Latest Posts
Showing posts with label visual/spatial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visual/spatial. Show all posts

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.


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).

POST-NAGC ITEMS

WE WERE IN ST. LOUIS for a few days attending the convention of the National Association for Gifted Children. The association is becoming more and more involved in GT/LD, and this year's meeting included at least a dozen sessions on twice-exceptionality and/or gifted underachievement. Find coverage of some of the most compelling sessions in the November/December issue of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, out soon.

ABC's PERSON OF THE WEEK in mid February, 2008, was an artist named Stephen Wiltshire, who can observe a cityscape for a short period of time and then draw it in great detail from memory. Wiltshire has expressive issues (orally, not artistically), and some of our friends in the 2e community call him "the ultimate visual-spatial learner." See more, including video.

GIFTED AND SENSITIVE. Is that the stereotype? A new study indicates that gifted children "often display sensitivities to their environment that vary from those of the general population." You can read an abstract of the study here.

GIFTED CHILD QUARTERLY dispels 19 myths about giftedness in its current issue, available for a short time to all of us who do not subscribe to the magazine from NAGC. Some of the myths are "straw men" (example: There is a single curriculum for the gifted), but others are more genuinely "mythical" -- for example, the assertion that the gifted comprise 3-5% of the population, and that giftedness equals high IQ. Find the articles.

KNOW SOMEONE WHO NEEDS FRIENDS? Brainworks offers tips for your gifted child in an article called "Learn How to Make and Keep Friends." The article covers why friendships are important, offers six steps to establish new friendships, and provides "10 basic courtesies of relationships." Brainworks is a Texas organization that helps clients with learning problems. It was founded by Carla Crutsigner,
a parent frustrated in her search for a facility to help her gifted, AD/HD son.

GIFTED EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA must be pretty good, inferring from an article in the Daily Press, presumably published somewhere in that state. The article notes Virginia's "Governor's Schools," tailored to specific areas of studies, and initiatives such as measuring progress for all students, including the gifted. Read the article, but know that today's big news on the site is about a beached whale in the area.

LD ACHIEVER. Well, this gifted young woman had a tough time -- issues with reading, math, and spelling. AD/HD. Anxiety. Frustration with school that triggered depression. A teacher who said that college was not for her. But some teachers encouraged her, and The Flint (Michigan) News says that Kristi Starnes, a graduate of the University of Michigan, is now earning a master's degree in fine arts at the University of Iowa. Read more.