Education Learning Issues

PUBLISHER PUBLISHED. An article on twice-exceptionalities by Linda Neumann, co-publisher of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, was featured in the Summer, 2008, issue of S.I. Focus, a magazine dedicated to "improving sensory integration." Find out more about S.I. Focus here.

SAY IT AIN'T SO. New Zealand consultant on gifted education Rosemary Cathcart was quoted by the Australian newspaper The Age as saying that many teachers fear teaching very bright students because they (the teachers) feel ill-equipped to deal with them. Cathcart noted that most undergraduate education curricula do not include gifted education. The article also noted that an Australian government inquiry in 2001 found that many gifted children were underachieving, bored, or suffering psychological distress. Read it.

EDUCATION RESOURCE. The Stanford University school of education will make scholarly works from its faculty available to the public online and free of charge, according to Education Week. Expect a site by early fall with a database of articles. More information.

RESTRAINT IN SCHOOLS. The Aspie personality and classroom order often conflict. In an article on restraint, isolation, and similar practices, The New York Times recounted the story of a young man with Asperger's who eventually didn't want to go to school because "he thought the school was trying to kill him" by the way teachers restrained him during outbursts. Read more about what happens when schools use these practices on kids with Asperger's, AD/HD, and other problems -- and what happens sometimes when schools don't use the practices. It's not a cut-and-dried issue.

PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS AND OUR KIDS. Skeptical about the drug industry's influence on the diagnosis and medication of mental illness in U.S. children? Read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle from July 13th -- and be prepared to cringe.

PRIMER: EXECUTIVE FUNCTION DISORDER. The mid-month edition of LD Online pointed us to a previously-published but still valuable primer on executive function disorder. Find it.