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.
COULDN'T READ, BUT SURE CAN WRITE. A 10th-grade student in Fort Worth, Texas, has won a national award for an essay recounting her experiences growing up with dyslexia. According to the article, the young woman now "writes tirelessly." Previous winners of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards competition include Truman Capote, Sylvia Plath, Robert Redford, and Andy Warhol. Read more.
2e SUMMER CAMP IN CARROLLTON, TEXAS. Brainworks' Carla Crutsinger tells us that her 29-year-old company is holding its 24th summer camp for twice-exceptional students. According to the company's website, "Brainworks has developed and uses a systemic approach to teach skills that result in life-changing behaviors. Brainworks offers instruction during the school year as well as an accelerated summer program" -- the summer camp. Find out more at the Brainworks website.
BRAIN-BASED EDUCATION is the "engagement of strategies based on principles derived from an understanding of the brain," according to a several-years-old article we found while browsing for items for this blog. The article, in the Phi Delta Kappan, defines the practice and its interdisciplinary foundation, points out critical interconnections and inter-influences between the brain and the classroom (stress, social conditions, etc), urges experimentation with brain-based teaching techniques, and provides some "credentials" for brain-based education. Find the article.
ACCELERATION RESOURCE. Can't say it any better than they do; from the website of the Acceleration Institute: "Guidelines for Developing an Academic Acceleration Policy provides guidance and encourages the systematic adoption and practice of acceleration in schools across the nation. The Guidelines document can assist schools in writing and modifying acceleration policy that is suited to local needs and adheres to research-based best practices. Guidelines is co-authored by IRPA, the National Association for Gifted Children, and the Council of State Directors of Programs for the Gifted." The guidelines are downloadable in PDF format. Find the site.
EDUCATORS GUILD NEWSLETTER. The Spring edition of this publication from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development focuses on programs for early entrance to college. If your gifted child is emotionally ready for such a possibility, check out the articles in the newsletter. It also provides links to other DITD resources, such as the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.
READERS IN AUSTRALIA -- don't forget to check Jo Freitag's site for gifted- and 2e-related events and resources in your fair country. Find it. You may also sign up there for her monthly newsletter.
A LITTLE HELP FROM THE 2e COMMUNITY, PLEASE. A family moving to the Edwardsville, Illinois, area is looking for a school for their nine-year-old 2e son, who is thriving in his current IB elementary school, according to the family. Now, Edwardsville is near St. Louis, and our reader says she doesn't mind if her husband "has to drive awhile" to get to work in Edwardsville, which should widen the choices. If anyone has suggestions or advice, please post here with your email address (we won't make it public) or email us and we'll forward it on for direct communication with the family. (Subscribers, you know where to find us anyway.) Thanks!
YES I CAN! CEC has announced the winners of the 2010 "Yes I Can" awards, which will be presented on April 23rd. The awards recognize achievement by young people with disabilities in nine areas -- academics, arts, athletics, community service, employment, extracurricular activities, independent living, self-advocacy, and technology. See the winners and their stories at the CEC site.
UNWRAPPING THE GIFTED. Blogger Tamara Fisher previews upcoming webinars on giftedness from NAGC and SENG. Read more.
SPECIAL ED ADVOCATE, on a roll with the topic of IEPs, continues its coverage this week with articles on documenting IEP concerns, getting the IEP revised, including parent and teacher training in an IEP,and using academic standards to develop IEP goals. If that twice-exceptional child you know has an IEP, check out the issue.
INSTANT REWARDS LIKE MEDICINE. British researchers have reported that the brains of AD/HD kids respond to instant rewards the same way they respond to medications such as Ritalin, although not to the same degree. One researcher, according to the report, says that the combination of drugs and incentives produced the best results, and might mean children with AD/HD could take lower doses of drugs while maintaining control of their behavior. Find out more from BBC.
SOLVING THE PUZZLE OF AUTISM is the title of a new article posted at the Dana Foundation site. Like most articles there, this is not "light reading," but rather a 3,700-word piece about which the editor says in a preface: "Desperate to understand and to cure autism, many activists argue that the disorder can be traced to a single source. But in order to understand autism, writes Alan Packer of the Simons Foundation, we first need to determine the genetic, neuronal, and behavioral elements at play. These elements, argues Packer, are more complex than those involved in cancer. Researchers will then need to translate their understanding of autism into treatments, an undertaking that will require a long-term, interdisciplinary approach." Read the article.
LEARNING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. The New York Times points to some websites that help those interested in using all of "mind-boggling volume" of free educational material on the web. The sites include Academic Earth, Connexions, the OpenCourseWare Consortium, Open Culture, ITunesU and YouTube, and Highlights for High School. Find the article and educate yourself -- or that gifted young person in your life.
HARD 2 SPEL DAD is the title of a play in performance in Dallas. It's the result of a long chain of dyslexic-related experiences by several families and organizations, starting with a mother whose daughter's diagnosis in the 1970s made her feel "like someone had run over me with a large truck." The mom came up with her own teaching methods and introduced her daughter to theater. The play, scripted a generation after the daughter's diagnosis but based on her experiences, features a young actress who also has dyslexia. Read more.
EDUFEST. If summer's coming, so is EduFest, the annual, late-July Idaho skill-building conference for educators, school psychologists, and administrators involved in gifted education. The conference also features a parents' day on the Saturday prior to the conference, July 24th. Session descriptions have been posted. Find out more.
AND FINALLY, THIS, from an April 21st press release by the U.S. Census Bureau. "Today marks the birthday of a German educator most Americans have never heard of but whose ideas about how young children learn have had a profound effect on many generations. His name was Friedrich Froebel, born in 1782. He believed that directed play was an important part of each child's education -- a theory that led to the establishment of the first kindergarten -- literally, "children's garden." The first kindergarten in a U.S. public school opened in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1873. Underlining the acceptance of Froebel's ideas across the country, more than 3.5 million youngsters now go to public school kindergarten each day. A half-million attend private kindergartens." To see more census "daily features," go here.