Education Learning Issues

• 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.

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

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.

2 HOME-SCHOOLING. Read about a Canadian family's decision to home-school their fifth-grade twice-exceptional daughter, why they did it, and how they arrived at the right combination of educational methods to regain their daughter's happiness -- and not to mention, to help her lose her stress headaches. Find the article.

DISCIPLINE. How are you doing with discipline for your 2e kid? They need it, you know. Longtime advisor and practitioner for parents of 2e children Carla Crutsinger, of Brainworks, explains a "structured discipline plan" she recommends that parents put in place for children and teens. Read more.

WE SAY IT'S EAR BUDS. More teenagers suffer from at least slight hearing loss now than 10 years ago, according to a new study. An article on the study said, "Researchers could not explain why hearing loss had become more prevalent, and did not find a significant association with exposure to loud noise." But you know and we know. Read more.

BACK TO SCHOOL -- and time to read what Wrightslaw says about IEPs and advocacy. Start here.

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. The fall issue is out, featuring, among other articles, one titled "Should Special Education Programming for Gifted Students be a Right or a Privilege?" Find GEPG.

MASLOW UPDATED. Remember Maslow's hierarchy? It ranked basic human needs, with reality TV at the top, a better car than your neighbor's next, followed by Lady Gaga, a good lawn, and successful kids down the line. Or something like that. Anyway, a team of psychologists has updated Maslow's pyramid of motivations, and replaces self-actualization (the real top of the old pyramid, not reality shows) with -- get this -- parenting. Find out more about the pyramid you thought was timeless.

NEW MEDIA: BLESSING OR CURSE? Worried about what new media is doing to your children's brains? To yours? A Newsweek blog contains a review of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, a book by Nicholas Carr. The book's thesis is that the Internet is changing the way we think (for the worse), and making us distracted and even less empathetic. Interestingly, a recent New York Times op-ed piece by Steven Pinker took exactly the opposite stance, claiming that "new forms of media have always caused moral panics" and that "experience does not revamp the basic information-processing capabilities of the brain." In what has to be a direct rebuttal to Carr, Pinker concludes, "Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart." Find Pinker's op-ed piece.

MORE ON MEDIA. How about your child and video games? A recent metastudy notes several interesting things. First, the popularity of video games has not led to an overall increase in behavior problems or violence among children. Second, whether video game violence causes aggression in a particular child depends on the child's personality. And third, researchers have found that video game play can have a number of positive uses. Read more.

WHEN TO LITIGATE WITH SCHOOL. Suppose your twice-exceptional child is not getting the services you feel he or she needs at school. When do you stop requesting, advocating, cajoling, or threatening... and move to legal remedies to try to get what you think is best for your child? Wrightslaw's Special Ed Advocate from June 8th contains several articles dealing with this difficult decision, as well as one exemplifying the challenge of taking on the school system. Find Special Ed Advocate. (For another article on this topic, see "Fighting for FAPE" on the 2e Newsletter website.)

SUSAN BAUM ON THE MOVE. The peripatetic Susan Baum, director of professional development at Bridges Academy and member of the 2e Newsletter Advisory Board, is presenting a free workshop in Salt Lake City on June 17th, 7-8:30 pm. The title: "The Enigma of the 2e Child: Dispelling the Myths." The workshop is by the Utah Parent Center and Granite School District. For more information, call Michelle at 385.646.4190 or go here.

TOWARDS AD/HD DIAGNOSIS. The Boston Globe reports on the Quotient, a diagnostic device that can help a doctor determine whether a child has AD/HD by tracking his or her motion. The article also covers doctors' skepticism over previous AD/HD "tests." Read it.

SPECIAL ED ADVOCATE newsletter from Wrightslaw this week features ASD -- tips for parents, getting help, and special ed advocacy and legal resources that might help. Find this week's issue.

SPEAKING OF LEGAL RESOURCES, the Washington Post has reported that an attorney who represented families in special ed matters was not licensed during much of the time he provided his services. In his wake, the attorney has left some bitter -- and vengeful -- parents in Virginia and the DC area. Read more.

WEBMISTRESS CAROLYN K of Hoagies' is quoted in an article on the website Parent Dish titled "How to Tell if Your Child Is Gifted," sharing her expertise on identifying gifted children and -- then -- what to do with them. Read the article.

APD/CAPD MAKES THE NEW YORK TIMES. It took awhile, and there had to be a "star" involved, but the paper this week covered auditory processing disorder -- what it is and how to deal with it. One profile in the article, titled "Little-known Disorder Can Take a Toll on Learning," was of talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell, who contributed a foreword to a new book on the topic (The Sound of Hope, by Lois Kam Heymann). O'Donnell's contribution was based on her experiences with her son, for whom even "knock knock" jokes were confusing. Read more.

QUADS TO YALE. Four gifted siblings from Connecticut have decided to attend Yale together. The university was one of two to which all four had applied and been accepted. Apparently Yale was "generous" with financial aid -- surely a factor for the parents of four kids going to college at the same time. Tuition, room, and board at Yale is around $50,000 per student per year. Let's see, $50,000 times 4 times 4... Read the article.

BRAIN AWARENESS WEEK IS MARCH 15-21. According to its sponsor, the Dana Foundation, "Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is the global campaign to increase public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. Every March BAW unites the efforts of universities, hospitals, patient groups, government agencies, schools, service organizations, and professional associations worldwide in a week-long celebration of the brain." Find out more at the Dana Foundation site.

SCIENCE VIDEO CONTEST. If your bright young student is engaged by science -- especially by nuclear and other energy sources -- Westinghouse offers a contest for middle- and high-schoolers. The press release announcing the contest says this: "To be eligible, each video must outline three key advantages of nuclear power and two other forms of energy. The video can be staged as a short play, commercial, news broadcast, talk show, music video, documentary, etc. Students are encouraged to be creative, yet informative." Find out more.

SELF-ADVOCACY. Wrightlaw's Special Ed Advocate for March 2nd focuses on ways to allow a child with an LD to advocate for him- or herself -- so that "a student understands her strengths and needs, has knowledge about her legal rights and responsibilities, can identify personal goals, and has the chance to participate in decisions that are being made about her life." Find this issue.

SPD AND DSM? We've posted about AD/HD and the new DSM, as well as Asperger's. An article in the Boston Globe points out how "a group of researchers, families, and occupational therapists is aggressively lobbying to get sensory processing disorder included in the next edition of the association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." The article covers both sides of the issue of SPD's inclusion in the next DSM. Read it.

THE NEW ISSUE OF THE DUKE GIFTED LETTER IS OUT, and it contains articles dealing with the myths of giftedness; advocating for gifted kids; advanced placement classes; and "proficiency" and gifted students. Find the issue.

THE CURRENT ISSUE OF 2e NEWSLETTER has been posted at www.2eNewsletter.com. Subscribers may find the complete content in the subscriber-only area; non-subscribers may read select articles and columns here, including the concluding article in the "Mythology of Learning" series and columns by Bob Seney (on books for 2e kids) and Dr. Sylvia Rimm (advice for parents of gifted and 2e kids).

THE FACE OF DYSLEXIA, this year, anyway, is a 17-year-old student at Miami University of Ohio, Jessica Byington. The award is given by the International Dyslexia Association to a student who refuses to be hindered by dyslexia. In the case of Byington, she went from finding words to be meaningless symbols in first grade to -- after lots of tutoring and work -- being able to read at the 12th-grade level when she was in grade 4. Find out more.

BIOFEEDBACK IN AD/HD. UK researchers have shown that EEG biofeedback can help impulse control in children with AD/HD. The children played a computer game while wearing a helmet that used EEG to track attention; if attention wavered, the game would stop. One researcher said, "Mind-controlled educational computer games technology is the only intervention shown to reduce the core symptoms of ADHD, historically medication may have been prescribed for the child." Read more.

DIAGNOSING AD/HD. Up until now, diagnosing AD/HD had depended on behavior observation; there has been no physical evidence. However, a study from the UC Davis MIND Institute indicates that two brain areas fail to connect when children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder attempt a task that measures attention. The disconnect was found by measuring electrical brain rhythms. Read more.

NEW DRUG FOR AD/HD. Current Psychiatry Online reports on a recently-approved extended release drug for AD/HD, Guanfacine. Those of you interested in the technical details -- such as the fact that Guanfacine extended release (GXR) is a selective α-2 adrenergic agonist that enhances noradrenergic pathways through selective direct receptor action in the prefrontal cortex -- may go here. The brand name is Intuniv; the manufacturer is Shire.

IDEA ADVOCATES, UNITE -- and go to the site of the Council for Exceptional Children to see how you can influence Congress in terms of funding IDEA.

BLOGGING ABOUT BOYS. Jennifer Fine, a freelance writer and homeschooling mom, recently brought up the topic of "twice exceptional" on her blog. She also offers a survey for those who homeschool boys. Find the blog.

CRAZY LIKE US. We recently heard Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us, interviewed on NPR. His book is subtitled "The Globalization of the American Psyche." Watters contends that we have exported the way we look at mental health, and in doing so we change symptoms and disease prevalence in other societies and cultures. He addresses the question, how does culture affect mental illness? On YouTube, you can see a three-minute, publisher-sponsored video of Watters talking about the book; watch it. (One good line, "We are homogenizing the way the world goes mad.")

ANOTHER REASON TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT BEING A PARENT. Science Daily reports on a new Brigham Young University study which found that parenthood is associated with lower blood pressure, particularly so among women. A researcher cautions making hasty decisions based on the study results, however, saying, "This doesn't mean the more kids you have, the better your blood pressure. The findings are simply tied to parenthood, no matter the number of children or employment status." Read the report.

WE THOUGHT WE WERE IN A NEWS DROUGHT during the first week of 2010, that perhaps we'd used up all of the news on twice-exceptionalities, child development, and gifted education in the last weeks of 2009. But, thankfully, not so. First, though, two non-news items.

REACTION TO "BAD RAP ON LEARNING STYLES." One of our readers, a clinical psychologist with a research degree (Ph.D.) who describes herself as a "fairly educated individual who has spent many years on the inside of the research bubble arguing over and interpreting this kind of research," had this to say about the item we posted on December 19th: "I would interpret this article to suggest that the evidence for or against learning styles is inconclusive because the many studies reviewed lacked equivalent methodologies. This often happens when a meta-analytic study is done... There may indeed be such a thing as learning styles but the current research methods we use have not been able to clearly identify it. Like the authors, I would recommend more research that uses standardized protocols, which can be done. Reading this review from the standpoint of a parent and general consumer, I would be led to conclude that there is no such thing as learning styles, and that would be sad, because I have been able to provide better help to both my son and daughter with their schooling with the info I've gleaned on learning styles." Thanks, Janet.

THE JANUARY/FEBRUARY ISSUE OF 2e NEWSLETTER is on its way to subscribers. The 25-page issue focuses on what we can do for 2e children in the area of strategies to promote learning. Also included: Part 2 of Marlo Payne Thurman's article "Too Tired: Energy and Wellness in 2e Children." The Bridges Academy "Mythology of Learning" series concludes with a piece on ways to encourage organization in 2e children. Dr. Sylvia Rimm addresses stuttering in a bright young person, and Bob Seney enthusiastically reviews The Unfinished Angel. Columns and the Bridges article will be posted on the public area of www.2eNewsletter.com within a week. Subscribers to the newsletter will then be able to find all content from this issue in the subscriber-only area.

SPEAKING OF RESEARCH, as we did in our first item, the Belin-Blank Center has announced this year's Wallace Research Symposium on Talent Development, to be held on the University of Iowa campus on May 16-18. The Center describes the event as "internationally renowned for being one of the premiere scholarly conferences where the latest in gifted education research is presented." Find out more.

WHEN THE SECOND "e" IS EMIGRATION. The New York Times ran an engaging story about a gifted young man at Princeton who had escaped the poverty and drug violence of Columbia, received his American schooling in a "gritty factory town," achieved valedictory honors, and was admitted to Princeton, where he continued to achieve in and out of the classroom. The problem: his green card was fake, and Princeton was asking to see his documents in response to a federal government requirement. How does the story end? You'll have to read the article.

AD/HD MEETS fMRI. Researchers at the University of Texas are using functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity of people with AD/HD, both on and off the drug Concerta. Evidently the researchers are still looking for additional subjects, so if you're in the San Antonio area and interested, check out the article.

AUTISM IN THE NEWS. Two news releases report on autism research. From the first: "Researchers at UC Davis have identified 10 locations in California where the incidence of autism is higher than surrounding areas in the same region. Most of the areas, or clusters, are in locations where parents have higher-than-average levels of educational attainment. Because children with more educated parents are more likely to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, one need look no further for a cause, the authors say. The other clusters are located close to major autism treatment centers." Find it. The second release describes an Israeli researcher's definition of "a new, integrated interpretation of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which makes it easier to understand both the commonalities and differences between ASD and other conditions." You can read the release here, but it looks as if you'll have to find the December issue of The Neuroscientist to get the details. Separately, President Obama's nomination to a seat on the National Council on Disability, a 22-year-old, outspoken Aspie, is thought by some to be "not quite autistic enough," according to a news article. Find out more.

UC DAVIS MIND INSTITUTE. The University of California at Davis, as we found when we went to the site to check out one of the press releases above, is home to the M.I.N.D. Institute, self-described as "a collaborative international research center, committed to the awareness, understanding, prevention, care and cure of neurodevelopmental disorders." On its site, the Institute offers a resource center with pointers to resources in a number of areas of interest to those who raise, teach, and counsel twice-exceptional children. Find it.

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.

NO MORE MULTI-PART POSTS EACH WEEK. From now on, we'll just post two or three times a week in separate posts.

IT'S STILL SUMMER, according to Wrightslaw. At least, their "Summer School for Advocates" is still in session. The most recent edition of Special Ed Advocate (Part 5 and the conclusion of Summer School) features "action strategies for advocates helping children with disabilities." Find it.

MORE ON ADVOCACY. If you find yourself involved at school because your 2e child has an IEP, you might be interested in advice in the National Examiner: Always tape IEP meetings. Find out why.

DO YOUR BEST, PARENTS OF GIFTED KIDS. Apparently the impact of positive parenting can last for generations. That's the conclusion of a study done at Oregon State University on three generations of families. Negative parenting showed up in negative behaviors in children and, when those children grew up, negative and inconsistent parenting on their kids. Read more.

SPORTS, HIGH ACHIEVERS, AND LD. A back-up quarterback for the NFL San Francisco 49ers has an LD similar to dyslexia that challenges his ability to learn from the playbook and textual materials. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, teams were hesitant to sign him because of his LD. Read the article.

TETRIS IS GOOD FOR YOU? A study of adolescent girls showed that those who played Tetris 30 minutes a day developed greater brain efficiency and a thicker cortex. Some of the changes remain unexplained to the researchers. Read about it.

FROM DAVIDSON INSTITUTE. Just a reminder to teachers that the DITD website has "The Educator's Guild," and, given the institute's mission, there are plenty of resources for educators of gifted children. Find it here.

MORE TEACHER RESOURCES. A press release about Thinkfinity.org, a Verizon-sponsored site for teachers, notes that the site contains 154 new free online educational resources for the new school year. Two of the new resources are from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History; in another, students apply text messaging to the character Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. Find Thinkfinity.

BOOKS FOR GIFTED KIDS. In the early days of 2e Newsletter, Judith Halsted contributed columns on books for young, gifted readers. Her book Some of My Best Friends Are Books has just been updated in a third edition. Read EdNews.org's Michael Shaughnessy's take on it here.

PRIVATE, PUBLIC -- WHICH IS HARDER? A young woman who was a straight-A student in the Fairfax County, Virginia, public schools transferred to a private boarding school in 10th grade. According to an article in Virginia's Connection, the young woman discovered that "I really didn't know how to study" before. What's the difference between the well-regarded Fairfax and Montgomery County schools and this private school? What are the advantages to gifted students of such a private school? Find out.

DOES SCHOOL BORE YOUR CHILD? Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss covers the work of cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham on the biological and cognitive bases of learning. According to the columnist, Willingham, in his book Why Don't Student's Like School?, contends that students' brains will give up on problems that are too hard -- or too easy. He also takes issue with several beliefs commonly held by parents and educators: that everyone has a preferred learning style (visual, auditory, kinesthetic); that critical thinking trumps learning facts (kids need both, according to the scientist); and that making content relevant to learners increases interest (we'd have to find out more before we'd agree with this). Find the column.

NEXT POSTING: soon...

HOLD THE PRESSES -- ER, THE BLOG. Hot news from the U.S. Census Bureau in a press release. (We saved you from having to read at least 50 other press releases with "back to school" or "school supplies" as their topics.) From the release: "...it's hot and many people are on vacation. But one of the nation's largest seasonal events will soon be under way impacting [sic] households from coast-to-coast [sic]. It's back to school time [sic]. From nursery school to college, 76 million students are headed to the classroom -- that's more than one-out-of-four [sic] of the total U.S. population age 3 and over... One statistic that may be a surprise -- the parents of two-thirds of students report that their children often like going to school. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov." Well, we like the fact that kids like school. Bless them.

GIFTED EDUCATION PRESS QUARTERLY. Maurice Fisher has issued his Fall issue (rushing the season, we think), and it includes an article by Joan Franklin Smutny, an editorial board advisor to 2e Newsletter, on "preserving the sense of wonder" by using an arts approach for gifted children. Another author suggests that Ernest Hemingway is a "prose impressionist for the gifted." Interested? Find the newsletter.

ADVOCACY SUMMER SCHOOL, PART 4. Wrightslaw has posted the fourth lesson in their "Summer School for Advocates" series. Are you ready for the final exam? (Have you even looked at the lessons?) Go to Special Ed Advocate.

ONLINE VERSUS CLASSROOM ED. A New York Times article reports on online education and its advantages over classroom education, drawing on a study recently published by SRI International. The conclusion: "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction." Those of you homeschooling your gifted children, or providing your traditionally-schooled kids with supplemental enrichment online, or remediating that 2e kid, should feel justified. Find the article.

A WEAK WEEK for news and events from the world of giftedness, exceptionalities, parenting, and education...