Education Learning Issues

Today's media brought two great stories about high-achievers who achieved despite -- or because of -- conditions that many of our 2e children face, dyslexia and Asperger's. Those stories are capsulized in the first two items below.

DYSLEXIC LAUREATE. We mentioned last Friday that the newly-awarded Nobel laureate in medicine was dyslexic. In today's New York Times is a delightful interview with the laureate, Dr. Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University. Of her childhood, she remembered "I had a lot of trouble in school and was put into remedial classes. I thought that I was stupid." She recounts her reaction to winning the Nobel Prize, how she became involved in science, and gets in a few digs at gender issues among scientists. Read the interview.

THE NPR LISTENER IN OUR HOUSE heard Fresh Air's Terry Gross interview Professor Tim Page this morning. Page had been music critic at The New York Times and, later, at the Washington Post, where he won the Pulitzer for his work. Gross interviewed Page about his new memoir Parallel Play: Life as an Outsider, which is about how having Asperger's affected his life and his relationship with music. Like some parents of 2e children, Page got his own label when an offspring was diagnosed with Asperger's. Find Fresh Air.

ONLINE EDUCATION FOR THE GIFTED. Stanford University runs "the best high school you've never heard of," according to ABC News, and "is playing a key role in what may be the wave of the future when it comes to educating gifted high school students." Read more.

NEED TO KNOW ABOUT READING TESTS to help or advocate for your twice-exceptional child? Check out this week's edition of the Wrightslaw Special Ed Advocate for articles on the different types of tests, what they measure, and what a reading evaluation should include. Find it.

DSM-V. The next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is due out in 2012. At the Dana Foundation website, those with a stake in labels and treatment for their high-ability kids with conditions such as AD/HD, dyslexia, Aspergers, etc, can find out from two articles what, in general, they might expect in the future. One article urges the publishers to "bring both more certainty and flexibility to psychiatric diagnosis"; the other urges a focus on the causes of diseases and disease processes. Find the articles.