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. The reporting scientists concluded that "This fundamental difference in brain function might be an underlying cause of the inattentiveness, impulsivity and focus problems that make it hard for ADHD children to concentrate in the classroom." Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. We discovered from a press release that apparently the U.S. Congress is considering legislation to categorize pizza as a "vegetable" for the purpose of school lunch menus. The irate whistle-blowers behind the press release? A group of retired military leaders who support policies that will help young Americans succeed in school and later in life. Read more at the group's website, www.missionreadiness.org. (Part of the group's motivation, from their website: "75 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds in the US cannot serve in the military, primarily because they are physically unfit, have not graduated from high school, or have a criminal record.")

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-11T15:27:00.001-08:00

ASPIES: NOT THINKING ABOUT WHAT OTHERS THINK? That's the conclusion of a study by researchers at Caltech. They devised an experiment to compare how much subjects would donate to a cause either in the presence of an observer or not. Control subjects donated more in the presence of the observer; high-functioning autistics donated the same in either situation. Read more.

AD/HD RESOURCES. About.com provides a list of scholarships available to students with AD/HD. Find it. Separately, the site also has an article about choosing a college when you have AD/HD.

DISORGANIZED? SENG has an upcoming webinar called "Helping the Disorganized Gifted Family." Find out more.

FOR EDUCATORS OF THE GIFTED, Education Week offers nine tips for teachers in an article called "What Gifted Students Need from You." Find out at edweek.org.

AND FINALLY, THIS. We often bash the overuse of media by kids. Now comes a study concluding that "Both boys and girls who play video games tend to be more creative, regardless of whether the games are violent or nonviolent..." The write-up, however, only notes the correlation between the two; no cause-and-effect relationship is implied. Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-08T15:49:00.000-08:00

COLLEGE AND LD: FOLLOWUP. In our last post we noted an article in The New York Times dealing with the issue of what to disclose, if anything, about an LD when applying for college. As it turns out, the Times has made available an admissions expert to answer questions online from readers about applying to college with a learning disability. If that young person you teach or raise is nearing college age and you have specific questions, this could be a great resource. Find it.

2e PIONEER SUSAN BAUM is presenting a workshop titled "Bright but Challenged: Understanding and Treating the Twice-exceptional Learner." To be held on December 9 in Portland, Maine, the workshop is geared to learning specialists, educational therapists, classroom teachers, parents and mental health practitioners. Find out more. Susan Baum is on the Editorial Advisory Board of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter.

GDC'S NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER is out. It notes the 100th anniversary of the IQ test and presents an article titled "The WISC-IV Integrated for 2e Learners," with tips for identifying and accommodating 2e kids through WISC-IV results. In addition, the newsletter notes that four GDC speakers will present at the TAGT conference coming up in Austin. Find the newsletter. Separately, Linda Silverman was able to arrange a "conference within a conference" at TAGT on testing the gifted. She says, "Anyone who tests gifted and 2e kids should be there. Find more about TAGT.

GIFTED MYTHS. The Washington Post published five myths about gifted kids, offering commentary on the reality versus the myth. One myth: "Students with learning disabilities cannot be considered gifted or talented." You knew the truth about that, but it's good to see publications like the Post spreading the word. Find the article.

ASD DIAGNOSES DIFFER BY CLINIC. A study has found that clinics vary in how they apply diagnostic criteria for ASDs and in the final diagnosis they come up with. A study author is quoted as saying, "...in those borderlands of autism spectrum disorders, there is a lot of confusion." That means that where one clinic might diagnose a child with autism, another might apply the Asperger's label. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

LD ON COLLEGE APP: TELL OR NOT? A New York Times blog explored the issue of what to reveal on a college application about one's learning challenges. According to the article, whether to disclose might depend on the impact on performance of the LD; students with strong grades might not want to disclose. Also in the article: a pointer to sources of information about colleges supporting students with LDs. Read more.

COULDN'T MAKE IT TO NAGC, wrapping up this weekend? Tamara Fisher blogs about her experiences there at "Unwrapping the Gifted."

DEBORAH RUF, in her e-newsletter, pointed us to "Nobel Conference 47: The Brain and Being Human." Not only does the conference site offer resources for each presenter's topic, but it also provides a video archive so that site visitors can view videos of presentations. The topics are more general than 2e- or LD-specific, but brain mavens might want to check out the site. Thanks, Deborah.

MATT COHEN, special ed attorney who has written for 2e Newsletter, has an article in his November e-newsletter titled "Beware the IQ Score," discussing challenges to the common belief that IQ is constant. Find the newsletter or download the article (as a Word document) from the Monahan & Cohen website.

ATTENTION RESEARCH UPDATE, David Rabiner's newsletter, has been posted for October. The subject: what's important to families as they make decisions in seeking treatment for AD/HD in a child. Find the newsletter.

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR READERS. An article in the most recent edition of 2e Newsletter mentioned Bookshare, a tool to help struggling readers by providing books in a way that can be both seen and heard on the computer. Bookshare is free for schoolchildren. Got a problem reader? Find out more about Bookshare.

BOOKS FOR DYSLEXIC KIDS. The Telegraph of London published a column in observance of Dyslexia Awareness Week, noting books from a British publisher devoted to bringing out works for struggling readers. Find the column. Separately, The LA Times noted research from Stanford University indicating that intelligence is unrelated to dyslexia -- "evidence of dyslexia was shown to be independent of IQ scores." Read more.

THE AUTISTIC ADVANTAGE? A Canadian researcher "has strongly established and replicated the abilities and sometimes superiorities of autistics in multiple cognitive operations such as perception and reasoning," according to ScienceDaily. As in an item in one of our recent blog posts, the researcher notes that standard IQ tests can be inappropriate in gauging the strengths of the autistic mind. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-11-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

NOT JUST INTELLIGENCE: CURIOSITY TOO. "Personalty traits like curiosity seem to be as important as intelligence in determining how well students do in school." That's the conclusion of a study published recently in a publication of the Association for Psychological Science. Conscientiousness also affects academic performance. Read more.

WRIGHTSLAW. The current issue of Special Ed Advocate examines whether children with AD/HD -- which is not a "specific LD" -- are eligible for IDEA services or eligible for Section 504 accommodations. Find out more.

THE WEINFELD GROUP is presenting an event on November 10 titled "Helping Your Worried Child -- Behavioral Treatment of Childhood Anxiety." The presenter is Bonnie Zucker. To be held in Rockville, Maryland, the event is an hour and a half long; the cost is $25 for those who register by 11/3, $35 afterward. More information.

AD/HD DRUGS do not increase the risk of heart problems in children or young adults, according to a U.S.-funded study involving over a million subjects. Included were meds such as Adderall, Concerta, Strattera, and Ritalin. Find out more.

SCREEN THOSE PRESCHOOLERS. A study funded by the National Insititutes of Health found that many more preschoolers have vision problems than previously thought -- about 25 percent compared to the previous figure of 5 percent. The net-out -- screen that preschooler to make sure vision problems don't masquerade as learning problems, and also, of course, to make sure that kid can see. Read more.

MAYO TOOLKIT FOR CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH. The Mayo Clinic has published a toolkit to help identify mental health problems in children and teens. The motivation? The fact that up to 75 percent of children with problems evidently don't get help. Read more about this. Find the toolkit.

AND FINALLY, THIS. If you've ever worried about food safety -- whether what manufacturers put into the food you buy is really safe -- you'll not enjoy a recent item at ScienceDaily on the topic. It seems that U.S. law:

"Allows manufacturers to determine that the use of an additive is "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), and then use that substance without notifying the FDA.
"Does not require that manufacturers inform the FDA when health reports suggest new hazards associated with additives already used in food."

If that makes you dangerously excited and you want to know more, go to ScienceDaily.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

A GRAMMY AND AD/HD. About.com, in its AD/HD section, provides an interview with a Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter who was diagnosed with AD/HD in his early teens.Adam Levine, of Maroon 5, describes his early difficulties, how AD/HD has affected his adult life, and his advice to kids or teens with AD/HD. Read more.

GIFTED RESOURCE. Thanks to Carolyn K for pointing us to Cogito.org, an online community for gifted kids interested in math and science. Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, the site features interviews, news, forums, links to sites and tools, and extracurricular programs. Go to the site.

DAVID RABINER pointed us to a free download from ADDitude, titled "40 School Accommodations for Your ADD/LD Child." If your gifted young person is of the AD/HD persuasion, check it out.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Tamara Fisher writes about using Symbaloo in gifted education. Symbaloo, she says, is "a place where you can collect a plethora of links on various topics and organize them however you want." She has created one containing resources for her gifted students to use then they do projects. Find out more.

THE WEINFELD EDUCATION GROUP has created a blog on topics related to its areas of expertise. The first posting is by Russell Barkley and titled "Understanding AD/HD -- Part 1." Find it.

PREDICTOR OF MATH LD. Young children who cannot associate small quantities with the numerals that represent those quantities are more likely to develop math LDs, according to a new study. The study also identified other predictors of later math difficulty. Dyscalculia in your family? Check out the study.

THE DANA FOUNDATION has posted two new articles on its website. One provides evidence about how childhood trauma -- physical or sexual abuse -- leads to later psychopathology; read it. The other provides a tutorial on brain imaging technologies and how they are used in neuroscience; it looks like a must-read for all neuroscience mavens. Find it.

SHARP BRAINS has posted articles on the impact of stress, emotion, and self-regulation on the structure and performance of the brain. Find them.

TESTING AD/HD DRUGS. Researchers used used brain scans on mice to determine whether treatment drugs increased dopamine levels in the brain, and thus would be effective. The study concerned a type of attention deficit caused by "neurofibromatosis type 1" -- NF1 -- which affects about 100,000 people in the U.S., according to Science Daily. Find out more.

NOT TO LATE TO GET IRATE. If you live in the U.S., you may -- once again and maybe for the last time ever -- attempt to block legislative attempts to scuttle the Javits Act, which is, according to CEC, "the sole Federal investment in gifted education." Seems that the Javits Act is one of 43 programs deemed "inefficient and unnecessary." CEC has more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

IQ NOT CONSTANT? Recent research indicates that IQ can change significantly during adolescence because of changes in the structure of the brain. The research involved comparing the results of testing and imaging done four years apart. Performance on the tests changed by as much as 20 points during that time. Imaging showed changes in certain brain areas that were associated with changes in verbal and non-verbal IQ scores. Read more, or visit NPR to hear a piece on the topic.

PREDICTING RITALIN'S EFFECTIVENESS. Some kids respond to Ritalin (methylphenidate) and some don't. The reason may be variations in genes affecting the transport and reception of dopamine in the brain. No mention of whether cheap-and-easy DNA tests are available to help spot this difference (we'd guess not), but you can find out more from ScienceDaily.

RITALIN FOR TODDLERS. A New York Times article discusses the pros and cons of medicating preschoolers for symptoms of AD/HD. The article is in response to the AAP's recent change in stance on AD/HD treatment. Does your bright, active preschooler have AD/HD, or is he or she just healthy and normal? And what, if anything, should you do? Read more.

iPADS FOR TODDLERS? The AAP recommends no TV for kids under two. How about the iPAD? Experts give varying opinions. Read them.

BY AND FOR AUTISTICS. A Chicago-area man with autistic traits has written three books featuring characters with autism. His latest is titled Teddy Turbine: A Quarterback with Autism. Find out more.

APPS FOR ASPERGER'S. A pediatric psychologist has developed an app for youngsters who have difficulty with social situations, as with Asperger's. One feature: a "What Did That Mean" program where a user can enter a hard-to-understand phrase like "go jump in the lake" to find out what it means. Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

LANDMARK COLLEGE, a 2-year school in Vermont that focuses on educating students with LDs, was featured in an article and video by USA Today. Besides academics -- or, rather, as a foundation for them -- Landmark teaches organizational and compensatory skills. Landmark can serve as a springboard to attendance (and graduation from) a four-year college. Go to USA Today.

THE EDUCATORS GUILD NEWSLETTER for October is out and posted on the DITD website. In it are an article by Jim Delisle on the peer relations of gifted students; gifted news; and news about DITD. Find it.

THE SENG VINE newsletter is also out, including articles on GT kids and behavior, the role of a pediatric doctor in caring for gifted kids, and more. Find it.

PRODIGY: WHAT NEXT? In Deborah Ruf's October Talent Igniter newsletter we found a pointer to a story on a young prodigy, now 13, who at age 9 got perfect 5's in five AP math and science tests. From the article: "When he's not in class, he's working through a stack of books at home; he keeps a list of everything he has read. He's absorbed 52 textbooks on science and math: read the physics lectures of Richard Feynman, and books on robot programming, systems biology, immunobiology, fractals, Latin (a new passion), music theory and the work of Fibonacci, René Descartes, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, among others." Read more.

EDUCATOR'S RESOURCE. Adobe offers a free curriculum and resources for educators to "create breakthrough learning experiences for young people." Find out more.

AD/HD AWARENESS EXPO. During AD/HD Awareness Week, visitors may attend a free online Awareness Expo. Find out more.

NO TV FOR KIDS UNDER 2 -- That's what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. On the other hand, this current recommendation is evidently less restrictive than the AAP's prior issuance on the topic. Got an almost-toddler? Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

AD/HD AWARENESS WEEK is this week, October 10-22. At the AD/HD Awareness Week site you can find resources concerning the condition. In the meantime, the American Academy of Pediatrics has just updated its guidelines on diagnosing and treating AD/HD in younger children and in adolescents. Emerging evidence, says AAP, makes it possible to diagnose and manage AD/HD in children from ages 4 to 18 (previous AAP guidelines covered ages 6 to 12). The new guidelines describe the special considerations involved in diagnosing and treating preschool children and adolescents. They also include interventions to help children with hyperactive/impulsive behaviors that do not meet the full diagnostic criteria for AD/HD. Find out more. To help parents understand the new guidance on AD/HD, the AAP has published a detailed and updated consumer resource book entitled “ADHD: What Every Parent Needs to Know.” Parent information is also available at www.healthychildren.org/adhd.

MORE ON AD/HD. The New York Times has initiated a discussion on AD/HD, posing the questions, "Are Americans More Prone to AD/HD?" along with "Do the American and educational systems inflate the numbers?" So far the discussion has generated seven pages of posts. Read or contribute.

AUTISM DOCTOR DISCIPLINED. Parents of autistic children are often desperate to find treatments that will help their children. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has filed a complaint against an Illinois doctor who used methods such a chelation, hormone modulation, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, stating that "none... has been proven to influence the course of autism." Read more.

SCHOOL AVOIDANCE was the subject of an article on HealthDay recently -- and we're betting that many 2e kids have the desire to avoid school because they might not fit in one way or another. Find the article, along with a pointer to AAP information on the topic.

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR WRITING. Education Week covered a variety of assistive technologies for kids who have problems writing, including a list of free resources. Got a student or offspring with this problem? Find the article.

FOR IDEA WONKS. CEC has released a side-by-side comparison of updated IDEA regulations and those from 1999. If IDEA is a big part of your life, check it out.

2011-10-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

GIFTED AND STUTTERING. A gifted 16-year-old New Jersey boy who is taking two college classes described how his professor had asked him not to speak in class because of his stuttering. According to an article in The New York Times, about five percent of people stutter, and it is thought to have genetic and physiological causes. Find the article. In response to the article, the Stuttering Foundation issued a response that includes eight tips for teachers; find it. (The foundation website also notes that for both Winston Churchill and James Earl Jones, "Stuttering didn't stop them. Don't let it stop you."

EDUTOPIA has a blog entry on its site titled "How to Support Gifted Students in Your Classroom." It notes the importance of identifying such students and of having a gifted, intuitive teacher to serve gifted students. Find the blog.

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES. We received an email directing us to a site by the name of Bytes Power Smarts, which is apparently deigned to help kids 8-11 "recognize and appreciate their strengths and talents," as manifested in the eight multiple intelligences recognized by Howard Gardener. The site contains stores for the children to read relating to those intelligences. Find it. (We recognized at least one name on the staff listing as being involved in the 2e community.)

OCD. CNN has an article on its website about OCD in children, and the article profiles two young people with different sets of symptoms. It describes how each young person has confronted the disorder. Find the article.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER newsletter for October is out, and it brings news of the organization's move out of downtown Denver to more spacious quarters. (We visited the Center several years ago and would characterize their present space in an old house as pleasantly unique, but could see how they could use more space.) The newsletter also notes Linda Silverman's five decades of experience in the gifted field. Read the newsletter.

CURETOGETHER: ANXIETY. CureTogether, a site that provides information and support for persons with a variety of conditions, has posted information stemming from a 6200-patient survey on which treatments for anxiety work best and which are most popular. If you have a gifted child with anxiety, this will be of interest to you. The top three treatments in terms of effectiveness: exercise, Xanax, and then yoga. The treatments reported least effective: Wellbutrin, Amitripyline, and Paxil. Find the site.

EDUCATION WEEK published an article, available to non-subscribers, about the various types of reading problems (eg, phonemic awareness) and reading programs that work for those various types. Find it.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

DISRUPTIVE MOOD DYSREGULATION DISORDER -- haven't heard of it? It's being proposed as a new diagnostic category, and, by providing a label, it could improve diagnosis and care for kids who have problems regulating mood and temper. Read more about it in the Los Angeles Times. Separately, the Dana Foundation pointed us to an article on mental health screenings of teens by schools. The purpose: "to identify those at risk and, if necessary, help them get treatment." One advocate calls such screening "a non-pressured way to ask for help." Read more.

LDs AND THE LSAT. A Minnesota man who wanted accommodations on the Law School Admission Test has received them. Twice rebuffed in his request, he apparently enlisted the US Department of Justice in pressing his case; the DOJ decided that the man had submitted appropriate documentation, and that the organization administering the LSAT had violated the ADA. Find out more.

EDUCATOR RESOURCE. Edutopia has posted about a school that has the lowest per-pupil funding in Arizona and yet has excelled in education -- at least partly because of differentiated instruction. Find out more at the Edutopia site.

SENG has issued a call for proposals for speakers at its 2012 conference in Milwaukee, to be held July 13-14. Interested in addressing the attendees at this 2e-oriented conference? Visit a post on LinkedIn; the information is not yet on the SENG site. If you visit the SENG site, however, you'll find the announcement of the appointment of the organization's new executive director, James. D. Maloney.

A PEDIATRIC MRI appears not to cause inordinate risk unless it involves intravenous contrast dye or sedation -- in which case, according to a report from The Hastings Center, "an MRI increases the odds of harm and makes them unacceptably high." The study compared the risk of physical injury or death from the MRI experience to risks from "everyday" activities of healthy children. Read more.

GIFTEDNESS: POWER AND PERILS is the topic of a blog at the Psychology Today website, in which the writer uses the occasion of a friend's son's recent evaluation (99th percentile, 150 IQ) as a springboard on what it takes -- besides giftedness -- to succeed. Find the blog.

NAGC offers a variety of resources on its website for the 2011-2012 school year, including information about RTI, gifted programming standards, FAQs, and more. Go there.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-10-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

ASSESSING ASPIE INTELLIGENCE. A new study indicates that individuals with Asperger's rate higher on an intelligence test called Raven's Progressive Matrices than on scales such as the Wechsler tests. The Raven's test evidently emphasizes reasoning, novel problem-solving abilities, and high-level abstraction. A ScienceDaily report on the study concluded, "...the authors emphasize that autistic spectrum intelligence is atypical, but also genuine, general, and underestimated." Read the report.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Tamara Fisher says "gift a teacher a book about gifted education," and provides a list of books suggested by her readers. Find it. Along with her idea, we suggest that if your child is twice-exceptional you gift a book on that topic -- or a subscription to the ever-handy 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter.

ATTENTION RESEARCH UPDATE. The September edition of David Rabiner's newsletter, now posted on his site, describes a study of how the "stigma" of being treated for AD/HD might affect adolescents. Got a 2e adolescent with AD/HD? Check out Rabiner's newsletter.

ANESTHESIA IN YOUNG CHILDREN can be something to worry about, according to the Mayo Clinic, becuase it can increase the chance of learning disabilities by over 100 percent. Got a child under two? Read more.

FORDHAM STUDY. If you paid attention to the recent Fordham study that asked whether current educational practice underdevelops gifted kids, you might be interested in a discussion of the topic at The New York Times site.

CASH FOR AP ACHIEVEMENT. The New York Times reported on a Massachusetts experiment that provided cash incentives to both students and teachers for success in Advanced Placement courses. The results? More students taking those courses, and a higher percentage qualifying for college credit. Read more.

GIFTED TEEN SURVIVAL GUIDE. Free Spirit Press has released the fourth edition of this book, which is based on surveys of almost 1,400 gifted teenagers. One of the revisions: inclusion of new information on twice-exceptionality. (Way to go, Free Spirit!) Find out more about the book at the publisher's website.

VIDEO COMPETITION. If you have a smart, young, penurious media maven in your house, the American Bankers Association has a video competition that might appeal. The competition aims to "inspire teens to explore the value of saving money and share their thoughts for all to see," according to the sponsors. Find out more at the ABA site.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Thinking of starting your child into team sports early? Say, at age 3? It might not be a good idea, according to at least one researcher, to immerse them in organized sports rather than unstructured play. In fact, the researcher says, "Most children should not commit, or specialize, in one sport until they are age 15." Find out more in Health News from UPI.

2011-09-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

DYSLEXIA GOES TO COLLEGE. An event at Stanford University for college admission deans was intended to help colleges appreciate dyslexic applicants. Organized in part by expert Sally Shaywitz, the event featured speakers who shared their experiences with dyslexia -- Charles Schwab was among those. Also covered: topics such as the effect of dyslexia on the testing and admissions process; accommodations in college; and tips for dyslexic students on choosing the right college. Read more.

COMPOUNDING THE PROBLEM. Research by Autism Speaks notes that more than half of the young people in their registry also show symptoms of either attention problems or of hyperactivity. Researchers noted that the AD/HD symptoms further burden children with autism, and stressed the importance of identifying AD/HD symptoms so that they could be addressed. Read more.

TREATING OCD. An article in Time Magazine noted the effectiveness of a therapy called exposure and response prevention (ERP) in reducing OCD symptoms, especially when used in combination with medication. Among kids in a JAMA-reported study, about 67 percent of kids treated with a combination of medicine and ERP reduced their OCD symptoms by a 30 percent benchmark. Find out more.

GIFTED STUDENTS AND ONLINE LEARNING was the topic of an Education Week online chat this week. Interested persons may find the chat at the Education Week website.

GIFTED ISSUES DISCUSSION FORUM. The Davidson Institute maintains a free public forum for the discussion of gifted issues at http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/. Some of the threads deal with twice-exceptional topics, such as giftedness and AD/HD, or low working memory, or visual processing issues.

AD/HD AND STIMULANTS. About 2.8 million children in the United States were prescribed stimulant medicine for AD/HD in 2008, up from previous years. The study covered the years from 1996 to 2008. Usage is higher in boys and children not of color; usage is lower in Western states. Find out more.

BEST STEM HIGH SCHOOLS. Want to find out which high schools rank highest in the teaching of science and math? US News can tell you.

SMARTS AND PROCESSING SPEED. Adolescents become smarter (as measured on intelligence tests) because their processing speed increases, according to a new study. Read more.

BRAIN RESOURCE. Healthline has a cool interactive tool for visualizing the brain. You can turn it, split it, see different layers, identify components, and read about them. Find it.

AND FINALLY, THIS. You can buy your child a pair of $40 sunglasses with a hidden video camera inside. According to a reviewer, the set-up includes a battery, 128MB of RAM, and a USB port for downloading the video to a computer for viewing and editing. Read the review or go to the vendor's website.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-09-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

EIDES IN WIRED. Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide have a Q&A in Wired Science centering on their new book The Dyslexic Advantage. In the Q&A, the Eides provide their definition of dyslexia, cover various misconceptions of the condition, and get into the strengths that may be associated with dyslexia. At the Q&A page you may also read an excerpt from the new book. Go there.

HIGH PERFORMERS: LOSING IT. Education Week reports on a Fordham Institute study showing that "many high-performing students lose ground from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school." The study raises the issue of whether programs such as NCLB impose a trade-off, helping kids at the bottom but hurting those at the top. Find the EdWeek article.

METHYLPHENIDATE: LATER PUBERTY -- in monkeys, at least. The active ingredient in Ritalin delayed puberty in young male monkeys, although the treated monkeys later caught up in development. Read more.

APPS FOR AUTISM is the goal of a partnership between Hewlett-Packard and two autism-focused organizations. HP will bring together developers to build free apps addressing areas such as communication and scheduling. Find out more.

2e SOLUTION IN VANCOUVER. The Vancouver Observer published an article about a gifted young man with learning challenges for whom "school never quite fit." [Sound familiar?] The young man and his family found a solution through a company called BrainBoost Education, which tailored a curriculum for him based on online learning courses. The results: a more engaged, confident, and achieving young man. Read more.

AD/HD RELIEF. A study has indicated that playing outside in green areas may ameliorate symptoms of AD/HD, compared to playing in other settings. Find out more.

JUNK FOOD, DEPRESSION, AND ANXIETY. Adolescents eating diets of junk or processed foods are more prone to depression and anxiety, according to a new Australian study. While the results are consistent with what's been seen in adults, the researchers had this to say about the results: "[W]e think it could be more important because three quarters of psychiatric illnesses start before adulthood, and once someone has depression they are likely to get it again." So serve up those fruits and veggies. Read more.

THE THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM is a book and website with the following mission: "to help people with autism and their families make sense of the bewildering array of available autism treatments and options, and determine which are worth their time, money, and energy." As part of that mission, TPGA accepts submissions on the topic of autism from writers 13 and over. Find out more.

EARLY-LIFE STRESS. Twice-exceptional kids can suffer more stress than other children for a variety of reasons. To find out how stress may affect children, check out a new article at Cerebrum on the Dana Foundation website.

DON'T FORGET our stash of categorized article links at http://www.delicious.com/2eNewsletter. The articles cover 2e, giftedness, various exceptionalities, child development, parenting, education, and more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-09-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

YOUR CHILD'S BRAIN was the topic of an interview with two neuroscientists recently aired on NPR. Authors of a new book (naturally) called Welcome to Your Child's Brain, the interview covered things such as language development, self-control, and reward and punishment. Find the interview.

MEDIA BASHING is something we occasionally do in this blog. The American Academy of Pediatrics has released the results of a study showing that some TV s hows may be worse than others when it comes to a their effect on a four-year-old's attention, problem solving, self regulation and other executive function abilities. While the researchers could not determine exactly which features had a negative impact on kids, a fast-paced animated "SpongeBob" cartoon resulted in poorer test results. Find out more, and note that the creators of SpongeBob refute the findings.

PESTICIDES AND AD/HD. Rodale Press reports on the apparent association of certain pesticides and symptoms of AD/HD, based on a Canadian study involving organophosphate pesiticide byproducts excreted in urine. From the article: "Children with substantially higher levels of a breakdown product of neurotoxic organophosphate pesticides were twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD." Read the article for more scary stuff and what you can do about it.

AND THAT'S IT -- unless the topic of the complexities of children's naps is of interest to you ("a mix of individual biology, including neurologic and hormonal development, cultural expectations and family dynamics"). Seems like there's a dearth of items on giftedness and twice-exceptionalities this week, sorry.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-09-09T15:12:00.000-07:00

ASPERGER'S AND GEOGRAPHY. A local television station in the Chicago area profiled a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's whose love of geography allows him to do quite well in the National Geographic Geography Bee. But geography isn't a long-term goal, according the the report: " I want to possibly go into a career of broadcasting because I'm an actor and I love baseball and I just think the two would come together." Read the article.

HOMESCHOOLING BENEFITS. A Concordia University study indicates that structured, curriculum-based homeschooling can provide an academic edge when compared to either unstructured homeschooling or traditional education. One of the advantages of homeschooling mentioned by the study's lead author was the opportunity to accelerate a child's learning process. Read more.

GLOBAL VIRTUAL MEETING FOR GIFTED EDUCATION, the next edition, is scheduled for September 24th. The topic: engaging gifted students in critical and divergent thinking, presented by Dr. Mary Bruck in the virtual world of Second Life. Find out more.

BIPOLAR DISORDER IN CHILDREN. If this is of concern to you, a somewhat lengthy article (for Science Daily, anyway) discusses its diagnosis and treatment. Find it.

SAFETY VERSUS EXERCISE. Helicopter parents may impede kids from getting higher levels of physical activity, according to a recent study of physical activity in public parks. The goal of the study: better design of public parks. Find out more.

BRAIN SCANS may allow the diagnosis of autism. In MRI scans in children 8 to 18, researchers found differences between those with autism and those without. The method was accurate, but not likely to replace current diagnostic practice, according to Disability Scoop. Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. On Facebook? Stop by and contribute: http://www.facebook.com/2eNewsletter.

2011-09-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER, in its latest newsletter, brings the news that Center stalwart Betty Maxwell has retired, and features an interview with Maxwell, who assessed and worked with gifted learners and was particularly interested in visual/spatial learners. Find the newsletter.

AIMEE YERMISIH ONLINE. Aimee is offering two no-cost online events this month on the topic of "Cleared for Launch -- What's After High School" for gifted or 2e kids. Dates: 9/11 and 9/25. Find more information. Aimee also writes a blog at WordPress on "intelligence, creativity, psychology, education, and whatever else comes to mind" -- find it.

FROM DUMMY CLASS TO PULITZER. The opinion piece starts out this way: "I was well into middle age when one of my children, then in the second grade, was found to be dyslexic. I had never known the name for it, but I recognized immediately that the symptoms were also mine." In the opinion piece, the writer describes his difficulties with words as a child, including his difficulties in reading and in processing spoken language. But he willed himself to read, found that he had a "voice," and later won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Read more.

DOES TECHNOLOGY HELP IN THE CLASSROOM? An article in The New York Times gives plenty of information about how technology is used in one tech-savvy school district, but notes that test scores in the district have not risen. Find the article. (Whatever the outcome in "ordinary" classrooms, we could contend that the right assistive technology can greatly help the right 2e and LD kids.)

AND FINALLY, THIS. A survey by VTech, a maker of "play experiences" for kids, found this: "Equality in parenting is still a pipe dream. Nearly half (48%) of working moms say they spend more time each day parenting than on their careers, more than double that of working dads (19%)... Because moms are picking up so much slack at home AND at work, most moms agree 'me time' is nearly extinct. Nearly 70% of working moms have an hour or less to themselves each day. And more than 20% report that they have less than fifteen minutes.When parents were asked to add up how many hours they spend parenting each day, moms beat dads hands down. Moms average nearly 7.5 hours per day spent on parenting tasks, while dads clock an average of 4.3 hours per day. Over a year, that difference adds up to an extra 1150 hours of parenting duty for moms!" We say, remember this next Mother's Day (or next Father's Day).

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-09-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

DAVIDSON ACADEMY AND GIFTED EDUCATION. The cover story of the August 29th edition of the Christian Science Monitor featured the Davidson Academy as the apex of gifted education in the United States, and then used the Academy as a counterpoint to discuss the "class ceiling," limits on education for most gifted students. From the article: "...how many more American students share their experience of idling in their classrooms, unaware of their potential, or bursting with frustration because only a fraction of their curiosity and capability is tapped?" Read the article.

DYSLEXIC ACHIEVER. A young woman, her dyslexia undiagnosed as a child, who used to be angry and resentful at people not seeing who she really was, now sees dyslexia as "the best thing that ever happened to me." A successful adult, she found it refreshing that those in the business world "weren't looking for what was wrong, but saw what was right, and beyond that, wanted to use it constructively toward a common goal." Read more.

LEARNING STYLES. We recently posted on another debunking of learning styles. That article started a good discussion at Edweek.org. If this topic interests you, find the discussion and join in!

BRAINWORKS. In her latest newsletter, Carla Crutsinger addresses the importance of sleep in attaining "stress-free mornings" during the school year. She notes that AD/HD kids take a long time to fall asleep, probably depriving them of the necessary 9 to 11 hours of sleep. She offers tips for avoiding sleep problems; find them. Separately, a study of the sleep habits of college students finds that many are "undermining their own education" because of poor sleep habits. Read more and find additional tips for "sleep hygiene."

ATTENTION RESEARCH UPDATE. David Rabiner's August edition of this newsletter concerned a study about how children's symptoms of AD/HD affect parents' feelings and behavior. The short answer: adversely. The lesson: "Clearly understanding thatgetting children to change core ADHD symptoms is difficult... may protect parents from feeling increasingly powerless about exertingpositive influence on their child and help them remain engaged with theirchild in ways that children experience as warm, nurturing and supportive." Read more about the study.

MORE ON AD/HD. Inattention is a bigger problem than hyperactivity when it comes to finishing high school, according to a Canadian study. Find out more.

FLU SHOTS. The American Association of Pediatrics has issued a statement urging parents to vaccinate family members and caregivers. The AAPrecommends everyone 6 months or older receive influenza vaccine. According to the AAP, the 2011-2012 fluvaccine protects against the same three influenza strains as last year’svaccine. But because a person’s immunity drops by as much as 50 percent 6-12months after vaccination, it’s important to receive another dose this year tomaintain optimal protection. Read more at www.healthychildren.org/flu.

THE DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION BOOK OF LISTS has Whitney Hoffman as co-author. Hoffman, who for awhile pubished podcasts on LDs and occasionally on twice-exceptionality, describes the book at this website.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Japanese researchers have developed a chemical that turns biological tissue transparent, allowing "a revolution in optical imaging." The researchers are using the chemical to study non-living mouse brains but are on the track of another chemical which might allow the study of live tissue. All of this sheds new "light" on the question, "What do you have in mind?" Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

THE LEARNING STYLE DEBUNKERS are at it again. NPR's health blog "Shots" quotes psychologist Dan Willingham, whom you've read about before in this blog, in saying that teachers should not "tailor instruction to different kinds of learners." This seems counter-intuitive to many of us parents and educators, but the blog also mentions another psychologist who, in reviewing studies of learning styles, "found no scientific evidence backing up the idea." So the debate goes on... Read "Shots."

KNOW AN ASPIE KID? Read a great article about Noah Egler, 13, who because of his intelligence and interests recently got a chance to participate in a med school seminar on prosthetic limbs, bonding with his 23-year-old lab partner in the process. In Noah's mind, "Asperger's is what makes him him," according to the article. Read it.

DYSLEXIA MYTHS. Read about them in blog at "Accredited Online Colleges," where all of the posts seem to involve a number. (10 Scary Red Bull Facts Every College Student Should Know. 25 Funniest Academic Raps on YouTube. And more.) Myth 10: "Dyslexia is rare." The reality? It impacts up to 20 percent of us. Find the myths.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE A BAD MOTHER WHEN you don't get you son a birthday card he really appreciates -- and you don't include money in it. At least, that's what an 18-year-old son of an attorney, divorced from the boy's mother, thought when he and his sister filed a lawsuit (through the father) against his mom for bad mothering. Two years into the suit, a judge dismissed it. Read more and marvel.

ONLINE DEGREE FOR STUDENTS WITH AUTISM. Sage Colleges in Albany, New York, will in January initiate an all-online bachelor's program for students with autism or LDs. The school promises individualization and flexibility. Find out more.

LAUGHING AT CHAOS is the name of a blog by the mother of two, one apparently 2e. Last month she blogged about the family move from Colorado to Illinois: "For the record, you haven’t lived until you’ve driven across Nebraska in July with a flatulent dog. We’ve been playing a New!Awesome!Game! 'Where’s the feedlot or was that Rosie?'" This is obviously an astute and discriminating person, because yesterday she picked up on Monday's quote of the week on the 2e Newsletter Facebook page and riffed on that for awhile. Find the blog.

"DUH!" OF THE WEEK. The Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics (not Paediatrics) are against boxing, saying that "Boxing is not an appropriate sport for children and teens." We agree; save young brains. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR IMPROVED GIFTED ED. The president of the North Carolina Association for the Gifted and Talented and the president of NAGC jointly call for more opportunities for gifted students to excel. From the plea: "Contrary to the belief of some, high-ability students do not materialize out of thin air, and they certainly do not retain their capabilities absent ongoing support provided by appropriately trained teachers. They must be identified at the earliest stages possible and developed throughout their academic careers." Find out what they recommend.

E-LEARNING FOR GIFTED STUDENTS. One opportunity gifted students do have is that of e-learning. An article in Education Week describes some of the available opportunities.

ASPIE CHALLENGES. "He had all the state capitals memorized as a toddler, shortly before he read the entire dictionary." Now 23, Spencer, who has Asperger's, faces challenges at college, for example professors who don't understand how the seemingly brilliant young man can have trouble with logistics and procedure. An article in the Sacramento Bee tells more about Spencer and also about a support group, Asperger's Support for Adolescents Plus (ASAP), teens and young adults. Read more.

GIFTED AND DYSLEXIC. A young man with dyslexia who made it through the Stanford JD/MBA program tells how he did it, why he invented the Intel Reader, and why he's passionate about advocating for those with disabilities. Read the blog on CNN, and see a segment from "The Human Factor," which profiles Ben Foss.

SPEAKING OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY, Education Week describes how the the acceptance of universal design for learning -- with its emphasis on accessibility to content by all -- has affected assistive technology. The article provides examples along with guidelines for how schools can acquire such technology. Read the article.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ADDIVA is the title of a book reviewed at About.com. The book is written by a woman with AD/HD. From the review: "In Confessions of an ADDiva, Roggli shares about her journey living with undiagnosed ADHD for more than 40 years and the changes that took place in her life following diagnosis" Read more.

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. The Fall edition of this newsletter is out. You may find it here.

IEP PROCESS. Autism Speaks has released a 26-page guide for parents about IEPs. Visit Autism Speaks to find out more or download the guide.

AD/HD AND WRITING. A recent study from the Mayo Clinic indicates that kids with AD/HD are much more likely to show writing problems -- 66 percent of boys with AD/HD and 57 percent of girls exhibited problems. Read about the study.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

2011 DAVIDSON FELLOWS ANNOUNCED. Eighteen gifted high achievers have been awarded scholarships ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 for their work in a variety of fields. The Davidson Fellows Scholarship program has provided nearly $4.5 million in scholarship funds to 184 Fellows since its inception, according to the Davidson Institute. Founded by Bob and Jan Davidson in 1999, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development recognizes, nurtures, and supports profoundly intelligent young people, and provides opportunities for them to develop their talents to make a positive difference. The Institute offers support through a number of programs and services, including the Davidson Fellows program and The Davidson Academy. For more information about the 2011 Davidson Fellows, visit www.DavidsonGifted.org/Fellows.

ONLINE EDUCATION FOR AUTISM. An Education Week article explores the value of online education for students with high-functioning autism, noting that it can alleviate sensory overload, bullying, and other hazards of the real-world classroom. In the article covers pluses and minuses, and quotes 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter contributor Katherine Boser on considerations for when virtual education might be appropriate for a student with high-functioning autism. Find the article.

DBS FOR TOURTETTE'S. Fox News reported on a young man in New York for whom symptoms of severe Tourette's Syndrome were relieved by deep brain stimulation, which involves implanting electrodes to stimulate parts of the brain that are malfunctioning. Read more.

AD/HD ON THE RISE. The Wall Street Journal, reporting on a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, notes that the percentage of children between 5 and 17 diagnosed with AD/HD has risen to 9 percent, a two-point change from the last measurement over a decade ago. The article also contained an estimate of the costs of such AD/HD to society -- over $42 billion per year when factoring in "health care, education, parental work loss and juvenile-justice costs." Read more.

PARENTS, TEACHERS, COUNSELORS: TAKE HEED. Although you may have already realized this, a new study indicates that boys think discussing problems is a waste of time. This is compared to girls, who researchers found "had positive expectations for how talking about problems would make them feel, such as expecting to feel cared for, understood and less alone." Read more about the study.

A BACK TO SCHOOL HEALTH QUIZ for parents about kids' health showed us that we didn't know lots of things we should have -- such as the maximum weight for a kid's backpack, or which common medicine the FDA has warned against for kids under 2. If you want to find out how much you know -- or don't know -- take the quiz.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Sometimes, after dinner and with the mom out of the house at her aerobics class, the dad and two young boys at our house used to play a game called "Daddy Monster." It was a combination of hide-and-seek, Nerf shoot-em-up, and roughhousing, where the hiding daddy would leap out of closets when the seeking sons approached, then either chase them or be chased and fired upon with Nerf weapons, each round culminating in either daddy being tackled and "dying" on the living room rug, or sons being tossed onto the couch while the monster escaped again. We miss it. Now we find and article in the Chicago Tribune giving parents guidelines for roughhousing with kids and espousing the benefits. Read it.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

GIFTED PRESS QUARTERLY. The summer issue of this electronic newsletter is out, and it features an article on giftedness combined with AD/HD. The author points out "masking," commonalities among giftedness and AD/HD that can confound diagnosis, and AD/HD risk factors. The author, an Israeli, also includes two case studies. And, if you like, you can follow a link to the article as it appeared in Hebrew. Find Gifted Press Quarterly.

YES I CAN! Nominations are open for CEC's 2012 "Yes I Can!" awards, which honor young people with disabilities who excel in areas ranging from academics to arts to technology. Nominations close October 21 of this year. Find out more.

ASD IN COLLEGE. The Salt Lake City Deseret News noted an increase in students on the spectrum at the Utah universities. The article profiles one of those students and also explains what the universities do to help them. Read the article.

SOUTH JERSEY SCHOOL. A Quaker school in Riverton, New Jersey, offers appropriate education to 24 kids at varying grade levels who have sensory issues and language-based learning issues. The tuition is $35,000, according to a news article on the school, but home public school districts may pay some of that. The goal: to get the kids back to their original schools or into college. Find out more.

DIFFERENT GENES, DIFFERENT AD/HD TREATMENT. Researchers have discovered how various AD/HD-related gene variants affect dopamine reception in the brain, and that certain variants allow effective treatment with stimulants while others do not. Read about the study.

MEDIA BASHING. Research indicates that those who watch television an average of six hours a day (!) may be shortening their lives by as much as five years because of the effects of that sedentary behavior. Now, kids think they're immortal and wouldn't likely care about this research -- but responsible adults should care for them (and for themselves). Read more. (The research was done on adults 25 and older, but habits take hold early, right?)

AND FINALLY, THIS. From the U.S. Census Bureau's back-to-school press release of facts and figures: 52 percent of students 12 to 17 "were highly engaged in school (children reported as liking school, being interested in school and working hard in school) in 2006, up 5 percentage points from 1998. For 6- to 11-year-olds, the respective increase was from 56 percent to 59 percent." These stats beg the question, what about all those other students? Read more statistics.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

TRAINS AND AUTISM. The New York Times explored the fascination that many kids on the spectrum have for trains. In particular, the New York Transit Museum is using this fascination to develop kid-friendly programs that allows kids to "connect with other people -- and the world." Anyone who knows an Aspie will probably find something to smile at in this article. Find it.

MULTITASKING AND AUTISM. A recent study suggests that young people with ASD find multitasking difficult. The reason? In performing a series of tasks, they apparently adhere rigidly to the order in which they were given the tasks. Read more.

AD/HD THROUGH THE SCHOOL YEARS. An article in the Los Angeles Times examines how the challenges of AD/HD become apparent at the beginning of each school year, and how in later years kids might reach the breaking point, unable to cope or develop compensatory strategies. The article also points out, however, that with earlier introduction of rules and structure even before kindergarten kids are being labeled at ages 3, 4, and 5. Find the article.

FAMILY HAPPINESS AND THE OVERBOOKED CHILD is the title of an article on parental sacrifice for kids' activities -- and whether that sacrifice is necessarily good. Besides financial and physical exhaustion,, there is apparently no evidence that lots of activities lead to later academic success, at least. Read more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. If worrying about whether you're giving your child the right amount of enrichment activity isn't enough, here's more fodder. A survey of adults on health concerns for children yielded this ranking for the top five concerns: childhood obesity, drug abuse, smoking, teen pregnancy, and bullying. Need even more to worry about? The next five concerns were Internet safety, stress, alcohol abuse, driving accidents, and sexting. So there -- take your pick and start worrying. Find the survey.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

AD/HD, ASD: SHARED GENETIC RISK. A new study has found that some genetic variants may be common between AD/HD and autism spectrum disorders. This could explain why some traits seem common in both conditions. Furthermore: "The research results could be reassuring for clinicians who may see characteristics of different neuropsychiatric conditions in their patients -- such as ASD-like social problems in a child with AD/HD -- but are concerned that they are over-interpreting these traits." Read more.

KIDS AND FACEBOOK. Time Magazine reports that kids who use Facebook frequently may earn lower grades, be more narcissistic, and be more prone to anxiety and depression. On the other hand, researchers have also noted beneficial effects on self-identity and empathy. Find out more.

RTI WORKING? A study indicates that response to intervention is widely used and can be effective in identifying -- and ameliorating -- LDs early. Read more, and find a link to the report "National Assessment of IDEA."

FINDING GIFTED UNDERACHIEVERS. The Victorian Association for the Gifted and Talented Children is holding its biennial conference in Melbourne on September 8-0. The theme: "Unmasking the possibilities." Find out more.

SHYNESS. Got a shy and gifted kid? NPR recently aired a program dealing with shyness. From the blurb for the program: "Medical treatment and therapy is widely available for social anxiety, but some argue that shyness is not a sickness. They say shy people listen better and have higher levels of empathy. A look at shyness, its evolutionary basis, and why it might be an asset." Find the program.

AND FINALLY, THIS. As the parent or educator of a gifted kid, you're probably interested in out-of-the-box thinking, perhaps because of the way you've been exposed to it by that child. Technology columnist David Poque writes about an assignment he gave to a business school class: invent a better, more usable digital watch. You might enjoy some of the creations. Read the column.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

COLLEGES WITH GOOD LD PROGRAMS. A 2010 article from the Huffington Post, newly discovered on our computer, profiles 11 universities that go out of their way to support students with LDs. Find the profiles.

THE CAUSES OF AUTISM aren't simple, says an article by a pediatrician who covers the relative roles of genetics and environment. Find out more about inquiries involving twin studies and find out what kind of environmental influences might play a part.

GOT AN IEP? Or, rather, a kid with an IEP? Wrightslaw, in its most recent edition of Special Ed Advocate, covers the importance of writing follow-up letters after IEP meetings. Why? Because a well-written letter can be of great use in a due process hearing, should your situation ever devolve into such a thing. Find Special Ed Advocate.

THE BRAIN SCIENCE OF ATTENTION is part of the lengthy title of a book to be released this month: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. The author, an academic, is dyslexic. Her premise: kids are wired differently. (You knew that.) A quote from the book: "If you are a successful entrepreneur in the United States, you are three times more likely to be than the general public to have been diagnosed with a learning or attention deficit disorder." Find out more at a Huffington Post blog.

FILE UNDER "C" FOR "CYNICAL." Or maybe "P" for "practical." Kids are now planning experiences that will give them fodder for a "standout" college application essay. From an article on this: “Students are planning their summer experiences to augment who they are and discover who they are, and that absolutely helps the college process.” Read the article to find out what kinds of experiences kids are cultivating.

AND FINALLY, THIS. The words "back to school" figured prominently in many of the press releases and articles we read as we prepared this posting, but the best back-to-school story was in an article in the Chicago Tribune about dropping off kids on the college campus. A college counselor related an incident where, as the parents were driving off, the father "rolled down the window of his car and shouted out to his son, 'By the way, you have a learning disability and Asperger's syndrome.'" Cool move, dad, to wait until such a moment to bring up those issues. Read more about how to act (and not act) during the big moment.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

2e STORY. As an 11-year-old, broadcaster and author Nelson Lauver was evaluated by the family doctor, who concluded that Lauver "had limited intelligence and lacked serious motivation," according to an article at PennLive.com. Social promotions kept him going from grade to grade until he graduated at the bottom of his class. At age 29, Lauver discovered that he had dyslexia. He has authored a memoir, Most Unlikely to Succeed, The Trials, Travels and Ultimate Triumphs of a ‘Throwaway’ Kid. Find out more.

HEARING AND ACADEMICS. An article in THE Journal states, "a growing body of research indicates hearing loss--even a minimal amount--can have a dramatic effect on everything from attention and behavior to academic performance." According to the article, about 20 percent of K-12 students might have some type of hearing difficulties. Read the article.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Still sharing her experiences from Edufest, Tamara Fisher related four "epiphanies" shared with her by teachers at the conference. One started out this way:

Fisher: What did you used to think and believe about gifted students and gifted education?
Teacher: I used to believe that gifted ed starts in 3rd grade and that students who are gifted always do well academically unless they are lazy.

Can you guess where that leads? Find Fisher's blog and the rest of the teacher's insight.

BRAINWORKS. Carla Crutsinger continues on the topic of handwriting and dysgraphia in a Q&A titled "Is It Laziness or Is It a Handwriting Problem." Got a kid with bad handwriting? Check out the newsletter. (And be sure to read the introductory "dialog" between teacher and pupil.)

FISH OIL AND BRAIN POWER. Thinking about using fish oil (DHA) supplements to improve focus in that 2e kid you know? Check out an article in the Los Angeles Times that covers the claims and the evidence for the effectiveness of the supplement.

AUTISM AND PRONOUNS. Children with autism may refer to themselves as "you," an error reflecting "a disordered neural representation of the self," according to a new study. Brain imaging showed "diminished synchronization" in two brain areas during pronoun use. The error may also be connected with an inability to shift viewpoints. Read about the study.

WISC-IV DISCREPANCIES. A thread at the "Gifted Issues Discussion Forum" at the Davidson Institute website concerns big gaps between processing speed and working memory scores, on the one hand, and perceptual reasoning and verbal comprehension on the other. You might know that such gaps can be markers of twice exceptionality. Find the thread.

AND FINALLY, THIS. A University of Essex study of video gamers indicates that rather than running away from something during play, the gamers are actually trying on new traits or characteristics -- in effect, according to the researchers, "running towards their ideals. They are not escaping to nowhere, they are escaping to somewhere." Read more to understand that gamer in your household.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-08-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

AD/HD: A SUPERPOWER? Smart Money Magazine profiles a few small-business owners who attribute some of their success to the traits of AD/HD -- energy, and the ability to creatively think outside the box, for example. The article also explores ways the entrepreneurs have found to cope with weaknesses such as disorganization and inattention to detail. Find the article.

AD/HD AND QUALITY OF LIFE. It could be that having a child's AD/HD treated by a pediatrician can lead to "better overall health-related quality of life and family functioning" than having such a child treated at a psychiatric clinic, according to a new study reported by UPI. Find out more.

THE AUGUST BRIEFING from 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter will be out late today or tomorrow. Find it at our website, where you may also sign up for it if you don't already receive it.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

AD/HD: PARENTING TOLL. The site LiveScience has posted an article about the toll paid by parents of children with AD/HD. The particular young person profiled is gifted, and the article quotes the mother as saying, "He has a really high IQ and he's really gifted, and he comes home from school and says how stupid he is." (Sound familiar?) The article describes some research into the stress involved in parenting an AD/HD child. Find the article.

NCLD REPORT. The National Center for Learning Disabilities has published a report on the prevalence and effects of learning disabilities in the United States, as well as clarifying what an LD is. From the report: about 4.7 million Americans 6 and older are reported to have LDs; and about 11 percent of college undergraduates reported having an LD. Find out more.

ATTENTION RESEARCH UPDATE. The July issue of this newsletter has been posted. In it, David Rabiner described a study examining the question, "Does AD/HD medication treatment in childhood increase adult employment?" While in general the study indicated that "adults with ADHD have poorer educational outcomes, report more psychiatric difficulties, and are more likely to be unemployed than other adults," it also found a correlation between treatment with medication in childhood and higher likelihood of employment in adulthood. Read Rabiner's interpretation of the study.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER has released its July newsletter. It offers a discount for GDC services for families who are homeschooling, and the "Ask Kimmy" column addresses the question "Why should I have my gifted child assessed at the GDC if I am homeschooling?" Find out why.

THE DAVIDSON INSTITUTE has issued its July eNews Update. This issue offers news of DITD programs, legislative and policy news from around the U.S., web-based resources, and pointers to recent gifted-related articles you (and we) might have missed. Read the newsletter.

UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Tamara Fisher reports from Edufest, a yearly gifted ed conference held in Boise, Idaho. She shares responses to three questions she asked fellow conference-goers:

What do you wish the people back home knew or understood about gifted education and/or gifted students?
What is an "a-ha!" moment you've had here so far this week?
What is something you have learned or gained that you will be taking back with you?

Find the blog.

AD/HD AND DSM. About.com reports that the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders may include changes in the way AD/HD is diagnosed. The changes include:

Restructuring the subtypes
Adding symptoms
Providing more detailed symptom descriptions.

Find out more at About.com.

FLORIDA SCHOOL FOR HIGH-FUNCTIONING AUTISTICS. This fall, the Monarch Academy in Daytona Beach will open to serve K-12 ASD kids who are ready for the classroom. Find out more.

AD/HD RESOURCES. A web-based community called ADDConnect offers groups centered around particular AD/HD issues; the group is for parents of kids with AD/HD and for adults with AD/HD, and is sponsored by ADDitude Magazine. Find it.

ACTING OUT can be good, find researchers, when it means physically acting out text in word problems. Students who did so solved the problems more accurately and with less distraction. The reason? Something called embodied cognition, which "posits that meaning in language comes when words or phrases are mentally mapped onto memories of real experiences and perceptions." Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

ANOTHER AD/HD DANGER. With our kids in the car one day, we almost ran over a boy whose family we knew to be a hotbed of AD/HD; the boy, on his bicycle, simply rode into the street to cross it without looking for traffic -- or else seriously misjudged traffic. Had we not braked quickly, the results would have not been pretty. Now a study reported in Pediatrics shows that children with AD/HD, compared to normally developing children, do not process the information necessary to safely cross the street. In the study, children with AD/HD chose smaller gaps in traffic to cross within, and had considerably less time to reach the end of the crosswalk before the next car approached, resulting in a more dangerous crossing environment. Read more at US News/HealthDay.

BOOK DEAL FROM PRUFROCK. In honor of of National Parenting Gifted Children Week (last week), Prufrock is offering an e-book version of their title Parenting Gifted Kids, by Jim Delisle, for $2.99. Sounds like the offer expires soon. Find out more.

ARE YOU A WORKING MOM? A study indicates that your children are no more likely to have behavioral or emotional problems than kids in families with stay-at-home moms. Read more.

FEDERAL FUNDING FOR SPECIAL ED. Apparently, long ago, the U.S. government pledged to pay 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities, but the current federal spending is around 16 percent. Now a senator has introduced a bill to make up the gap. No word on how the bill, if passed, would affect 2e students. Read more at Education Week or the site of CEC.

BOOKS BEGONE. South Korea will replace paper textbooks with tablet PCs, according to recent media reports. The move will allow learners to take more advantage of media-based materials and provide fast access to lots of online information. (In theory, tablets would also offer alternative ways for learners to take in the same information, accommodating those who do better with visually-based or audio-based materials.) Read more.

HAPPY MONDAY! More blog posts soon.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

SENG GIFT. In honor of National Parenting Gifted Children Week (this week), SENG has released a free e-book called The Joy and the Challenge: Parenting Gifted Children. Among the authors of the various sections of the book you'll find some familiar to readers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, including publisher Linda Neumann. Her contribution: "Don't Get Caught in the Lazy Trap." Find the book to read online or to download.

AD/HD IN GIRLS AND WOMEN. Katherine Ellison, author of Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention, has an article at ADDitude on the way AD/HD is different in girls and women than in men. She discusses her own encounter with AD/HD and brings up studies of AD/HD in women along with individual "case studies." She also includes a checklist, constructed by Kathleen Nadeau, to use in trying to determine the presence of AD/HD. Find the article.

POSITIVE TEENS, HEALTHY YOUNG ADULTS. That's the word from a Northwestern University researcher, who found that "teens with high positive well-being had a reduced risk of engaging in unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, binge drinking, using drugs and eating unhealthy foods as they transitioned into young adulthood. " This according to an NU press release about the research. Find out more. The pressure's on, parents. (And don't think we at 2e Newsletter don't know about that pressure.)

AND FINALLY THIS. Go a kid who has what's sometimes called "a fluid relationship with truth"? A study reveals what you might already know -- that although people not telling the truth can suppress some tell-tale facial actions, they can't suppress them all. Now, you might need a video camera and a frame-by-frame analysis of facial movements on your favorite fib-teller, but at least now you know that non-verbal communication may be working in your favor. Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

RED FLAG. Adolescent rats given Ritalin and Prozac together may undergo brain changes that make them, as adults, "more sensitive to reward as well as to stress, and more likely to exhibit the pessimism and hopelessness seen in depression." This according to a rat-based study newly published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers compared the actions of the combo to those of cocaine. An article in the Los Angeles Times noted lots of "ifs" in transposing the study results to humans; for example the rats that received the drugs were normally developing and not AD/HD or depressed. But according to the article, 40 percent of kids diagnosed as either depressed or AD/HD may end up with both diagnoses. Got a kid in that situation? Maybe it's time to talk to your psychiatrist. Read the article.

SCREENING FOR LDs. An Australian psychologist recommends that toddlers be screened for LDs as well as mental health issues. Next year, a new mental-health screening program goes into effect for three-year-olds in Australia. Noting that up to 10 percent of children might have an LD, the psychologist said, "If untreated they can affect their academic skills and success in school and increase the risk of the child developing behavioural problems." Read more.

THE GOOGLE SCIENCE FAIR was dominated in each age category by American young women. The winner discovered a way to make a drug for treating cancer more effective as cancer cells grew resistant to it. More than 10,000 young people from 91 countries entered. Find out more about these gifted young people.

THE SENG VINE, the e-newsletter of the organization, is out for July. Included: an observation of National Parenting Gifted Children Week and interviews with SENG directors on "childhood, parenting, and life." Find it.

FEEDBACK ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS. The recent New York Times article "In Defense of Antidepressants" (which we noted in this blog) drew at least a dozen responses from well-credentialed individuals. If you read the article, you might be interested in the responses.

COVD REMINDER. The College of Optometrists in Vision Development (which you have seen represented in the pages of 2e Newsletter for their stance on the role of vision in learning difficulties) has issued a back-to-school call for vision assessment. For children who have "any learning difference," the College suggests evaluation of the following items:

Visual acuity
Focusing near to far – speed and ability
Convergence
Stereopsis – depth perception
Tracking – fixation skills, pursuit and saccadic skills
Visual discrimination
Visualization
Visual memory and recall
Visual motor integration – eye-hand coordination
Laterality and directionality

If you knew what all of those things meant, good for you. The site of the College is www.covd.org.

AND FINALLY, THIS -- something else to worry about if your child is of a certain age and the adventuresome or naive type. Recreational stimulant drugs sold as "bath salts"are being implicated in lots of ugly emergency room scenes. The director of the Louisiana Poison Center says, according to The New York Times, “If you take the worst attributes of meth, coke, PCP, LSD and ecstasy and put them together, that’s what we’re seeing sometimes.” Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

PREPARING FOR COLLEGE WITH A LEARNING DISABILITY is the title of a guest blog recently at the Washington Post's "Campus Overload" feature.A young woman who recently earned an associate's degree from Landmark College, a school that focuses on students with LDs, offered a recap of her experiences there plus five tips for those with LDs who plan to attend college. Find the blog.

NEGATIVE THINKING AND TEEN ANXIETY. A person's outlook on an ambiguous situation may determine whether the situation induces anxiety, according to a new study. An approach called "cognitive bias modification of interpretations" may help those subject to anxiety interpret unclear situations in a more positive light, averting unnecessary anxiety. Got an anxious gifted or 2e teen? Check out the study. Separately, Psych Central offers the tip that routine high-level exercise may reduce anxiety in persons predisposed to panic attacks. Find out more.

MATT COHEN answers questions each month at LD Online. Among the topics he addresses for July are: getting a teacher to find ways to help a student with an LD learn best; whether it's appropriate for a teacher to recommend that a child be medicated for an LD; what to do when a school denies an IEP because of a student's success; and how to get accommodations for the LSAT, among others. Find it.

AD/HD ENTREPRENEURS. Smart Money tells the stories of four entrepreneurs who succeeded on their own in spite of AD/HD and because of it. The article covers both the energy and the challenges; one entrepreneur once booked two different dinners for the same night -- on different continents. Read more about these achievers.

NEUROSCIENCE AND EDUCATION. Education Week, in a feature on special ed, covers some of the ways neuroscience can help not just special ed but education in general. Among the topics: the ability to differentiate LDs based on brain imaging; and early identification of LDs through biomarkers. Find the article.

DYSGRAPHIA IN THE "REAL WORLD" is the featured topic in Carla Crutsinger's most recent Brainworks e-newsletter. Crutsinger offers four solid strategies for achieving success at work with an impediment such as dysgraphia. Find the newsletter.

RESOURCES. For information or support, don't forget a couple resources we've mentioned in the past. One is #gtchat, a weekly, international, Twitter-based discussion on a specific gifted topic, sometimes on 2e topics. For example, on June 24 the topic was AD/HD in gifted kids; and on May 27 it was "Understanding and Supporting Twice-Exceptional Learners." If you can't participate in the hour-long chats, transcripts are available at the #gtchat site. Another resource available on an ongoing basis is About.com: ADD-AD/HD. About.com is operated by The New York Times, which makes us assume the information is reliable. You can sign up for periodic updates on the topic of AD/HD or any other topic at About.com -- topics relevant to the 2e community include anxiety disorders, ASD, gifted children, and more. (But no dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia!?) Find About.com.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-13T08:25:00.000-07:00

COLLEGE ON THE SPECTRUM is the title of a presentation by a recent graduate of Seton Hall University. In an article in the Orlando Sentinel, the graduate described some of his tactics for getting through college, such as distributing cards to professors on the first days of class explaining he has autism. The article highlights some of the challenges to ASD college students -- but also gives hints of how to overcome those challenges. At the end of the article the Seton Hall graduate is quoted: "Autism doesn't define me — I define autism." Read the article.

HEALTH CARE PRIVACY AND YOUR CHILD. An article in Monday's New York Times covers some of the trickiness involved in balancing an adolescent's privacy rights with parental concern, or even with concerns of other adults (such as college professors) who become involved in a student's emotional or mental health issues. If you've got a child in that nether zone, check out the article -- because you're likely to be affected as the child receives mental or physical health care for those other exceptionalities.

DEPRESSION. Also in The New York Times, a piece on what is apparently a recent public discussion about the effectiveness of antidepressants. We point out this article because we know that parents of 2e children are very interested in depression (along with anxiety) that may stem from the challenges those kids face. The article is authored by a clinical professor of psychiatry who is concerned about recent "debunking" of antidepressants. Find it.

SECONDHAND SMOKE may be linked to an increased incidence of AD/HD or other disorders, according to a new study. According to CNN Health, the study "found that children exposed to secondhand smoke in the home had a 50% increased risk of developing two or more childhood neurobehavioral disorders compared with children who were not exposed at home." Read more.

AUTISM CAUSES, DIAGNOSIS. A recent news item covered a study on "birth factors" as they relate to autism -- factors such as birth weight, fetal distress, etc. One conclusion: parents should not worry about the occurrence of any single factor, but that some factors in combination with genetics might cause ASD. Find the article. In another study, researchers at the University of Cambridge say that siblings of people with autism show a similar pattern of brain activity to that seen in people with autism when looking at emotional facial expressions. The researchers identified the reduced activity in a part of the brain associated with empathy and argue it may be a ‘biomarker’ for a familial risk of autism. Read University's the press release.

GIFTED EDUCATION IN VICTORIA. An item in Jo Freitag's Gifted Resources newsletter pointed us to an inquiry being held by the Australian state of Victoria into the education of gifted students. The committee on Education and Training has solicited input from the gifted community, and much of what has been submitted is on the site of the Victoria Parliament -- responses from educators, parents, and gifted organizations, more than 100 posted at this time. A quick look didn't reveal any 2e-related postings; we'll keep looking. Find the inquiry.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

ACCEPTING AUTISM. A Maryland mother writes in the Washington Times about how she came to understand what it was like to have a child with autism and how she accepts it. Now, she writes, "It is hard to imagine Jack without autism. If he were typical, would he still be so gentle and kindhearted? Would he still find so much joy in very small things? Would he still come up with the delightful and quirky thoughts he manages to articulate?" Read the article.

CHILDHOOD BIPOLAR DISORDER. In Newsweek, a psychiatrist contends that "hundreds of thousands of children in the U.S. have been wrongly diagnosed with the trendy disorder." He calls it a "diagnostic fad" and cites differences between bipolar disorder in adults and in children. His opinion is that cases of severe AD/HD combined with severe ODD are being diagnosed, wrongly, as childhood bipolar disorder, resulting in unwarranted and even dangerous medications. Find the article.

PERSONALITY DISORDERS: A MATTER OF DEGREE. The chairman of the DSM work group on personality disorders has noted a shift in perception of those disorders: that they're not binary but a matter of degree. Some personality disorders might disappear from the DSM-5, leaving antisocial, avoidant, borderline, narcissistic, obsessive/compulsive, and schizotypal. Read more.

A NEW BOOK ON AD/HD takes a strength-based approach to the disorder, noting that many kids with AD/HD "have tremendous passion, creativity and are often outstanding individuals." Along with his approach, the author titled the book Attention Difference Disorder. Read an interview with the author, and be sure to make it to the final paragraph.

VIDEO RESOURCES. A video on the Scientific American website treats the topic of how motherhood changes the brain. A video on the website of TECCA, a technology-following organization, features a new Dutch-designed font that supposedly helps dyslexics differentiate similar letters such as v and w. And from Deborah Ruf's newsletter we learned that the American Psychological Association will be publishing videos about recent psychological research, such as a recent video about children's mental health; find it.

AND FINALLY, THIS. If your bright child is interested in outer space, note that Scientific American has posted a collection of in-depth reports on the U.S. space shuttle programs, including a visual history, the final mission, and close calls experienced by those manning the spacecraft. Find it.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-07-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND SCHOOL FOR BEHAVIORAL ISSUES. A school in Portland, Oregon, is often an interim stop for K-12 students who have behavioral problems that may include AD/HD or ODD. The school's goal is to reintegrate its clients with mainstream schools, but some students stay until graduation from high school. Some of the students at the school are at the AP and honors level academically. Read more.

DYSLEXIA AND JAPANESE. Some students with dyslexia do much better writing in Japanese or Chinese than they do in their native English. In Japanese and Chinese, according to an article on the topic, "characters represent complete words or ideas," as opposed to languages like English, "which use separate letters and sounds to form words." Evidently dyslexics use different parts of their brains when reading in Japanese than in English. Find out more.

WAS YOUR KID A LATE TALKER? No worries, according to a study published in Pediatrics. Even if issues were present at age 2, the children in the study appeared not to be at increased risk for AD/HD or other issues as they grew up. As many as 18 percent of children are apparently late talkers. Read more.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND AUTISM. A newly-published study indicates that some environmental factors might be at least as important as genetic factors in the development of autism. The twin-based study included kids with Asperger's as well as "classic" autism. Some of the environmental factors -- which were not specifically listed -- occur prenatally. Read about the study.

NEW GIFTED SCHOOL IN ARIZONA. Arizona State University will open an on-campus school for gifted students who have completed at least a sixth-grade curriculum. Herberger Academy will accept up to 40 students per year for "an accelerated, five-year program that is not for the faint of heart." Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE A POSTER CHILD for "female AD/HD" and you realize that all of that fame will be with you forever as Internet baggage. A young woman, now working at the National Institutes of Health, recounts her prominence and how she feels about it going forward. Read more.

FATTY ACIDS AND AD/HD. Do they help? David Rabiner reviews a study on the question (the study's answer was "no") but offers suggestions on when fatty acids might be useful for the treatment of AD/HD. Find the study.

AD/HD AND STIMULANT MEDS. If you've ever wondered how stimulant medications help children with AD/HD by affecting the brain, check out an article at About.com on the topic. Find it.

READING, WRITING, AND... RHYTHM. A study has shown that children with dyslexia may have difficulty perceiving patterns of rhythm in music, and that musical games may be a way to intervene early and forestall or ameliorate later reading problems. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

SHYNESS? ILLNESS? An article in Sunday's New York Times considers the differences between shy people (and animals) compared with more extroverted individuals, and asks whether shyness might be an evolutionary tactic. In children, the article describes the differences between "rovers" and "sitters" and what those differences might mean. Find the article.

THE SENG VINE, the organization's newsletter, is out in its June edition. Among the features is an article "What SENG Means to Me," by Amy Price, SENG's first executive director. Find the newsletter.

COLLEGE NOT THE ANSWER? An article at the site Issues in Science and Technology reminds readers that college might not be for everyone, and that apprenticeships might better prepare some students for high-skilled jobs and professions. The article describes some advantages, such as the participant's ability to quickly connect theoretical and practical learning; have role models and get a good view of the future profession; and combine work and school. The article describes apprenticeship programs in the U.S. and in other countries. Find it.

NEUROEDUCATION applies the findings of neuroscience to education, and a keynote speaker at the conference of the Insternational Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provided "Brain Rules for Education," noting how current learning environments may be in opposition to the best functioning of the brain. The keynote is available online at the organization's YouTube channel.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Every summer, the U.S. Census Bureau sends out a ton of facts relating to the next school year. This year's barrage includes items such as these:

The percentage of 12- to 17-year olds who reported being highly engaged in a recent year was 52 percent, up 5 points from the previous polling. (What's the percentage in your family?)
The average starting salary offered to bachelor's degree candidates in petroleum engineering in 2009 was $85,417, among the highest of any field of study. At the other end of the spectrum were those majoring in a social science, who were offered an average of $36,217. (Go, STEM!)
The average tuition, room and board at the nation's four-year private colleges and universities for one academic year (2008-09) was $40,633. That was more than double the cost in 1990, according to the report. (See the article on apprenticeships above.)

Read more facts and figures at the Census Bureau site.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

HOW TO LAND YOUR KID IN THERAPY is the title of an article in the July/August issue of Atlantic. It's written by a psychologist and parent, and it's about parenting, with lots of input from other mental health professionals. The impetus for the article was the number of patients she was seeing who felt empty, or anxious, or unhappy -- and who seemed to have no reason to feel that way, who claimed to have had good parents and a good upbringing. The author's thesis is clarified near the end of the article: ".. by trying so hard to provide the perfectly happy childhood, we’re just making it harder for our kids to actually grow up." But along the way the author offers many things for today's parents to think about, including:

How much effort to make to protect a child from "reality"
The amount of choice a child is entitled to
How and how much to try to build a child's self-esteem.

Find the article.

AUTISM AND AUTHORITY. We once wrote about a gifted young boy with Asperger's who got into trouble at school because those in authority did not know how to deal with an Asperger's child who has trouble with authority and authoritarian ways. Now, according to the Akron, Ohio, Beacon Journal, a police officer with an Aspie son is teaching other law enforcement officers about those on the spectrum -- how to identify them and how to deal with them in various law enforcement situations. Read the article.

AUSTISM AND GIFTED ED. A Berwyn, Illinois school is making an effort to include bright Aspie kids in gifted ed classes instead of placing them in special ed, playing to their strengths rather than their challenges. Read about how the school adapted to these kids and how the kids responded.

TEACHER-PARENT COMMUNICATION is the topic of an article in Education Week's Teacher. The article offers tips such as being proactive, how to deal with angry or abusive communications, and more. Parents would probably be well-served to read this article to see things from the teacher's point of view; after all, effective communication is especially important when parents and educators must discuss disabilities, accommodations, and challenges as well as gifts. Find it.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON THE INTERNET. It's different, perhaps rewired. That's the conclusion of a recent study reported in Scientific American. Does your gifted young person spend too much time online? Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Got a near-sighted kid? It could be the result of too much time spent indoors in artificial light. At least, that's the thesis of an article in Scientific American. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

A BELATED HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all you dads of twice-exceptional children. You get the chance to spend extra time, effort, money, and loving care on your kids because they're gifted and learning challenged. Go for it!

DYSCALCULIA. A study published last Friday may point to a marker of dyscalculia versus just having a bad time with math. The study was longitudinal, tracking kids from kindergarten through 9th grade. It turns out that a test of estimating the magnitude of numbers showed significantly different results for those in the lowest 10 percent of math achievers. Researchers have also identified a part of the brain that is less active during basic number processing. Read more at Education Week or in Science Daily.

LD ONLINE has an area of the website called "Gifted & LD," which addresses "how teachers and parents of gifted children with LD can implement the itnerventions necessary for the learning disability while still providing opportunities for enrichment." Go there.

BRAINWORKS. Carla Crutsinger's latest newsletter addresses the issue of AD/HD and cyber-addiction in high-ability kids. Read more.

ASD AND IT. A British study has found that autism diagnoses are more common in geographic regions rich in information technology (and, therefore, information technologists). From an article on the Cambridge University site: "The researchers predicted that autism spectrum conditions (ASC) would be more common in populations enriched for ‘systemizing’, which is the drive to analyse how systems work, and to predict, control and build systems." Read more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. A New York Times book reviewer looked at one book on psychopathy and one titled The Science of Evil. The first offers a self-administered checklist where you can rate yourself on psychopathic traits; the second offers an Empathy Quotient checklist, where you can rate yourself on the personality dimension the author hypothesizes is absent in those who are evil. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-16T15:45:00.000-07:00

LD IN COLLEGE: ADVANTAGE? That's the thesis put forth by a writer for U.S. News. The rationale:

Colleges look for diversity. [And 2e kids are certainly diverse!]
Knowing about an LD may help the college put other application factors in perspective.

The author offers advice on how to present the learning disability during the admissions process, and offers questions to help ascertain whether the school can properly accommodate an LD. Parents of college-bound 2e kids will be interested in this article. Read it.

2e FRANCISCANS? The New York Times' Dan Barry profiled identical twins who, long ago, became Franciscan brothers and were inseparable for most of their lives; they died recently, on the same day, at age 92. According to Barry, the brothers were workers, not scholars, at St. Bonaventure University in New York, and considered shy, obedient, and guileless. Apparently bright and observant as youngsters, says Barry, the brothers did not do well in school and may have been dyslexic. Read the article to find out, however, what the twins were able to teach their better-educated superiors as the years went on.

A CANADIAN COMEDIAN recently discussed his mental health issues (AD/HD and OCD) at the Banff World Media Festival. Howie Mandel described what it was like growing up with the disorders and how they have affected his career. Read the article.

AUTISM AND GENETICS. Scientific American has pubished an article titled "Autism's Tangled Genetics Full of Rare and Varied Mutations." The article describes recent studies and the complexity of the genetic component of autism. Read more.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER has issued its June newsletter, featuring its Director of Research Frank Falk, a speech by Annemarie Roeper, and reflections on the 1st International Symposium on Adult Giftedness. Read it.

GOT A GIFTED KID WHO LIKES TO WRITE? Maybe he or she should be a member of the Scholastic Kid Press Corp, kids 10 to 14. Read about one such reporter.

WORKING MEMORY TRAINING may help kids who need it, facilitating problem-solving skills and abstract reasoning. Read more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. June 13-19 is Gifted Awareness Week in New Zealand. Find out more at the website of the New Zealand Association for Gifted Children.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG. A gifted young man who has dyslexia has established a blog to inform others about technology which may assist in reading and writing. Included are reviews of hardware and software. Begun last week, the blog already has 18 informative posts. Check it out.

EXERCISE AND ADDERALL -- those are the two things that 674 people at CureTogether say are most popular and most effective as treatments. Apparently least effective for this group: Strattera and Wellbutrin. Find the report. CureTogether is a site where patients with any of 500 conditions may share with others information on their particular condition and treatment.

2e RESOURCES. The Lang School has posted on Facebook a list of resources for those in the 2e community. Check it out to see if they offer resources you might find useful.(Thanks, Micaela!)

SHOULD YOU SCREEN YOUR TODDLER FOR AUTISM? A new report suggests a couple downsides to early screening. The tests might not be that accurate, for starters. And they apparently may lead to false positives up to 25 percent of the time, leading parents to believe their child has autism when that's not the case. Read more.

BOOKS AND BOYS. Reading is good for boys, in the sense that it can help develop reading skills, an area where boys may lag girls. But reading may not be perceived as "cool," according to an article in the Chicago Tribune, and may compete poorly with other activities more favored by boys, especially during the summer. The article offers ways to encourage summertime reading by boys. Find the article.

THE LEAD SAYS IT ALL: "Some 2 million Americans adolescents experienced a bout of major depression last year, but only about a third of them got any help in dealing with the sadness, irritability, anxiety, guilt and loss of interest and energy that are the hallmarks of such episodes, a report says." If you have a teen at risk for depression, read the article.

SUMMERTIME BOREDOM can be an opportunity for creativity, says the author of a book on "dialed-down parenting" who recommends that a child's life be one-third busy time, one-third creative time, and one-third down-time. The author suggests that allowing a child to "dwell in the Land of What-to-Do" will soon result in self-generated, imaginative activity. Seems that this advice should surely apply to those gifted kids you know. Read more.

EIDE BLOG POST REVISTED. A printout of an Eide Neurolearning Blog posting from January of 2009 somehow resurfaced on our desk, and it's titled in part "A Brain-based Framework for Understanding Twice Exceptional People." The post covers general characteristics of 2e students (intellectual strengths and deficits, along with social-emotional concerns), notes familial influences on the development of 2e traits, and points to research on asynchronous development (eg in prefrontal cortical thickness) in high-IQ youngsters. Read this blog post.

AND FINALLY, THIS. The U.S. government has released figures on the cost of raising a child from birth to age 18. A child born in 2010 to a middle-income family will cost $226,920 -- and that's without college. Expenses vary by geographic region, family type, and family income. And how might the child-rearing budget be different for families in the 2e community? Think "medications," "counseling," "private schools," and so forth; you know the affected household budget categories. Read more; if you're interested in the details, find the government report.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

JAY MATHEWS, education writer for the Washington Post, profiles a Loudoun County, Virginia, public magnet school for science. Serving gifted high-school students, the Loudoun Academy of Science uses innovative curricula and top-notch faculty to deliver an outstanding educational experience. Read more.

NPR ON AUTISM. The program Science Friday for today included a segment titled "Gene Mutations Offer Clues on the Austistic Brain," in which program guests discussed some of the latest science on autism and its treatment. Find the program.

AD/HD AND THE BRAIN. Recent research has shown structural brain differences in preschoolers with AD/HD. Evidently the caudate nucleus, associated with cognitive and motor control, is smaller in children with AD/HD than in children without. Find out more.

VSL WEBINAR. StarJump and the Australian Gifted Support Center have scheduled a one-hour webinar on June 22 titled "An Introducation to Visual Spatial Thinking and Learning." Directed at parents of bright children who may not learn conventionally or who may be having difficulties at school, the webinar costs AUS$30 and begins at 7:30pm NSW time. Find out more.

EDUCATIONAL CHATS ON TWITTER. There are lots of them, and "Cybrary Man," evidently a New York City educator, has compiled a listing of the chats, their hashtags, and descriptions. Find it. (We found this referenced in Jo Freitag's list of "interesting websites" in her latest Gifted Resources newsletter.)

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

EDUCATION WEEK has made available a special report called "Diplomas Count: Before High School, Before Baccalaureate" that explores alternatives to the standard four-year degree. Among the parts of the report is one called "College for All Reconsidered." Find the report.

WRIGHTSLAW offers strategies for finding summer programs and camps in its current edition of Special Ed Advocate. One article is on a social skills boot camp for teens with ASD. Find the newsletter.

LEARNING: TOP-D0WN VERSUS BOTTOM-UP. Education in school traditionally is based on learning rules, then applying them. Researchers are looking into the effectiveness of a method called "perceptual learning," which uses the brain's pattern-recognition skills to provide an intuitive grasp of a principle. From an article on the topic: "...there is growing evidence that a certain kind of training — visual, fast-paced, often focused on classifying problems rather then solving them — can build intuition quickly." Read the article and see if you think it might benefit your twice-exceptional student.

THE HEADLINE TELLS SOME OF THE STORY: "Push for A's at Private Schools is Keeping Costly Tutors Busy." But you have to read the article to find out how much some parents are willing to spend for grades and academic achievement -- and it's a lot. Read more.

OUTLET FOR CREATIVITY. We recently became aware of a website called Xtranormal.com, where visitors can create their own animated video by choosing characters, entering text to be spoken by those characters, and controlling other aspects of the animation. Some users have had videos "go viral" on YouTube. Find the site. (A caveat; this site is for teens. The site wants no users under 14 and asks minors to have their parents give permission. Furthermore, a sample video there was slightly risque, so check it out first and then use your best judgement. If you don't think it's suitable for your kid, maybe you'll have a good time creating your own animations.)

EDUCATION REFORM. If you're interested in this topic, check out an article in Fast Company magazine from a while back. The mag solicited 13 radical ideas on how to use $100 million "to really save education." The article isn't about gifted ed or education for 2e students, just education in general. Find it.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

ANXIETY IN KIDS was the topic of two articles in the last few days. One article, from Australia, noted how social networking sites supposedly cause anxiety in children as young as eight, which leads them into treatment by psychologists. According to one psychologist, "children [are] using social networking sites such as Facebook to determine their identity and form a view about what society thought of them." The other article, in The New York Times, profiled a child psychiatrist in New York City whose mission is to remove the stigma of mental illness in children; he charges as much as $1000 per hour for his services -- but seems to be much in demand.

DEPRESSION IN PRESCHOOLERS. Sadness and irritability in very young children can be a sign of depression, and researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that brain activity in young, depressed patients is similar to activity in adult depressives. Mentioned in the article is a longitudinal study of 600 families to try to identify early factors that influence chronic depression. Read more.

DR. RUSSELL BARKLEY is presenting on various aspects of AD/HD in two September workshops to be held in Shady Grove, Maryland. The workshops are sponsored by Alvord, Baker & Associates along with the Weinfeld Education Group. Find out more.

AD/HD AROUND THE WORLD. Depending on where you are in the world, the diagnosis and treatment of AD/HD differs, according to a new study. Among the findings: "..although the prevalence of AD/HD varies across nations, largely due to disparate diagnostic practices and algorithms, far larger international variability exists with respect to treated prevalence and treatment procedures" Find out more.

THE "AUSTISM ADVANTAGE" in prehistoric times is the topic of a scholarly paper. Researchers posit that certain autistic traits, including spatial skills, concentration, and memory, might have proved beneficial in a hunter/gatherer society. Read more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Need more ammunition to clamp down on video gaming at your house? Check out the message delivered at a recent presentation by child and adolescent psychiatrist Paul Weigle. He's a hard-liner when it comes to the effect of gaming and violence on our sweet, innocent young children. Go there.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-06-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

BRAIN RESOURCES from SharpBrains. The organization has released its May eNewsletter. In it are two articles that might be of interest to those who raise, educate, and counsel gifted kids with learning challenges:

"AD/HD: Brain training Neurofeedback, Diet, and More"
"Neuroplasticity in the Brain of Children with Neurological Disorders," dealing with Tourette's

Find the newsletter.

EDUCATIONAL OPTIONS NEWSLETTER. Deborah Ruf has issued her June newsletter. In it are a number of pointers to useful things: an article on why gifted girls may not be as confident as they should; a list of top-10 gifted education blogs; a list of top-10 open education resources; and more. Find the newsletter.

EDUCATOR RESOURCE FOR SUMMER. If you're a teacher of the gifted or twice-exceptional, you might be interested in Edutopia's current issue, which contains ideas for summer relaxation and learning. We notice, however, that one of the articles is titled "The Myth of Summers Off." Go to Edutopia.

SCHOLARSHIP FOR KIDS WITH AN LD. An Alabama Internet consulting company, Lumin, has established a $2000 scholarship for a young person with an LD who is going to college. The company's founder says her mom suggested the idea and also suggested that "the scholarship be made available to students with learning disabilities. This came as no surprise since she and I spent countless hours looking for available scholarships when I was in college. (Yes…I have a learning disability…two in fact.)" Find out more, and good for Lumin Consulting!

SENG SUMMIT EARLYBIRD DISCOUNT EXTENDED. You can still save money with an earlybird discount to the July SENG conference in Seattle, but only through June 10th. Thinking of going? Check it out.

COMPETITIONS FOR GIFTED MIDDLE-SCHOOLERS. A discussion on LinkedIn has elicited opinions on the most valuable competitions for gifted middle-school students. Responses include Destination Imagination, Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad, Lego Robotics Challenge, National History Day, and more. Join in -- free registration is required, and then you can continue to participate in the group, Gifted Talented Network.

FILE THIS UNDER "NEXT YEAR." PBS and Adobe have sponsored a competition whereby selected teen documentary filmmakers receive grands for their projects, along with mentoring. This year the competition received 250 applications and awarded 15 grants. Read more at Yahoo.

DAVIDSON INSTITUTE. Don't forget the DITD "Tips" section, which offers collections of tips on various gifted-related topics such as acceleration, AD/HD, advocacy, depression, and lots more. Find it.

AD/HD: THE BAD NEWS. "Analysis of data from two long-term studies of the impact of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) on the development of psychiatric disorders in young adults confirms that AD/HD alone significantly increases the risk of cigarette smoking and substance abuse in both boys and girls." Read more from this report.

AND FINALLY, THIS. A father and his dyslexic son collaborated on a fantasy novel that will be published next week. According to the Biloxi, Mississippi, Sun-Herald, "The story involves a young, idealistic, inspirational kid who decides he’s going to save his kingdom, which has been taken over by goblins. There’s a princess who escaped by chance the night the palace fell and learned magic. She watches what is going on and makes him a magic sword, which completely transforms him. He becomes a great a hero." Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

2e ACHIEVER. Trudie Styler is an actress, filmmaker, mom, and partner of "Sting." According to the Huffington Post, Styler also struggled with AD/HD and dyslexia as a child. Like some parents, she got her own "official" labels when her children received them. In the article, read about familiar topics such as being lost at school, unsympathetic teachers, and family difficulties. In the end, of course, her strengths prevailed. Read more.

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY is the latest school to make the news for its efforts to include students with disabilities such as ASD and other cognitive or social/emotional issues. Help includes a four-day camp for high-schoolers to acquaint them with the demands of college and coaching. Read more.

A CANADIAN FRIEND reminds us that Bright Math Camp is gearing up for the summer. It is to be held at Carleton University near Ottawa. Find out more.

DYSCALCULIA. The University College of London has released a paper on dyscalculia, supposedly as prevalent ( 7 percent) as dyslexia. An article in Science Daily provides a primer on the disorder and tips for dealing with it. Find the article.

AUTISM BIOMARKERS. Researchers have found distinctive gene expression patterns in the cerebral cortex of the brains of those with autism. An article in Science Daily quotes the researchers as as saying that the discovery was a common thread, even though individuals may have distinct immediate causes of their conditions. Read more.

SMART, CREATIVE, AND ENTREPRENEURIAL? Drop out of college. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has established the Thiel Fellowship, where young people under 20 compete for a $100,000 grant along with mentorship in starting a company. The hitch? They must drop out of school. His goal is not to encourage everyone to drop out, but rather for students to consider their options. Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. The head of an industrial design studio offered a seminar on design to middle-schoolers at the School at Columbia (University). The seminar, "Tools for Schools," became part of the curriculum, involving math, science, etc. Kids worked in teams on particular projects, doing research and coming up with ideas for improving the products they were assigned (the desk, the chair, the locker). The results were impressive, and the head of the School at Columbia stated, "This will transform how these kids think about education." Read why.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

THE EDUCATORS GUILD NEWSLETTER, May edition, has been released by the Davidson Institute. In it are tips and resources for teachers of gifted students; and updates on various aspects of the Davidson Institute, such as Educators Guild presentations available, Davidson Fellows Scholarship applications, and Young Scholar applications. Find the newsletter.

ATTENTION RESEARCH UPDATE, May edition, has been posted by David Rabiner. The subject of the issue: how girls with AD/HD view their social competence. (Hint: They overestimate it.) Find out more.

OCD FLIP-FLOP. A recent study says that OCD behaviors may be precursors to obsessive fears rather than the other way around. The rationale: fears stem from the brain's attempt to justify the behavior. Read more.

SCHOLARSHIPS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS WITH AD/HD. The Edge foundation and Shire are offering 25 scholarships for next school year for AD/HD college students. Along with the scholarships will go a full year of AD/HD coaching services. Find out more at the Edge site.

ADVICE ON COLLEGE WITH LD. The University of Rhode Island recently held a conference in which high school seniors could receive advice from older students on how to handle college in addition to the challenges such as dyslexia and Asperger's. Also presented: sessions on avoiding some of the risks associated with various disabilities, as well as workshops on topics such as personal finance. Read more.

EPIGENETICS AND THE HUMAN BRAIN is the title of a new article of the Dana Foundation website. What is the field of epigenetics and why should we care? From the editor's note at the beginning of the article: While our genetic code determines a great deal of who and what we are, it does not act alone. It depends heavily on the epigenome, an elaborate marking of the DNA that controls the genome’s functions. Because it is sensitive to the environment, the epigenome is a powerful link and relay between our genes and our surroundings. Epigenetic marks drive biological functions and features as diverse as memory, development, and disease susceptibility; thus, the nurture aspect of the nature/nurture interaction makes essential contributions to our body and behaviors. As scientists have learned more about how the epigenome works, they have begun to develop therapies that may lead to new approaches to treating common human conditions. Read the article.

SAVED BY A SIXTH GRADE TEACHER. Here's how a man, now presumably in his 40's, described his days in elementary school: "I showed up each day, sat in my seat, stared at the chalkboard, and didn’t learn a thing." Suffering from attention issues, poor working memory, and graphomotor issues, his life was turned around by one teacher to whom he says he owes his success. (He graduated magna cum laude from college and is a successful businessman.) Find the article.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. The summer issue of this newsletter is out, and it features an article titled "Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, and Intelligence." The author discusses two case studies of young gifted kids with AD/HD. Find the newsletter.
REVISITING ADHD AND RITALIN is the title of an interview in the Los Angeles Times with Dr. Lawrence Diller, who 15 years ago wrote the book Running on Ritalin, in which he cautioned against the overuse of stimulant meds. In the interview Diller discusses his new book, in which he interviewed former patients to see how they turned out and how they felt about the treatment they had received. He also compares the results in "his" kids with those in a study by Russell Barkley. Read the interview.

MISS TEEN SOUTH DAKOTA uses pageants and related appearances to educate about dyslexia, which she has. In an article, she discusses how the condition has affected her and how she copes. Find out more.

SPECT-ACLE. Those of you with an interest in whether SPECT imaging is a valid technique for making a psychiatric diagnosis may be interested in reading Dr. Daniel Amen's account of a recent presentation he made defending his use of the technique. The back story: Dr. Amen has come under criticism from professional colleagues for the way he uses the imaging for a variety of conditions, including to establish a diagnosis of AD/HD. Read his account.

AD/HD, DISRUPTIVE AND QUIET. An article in Education Week covers the characteristics of inattentive versus hyperactive AD/HD, its prevalence in boys and girls, comorbidities, diagnosis, and treatment. It offers teachers tips on how to spot and how to address AD/HD, and it relates how one school uses commercial cognitive software to help its students with AD/HD. Read it.

INCREASING DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the overall prevalence of developmental disabilities among children increased by 17 percent between 1997 and 2008, with 15 percent of U.S. children – nearly 10 million – having a developmental disability in 2008. The study is in the current issue of Pediatrics, according to a press release from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Parents were asked to report the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, autism, seizures, stuttering or stammering, moderate to profound hearing loss, blindness, learning disorders, and/or other developmental delays. Autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other developmental delays increased, while moderate to profound hearing loss showed a significant decline. Boys had a higher prevalence overall and for a number of select disabilities compared with girls. Read more in the Washington Post.

ONLINE VERSUS HOME SCHOOLING. The Denver Post notes that online schooling may be the reason for a decrease in the number of kids classified as "home-schooled" in Colorado. On the other hand, some question the accuracy of the numbers. No one, though, seemed to dispute the fact that the number of Colorado students enrolled in online programs increased by 65 percent over three years, to over 15,000 students. Read more.

RESOURCES FROM IMFAR, the International Meeting for Autism Research, have been posted online by Autism Speaks. Included are videos from the event as well as blogs devoted to it. If you're concerned with someone on the spectrum, check it out.

PITTSBURGH SUMMER CONFERENCE FOR YOUNG WRITERS. Young writers 16-21 have the opportunity to compete for full scholarships to the Summer Writer's Conference and Workshop, held July 26-28. There are no residency restrictions; attendees are responsible for their own transportation, lodging, and meals. The deadline is May 31. Find out more.

GENDER AND THERAPISTS. Most therapists these days are women, a change from the 1970s when the ratio between men and women was equal. The current ratio can present issues, in some minds, when it comes to men looking for a therapist, men who feel that only a male therapist can fully understand male psyches. Find out more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. In an attempt to instill fitness in their screen-bound youngsters, some parents are hiring personal trainers for their kids. Sounds frivolous, but it has advantages, evidently. Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

ATTORNEY/ADVOCATE MATT COHEN recently posted a rather impassioned plea for -- well, lots of change in the way we educate our children and in the ways we treat learning challenges. Cohen, a special ed attorney who has written for 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, begins with five examples of how "different" kids could -- and should -- have been served better at school. The examples range from dealing with bullying to acknowledging that a bright kid with Asperger's might need some help; each example is drawn from a client served by Cohen. The attorney then begins a litany of "we must's" that represent his imperatives for improving the educational system for all involved. If you're concerned with educational reform -- or just with good education -- read Cohen's blog posting from May 14. (A bonus: His preceding post is titled "Myths, Legends and Realities -- Legal Rights of Kids with AD/HD at School.")

OPTOGENETICS is a technology that combines light and genetic engineering to allow the control of selected neurons. By changing cells in a particular neural circuit to be sensitive to light, and then implanting optical fibers to stimulate those cells, scientists were able to make anxious mice behave in a less anxious manner. One of the researchers discussed the specificity of the treatment, compared to flooding the brain with psychotropics: “Psychiatric disorders are probably not due only to chemical imbalances in the brain. It’s more than just a giant bag of serotonin or dopamine whose concentrations sometimes are too low or too high. Rather, they likely involve disorders of specific circuits within specific brain regions.” The technology is seen as a way to investigate -- and, eventually, to treat -- a variety of mental problems. Read more.

COMPETITIONS. The winners of the 2011 Siemens "We Can Change the World" competition have been announced. Go to the competition website to see what kind of environmental solutions competition entrants from high school, middle school, and elementary school came up with.

ARE YOU HAPPY? Is your child happy? Psychologist/author Martin Seligman's book "Flourish" defines five crucial elements of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Seligman has consistently urged his colleagues to focus on more than mental illness; this book is one result of his belief in "positive psychology." Find an interesting article about Seligman's ideas.

ARE YOU DEPRESSED, MOM? Successfully treating depression in mothers benefits her children as well. According to a Wall Street Journal article, about half of kids whose mothers are depressed will develop depression. The article quoted a Pediatrics study: "As early as two months of age, the infant looks at the depressed mother less often, shows less engagement with objects [and] has a lower activity level." Researchers are looking into the link between depression in fathers and kids as well. Read the article.

GENETIC PATTERNS VERSUS DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS. Sometimes they don't coincide -- that's the suggestion in a Scientific American article on using CNVs (copy number variations), deletions or repetitions of stretches of DNA on chromosomes. For example, it turns out that people with one particular CNV deletion may be diagnosed with schizophrenia, autism, or AD/HD. The author's contention: "...it may be that these diagnostic categories are just describing particular symptoms of certain genetic disorders." Read more.

AD/HD DRUGS may present no risk for heart problems in kids, according to a study reported in HealthDay. Find it.

AND FINALLY, THIS, today's story from Storypeople.com: "There are lives I can imagine without children but none of them have the same laughter & noise."

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-16T14:22:00.000-07:00

DUAL ENROLLMENT FOR BRIGHT KIDS. Young people in high school -- or even middle school -- who are ready for college work are increasingly trying simultaneous enrollment in both the lower-level grades and college. Education Next explains how dual enrollment works in certain states, focusing on what's in it for the kids and what's in it for the schools. Read the article.

MATH ANXIETY is the subject of an article in Education Week. Apparently, just the suggestion of a math test can trigger a stress response in the brain. The article explains how the stress response can interfere with problem solving, hobbling the prefrontal cortex, and also how anxiety can even cause a form of dyscalculia. Dr. Judy Willis, who has contributed to 2e Newsletter, is one of those quoted in the article. Find it.

MEDS FROM YOUR PSYCHOLOGIST? Some states are considering allowing psychologists to prescribe certain medications, in part because access to a psychiatrist can be difficult for many people; there's a shortage. Psychologists in New Mexico and Louisiana already can prescribe psychotropics, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune. Those states require the participating psychologists to acquire what amounts to another master's degree in psychopharmacology. Find out more.

SCHOOL MOTIVATION can come from a desire to please parents, according to research reported at HealthDay. Kids studied in the U.S. and China show that those who feel connected to their parents do better academically. Is your bright youngster motivated? Read the article.

SUMMER PROGRAMS. The May/June issue of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, just out, included our annual roundup of 2e-friendly summer camps, but if you're looking for a broader range of gifted programs than we covered, check out Hoagies' exhaustive listing of camps and programs from all over the world. Find it.

O.D.D. Our Facebook quote of the week was from Storypeople.com: "I just tell them to do things they already want to do, she said, & even then, it's like pulling teeth."

AND FINALLY, THIS, from a press release. "Test Tutor Publishing (AKA The Test Tutor) has created WPPSI-III™ and WISC-IV™ Test Preparation Kits to help children develop the skills needed for the IQ tests required for admission into the most selective private schools.... Now, the company has released test preparation materials for the Woodcock-Johnson III™ Tests of Cognitive Ability." Apparently it's never too early to be competitive.

2011-05-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Lots of good items today...

STEPHEN HAWKING ON DISABILITY. Scientist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking was profiled and interviewed in Wednesday's New York Times. In the interview, Hawking, who has Lou Gehrig's disease and communicates using a computer-generated voice, covered his daily life, his condition, his works, and -- most interesting to us -- his advice on disability. He said, "My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with." Find the article.

2e-FRIENDLY SCHOOL IN CONNECTICUT? A member of the 2e community who is moving her family to Connecticut is looking for a 2e-friendly school there for her 6YO son. If you can help, please sign up at the 2e Newsletter Network on Ning.com (http://2enewsletter.ning.com/?xgi=5fRjVktrpoYhb5) and respond to her query in the Forum, or else contact us directly to relay your referral. Thanks!

MATT COHEN ONLINE. Special ed attorney Matt Cohen, who has contributed to 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, offers a column of legal advice at LDOnline.org. In May's column he covers a number of issues of interest to parents of 2e kids, among them: how schools are required to use peer-reviewed, scientifically-based programs, when possible, to help students; whether a school can deny an IEP because of academic success; the assumption that colleges are required to comply with 504 plans; whether a school counselor may suggest medication; and the extent to which a school must accept an evaluation from an independent professional. Find the column.

WRIGHTSLAW. On the topic of education law, in the current issue of Special Ed Advocate, the Wrights comment on Compton v. Addison, where a school allegedly failed to evaluate a student for disabilities and is being sued for negligence. They also cover the Child Find Mandate, meant to identify children who might need special ed services. Find the issue.

MOMS WITH AD/HD was the topic of a recent NPR program. NPR interviewed the writer and the subject of a recent Washington Post article on the topic. Read about the mom's discovery of AD/HD and what it means to her and her family (which includes an AD/HD son).

NCLB AND GIFTED CHILDREN. Education Next discussed the issue of whether gifted kids in the U.S. have been shortchanged by NCLB. Members of the discussion noted, among other things, that top-performing 17-year-olds in the U.S. perform no better now than 20 years ago, and that the U.S. is 41st out of 56 participating countries in one measure of advanced mathematical achievement. Find the discussion.

BIOMARKER FOR MAJOR DEPRESSION. A study by scientists at Wayne State University has revealed a new way to distinguish children with major depressive disorder (MDD) from not only normal children, but also from children with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).The study found different patterns of cortical thickness for patients with MDD versus OCD. Researchers call the results "an exciting new way to identify more objective markers of psychiatric illness in children." Read an abstract of the journal article announcing the study. Read an article based on the press release by Wayne State. Separately, an Oxford University study of depression finds that "overgeneral memory" -- where past events are recalled in an overly broad manner -- is linked to depression. Studies are underway to determine whether overgeneral memory in teens foretells later depression. Read about it.

PAYING ATTENTION TO THE SCREEN. Parents of twice-exceptional children often notice that many kids are able to pay tremendous amounts of sustained attention to those glowing screens. A recent article on the topic explains a variety of views on why this might be so -- video games as self-medication; video as an ameliorative for poor social skills, etc. Read more.

THE BEST BOOKS MONEY CAN BUY. The American Coal Foundation got caught spreading its "clean" view of coal to school kids by paying Scholastic Corporation to write materials for 4th-graders called "United States of Energy." Three advocacy groups took note of how the materials seemed to fail to mention the negative effects of coal and are drawing attention to the collaboration between Scholastic and the foundation. The larger issue is, how many "educational" materials produced and distributed to students are similarly biased. Read more.

AND FINALLY, THIS. If your 16-year-old kid's only out-of-school activity is reading books, know that your child has a better than average chance of becoming a manager or professional later in life, according to an Oxford University study. No other studied activities had such a correlation. Reassuringly, however, the study also found that computer gaming did not decrease a child's chances for later managerial or professional status. Read about the study.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-09T15:13:00.000-07:00

POLL OF THE MONTH. In our May Briefing, we included a poll question: "Based on the gifted children you know, what proportion would you judge as twice-exceptional?" So far, the results have surprised us. You may take the poll (and see the results for yourself) at the Constant Contact site.

KOREAN AUTISM STUDY. A six-year study that sought to screen every child 7-12 in a South Korean city of almost 500,000 yielded an autism prevalence of 2.6 percent, over double the rate commonly assumed in other parts of the world. Twelve percent of the children with ASD in regular schools in the study had a superior IQ. Researchers asked parents and teachers to complete questionnaires; children scoring at a certain level were then individually evaluated. Read more. Separately, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported that Utah's autism rate has doubled in the past six years; read the article.

ASPIES IN COLLEGE. Read about how colleges are helping those with Asperger's make it through school, including the story of one young college graduate, while able to read medical terminology at age 4, was plagued by meltdowns as a young person. Find the article.

THE GIFTED DEVELOPMENT CENTER has issued its May newsletter; in it are a couple brief articles by Linda Powers Leviton on tactile-kinesthetic learners. Find the newsletter.

UNIVERSAL DESIGN FOR LEARNING is the passion of people at Bowie State University who are applying technology -- for example, image processing -- in UDL so that learners with sensory problems, emotional challenges, or LDs can have "equal access" in education, in both receptive and expressive modes. Find out more.

AD/HD AND EMOTIONAL CONTROL. Having AD/HD might predispose a young person to deficient emotional control, according to a new study. The two conditions appear to run in families. Read about it.

AND FINALLY, THIS. If you "tweet," we suggest using the keyword #2ekids on relevant messages to let others find your post. We include it on our tweets.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

THE IDEA FAIRNESS RESTORATION ACT has garnered support from a variety of organizations, including COPAA, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. One provision of the act will allow parents to recover expert witness fees if due process hearing officers or courts uphold the parents' position. If you'd like to find out more, see an announcement or go to the COPPA site.

INCLUSION VERSUS HONORS CLASSES is an issue facing Madison, Wisconsin, schools, among many others. Several schools there have been investigated by the state Department of Public Instruction, which is pressuring the Madison School District to improve its gifted education. Read more.

BRING SCIENCE HOME is the name of a month-long initiative by Scientific American. The magazine calls it a "series of family science activities geared towards fostering children's interest in science. Find out more.

NICOTINE'S EFFECTS SIMILAR TO COCAINE. It turns out that nicotine affects the brain in ways similar to cocaine, both substances using a dopamine receptor called D5. A write-up of the study concluded, "The results suggest that nicotine and cocaine hijack similar mechanisms of memory on first contact to create long-lasting changes in a person's brain." Read more.

BIOMARKERS FOR BIPOLAR DISORDER. Researchers have discovered certain brain abnormalities that could be biomarkers for bipolar disorder. The abnormalities consist of "an imbalance between cortical-cognitive and limbic brain networks," according to one of the researchers involved -- brain areas involved in the regulation of emotions. If the research holds, it could lead to more accurate diagnosis of the disorder. Find out more.

THE GO GIRLS CLUB, originally a group for girles with AD/HD, has evolved the non-profit group ADHD Aware, according to the website PhillyBurbs.com. One aim: to help girls know that there are others like them and to affirm their strengths. The organization hosts workshops, and one workshop leader says "she likes showing girls with ADHD how smart and beautiful they are, and that they can do whatever they want." Read the article.

YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE. A middle-school English teacher (and contributor to 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter) has established a blog to review young adult literature in 100 words or less. The blogger suggests sharing her link with YAs who like to read. Find the blog.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

2011-05-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

TODAY, MAY 3RD, IS:

National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, part of an entire week devoted to the topic. Take a minute to consider the mental health of that gifted or 2e kid you know. More information.
In the U.S., National Teacher Day. If you have a teacher who's been good for that twice-exceptional child, be sure to let that teacher know. More information.

IT'S ALSO HEALTHY VISION MONTH. Find out how vision issues can affect a bright kid's school performance, and how vision therapy can help: Hidden Roadblocks: What Parents Need To Know About Vision and Learning.

SCHOOL FOR DYSLEXIC BOYS. The Gow School in New York state enrolls about 140 dyslexic boys in grades 7-12 boys from 22 countries. Seventy-six percent of the school's alumni graduate from college, according to an article about the school; 100 percent are accepted to college. If dyslexia and similar language-based issues plague your gifted son, read the article.

DRUG TRIAL FOR FRAGILE-X, AUTISM. An antibiotic called minocycline is helping some children with fragile-X syndrome better deal with school and its demands. According to the mother of one boy in a small trial of the drug, the boy has changed in ways she hadn't thought possible. Find out more.

SCREENING FOR AUTISM. Researchers have developed a questionnaire for screening babies at 12-month checkups. In a study, the checklist identified about 13 percent of babies as having possible issues. One problem: a high false-positive rate. However, because early intervention is important, such a checklist may be useful. Find out more.

SENG WEBINAR. SENG has scheduled an upcoming webinar with the title "Change Your Story, Change Your Life." To be presented by author Stephanie Tolan, the goal of the webinar is to help families of gifted children "empower themselves and their children, regardless of the educational climate they face." Find out more.

TEENS: DANGER AND SAFETY. Teens perceive threat and safety differently than adults. You know that, but the National Insitute of Mental Health reports on a new study explaining why. (Hint: Teens use the amygdala and hippocampus more than adults in responding to fear.) Read more.

SCIENCE NEWS FOR KIDS, the website, has been relaunched. According to Society for Science and the Public, Sciencenewsforkids.org is the award-winning site published by the Society since 2003 to bring the important content of Science News to students aged 9-14, as well as their parents and teachers. Check out the site.

SHARPBRAINS has published a blog with pointers to dozens of articles that might be of interest to you (and some that might not, because the topics span all ages). However, some articles that might tempt are on plasticity, stress and young brains, the growth of a baby's brain from birth to 5, and more. It looks like we might have pointed to some of the articles in past blog postings, but hey, it's worth a look.
AND FINALLY, THIS. Seems there's a new fad in the body-piercing set --pointy ears, engineered by cutting of the top of the ear, removing some cartilage, and resewing into a point. We know it's true 'coz we read it in the AARP magazine under the snarky title, "Ah, Youth! Sometimes We Don't Miss It."