The conference starts tonight at 5:30 PM PST / 8:30 PM EST.
For international participants, check your time zone here: timezoneconverter.com.
The first day of the online conference was last night, but it was recorded. Any participants who register today will be sent a link to the recording for Day 1, Understanding Gifted Children. To register, please scroll down to the bottom of this post.
All second day conference participants should have received an email invitation to the conference. If you haven't received it, please contact us by email at: karinasfund"at"gmail.com The conference room will open 45 minutes before the conference begins to allow time for people to check their connections.
Day 1: Understanding Gifted Children
In this opening session the Eides will present a framework for understanding the strengths, challenges, and development of gifted children. Discussion will include the overlaps of gifted traits and ADHD and Aspergers checklists, gender differences in learning, sensory sensitivities and behaviors, memory and organizational issues, and differences in motivation and temperament (including intensity, perfectionism, and dealing productively with failure). After their talk, the Eides will answer questions and explore issues more deeply with conference participants.
Day 2: Gifted / 2E: Dyslexia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Children
Gifted Dyslexics are amazing, underrecognized, and poorly served in many educational environments. Although the connections between adult creative accomplishment and dyslexia have been widely recognized, both the talents and the dyslexic challenges of gifted dyslexic children often go unrecognized during their school years because their strengths in memory and higher order thinking compensate for their weaknesses in phonology and single word decoding, while their "silly mistakes," "inattentiveness," and "slow work" obscure their abilities. The Eides will explain why these students are often "stealth dyslexics" whose dyslexic challenges and gifted abilities fly under the radar of detection. They will also discuss how dyslexia presents differently in gifted children, the typical pattern of development in gifted dyslexic children, the interventions that are particularly helpful for gifted dyslexic students, and most importantly the very positive talents often seen in gifted dyslexic thinkers. Also in this session the Eides will discuss Dysgraphia and Writing Challenges in Gifted Students. Topics will include causes and types of writing challenges (including sensory-motor challenges, automaticity problems, unrecognized visual issues, and subtle language, organizational, and attentional issues), and effective approaches to overcoming these writing struggles. Following their presentation, the Eides will host an active discussion with conference participants.
Day 3: Attention, Sensory Processing, and Social Challenges of Gifted Children
In this last conference session the Eides will address attention, sensory processing, and social issues among gifted children. Topics covered will include overlaps with ADHD or Aspergers syndrome diagnoses, effective educational and therapeutic means to improve attention, working memory, and motivation, as well as recent advances in our understanding of creativity and attention. The Eides will again host a discussion and question and answer period following their presentation.
Remember you will need the latest version of Adobe Flash Player installed: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.
A computer systems check can be performed here: http://manage.voxwire.com/systemcheck/
All sessions will be recorded and available for 3 weeks following the conference. A recording will be sent after each conference day has closed - usually within an hour of the last comment. Several people have asked about using different computers - this is fine, but we ask participants to please remember to sign off the original computer. We are charged for the number of browsers accessing the conference at any one time.
The conferences are covered by copyright, and as this is a benefit and Karina's Fund must pay for the webinar space, we do ask that email links to the conference are not shared with non-registered individuals.
A permanent recording of the meetings are also planned. Prices will be discounted heavily for registered participants. Details about the recordings will be available within a week of the conference's end.
If you have questions you would like to submit in advance, you can do so in the chat box in the conference room. At the end of the conference you will also receive a link to the chat archive.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful questions and comments!
It is still possible to register - we have a few seats left in our room capacity (See Below):
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SOME SUBMITTED CONFERENCE QUESTIONS (all personal or identifying information removed):
My question for the conference is: What careers are these gifted/learning disabled children especially well suited for? My son has inattentive ADD and dysgraphia. Many careers would not be a good match for him. How do we help these kids figure out how to use their gifts for future employment? I am struggling to find answers to this question in all the literature.
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Regarding the conference, I have a witty, very creative dyslexic gifted son who has struggled in certain areas in school since first grade (he is now in 6th). My questions are:
1) Do you have any suggestions or recommendations for resources for helping with spelling? He has a phenomenal memory and can memorize spelling words and ace the weekly spelling tests, but by the following week he has forgotten most of what he learned and goes back to spelling words phonetically.
2) Lastly, any thoughts regarding the cause of very erratic reading scores on standardized tests or what can be done to help with this? His scores bounce all over the place with 99 % score on reading in NWEA tests in the fall last year and 77% in the spring on the same test. We did find visual motor/focusing issues when he was assessed ( including double vision ) so is nearing completion of vision therapy which we hope will help significantly with this. Any other things we should be potentially addressing?
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Are there any schools in the continental US that specifically
teach Gifted children with dyslexia. My son was diagnosed as 2e.
He is highly gifted (IQ 145) and dyslexic. I've contacted a few schools
that specialize in teaching dyslexics but when asked, they said that
my son wouldn't be a good fit because he's reading at grade level
and most of their students are reading a grade or two below.
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My son is Dyslexic with Oppositional Defiance AND is gifted. He was diagnosed with the ADHD and Oppositional Defiance when he was about 4 years old as he was having so many difficulties in pre-school with anger and defiance and frustration. By the time he started school we had him on Adderall XR but I didn't really see much help with it. He still had outbursts and would call himself "stupid" etc. BUT his teacher really felt he had Dyslexia which I was then able to get him tested and confirmed in 1st grade at Scottish Rite in Dallas. He was then put in classes for literacy assistance and eventually a program called MTA starting in 2nd grade. He is pulled out every day for help with reading and writing. He is now in 3rd grade and has grown by leaps and bounds but we also switched him to Vyvanse which seems to have helped. In Texas, 3rd graders are required to take the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) and pass in reading. He only missed 1 question! He was selected for Challenge (probably because of his math ability). He doesn't seem as angry now. I hate to take him the off the Vyvanse as it seems to be helping but I can't be sure. I would LOVE to have him so am thinking of doing so this summer.
What are your thoughts? I believe he's getting most help through the MTA and Challenge and now his self-esteem and abilities are getting stronger and he doesn't seem to call himself "stupid" as much. He still has anger issues but that is getting a bit better.
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1. I am interested in hearing about differences of professional opinion regarding the use of "dyslexia" as a diagnostic term.
I am asking this question because of my experience as the mother of a dyslexic child. My daughter is now a college sophomore; she was educated in the public schools of New Jersey and New York state. Because of my own observations and because of family history, I suspected that my daughter was dyslexic ever since she started first grade. I found it very difficult to have the public schools listen to my concerns, let alone address them. Starting in the 4th grade, private evaluations were helpful in identifying some of her sensory processing difficulties and led to effective therapies. Yet I found the testers reluctant to use "dyslexia" as a diagnostic term, and at times even dismissive of the term as "unscientific." My daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic - and twice exceptional because she is also gifted - only after she graduated High School . (She had a helpful 504 plan in Middle School and High School, for her very real problems in visual processing.) The dyslexia diagnosis was very helpful to her and to the whole family. She told us she felt "empowered" by the diagnosis and acted that way when she started college. Needless to say, I wish that she had received a dyslexia diagnosis earlier on, when I first suspected it. My daughter's childhood and adolescence would have been much easier if we'd had an earlier dyslexia diagnosis. I also find myself quite cranky that I had to fight so long and so hard to "get" a diagnosis that always seemed a no-brainer to me.
Information about the differences of opinion regarding "dyslexia" may help me better understand what we went through.
2. I'd like to hear some of your thoughts regarding how giftedness and dyslexia "work together."
3. Does giftedness make it difficult to diagnose "dyslexia"? Could you give us some examples?
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How do you see SRBI (scientific research based interventions) / RTI (response to intervention) changes in special ed law impacting 2e kids, particularly those who are undiagnosed?
-- For instance, diagnosing LD in a gifted child, based on comparisons to school wide norms vs towards own abilities
-- also, in differing school districts when comparing to school wide norms. ie. low performing school with a gifted 2e kid, would look average or above average but might be 'noticed' in a high performing school......
-- what about districts who haven't truly invested in scientifc research based interventions but are now required to ID for special ed using such methods?
How would you get around such barriers (that seem worse with the new law for 2e kids rather than better)?
Ideas for getting parents to recognize / evaluate possible 2e issues in average performing kids who struggle to learn or perform in school? ('he just doesn't try', 'he doesn't seem to care' 'he doesn't get started on the task until partway through class' 'its hard to get the words down on paper, I can write my own ideas, but not answers about what I read')
Motivation -- how do you get a 15 yo recently diagnosed 2e engaged in positive solution and skill building so they can reach their potential? How can you do this without pathologizing? ("you think something is wrong with me.")
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I'm hoping you'll also talk about auditory processing, I notice there are a lot of questions about dyslexia and my daughter has some processing issues in her forward and backward auditory memory.
In addition, her perfectionism is sometimes debilitating. She's only 8 and we work with her on risk taking and embracing mistakes and the importance of failing as a means of learning. Would love to hear more.
Finally, we had her tested in Seattle for admission to private school with the Stanford Binet since she refused to take part in several of the WISC-IV subtests here in NY (where we're moving from). While she scored highly gifted, I don't think we got a accurate score. I was told IQ tests don't measure divergent thinking skills, which fits with her exhibited strengths. How can we help her when the system requires a number that she either won't participate or can't be measured?
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My son has Aspergers and also quite gifted. He taught himself to read very young by memorizing the words (he has an amazing memory). However, now at almost seven, he is very resistant to learning how to sound words out and to learning phonics. He just wants me to tell him the word so he can remember it. Do you have any advice on how to help him through this process? We homeschool so we have a lot of flexibility with his curriculum.
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Our son is 6 1/2 years old and will turn 7 this summer. He is currently in the 1st grade. He was diagnosed last summer with Asperger's and sensory integration disorder. When he turns 7 this summer he will undergo testing to rule out an auditory processing disorder as well. He is very verbal and was recognized as gifted by his school last year. He has many strengths but he struggles most in school with finishing tasks in a timely manner staying focused and with writing. We are looking for suggestions to help him with his speed if that is possible and with writing. His teacher has a hard time getting him to write more than 2-3 sentences. When he could verbally tell you alot about the subject, he just can't seem to get it out on paper.
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How do you get a 2E teenager to take ownership of their lives (school work, schedules, chores, etc.) when they tend to be so disorganized and lose track of time.
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I am interested in hearing more about the nature of dyslexia. It seems dyslexia is often described as primarily a reading disability. Others, like yourselves, see it in a broader way. Can you recommend some books or sites to help me learn more about dyslexia – from a broader perspective of its impact on all aspects of person’s life?
Is it possible to have both NLD and dyslexia? Typically a child with NLD has strong language ability, reads early and is strong in rote memorization. They are typically auditory learners with strong auditory –verbal working memory. My son is dyslexic, and has none of these strengths. He is diagnosed with both, would that mean that the typical strengths of NLD are not present due to the dyslexia? What approach to reading might be helpful for a student with both NLD and dyslexia? Would the approach to reading typically be different for a child with dyslexia than a child with NLD? How would you approach spelling too?
Can you recommend a resource on cerebellar dysfunction?
From reading your articles and blogs, you have quite a positive approach to dyslexia and have researched the strengths that are also part of dyslexia. Can you elaborate more on how a dyslexic child can have visual processing difficulties, visual working memory difficulties, and be strong in visual spatial reasoning ability?
Severe auditory sensitivity is common with dyslexics according to sources I have read. What can be done to help with this? Earplugs are not helpful, since my son then hears the noises in his own body more loudly. When reading, or doing any demanding cognitive task, the slightest noise is distracting. One recommendation for helping with spelling is to have kids say the letters out loud as they write them. They are saying the sounds in their minds as they write and then they are to say the letters out loud also? My son finds it hard to do this. Any recommendations? Have you seen the program All About Spelling and would you recommend that for spelling?
CAPDs are common in children with dyslexia (including auditory decoding deficit, auditory integration deficit, and tolerance fading memory). Our son experiences difficulty in all three areas but didn’t show this during a CAPD test. Can a standard CAPD test miss these? Are there particular tests that would show these specific difficulties?
Finally, through the process of having my ds evaluated and researching dyslexia I came to realize that I am clearly dyslexic. Now my limitations make a lot of sense to both myself and my husband. My son was not identified formally until 8 years old. I also have a daughter who just turned 5 who shows many, many early signs of dyslexia, more so than my son did. Do you think a formal diagnosis would be beneficial? Or could we just choose a program known to be effective with children with dyslexia and begin that. Or are there other early interventions that might help? I did have her screened at the public school early intervention program and they saw nothing to be concerned about since she is at or above grade level (they completely missed it). If you do recommend having young children evaluated, what kind of specialist would be able to detect the early signs?
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Our 17yo daughter who is highly gifted in academics, especially mathematics, was diagnosed a year ago as having Asperger's Syndrome. This was not especially surprising except that at 9yo we were told she definitely did not have AS. Since we have been working with her on social and life skills since preschool, she appears upon casual observation to be shy and introverted not AS. But if you dig deeper, it becomes clear that there are deficits, especially almost endless perseverance on topics like Dungeons and Dragons.
In short, her academic skills have improved greatly in recent years, but her life skills are still way behind. We have tried as much as possible to let her decide how to use her time, but she still forgets to shower, do laundry, take her meds (very low doses of anti-anxiety and ADHD meds which have enabled her to succeed in school when she sometimes did very poorly before), etc. She does not seem to do this on purpose, she wants to learn how to follow these type of routines - it just seems very difficult to form life skill habits. Lists in prominent places go unnoticed, as do MANY other things most people would notice, like remembering to put water in the pan before putting it on to boil pasta.
We worry that she will have a very difficult time living on her own and may even be in danger. She decided on her own that driving a car will have to wait. Recently, she earned her black belt in karate which has helped tremendously with her reflexes and her ability to control her body in space as well as boosting her confidence. What else can she do to help herself? Do you think it is just a very slow process that time will cure?
She has earned a full scholarship for tuition, but not room and board, at the local state university (where she already has earned 19 math credits during high school). We were thinking that it might be best to ease her into being a full time college student while living at home, then after a semester or two add the burden of living in a dorm. Are we sheltering her too much, or being realistic (she is not opposed to this plan, but it is sometimes difficult to know how she really feels...)?
Any other advice?
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My teen is highly gifted (GAI=150) but also has ADHD combined-type, dyslexia, and dysgraphia, with a weak working memory. While medication seems to reduce his hyperactivity and improve his focus, it's obvious that he's still not performing up to his potential, with B's & C's the norm.
1.) Do you have any opinions about ways one might try to improve a person's brain functioning? (ie, programs like CogMed seem to lack independent research showing long-term benefits)
2.) Do you have any suggestions on how to encourage older students/young adults to advocate for themselves, when they don't like to acknowledge their deficiencies? (No one wants to dwell on weaknesses, but one can't deny their existence. I haven't shared my son's IQ and achievement numbers with him; at what point does a parent do that?)
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I am in KY and have a terrible time finding appropriate professionals to evaluate my dear son, who is almost 10 – we homeschool. I think he is 2E – gifted and possibly dysgraphic / possibly stealth dyslexia, but then I wonder if he is just delayed in his development in these areas? I have searched for several years trying to find a neuropsych that specializes in dyslexia. I still have not found one. I took him to a well known professional in KY who specializes in gifted but who did not seem to know much about dyslexia (based on the questions I asked him) so I did not go beyond the initial consultation with that professional.
He has some attention and auditory processing issues which we work around by homeschooling him. Lags behind socially – a little quirky (engineer gene?). Talks too much at times. And has a history of speech disorder and still working on the r sound. History of auditory hypersensitivities/holding his ears. But he loves learning (except for spelling/writing), has lots of interests, reads history texts before going to bed especially the 1800s, loves model railroading and trains, likes cats (and constantly reads the warrior series by Erin Hunter), amazing LEGO builder (dad is an engineer), sees movies in his head, can make up long detailed stories and acts them out with his legos (does not write them down though!), finds math concepts super easy and LIKES math word problems (except he’s having a hard time memorizing the multiplication tables). And he scored 98 percentile in reading and 96 percentile in math on PASS standardized test last year (75 percentile in grammar/spelling).
Although I have wanted to have him evaluated, I fear that he will just be labeled negatively (ADHD?, Aspergers, ?) without his many positives taken into account. I had one professional who just read an email description tell me that my son might be on the spectrum! I would trust someone like you or your husband to evaluate him but we just cannot make a trip that far (we are in KY). How do I find professionals to evaluate my son that will appreciate his differences, see the gifts, and not just see the negatives? I worry that IQ or academic tests would be administered that would give false results given his attention/auditory processing/writing/spelling issues. And I don’t know enough about the tests to refuse the inappropriate ones. And I am sure there are other parents in the same boat as me.
If you could address this in the webinar, I would be very grateful. Most parents don’t have the money to take their child to a whole host or series of professionals . . . . .
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What testing is available and what type of specialist would diagnose dysgraphia and stealth dyslexia?
How would you prepare a student with dysgraphia for the SAT/ACT's that now require writing? I have an 8th grader, gifted who just did well on the ACT without the writing, but I know would really struggle with the written portion of the test.
What do you do when writing interferes with math, often she can not read her own scratch work in algebra?
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After his teacher suggested we have our 1st grade son assessed for ADHD by our family pediatrician, we decided last month to take him for a more thorough psycho-educational assessment because we knew he was very bright and struggling with learning to read (although he is just at grade level). The psychologist assessed his IQ at 132 (moderately gifted?) and diagnosed him with both dyslexia and ADHD. Here's my question: it seems that ADHD is the most subjective finding and is based primarily on behavior checklists filled out by parents and a teacher -- behaviors that can be interpreted differently depending on what lens a parent/teacher views them through i.e., reading/writing difficulties, being bright/gifted in an unchallening class, and even merely being a seven year old boy! I noticed that my son doesn't seem to "fit" the checklists/profile for any one area -- giftedness, dyslexia, or ADHD. (For example, he does have trouble making friends in his class, but prefers the company of older, not younger children as might be expected in someone with ADHD.) When I asked the psychologist about this, he indicated that "significant impairment" is the primary determinant in making the ADHD diagnosis. However, it was my son's parents and teacher who answered questions about whether his behaviors cause impairment (so who's really impaired -- us or him?!) and his report card indicates he is either at or above grade level. What are some general guidelines in selecting interventions when multiple diagnoses are going on? (I am especially confused about whether medication is warranted.)
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I am quite concerned about my cousin’s 10yo daughter. I have my cousin’s permission to ask you about her.
She is pg, diagnosed with APD at 7yo (not sure how much that affects her now, she seems to cope better than she used to with noisy situations), and maybe with ADHD – apparently the tester was not sure whether she had ADHD or high energy plus boredom. She was a very sociable toddler and young child and could (and did) make friends with anyone. However, she was unhappy at preschool, despite adapting her advanced language to preschool norms, and after being withdrawn to homeschool she seems to have decided that all other kids are noisy, unruly, “stupid, childish and boring”. She does socialise well with kids that she has known for years, mainly her cousins, but refuses to do any activity that necessitates socialising with unknown kids. She doesn’t get to see her cousins very often and lives in a rural area, so she is quite isolated.
I read the results of Miraca Gross’s longitudinal study, where she says that she found that kids who didn’t get social opportunities in their early years (by being accelerated in the first few years of school) tended to have problems with social relationships into adulthood. Do you think this is always true? What can my cousin do to help his daughter? Are there books his daughter could read about how to handle social relationships which would give her confidence and make up for missing these ‘vital’ (?) early socialising experiences?
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My 12 yr old is failing art (basic middle school, copying/drawing). He has dyspraxia, pretty severe dysgraphia, sensory issues, gifted, and is extremely strong willed. He is still not good at asking for or accepting help. He has a 504 plan but the teacher doesn’t seem very motivated to help him be more successful. What can we expect from a kid like this in terms of art skills? What amount of work load reduction would be reasonable? Is work load reduction enough?
Why is he so reluctant to ask for/accept help in all areas related to writing?
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