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March/April 2011
Issue 45
For parents, teachers and professionals.
Helping twice-exceptional children reach their potential.
T
wice-Exceptional
Newsletter
TM
Featured in this Issue
Quote
Different
Is not
Deficient.
— Jonathan
Mooney
Also Inside
From the Publishers ...................................................................................................................... 2
Book Review — Neurodiversity ....................................................................................................14
Letter: Dear Case Manager ......................................................................................................... 16
Letter: My 2e Son — To Whom It May Concern ..........................................................................18
News ............................................................................................................................................. 20
Bob Seney on Books: Out of My Mind ........................................................................................22
Dr. Sylvia Rimm: Mother Sees a Problem; Father Doesn’t .......................................................23
Events ........................................................................................................................................... 24
Page
3
Twice-exceptional
Children, Exceptional
Challenges
By Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed
Find out about the cycle of stress reactivity
present in all of our brains and a particularly
limiting roadblock to 2e kids.
Page
12
The Value of
Neurodiversity
By Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S.
Thurman wants to know what the world’s
coming to in terms of classifying, labeling,
treating, and medicating our children.
Page
8
The Bridges Academy
Model in Action
By Susan Baum, Ph.D., and Cynthia Novak, Ph.D.
How Bridges Academy celebrates and ac-
commodates the neurodiversity present in
the student body of this school for the twice-
exceptional.
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We at 2e Newsletter plan most issues around a theme. In this issue the
theme is “neurodiversity,” a term that Wikipedia denes as “an idea which as-
serts that atypical neurological development is a normal human difference … to
be recognized and respected as any other human variation.” Neurologist turned
educator Judy Willis leads off this issue by providing a brain-based explanation
of how twice-exceptional students may experience stress and how that stress
affects their learning experiences. Willis also points out certain learning circum-
stances that can help twice-exceptional learners.
In the following article we discover that Bridges Academy not only incorporates what Willis suggests but has also
developed an entire strength-based model for allowing twice-exceptional, neuro-diverse young people to thrive. The
Bridges authors also provide a great example of how the model can change a life.
Next, Marlow Payne Thurman delivers an essay celebrating neurodiversity and bemoaning what she sees as exces-
sive (and perhaps unnecessary) labeling and medication, along the way offering a life lesson from the farm on diversity.
Also in this issue we feature a review of the book Neurodiversity. Author Thomas Armstrong focuses on the positive
aspects of neurodiversity and concludes with a call against “ableism.”
The themed portion of the newsletter concludes with two letters, neither solicited but both tting marvelously into
the theme. One is an eloquent piece written by a young 2e high-schooler to his IEP case manager; the other is a “word
picture” which a mother often uses to explain her 2e son to others.
We hope you enjoy the issue. As you read through it, please take the time to provide feedback to us about the vari-
ous articles and features; doing so will help us deliver future content that you can use and enjoy.
Thanks for subscribing!
— Linda C. Neumann and J. Mark Bade
Glen Ellyn Media
March, 2011
2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter
is a publication about twice-exceptional children, children who are gifted and who have learning difculties that go by many names,
including learning disabilities, learning disorders, and just plain learning differences. Our goal is to promote a holistic view of the 2e child — not just the high IQ, or the
quirkiness, or the disabilities, but the child as a whole person. Comments and suggestions are always welcome by phone, fax, or e-mail.
2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter
is published bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, September, and November. The cost for a one-year electronic subscription is $30.
Contact us for group and institutional rates. Send changes of address to COFA@2eNewsletter.com or by mail to 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter, PO Box 582, Glen Ellyn,
IL 60138-0582.
Linda C. Neumann, Editor; J. Mark Bade, Business Manager. Phone: 630.293.6798; Fax: 630.344.1332. Web: www.2eNewsletter.com. E-mail: info@2eNewsletter.
com.
Editorial Advisory Board: Susan Assouline, EdS, PhD; Susan Baum, PhD; Kathi Kearney, MA Ed; Deirdre Lovecky, PhD; Pat Schuler, PhD; Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD; Joan
Franklin Smutny, MA; Marlo Rice Thurman, MS; Meredith Warshaw, MSS, MA.
The contents of
2e Newsletter
are not intended to constitute medical or clinical advice, which should be obtained from a licensed practitioner. The
use of information from
2e Newsletter
for commercial purposes is prohibited without consent in writing from Glen Ellyn Media. Copyright © 2011 by
Glen Ellyn Media, unless otherwise noted. The yellow and red 2e logo on blue is a trademark of Glen Ellyn Media.
From the Publishers
Welcome!
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A Brain-based View
Twice-Exceptional Children, Exceptional Challenges
Featured Topic
By Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed
As Calvin Coolidge once said, “The most common
commodity in this country is unrealized potential.” Stu-
dents currently in public high schools in large U.S. cities
are more likely to drop out than ever before. When the
reasons for dropping out are examined, almost 80 percent
of the students report that the main problem is boredom.
When asked what bores them most, the usual response is
that the material they are taught is either uninteresting or
irrelevant to their lives.
There are an estimated three million children in
America who could be classied as gifted but are not rec-
ognized as such. Estimates of the percentage of drop-out
students who are gifted range from 5 to 20 percent. The
gifted students most at risk for falling through the widen-
ing cracks are twice-exceptional (2e) children.
The circumstances in today’s classrooms are such
that stress is increased for all students and teachers. The
consequences for twice-exceptional children include de-
creased identication, insufcient opportunity to connect
with their gifts, and the misinterpretation of their behav-
iors. This article will describe the cycle of stress reactivity
present in all of our brains that is a particularly limiting
roadblock to twice-exceptional students.
The Impact of Stress on the Brain
Most children experience stress when they encounter
the overloaded, homogenized curriculum that dispenses
facts to be memorized without providing experiences of
discovery or opportunities to connect to content in the fol-
lowing ways:
• Through their strengths and interests
• By following their curiosity
• By using new learning to achieve personally valued
goals.
Stress cuts off students’ access to higher-order
thinking, logic, creative problem solving, and analytical
judgment. Stress also renders students unable to reect
before reacting to situations or emotions. Instead, they
respond with ght/ight/freeze reactions, which are not
voluntary choices and often bring punitive consequences.
What takes place in the brain when we experience
stress? The brain has evolved to promote our survival. Its
rst priority is to be alert for potential threats and to avoid
them. The most primitive parts of the brain are those that
determine what gets our attention and what information
gets priority entry into the brain. This primary attention
system, called the reticular activating system (RAS), is a
series of long nerve pathways located in the brain stem.
Approximate Locations of Brain Structures
From neuroimaging studies, we see that higher up
from the brain stem is another lter that determines
where incoming information is sent. This structure, the
amygdala, is found on each side of the brain, deep in the
network of the emotionally responsive limbic system. The
function of the amygdala is to direct incoming information
to one of two locations in the brain — either the higher,
thinking, reective brain (prefrontal cortex) or the lower,
reactive, automatic brain. The destination of the informa-
tion depends on the emotional state of the human (or ani-
mal) and the expectation of potential threat.
In the absence of high stress, fear, or perceived
threat, the amygdala directs incoming information to the
prefrontal cortex (PFC). There the information is further
evaluated by the brain’s high-order thinking networks as to
meaning and relationships to stored memories of previous
experiences. The ability to evaluate one’s emotions before
either responding to an emotional trigger or choosing
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Exceptional Challenges, continued
to ignore it is a uniquely human trait. However, this reec-
tive response can only take place if the overall emotional
state of the individual is not in a high-stress mode, which
blocks the ow of information to the PFC.
Unfortunately, the human amygdala cannot distin-
guish between real or imagined threats. Whenever the
amygdala is highly activated by negative emotions, it
sends incoming information to the lower, involuntary,
quick-response brain, where the behavioral reactions are
limited to the primitive ght/ight/freeze survival mecha-
nisms.
This routing makes sense for survival when real
threats exist because the lower brain is most efcient for
automatic reactive responses. However, today, with most
humans living in a much less precarious environment
than we once did, we have far less need for this highly
reactive system that evolved to protect us. Nevertheless,
our brains still have the emotional response system that
automatically reacts to the perception of threat as well as
to other forms of emotional stress.
Studying the Brain in Action
Through neuroimaging scans of the brain “in ac-
tion,” we can see what inuences the amygdala to go
into the reactive mode that sends input to the low brain.
For example, a study of adolescents evaluated how their
amygdala responses varied when they looked at photo-
graphs of people with frowns or stern expressions versus
when they looked at photographs of people with pleasant
expressions. After viewing the photographs, both groups
were given a series of 10 words and told to try to remem-
ber them. They were asked to push a button when one
of these 10 words appeared in a series of 50 words that
followed.
The subjects who saw photos of people with pleasant
expressions had scans showing activation along neuron-
to-neuron circuits from the amygdala to the PFC, and the
subjects had increased activity in the PFC while they cor-
rectly identied a high percentage of the words. The sub-
jects who performed the same word-recognition task after
viewing a series of photos of faces with unpleasant ex-
pressions had very different brain activity when they tried
to recognize the words. There was very high activity in the
amygdala, and minimal activity in the PFC. Their word re-
call was signicantly less than that of the control group.
Further studies of environmental inuences that
cause the amygdala to go into reactive mode reveal that
this switching station does not just direct input to the
lower brain during states of fear or anger, but also when
the subjects experience signicant or sustained boredom
or frustration.
The Toll of Boredom and Frustration
When the amygdala sends input to the lower brain,
there are two prominent consequences:
• The behavioral output from the lower brain is involun-
tary, not mediated by judgment.
• Information routed to the lower brain fails to reach the
prefrontal cortex.
In order for information such as classroom learning
to be incorporated into conscious, retrievable, long-term
memory and for the information to be processed with
higher-order thinking, it must rst reach the PFC. Once it
does, the brain can use judgment, analysis, risk assess-
ment, and planning to process the information so that
learning becomes knowledge. The individual can reect,
evaluate options, and make conscious choices instead of
involuntarily reacting to an emotional event or perception.
For example, a dog may bark whenever someone knocks
at the door, but the human prefrontal cortex, proportion-
ally larger than that of any other animal, allows humans to
reect on the source of the knocking sound, identify the
person there, and evaluate the best response.
Boredom and frustration are frequent intruders on
brain function in today’s classrooms. Boredom can come
from lessons that have little personal relevance, and
from instruction and drills that cover information gifted
students have already mastered. Frustration can result
when students don’t immediately understand a lesson or
feel they lack the capability to do so. When boredom and
frustration persist or intensify, the amygdala automatically
shifts the direction of information ow and learning stops.
Behavior Misidentied
Twice-exceptional children are often already exerting
effort to manage their learning or attention challenges
and to keep in check their highly-driven curiosity. When
their amygdalas go into the stress-reactive state in re-
sponse to boredom or frustration, these students are cut
off from their greatest assets of intelligence; and
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their behavior output is limited to involuntary ght/ight/
freeze. In this state, 2e students are less likely to make
the best choices regarding behavior and attention.
If 2e children already carry a diagnosis of a learning
or attention disability, their ght/ight/freeze reactions to
boredom may be mistakenly attributed to their underlying
conditions. Educators may limit their access to the appro-
priate interventions for their gifts because the students
are presumed incapable of more challenging work. If
boredom is prompting the stress reactions, denying these
students challenge can exacerbate the problem.
If these students achieve mastery of the informa-
tion and must participate in the same instruction and
drills as their classmates, they grow even more bored
and stressed. The cycle worsens as they are denied op-
portunities to access their gifts and experience the joys of
learning. The cracks continue to widen; and dropping out
becomes a more and more appealing, and even logical,
option.
What happens when twice-exceptional children are
properly identied and have access to appropriate levels
of instruction? The “behavior problems” attributed to
Featured Topic
Exceptional Challenges, continued
laziness, willfulness, learning disabilities, or attention
disorders often diminish because their brains are not in
the reactive state in response to the stress of boredom
or frustration. Even twice-exceptional children with atten-
tion disorders or learning disabilities are more successful
when they have learning experiences appropriate to their
intelligence and gifts.
Demands of Standardized Testing Fail Twice-exceptional
Students
The demands of high-stakes standardized testing af-
fect most of what even the most dedicated teachers can
and cannot do. For example, teachers today are:
• Less able to spend time observing the learning
strengths and weaknesses of students, which could
lead to the identication of twice-exceptional students
• Less able to plan and individualize the kinds of learn-
ing opportunities that would allow 2e students to con-
nect with content through their strengths and remain
engaged through appropriate levels of challenge
High-stakes testing has brought about changes in
the classroom environment. I indirectly became aware
of these changes ten years ago when there was an
alarming increase in the number of children referred
to my neurology practice. Teachers were concerned
that their students might have neurological disorders
causing symptoms that the teachers interpreted as AD/
HD, oppositional-deant disorder, petit-mal “staring and
blinking” seizures, or obsessive-compulsive behavior.
When I evaluated these children, there was no higher
incidence of these actual conditions than there had
been previously — most of these children did not have
neurological conditions. It was evident that something
at school was promoting behaviors that were interpreted
as coming from brain dysfunctions, even in children with
very healthy brains.
I investigated classrooms and saw many children
When “Behavior Problems” are Not Evidence of “Brain Problems”
who did, indeed, demonstrate behaviors usually
associated with these conditions. As I learned more
about the changes in the learning environment, it
was evident to me that these children’s brains were
responding to stress by processing input and responding
with behavioral output from their lower brains.
I left my neurology practice to get a teaching
credential and a master’s degree in education. I
became a schoolteacher and applied my neuroscience
background to make bridges from neuroscience
research to strategies that were most “neuro-logical”
with regard to the brain’s processing of emotions and
information. I sought ways to lower students’ stress so
that sensory input would reach their reective brain,
where students could evaluate intake and respond to
experiences with their higher cognitive powers.
—JW
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• Less likely to receive professional development that
would allow them to better identify and serve twice-
exceptional learners.
Uniformity of test modes and fact practice reward
students who conform and do the drills without com-
plaint, question, or curiosity. Twice-exceptional students,
stressed by the oppressive uniformity of instruction
geared toward memorization, are unable to work us-
ing their highest brains and unlikely to behave with
conformity.
Reducing the variety of instructional experiences
in order to increase “time on task” translates to more
time spent on drills, class work, and memorizing facts
for homework. Profoundly reduced are opportunities for
physical activities, drama, art, collaborative group work,
project- and inquiry-based learning, and opportunities to
demonstrate exceptional creativity or higher-order think-
ing skills. Many computers in elementary schools that
once were in continuous use are now rarely powered up
because discovery and inquiry learning are not amenable
to the time-on-task calculations.
This narrowing of the curriculum offers less oppor-
tunity for twice-exceptional and other gifted children to
reveal their gifts and to be identied. The loss of time for
science, social studies, foreign language, and the arts in
elementary and particularly in middle school reduces the
opportunity for 2e children to connect their curiosity, in-
sight, and creativity with classroom experiences.
Exceptional Challenges, continued
Featured Topic
I spend time writing and speaking about how the
brain responds to experience and emotion. I hope these
activities will increase the ranks of well-informed adults
needed not only to keep twice-exceptional children from
falling through the cracks, but also to illuminate and
guide these children to use the pathways leading to their
brains’ highest functioning regions.
For the knowledge that is power, I urge parents
and teachers as well to learn more about how the brain
processes information and emotions. This knowledge,
that I was fortunate to acquire during my neurology
training and experience, can help teachers and parents
use “neuro-logical” strategies to support exceptional
children.
To learn more, check out the following.
• Website: www.radteach.com
• Books
− Inspiring Middle School Minds, Great Potential
Press: 2009 (2010 USA Book News Magazine
2010 Best Book Awards Finalist)
− Learning to Love Math: Teaching Strategies
that Change Student Attitudes and Get
Results, ASCD: 2010
− How Your Child Learns Best: Brain-Based
Ways to Ignite Learning and Increase School
Success, Sourcebooks: 2008
− Teaching the Brain to Read: Strategies
for Improving Fluency, Vocabulary, and
Comprehension, ASCD: August, 2008
− Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion
Classroom, ASCD: 2007
− Research-Based Strategies To Ignite Student
Learning: Insights from a Neurologist/
Classroom Teacher, ASCD: 2006 (Finalist
for Distinguished Achievement Award for
Educational Writing by the Association for
Educational Publishers)
• Articles:
− “How to Teach Students About the Brain”: www.
radteach.com/page1/page8/page44/page44.
html
− “What You Should Know About Your Brain”:
www.radteach.com/page1/page8/page45/
page45.html
• Chapter
− “Current Impact of Neuroscience in Teaching
and Learning,” a chapter in Mind, Brain, and
Education, Ed. D. Sousa. Solution Tree Press:
2010
—JW
Resources from Dr. Judy Willis
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Intervention
Teachers know the value of differentiation and indi-
vidualization. However, they are not given the specialized
professional development or graduate school instruction
in the neuroscience of learning and the brain. Having ac-
cess to this type of information and training would enable
them, while working within the rigid instruction-time man-
dates, to help twice-exceptional children reach into their
prefrontal cortex and connect with their highest potentials.
The windows into the brain we now have through neuro-
imaging, electrical deep brain recording, and cognitive
psychology provide valuable information for parents and
teachers. This information can serve as a lifeline for twice-
exceptional and gifted children to hold on to until the aws
and cracks in the system are repaired.
Dr. Judy Willis has had careers as a
neurologist; as an educator at the
elementary, middle school, and uni-
versity levels; and as an author of
books and articles. In addition, she
presents at educational conferences
and conducts professional devel-
opment workshops nationally and
internationally about classroom strat-
egies correlated with neuroscience
research. As a research consultant,
she develops curriculum for teachers to use to implement
mindful educational programs in their classrooms. The
focus of her talks and writings is how to apply the results
of neuroscience research to classroom learning. To learn
more about her, visit her website: www.RADTeach.com. 2e
Exceptional Challenges, concluded
Featured Topic
In the introduction to this book (from Sourcebooks,
inc., 2008), Judy Willis explains her motivation for writing
it. She noticed a striking difference be-
tween the way each of her daughters, born
ten years apart, reacted to school. With the
older daughter, “her excitement would bub-
ble over in the car and at the dinner table
about the new things she learned and did
in school.” Ten years later, “in those same
classrooms, with the same excellent teach-
ers, my younger daughter had to be prod-
ded to tell us anything she learned about or
liked in school that day.” The cause, as Wil-
lis sees it, is the transformation of students
from “enthusiastic participants in learning”
into “passive recipients of facts and work
sheets,” the result of the current focus on
“teaching to the test.”
Her recommended solution is to infuse teaching strat-
egies with the latest in evidence-based brain research.
The result is the learning activities that ll this book, in-
tended to engage students’ highest levels of thinking and
enhance their learning. Willis provides activities in the
areas of reading, math, social studies, and science. While
aimed at parents who want to rekindle their children’s
love of learning outside of school, the book provides
A Mini-Review of How Your Child Learns Best: Brain-Friendly Strategies You
Can Use to Ignite Your Child’s Learning and Increase School Success
plenty of ideas that teachers can apply in the classroom,
as Willis did during her years of teaching. For each subject
area, Willis suggests two main types of
activities, one that appeals especially to
children who learn best through words and
a step-by-step approach, and one that ap-
peals especially to children who learn best
through images, movement, and by moving
from broad concepts to details.
For readers with an interest, Willis
includes a clearly written primer on how
the brain works and how we can use that
understanding to enhance learning. She
also provides a chapter on the different
styles of learning that children have and
the strengths and challenges that come
with each. This information, Willis believes,
is essential for children to understand because it enables
them to build on their learning strengths and achieve their
“greatest potential as a joyful learner.”
The book concludes with some useful reference mate-
rial. Willis has provided a glossary of brain-related terms,
and pages of education-related resources that include
websites and books for both parents and teachers.
—Linda Neumann
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By Susan Baum, Ph.D., and Cynthia Novak, Ph.D.
Standing at 6 foot 4 and touting a 10-gallon hat, Kent
brought down the house with his impressive rendition of
Johnny Cash’s I Walk the Line. The performance would
have been impressive for any high school senior lucky
enough to be singing for a packed audience on a rainy
winter night at a Hollywood venue. But for this young man,
this stage event — and others like it during his senior year
— marked the end of a six-year transformational journey.
When Kent entered Bridges Academy, an indepen-
dent school for twice-exceptional (2e) students, he was a
shy, fragile 7th grader who often cowered in the hallway
between classes. He suffered from high levels of anxiety
and had performed poorly in public school, despite having
an IQ in the superior range and standardized achievement
test scores above the 98th percentile in all subject areas.
Kent’s family feared that their exceptionally bright and
talented son might give up on school altogether. They saw
his pronounced shyness and shut-down behavior as signs
of increasing stress, and they worried that Kent would
become “the brilliant dropout who ends up pumping gas”
and never going to college.
That could have easily happened if the focus had re-
mained on Kent’s decits rather than his strengths. Carl
Sabatino, Bridges Academy Head of School, has observed
that many students like Kent “arrive at Bridges dened by
what they cannot do and leave believing in what they can
do.” At Bridges, we appreciate and accept the neurodiver-
sity that 2e students represent. We not only recognize stu-
dents’ unique patterns of development, but we celebrate
their differences and cognitive styles. The goal of the
school is to assist students in identifying and developing
their gifts and to provide support to help them address
their learning difculties. To this end, Bridges Academy
has developed a comprehensive model comprised of fac-
tors that we believe contribute to 2e students’ success.
The Bridges Model
Student-centered is the best way to describe the edu-
cational experience at Bridges Academy. The school offers
curriculum and educational opportunities built on a deep
understanding of 2e students. In order to plan appropriate
programs for our students, we use a holistic approach that
acknowledges the dynamic interplay between and among
the following variables:
Gifts, talents, and interests
Learning differences
Learning disabilities
Social and emotional readiness
Family context in which the student lives
Developmental asynchrony.
This model provides a framework for curriculum devel-
opment, instruction, and enrichment; and it also informs
services, specic interventions, and opportunities offered
to students and their families. For each student we use a
team approach to generate an educational prole that en-
compasses all of the variables, with an emphasis on the
child’s talents and strengths. Depending upon the indi-
vidual circumstances, any one of these variables may be-
come the subject of collaborative team focus. The interac-
tion of the variables on each other inuences the cognitive
and emotional milieu in which our students live from day
to day. As our students’ needs change (sometimes
Celebrating Neurodiversity
The Bridges Academy Model in Action
Featured Topic
Gifts, Talents,
& Interests
Family
Context
Student
Social &
Emotional
Prole
Learning
Differences
Learning
Disabilities
Developmental
Asynchrony
Bridges’ Educational Model™
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The Bridges Model, continued
Featured Topic
daily), we consider a variety of critical responses aligned to
the factors in the model.
Gifts, Talents, and Interests
At Bridges, we are primarily concerned with our
students’ talents, gifts, and interests. Through a talent
development focus, our students become competent and
productive adults with a positive identity and strong sense
of self. Talent development occurs both within the curricu-
lum and through special talent development opportunities
(TDOs). Examples of both include:
Rigorous core curriculum units based on the
Enrichment Triad Model (Renzulli, 1970; Baum &
Novak, 2010)
Talent-based choices within the grade-level curriculum
Acceleration for qualied students in an area of
expertise in a higher-grade-level class
Participation for talent development in advanced-level
courses
Independent study options
Enrichment clusters — mini-courses in talent areas
offered during school days. Each course meets ve
to six times a semester. Examples include set design,
photography, and game theory.
Winter session intensive courses that run one or two
weeks such as Drama Boot Camp, Rock Band 101,
Military History, and Outdoor Adventures.
Talent development opportunities such as a writers’
consortium, art studio, debate, and an advanced
musicians’ guild.
Learning Differences
We at Bridges acknowledge that all students learn
differently. Their multiple intelligences and their cognitive,
learning, and personality styles inform curricular choices
and instructional strategies. To accommodate students’
strengths and weaknesses, classes are dually-differentiat-
ed. We offer our students:
Small class size
Choices of resources and projects
Individual and small-group work
Tiered instruction
Interest centers.
Learning Disabilities
We strive to help our Bridges students understand
and compensate for their learning disabilities and atten-
tion decits. An educational therapist and clinical psychol-
ogist are on staff to help students manage their decits
and provide support to teachers. Executive functioning
skills are taught as an integral part of the classroom cur-
riculum and supported outside the classroom with the as-
sistance of Bridges specialists. Examples include:
Homework support classes
Assistive technology, including electronic whiteboards,
laptops, audio texts, voice recognition software, and
calculators
Varied instructional strategies
Class websites with homework and course lectures
Additional time when needed
Use of scaffolding to support and nurture executive
functioning
Academic support from the educational therapist.
The Social and Emotional Prole
At Bridges Academy, we recognize that social and
emotional well being is vital for 2e student success. Due
to past experiences, many 2e students are sensitive and
highly anxious. Some are perfectionistic, a tendency often
associated with gifted learners. We acknowledge that
many of our students are immature socially and require
assistance in acquiring social awareness and interper-
sonal skills. We understand that academic achievement is
based on an emotional readiness to learn and engage in
productive work. We work as a team to provide social and
emotional support through a continuum of services that
includes:
An in-house educational therapist and a clinical
psychologist who work as a team to support students
through crises
Field trips, competitions, etc., that provide authentic
contexts for social behaviors
Using drama to nurture social skills and encourage
the disposition of the performer
Exposure to therapies (art, music, equine) to connect
students to emotions and awareness
Talent development opportunities that provide a
positive approach for coping.
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The Bridges Model, continued
Featured Topic
Family Context
Bridges Academy sees itself as a dynamic learning
community that includes students and their families. We
provide ongoing support to help families better under-
stand their 2e child and to enable them to work effectively
with the school. That way, we can work together to create
a nurturing environment both at home and in school. The
following opportunities exist for Bridges families:
Orientation events
Opportunities to participate in student support
team meetings with teachers, administrators, and
specialists
Ongoing communication through e-mail, newsletters,
and course websites
Parent education workshop series
Collaboration with outside therapists, doctors, tutors,
and Bridges staff to help parents support their
children
Referrals to professionals for family therapy.
Development Asynchrony
We acknowledge that many of our students at Bridges
Academy experience developmental asynchrony, which
may impact every part of a 2e child’s life. Developmental
asynchrony refers to the differences that exist among
chronological age, intellectual age, motor age, and social/
emotional age. For example, a 12-year-old child might
have the intellect of a 15-year-old high school student in
certain areas of talent and interest. However, that same
child might have the motor skills of a 9-year-old and, in
certain circumstances, the emotional behavior of a 6-year-
old child. It is essential that all the key players in a child’s
life, such as family, teachers, and coaches, understand
this concept and develop the ability to discern at which
age a child is behaving and respond appropriately.
Bridges Academy addresses developmental
asynchrony by doing the following:
Acknowledging that growth happens over time in
small increments
Conducting awareness training
Providing response strategies for families and faculty
using differentiated approaches to help students
succeed in spite of asynchrony
Employing educational strategies that use the zone
of proximal development (ZPD) to encourage student
growth across each domain. (The ZPD, according to
developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky, identies
the difference between what children have already
mastered and what they can achieve with adult
guidance. 2e students need academic challenge,
while receiving scaffolding, or support, to help the
learners through the ZPD.)
(Baum, Novak, Dann, & Preuss, 2010).
The Model in Action
When the Bridges team built Kent’s educational plan,
we recognized his extraordinary intellect and advanced
abilities in technology. We also acknowledged his extraor-
dinary challenges in organizing his world and in any form
of social interaction, including entering a room, talking to
a teacher, or greeting his classmates. We knew we had to
design a program that simultaneously addressed his intel-
lectual and emotional needs.
To engage Kent, we provided intellectually rich con-
tent in all areas. For example, he took advanced classes
and independent studies, including online college cours-
es. In addition, he participated in our by-invitation-only
writers group and took two winter session courses: Rock
Band and Shakespeare Boot Camp. Kent also team-taught
a web design course with the Bridges web designer.
Equally important, we structured Kent’s social envi-
ronment — understanding that his anxiety and shy tem-
perament affected every aspect of his life, both at school
and at home. His parents revealed to us that performance
anxiety caused him to discontinue music lessons, which
he loved. When stressed, he simply withdrew folding his
arms over his head to shield his face. Often, before he
entered class, he would stand at the door with hands over
his ears and require several minutes to settle himself.
Using our model as a guide, the Bridges team had
to structure the environment in such a way to provide
psychological and social safety. Some of the strategies
included giving Kent the time he needed to transition
to class and allowing him to communicate with others
through e-mail. Teachers differentiated learning experi-
ences to promote success. For instance, during a science
camping trip to Catalina Island, students were required
to participate in a day and night snorkel. Kent’s anxiety
was so severe that he couldn’t function most of the day
leading up to the snorkel experiences. The Bridges staff
encouraged him to take a few hours to re-
center by reading and resting alone. This
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2Featured Topic
negotiation resulted in Kent’s suiting up, snorkeling, and
being awed along with his classmates as they witnessed
night phosphorescence. Another successful negotia-
tion occurred in drama when he was asked to perform
a monologue. He and his teacher worked out a plan by
which Kent programmed his computer to do the talking for
him in a ventriloquist performance — the computer was
the ventriloquist and Kent was the dummy. This brought
down the house, perhaps sowing the seed for future on-
stage performances that would follow.
As Kent matured, faculty and students alike recog-
nized and respected his technological genius that often
served as a catalyst for positive social interaction. He col-
laborated with his peers on projects as the tech expert. As
knowledge of his talent spread, he was hired by a Beverly
Hills nancial rm to work with a team of adults on a spe-
cial computer project. In Kent’s words, “I couldn’t believe
that talented adults thought I had something to offer.
Their condence in me helped me outgrow my shyness, as
did my participation in Winter Session opportunities.”
Conclusion
As the Bridges model makes clear, and Kent’s ex-
ample underscores, attention to one factor often impacts
another. The story of Kent illustrates the success of the
Bridges model that is possible over time when all the fac-
tors are carefully understood and addressed. While Kent’s
particular combination of strengths and weaknesses is
unique, all of our students cope with a dichotomy of ex-
traordinary gifts and extreme challenges. The exibility of
the model allows us to decide daily what a student may
need in order to continue his or her journey to success.
While in other settings professionals may focus primarily
on the child’s decits, our strength-based model keeps us
focused on talents, gifts and interests. Instead of merely
remediating what these students can’t do, we continue
to provide our 2e students with intellectually rich experi-
ences where they have the opportunity to show the world
what they can do.
References
Baum, S. & Novak, C. (2010). Why isn’t talent develop-
ment in the IEP? SEM and the twice exceptional
learner. Gifted Education International, 26, 249-
260.
Baum, S., Novak, C., Dann, M., & Preuss. L. (2010). The
mythology of learning: Understanding common
myths about 2e learners. Glen Ellyn, IL: Glen Ellyn
Media.
Renzulli, J. (1977). Enrichment triad model. Manseld
Center, CT: Creative Learning Press.
Both authors of this article work at Bridges Academy
in the following
capacities: Susan
Baum (left) is Direc-
tor of Professional
Development, and
Cynthia Novak is
the Middle School
Director. 2e
A Final Note
We were privileged to talk with Kent during the
writing of this article. He sat across from us, a con-
dent, accomplished young man. Kent graduated
a year early because of his accelerated program.
Instead of entering college immediately, he is taking
a gap year. As of this writing, Kent is concluding an
internship at California Institute of Technology and
will be going to Japan for a three-month program
to rene his Japanese language skills and to team
teach an English class.
—SB, CN
The Bridges Model, concluded
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By Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S.
What is this world coming to?
I want to know why roughly 25 percent of all people in
the U.S. are diagnosed with a mental health disorder and
approximately 60 million people take medications to treat
these conditions. Why the rst Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM) only had 60
categories, but today that number has tripled and promis-
es to increase even more in the new edition. Why ten per-
cent of school-age children have learning disabilities (not
including AD/HD) and one in three students, on national
average, drops out of school before graduation.
I have training in both education and psychology. As
such, I’ve handed out my fair share of labels; and I can
honestly say that our children today are not the happy,
healthy kids of 20 years ago. But we can’t all be disor-
dered. Instead of automatically assuming that our kids
are just “sick,” let’s examine those educational, mental
health, and medical systems that classify, label, treat, and
medicate. Let’s ask some questions: When did we decide
that everyone should be normal? With so many of our kids
diagnosed with something, isn’t it clear that our systems
may not work? And: What is the value of human neurodi-
versity in our world today?
A Limited View of Normal
I often see cutting-edge medical research on the dif-
ferences in brain development for children with AD/HD.
Through the use of imaging data, we believe we have a pic-
ture of the “normal” brain of a child — what it should look
like and how it should grow. Based on that data, medical
and mental health professionals prescribe medications
and therapies for children.
It all sounds convincing; but, in reality, we live under
a disease-based mentality. As such, differences mean
something is wrong. Researchers don’t often get funding
to examine the parts of the AD/HD brain that might work
better than the norm.
In the United States, we use 90 percent of the world’s
Ritalin, and estimates of the number school-age children
taking psychotropic medications are as high as 18 to 22
percent. All of these medications have side effects, some
have never been properly evaluated for their use with
children, and none has been evaluated for its impact on
health throughout the entire human lifespan.
So why are so many thoughtful and well-intentioned
parents putting their children on medications? The answer
is simple. Their children are unhappy, they don’t function
well in school, they have trouble with their peers, and the
DSM has diagnosed a disorder. We are taught to believe in
our teachers, our psychologists, and our doctors who are
trained to know more than we do; so, because there gen-
erally isn’t another good option, we comply.
Antiquated Systems
At one time, our compulsory school systems’ mission
was to produce factory workers. In school, children learned
to read, spell and write, do math, and study civics and
elocution. Lessons were taught orally; and reading, writing,
and recitation tasks assessed the level of memorization
obtained.
Little in our schools has changed since that time,
despite the call from corporate CEO’s for out-of-the-box
thinkers. Today’s business leaders seek bright, creative,
independent problem-solvers who can multitask. Unfortu-
nately, our schools don’t teach that; and our mental health
systems and medicines may actually be striving to cure
out-of-the-box thinking.
In our schools, modern-day curriculum standards
still treat information as if it were a valuable commod-
ity, despite the possibility that learning these subjects in
this way may no longer be relevant. In the past, students
unsuccessful in this education model left school to help
out in family businesses, or they trained in vocations or
apprenticeships. Today’s children don’t have a viable out.
They’re tied up in schooling and homework that have little
applicability to today’s world, and they have few alterna-
tives to school. The lives of our children are not congruent
with the world they live in, and they fail to see how they will
ever participate successfully in their future.
The Value of Neurodiversity
The term neurodiversity, coined in 1998 by Harvey
Blume, refers to the idea that people experience the world
differently based on their neurological attributes. Blume
tells us that “neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for
the human race as biodiversity is for life in general.”
The Value of Neurodiversity
Featured Topic
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So why the push to normalize? I learned the answer to
that question on a farm in rural Wyoming. A group of nor-
mal cows is easier to herd. On the other hand, any farmer
can tell us that all living species require diversity to sur-
vive; and without it, organisms lack vigor. On the farm, it’s
the cows with “heart” — those who have passion, curiosity,
and even a little hint of trouble-making — that often out-
produce the other cows.
In today’s world, however, with all of our new medical
insights, we believe we should eliminate trouble-making,
nd ways to t our kids into existing systems, and strive
to normalize our children if we can. I personally am not
convinced. We know for certain that individuals with
“different” minds often do great things. Not many of the
world’s famous movers and shakers would be described
as normal. Furthermore, in the eld of gifted education,
shouldn’t we expect that the brain of a gifted child will
develop differently than the brain of a normal child? After
all, we know for certain that brain development is different
on the other end of the bell curve. Unfortunately, we don’t
have any studies that properly examine “normal” brain
development in gifted children.
Conclusion
There are those who will argue that it’s too costly
to change our educational, medical, and mental health
systems. But what is the dollar value of eradicating our
inherent cognitive differences? While the cost of changing
our systems is great, the loss of cognitive diversity and the
possible long-term health issues stemming from a life of
medications may be even costlier.
As long as increasingly large percentages of our chil-
dren are unsuccessful in schools, require treatments,
and take mind-altering medications, we must continue
looking for other answers. Furthermore, until schools are
better equipped and funded to meet the needs of today’s
children, we will be forced to rely on medication and other
treatment alternatives to x our kids. My hope is that
someday soon we will recognize the nancial value of
neurodiversity in humans and put our money towards the
earth’s most valuable resource, our children.
The author thanks Mark Jarrett Carroll for his assistance
with the research for this article. The following resources
were consulted:
APA Working Group on Psychoactive Medications for Chil-
dren and Adolescents. (2006). Psychopharmaco-
logical, psychosocial, and combined interventions
for childhood disorders: Evidence base, contex-
tual factors, and future directions. Washington,
DC: American Psychological Association.
Armstrong. T. (2010). Neurodiversity: Discovering the ex-
traordinary gifts of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and
other brain differences. Cambridge: Da Capo
Press.
Blume, H. (1998, September 30). Neurodiversity: on the
underpinnings of geekdom. The Atlantic. Re-
trieved 2011-02-26.
Kliebard, H.M. (1995). The struggle for the American cur-
riculum (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Rowan, C. (2010). Unplug – don’t drug: A critical look at
the inuence of technology on child behavior.
Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 12(1).
Stein, D.B. (2001). Unraveling the ADD/ADHD asco: Suc-
cessful parenting without drugs. Kansas City:
Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S., spe-
cializes in assessment, advocacy,
cognitive training, sensory and be-
havior support, and socio-emotional
coaching for individuals who are both
highly intelligent and asynchronously
developed. In 1999 she founded the
Brideun Learning Communities and built a play-based,
therapeutic school. After funding decits led to the
school’s closing, Marlo founded 2E Consulting Services
to provide support and training to programs that work
with individuals who, despite adequate intelligence, are
unable to nd success in traditional settings. Marlo holds
board positions with 2e Newsletter and the US Autism and
Asperger’s Association, where she directs the U.S. College
Autism Project. Marlo has been recognized for her work
by People and ADDitude magazines, The Special Educator,
The New York Times, National Public Radio, and numer-
ous local venues. 2e
The Value of Neurodiversity, concluded
Featured Topic
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Book by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.
Da Capo Press (2010)
Reviewed by Linda C. Neumann
Members of the 2e community will nd much that is
familiar in Armstrong’s Neurodiversity. The author, a for-
mer education consultant, talks about twice exceptional-
ity, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and the need for
strength-based instruction and dual differentiation in edu-
cating bright children with learning difculties. The author
just uses different terminology.
Armstrong opens the book by describing IEP meetings
he used to attend. Before each meeting, he would review
the child’s cumulative le, compiling a list of everything
positive he could nd. Then he would present this list,
often several pages long, at the meeting. Armstrong found
that this exercise changed the whole
tone of the meeting. Instead of fo-
cusing on the negative aspects of
the child, attendees ended up con-
sidering the child’s “true potentials”
and often came up with “some real
solutions” for helping the child.
This experience convinced
Armstrong of the need to “reject
the disease-based thinking that
too often dogs the lives of labeled
individuals and [to] embrace a more
positive vision of who they are, and
who they can become.” He explains
his motivation for writing this book
in terms of wanting “to open up a
broader discussion about the mean-
ing of human diversity as it relates
to the brain” and to present strong
evidence of “extraordinary gifts” in
those who have been labeled as
having “broken brains.” He chose the title of his book
because he saw the word neurodiversity as one that “con-
veys this sense of afrmation.”
In the rst chapter Armstrong positions neurodiversity
as a concept whose time has come. He denes the term
and discusses the need to apply to human brains the
lessons learned about other types of diversity — among
plants and animals and among cultures and races. The
author also presents eight principles based on this new
model that values differences in human brains. One of
the principles, for example, states that success in life “de-
pends on modifying your surrounding environment to t
the needs of your unique brain.”
The next chapters focus on seven common conditions:
• AD/HD
• Autism
• Dyslexia
• Mood disorders
• Anxiety disorders
• Intellectual disabilities
• Schizophrenia.
Armstrong looks at each from the neurodiversity
perspective, identifying strengths that individuals with
the condition often exhibit and examining how those
strengths can be applied in life to
advantage, such as in careers where
the strengths would be assets. Arm-
strong also cites research that can
put a positive spin on what is often
treated as a drawback of the condi-
tion. (References take up about 30
pages at the back of the book.) In
the chapter on AD/HD, for example,
he presents the delayed maturity
often associated with it in a positive
light, citing research about the value
of neoteny, the retention of childlike
qualities. The author concludes the
discussion by stating that children la-
beled with AD/HD “may be the lead-
ing edge in evolution, demonstrating
childlike patterns of behavior…that
need to be retained into adulthood
if we’re going to continue to survive
and thrive as a species.” Armstrong
points to some of “civilization’s most celebrated individu-
als,” such as Einstein, Picasso, and Mozart, as being “in
some ways like children in adult bodies.”
In examining the seven conditions from this perspec-
tive, however, the author emphasizes that he is “not at-
tempting to sidestep the damage that these conditions
do.” Instead, he explains, he is making
use of “a powerful concept, backed by
Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of
Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences
Book Review
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2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
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2Book Review
substantial research from brain science, evolutionary psy-
chology, anthropology, and other elds, that can help revo-
lutionize the way we look at mental illness.”
An especially useful chapter comes near the end of
the book where Armstrong covers neurodiversity in the
classroom. He laments that special education today is
“a world of decit, damage, and dysfunction,” one that
is “easier to get into than to get out of.” In contrast, he
paints a picture of what a neurodiverse classroom looks
like, with its inclusive, strength-based programs, technol-
ogy support, and high expectations for achievement for all
students at whatever level each is capable of. For those
who object that there is no money to implement such
Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts, concluded
changes, Armstrong contends that “the greatest change
that can be made [in schools] is one that costs little or
nothing: changing the attitude of educators toward kids
with labels.”
In the nal chapter, “The Future of Neurodiversity,”
Armstrong calls for an end to what he calls “ableism,”
discrimination against people with disabilities. His vision
is a society in which “disorders will be reframed as differ-
ences,” doing away with “fear, pity, and condescension
toward those who are perceived to be ‘less able’ than their
‘more able’ peers.” For our 2e children who are still told
“You can be gifted or you can be disabled, but you can’t
be both,” I say it can’t come soon enough. 2e
Parenting Your Twice-exceptional Child
For parents
• Provides an overview of twice exceptionality
• Oers guidelines for raising a 2e child
• Addresses issues involved in raising and teaching 2e kids
Understanding Your Twice-exceptional Student
For educators
• Describes how gis and decits combine in the 2e student
• Oers eective strategies for teaching twice-exceptional children
• Discusses classroom accommodations and other ways to support
these learners
e Mythology of Learning: Understanding Common
Myths about 2e Learners
For parents & professionals
• A series of articles developed for 2e Newsletter by Bridges Academy,
a school for twice-exceptional students
• Identies the learning myths that commonly surround 2e children
• Oers research-based and experienced-based insights, strategies,
and methods in place of the myths
e 2e Reading Guide: Essential Books for
Understanding the Twice-exceptional Child
For parents & professionals
• A collection of 20 book reviews from 2e: Twice- Exceptional
Newsletter
• Must reading for understanding, raising, and educating the 2e child
• Introduces readers to the experts and issues surrounding twice
exceptionality
• Like taking a “mini-course” on 2e
Guiding the Twice-exceptional Child: A Collection of
Columns by Meredith Warshaw
For parents & professionals
• A collection of 19 columns from 2e Newsletter
• Insights into 2e children from Meredith, a parent, special needs
educational advisor, and creator of the Uniquely Gied website
• Columns covering these topics: the second “e” in 2e, living with our
2e children, educating a 2e child
e Twice-exceptional Child with Attention Decit
For parents & professionals
• Provides an overview of giedness and of AD/HD
• Discusses how these two sets of traits combine in the 2e student
• Addresses issues involved in raising and teaching 2e kids
e Twice-exceptional Child with Asperger Syndrome
For parents & professionals
• Provides an overview of giedness and of Asperger Syndrome
• Discusses how these two sets of traits combine in the 2e student
• Addresses the issues involved in raising and teaching these children
Prices: $11 for subscribers to 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter; $12.95 for others.
Nominal shipping charges apply. Quantity discounts available to schools and organizations.
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Resources for Parents and Educators
e Spotlight on 2e Series
16
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Dear Case Manager:
A twice-exceptional is someone who is both gifted
and disabled. Many twice-exceptionals are not properly
accommodated, and as a result devote little effort to
school while maintaining intense passions and interests
outside of their academic careers. These students are
often wrongfully perceived as lazy or unmotivated; but in
truth, most of them wish to lead successful and fullling
academic careers. I am a twice-exceptional, and I owe it to
you to explain how this is affecting my academics.
I am writing to you for two reasons: to establish the
fact that I am not lazy or apathetic, and to provide you
with information that I believe is necessary for you to have
if our upcoming IEP meeting is to be an effective one. Let
me start out by recognizing that everyone is aware that
I am not currently living up to my academic potential.
However, it has become increasingly apparent that much
of this issue stems from the fact that many of my accom-
modations have missed what has become the heart of the
issue, and that most of my thoughts, patterns, and behav-
iors are being misinterpreted. I approached you with the
name “twice-exceptional” before, and was disheartened
to see the lack of recognition on your face and in your re-
sponse. I will explain to you how my unique learning prole
has been received in the past, how it explains my current
situation, and how it should be dealt with in the future.
There are few times in the past when I have been
satised with my IEP. For the most part, I feel as though
it has been generally ineffective. I can’t help but realize
it hasn’t changed much since middle school. In middle
school, my accommodations included access to teacher’s
notes, mandatory planner checks, and modied work-
sheets all across the curriculum — accommodations that
everyone else I knew with an IEP was receiving. At the
same time, I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed either,
for no one had ever really gone over my evaluation with
me. I thought I was awed, and I began to feel insulted by
teachers who treated me piteously and condescendingly
as though they expected me to grow up in society “picking
at the table scraps” of an intelligent population. With so
many of my educators attempting to x my weaknesses,
I never would have imagined I had strengths. I became
argumentative, depressed, and paranoid that people
were always insulting my intelligence. Indeed, I received a
great deal of insults from my peers for just being a “sped.”
Reading and writing helped me escape, passions that
would blossom into a gift for writing.
So far in high school my situation has improved, but
only through my own self-discovery and personal achieve-
ments. I still possess many useless and generic accommo-
dations that I either don’t need or are only in place to treat
a symptom of the real problem. Not everything can be
xed with planner checks, teacher’s notes, and modied
worksheets! After the “Dark Ages” period in middle school,
I nally know who I am and what I need for my IEP. Howev-
er, in my attempts to create an ideal learning environment
for myself, I’ve found the subject of IEP modications to be
a war with my educators over getting the accommodations
I need. I feel alone in this, a one-man army. Most of my
proposals were received with the following quotes:
“You just want these things so you can keep enabling
yourself to be lazy and manipulative. You have everything
you need to succeed.” And, the most hurtful of all, “I’m
starting to think you just like to complain.”
Yes, I received the accusation of being lazy that
many twice-exceptionals get thrown at them once or twice.
And to be fair, I can see why someone who only took a
supercial glance at my academic performance might
think that. I will admit that I’ve reduced the amount of at-
tention I spend on academics, but would you really want
to devote honest effort and attention to something that
left you feeling frustrated, awed, and deeply depressed?
If anyone wants proof that I am a self-motivated person,
Dear Case Manager
Letters
As a freshman in high school, Andrew Collins felt misunderstood. He explains, “Being a 2e is a big
part of my life, as is raising awareness of 2e’s.” To remedy this lack of understanding, he composed
a letter for his IEP case manager. His goal was to “explain how my own unique learning prole has
been accommodated in the past, how it explained my current situation, and how I hoped it would
be accommodated in the future.”
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Did the Letter Work?
The reaction to this letter was not one of immediate success. While those in the IEP department were eager
to hear what I had to say, I quickly learned that my proposals were impossible due to my school’s rigid curriculum.
The situation in which my IEP could only focus on accommodating my disability remained. Though they were mak-
ing honest efforts to implement my suggested math accommodations, I was generally frustrated with the outcome.
I had nally come to realize the powers of my IEP were not extensive enough to fully support my needs. Knowing I
would have no success challenging the curriculum itself, I resigned the effort and returned to thinking about other
ways I could improve my situation.
Luckily, I had a wise English teacher who saw my potential, understood my situation, and supplied me with a
number of writing opportunities. Winning these was encouraging, and one of these experiences was borderline life-
changing.
—AC
they should read one of my published poems or novels
that have frequently been called outlets for procrastina-
tion. Perhaps they might also take the time to notice an
essay I wrote for English last year that was so good it won
a state-level competition. So before asking me again why I
can’t stop “procrastinating” so I can focus on school more,
remember this simple answer: one of those options makes
me feel alienated and terrible about myself, while the oth-
er makes me happy and gives me a sense of belonging.
It doesn’t bother me that I’m learning disabled. It
bothers me that my disability is the only thing anyone in
my academics seems to focus on.
I suppose you could say I’m feeling under-appreci-
ated. I was continuously earning perfect grades in Eng-
lish class without lifting a nger, and had been tested in
vocabulary and reading comprehension, scores that had
been described by the testing administrator as “absolutely
phenomenal.” If my literacy-based scores have been post-
high school since seventh grade, it should have been ap-
propriate and necessary for my IEP to not only think of new
ways to x my weaknesses, but also to provide me with a
situation in English class that wasn’t problematically easy
and boring.
In the future, I would like to be one of the twice-
exceptional students who has been understood by his
educators and appropriately accommodated. Generally, it
is most important that I have access to a learning environ-
ment that focuses on accommodating both my extreme
strengths and my extreme weaknesses. Anything you read
about twice-exceptionals will stress the emotional and ac-
ademic importance of this point. Therefore, in addition to
some constructive criticism on the visual and step-by-step
way I need to learn math, I have proposed grade accel-
eration in English, which can be supported by my testing
scores, extra-curricular writing, and teacher opinions.
I hope this composition has helped you understand
both my needs and twice-exceptionals. Twice-exceptionals
are only a fraction of the gifted population, which is a
fraction in itself! Please feel free to show this to any other
educators or case managers because twice-exceptionals
aren’t half as well known as we should be in the eld of
public education.
Thank you for your time,
Andrew C.
Andrew Collins is a 16-year-old high
school junior who is passionate
about writing. In addition, he enjoys
independently researching space,
the medieval period, and gifted edu-
cation. Though he is most talented in
publishing his poetry and composing
fantasy novels, in the future he would like to major in cre-
ative writing and earn a doctorate in psychology. After col-
lege, he plans to be employed in a situation where he can
help improve the learning environment for children with
unique learning proles. He lives at home with his parents
and is the middle child between his two brothers. 2e
Dear Case Manager, concluded
Letters
18
2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
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2
To Whom It May Concern
Letters
My introverted, teenage, gifted son is “2e” (twice ex-
ceptional). He may be thrice or quad-exceptional, since it
is difcult to determine which “disabilities” are a by-prod-
uct of his abilities, and not inherently separate from them.
I am not sure it matters.
My son has amazing vocabulary, writing, and a deep
grasp of complex concepts related to concepts he has
already formed. He also has a ridiculously slow processing
speed (listens, talks, walks slowly; turtle-like, really). He
is labeled variously as having ADD-Inattentive, executive
dysfunction, sluggish cognitive tempo, or being a gifted
underachiever. He has very real, and sometimes medi-
cated, anxiety issues; and he struggles with depressive
angst, all of which might be secondary to the “disabilty” of
giftedness.
My son’s work is inconsistent. Inconsistent frequently
looks like this in the gradebook: 100, 100, 0, 0, 0, 100, 0,
100, 100, 0, 100. It is difcult to convince teachers (and
sometimes myself) that my son’s inconsistent work effort
is not always the moral failure of laziness, but frequently
the result of overwhelming frustration at owning both
tremendous mental ability and lacking some “normal”
abilities that are taken for granted by most of us. This
word picture helps describe how his “ability” can become
a disability.
The school has given my son an assignment
to drive a 5” screw into a wall. The screw has
a at head crown. In my son’s right (domi-
nant) hand, he wields a heavy-duty DeWalt
3/8” 18V cordless Ni-Cad electric drill/
driver, with a titanium driver-bit permanently
installed. It is a Phillips-head bit. In my son’s
left hand is a dime.
My son has a tremendous amount of sheer
power in his right hand (i.e., his mental ca-
pacity). My son actively seeks opportunities
to use the powerful Phillips-head bit he has
at his ngertips, rather than the forgotten
and embarrassing dime, which is in his un-
practiced left hand. Most people only have
a dime. They use their dime frequently, in
their dominant hand, on their given at head
screws. They become adept and procient at
using a dime. It is natural, familiar, and they
can use it without thinking.
My son, without thinking, attacks the at-
head screw with his Phillips-head driver drill,
resulting in nothing but a stripped screw
head. Finally, as a last resort, he furtively,
covertly, attempts to use the dime in his left
hand on the at-head screw. But the now-
stripped screw falls to the ground repeatedly
due to his lack of skill, and due to the added
encumbrance of the heavy drill/driver still
in his right hand. After multiple attempts,
punctuated by frequent mental and morale
breaks to cope with his growing irritation, he
takes the back end of the heavy-duty 3/8”
18V cordless Ni-Cad drill/driver and pounds
the screw into the wall.
He gets a C on the assignment. He has used
the weight of his ability in an unnessed
execution to deliver the minimum expected
result — the screw settled in the wall. But he
has not really furthered his expertise in the
use of either tool, and the screw will not hold.
Given yet another 5-inch at-head screw, he
Jane Hyde is the parent of a twice-exceptional son. She has composed a letter
that she refers to as “a word picture” of her child. Her purpose, in her words, is
“to communicate to my 2e son’s teachers about what it is like to be 2e.” The let-
ter, she explains, has proven to be effective in many situations.
19
2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
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2
To Whom It May Concern, concluded
Letters
is highly tempted to throw it to the ground
and stalk away, uttering a pun-intended, im-
perative phrase containing the word “screw.”
But he doesn’t, because shame and self-ag-
ellation overwhelm his frustration. He with-
draws, like a turtle. Or better, like an ostrich,
head in sand, ignoring the incriminating dime
in his pocket.
Whenever possible and appropriate, my son needs to
be given screws with a Phillips head. The point of a screw
is to fasten something, it often does not ultimately matter
whether it has a at or Phillips head. Sometimes my son
needs very patient, compassionate, overt instruction and
practice using his dime. The dime may look like a planner,
a locker, a deadline, note-taking, social correctness; one
day it will look like the excellent secretary he hires, or the
gentle, saintly, clear-headed wife he marries. The at-head
screw may look like an uninteresting, unchallenging, or
irrelevant assignment, or a nuanced social situation, the
type that kids with less “ability” manage without frustra-
tion or shame. One day he will discover that, in the adult
world, he can choose to work primarily with Phillips-head
screws.
My DeWalt-wielding son does need to learn to use his
dime adequately. But, like all of us, he will gravitate to his
strengths. Our job is to help him become capable of giving
his best back to the world, by giving opportunities to use
both his DeWalt power house, and repeatedly support-
ing his attempts to use his dime – without maligning his
character.
Just my ten cents’ worth.
Jane Hyde 2e
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e
2
From SENG
The organization Supporting Emotional Needs of
the Gifted (SENG) has scheduled a variety of 2e-related
sessions for its July conference in Seattle, Washington.
According to Executive Director Amy Price, a list of those
sessions includes:
• Helping the Disorganized Gifted Family: If I’m So
Smart, Why Can’t I Ever Find My Keys?
• Executive Function Disorder: Is it a Gift in Bright
Children Rather than a Disorder?
• Both My Child and My Spouse are Twice Exceptional:
What Now?
• Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children
and Adults
• The Key to Success for the Twice Exceptional: Self
Advocacy
• Teaching Gifted Students with Asperger’s Syndrome
• Independent Schools: Finding a Good Fit to Meet the
Social and Emotional Needs of the Gifted and Twice
Exceptional Student
Price says that a new, half-day training session will be
available to SENG parent group facilitators from around
the country: a half-day master session to provide experi-
enced facilitators with techniques for working with cultur-
ally diverse families and with families of twice exceptional
students. Find more information about the conference at
the SENG site, www.sengifted.org.
Denver’s Gifted Development Center
Linda Silverman, director of the Gifted Development
Center, is providing a keynote address at the New Jersey
Association for the Gifted Conference on March 11th. Her
topic: “What We Have Learned about Gifted Children.”
The Center has scheduled its rst symposium on adult
giftedness for April 12th in Lafayette, Colorado. Details
are available at the GDC website, www.gifteddevelopment.
com.
2e in Australia
Jo Freitag, of Gifted Resources in Australia, points
out the May 14th 2e Forum, sponsored by the New South
Wales Association for Gifted and Talented Children. Inter-
ested parents and educators may nd more information
on this and other gifted/2e events in the “In Box” at Fre-
itag’s website, www.giftedresource.org.
N e w s
NEWSbits
2e Newsletter and “Social Media”
The 2e Newsletter Network at Ning.com is up and
running and currently has almost 300 members. The
publishers of 2e Newsletter urge you to visit, register, and
participate.
The Network contains discussion groups devoted
to conditions such as AD/HD, Asperger’s, dyslexia, and
so forth. As an example of what you might nd at the 2e
Newsletter network, the AD/HD group currently has dis-
cussion forums going on these topics:
• Classroom models
• A request for help with an underachieving AD/HD teen
• AD/HD and nutrition
• Medication for inattentive AD/HD.
Also in the Network are groups for members of the
2e community in different locations – New York, Chicago,
Australia, Canada, the UK, and so forth. (Feel free to cre-
ate a group for your region or city.)
For the Network to best serve the 2e community, it
will need a “critical mass” of participants so that mem-
bers concerned with a particular issue or resources in
a particular geographic area will have others to inter-
act with. Registration is required, but it’s free and you
have the option to use a screen name rather than your
real name. To register, go to http://2enewsletter.ning.
com/?xgi=5fRjVktrpoYhb5. Feel free to invite other mem-
bers of the 2e community you might know.
2e Newsletter has a Facebook page where we post
a 2e quote of the week along with occasional pointers to
signicant articles or resources. We sometimes ask for
community help there — information on schools, etc — but
we anticipate that our Ning network will be the main ve-
hicle for the exchange of resources and advice. Feel free
to visit and post at www.facebook.com/pages/2e-Newslet-
ter/133179266714351.
If you like the monthly brieng but would rather dis-
cover the resources and news items earlier, visit our blog
several times a week. That’s where we post items that
eventually make it into the brieng, along with some items
that don’t. See it at http://2enewsletter.blogspot.com/.
And nally, we Tweet – not very often, and usually
just to announce a new blog post or a signicant article.
So if you use Twitter, you can follow us; we’re (who else)
2eNewsletter.
21
2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
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2N e w s
Bridges Academy Permanent Home
Bridges Academy, serving 2e students grades 5-12,
has purchased the Studio City, California campus it has
been sharing since 2005. The campus was built in the
late1940s as Our Lady of Corvalis Catholic Girls School
and was purchased in 1980 by Osaka Sangyo University
of Japan. Bridges began renting space when it outgrew
its previous facility in Sherman Oaks, CA. The property is
on 3.5 acres and includes a two-story classroom building,
smaller two-story classroom/ofce building, gym/cafeteria
complex, 120-bed dormitory, full-service kitchen, grounds
and ample parking.
Not only will the Studio City campus become Bridges
Academy’s permanent home, it will also serve as a center
for 2e research, training, conferences/seminars/work-
shops, and resource center for parents and professionals,
including summer programs.
For more information about opportunities at the
Bridges campus, contact Doug Lenzini at (818) 506-1091
or doug@bridges.edu. 2e
NEWSbits, concluded
Results for
“Twice Exceptional”
Results for “Gifted” versus
“Learning Disabled
Gifted, Learning Disabled, 2e
The ever-creative minds at Google have come up with a new tool called Ngram that charts the occurence of words
or phrases as they have appeared on “lots” of books from the year 1800 to as late as 2000. We ran two trials, one
comparing the terms “gifted” and “learning disabled,” and one just for “twice exceptional.” Check the results below.
Find the tool at http://ngrams.googlelabs.com. 2e
Bridges’ Doug Lenzini at the CAG conference in February
22
2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
e
2Bob Seney on Books
I have mentioned before that
every once in a while a novel hits
me pretty hard and it seems to
haunt my thoughts for days, even
weeks, after I have read it. Two ex-
amples are Mary Calhoun Brown’s
There are No Words (reviewed in
the November, 2010, issue of 2e
Newsletter) and Sharon Creech’s
Unnished Angel (HarperCollins,
2009). Now, there’s this novel Out
of My Mind (Atheneum, 2010) by
Sharon M. Draper.
I was hooked with the very rst
sentences:
“Words. I’m surrounded
by thousands of words.
Maybe millions.
Cathedral. Mayonnaise.
Pomegranate.
Mississippi, Neapolitan.
Hippopotamus.
Silk. Terrifying. Iridescent.
Tickle. Sneeze. Wish. Worry.
Words have always whirled around me like
snowakes — each one delicate and different,
each one melting untouched in my hands.…
But only in my head. I have never spoken one
single word. I am almost eleven years old.”
Wow! Thus begins Melody’s heroic tale. Melody is a
ten-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, and she is also a bril-
liant fth grader with a photographic memory. However,
Melody is unable to talk and her unresponsive and un-
controllable body is bound to a wheel chair. In the special
education classes to which she is assigned, Melody has
no opportunity to show that she is, in fact, the brightest
student in the fth grade.
It takes the teamwork of a sensitive teaching intern
from the local college and Melody’s very supportive mom
to discover a computer that can be adapted to meet
Melody’s needs. This technology not only gives her a voice
— it gives her freedom. Melody is quickly transitioned into
regular classes where she meets curiosity, hostility, bully-
ing, and social cliques. Determined not to be overcome by
these “simple” obstacles, Melody proves her intellectual
ability by making the top scores on the qualifying tests for
the school’s competitive quiz team.
Once Mr. Dimming, the quiz team
coach, accepts that Melody’s high
scores were not just a uke, Mel-
ody takes her place on the team.
With her abilities, her team wins
the regional competition and quali-
es for the national competition
in Washington D.C. Here’s where
tragedy steps in, and we nd the
climax of the story and Melody’s
ultimate victory.
What an amazing novel! It
deals with so many issues that
our challenged children must face
daily. Through this story, Draper
has provided an important and sig-
nicant insight into the life of one
such individual.
The author also provides some
insights into her thoughts and mo-
tivation in writing the book in an author’s note to readers,
Draper, whose own daughter has cerebral palsy, writes:
“I was ercely adamant that nobody feel sorry
for Melody. I wanted her to be accepted as a
character and as a person, not as a represen-
tative for people with disabilities. Melody is a
tribute to all the parents of disabled kids who
struggle, to all those children who are misun-
derstood, to all those caregivers who help ev-
ery step of the way. It’s also written for people
who look away, who pretend they don’t see,
or who don’t know what to say when they en-
counter someone who faces life with obvious
differences. Just smile and say hello!”
That, in itself, is a signicant lesson; but the lessons
that Melody teaches us are even broader and more signi-
cant. I feel so strongly about Out of My Mind that I believe
it should be required reading for any class that has or may
have students with disabilities. And I don’t say that very
often!
With regard to why she wrote the novel, Draper states,
“All great stories emerge from deep truths that rest within
us.” Truly this novel brings those truths to the readers’
conscious level. Can we ever ask anything more
from a novel?
Out of My Mind
23
2e Newsletter • March/April 2011 www.2eNewsletter.com
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2Dear Dr. Sylvia
Q
My wife has tested
our son three or
four times for At-
tention Decit/Hyperactiv-
ity Disorder (AD/HD) and
other things. She seems to
keep looking for something
wrong. I don’t see it. All the
AD/HD evaluations have
been found to be negative.
A
If your wife has ar-
ranged for three or
four different tests
for AD/HD, and all have
turned out to be negative,
it’s unlikely that your son’s
problem is AD/HD. Yet,
she must be hearing from
teachers that he has some
kind of problem or she
wouldn’t likely be pursuing
continuous testing. You
should begin by asking your
wife why she assumes your
son is having a problem.
You could agree with her
after she explains it.
It’s possible that your wife
has higher expectations for
your son than she should,
but that your expectations
aren’t high enough. Boys
typically prioritize their
dad’s expectations over
their mom’s as part of
identifying themselves as
males. For example, let’s
say that a mother is telling
her son that he should be
working harder or doing
better work in school; and
let’s say that the father is
saying to her, within the
son’s hearing, “Leave him
alone. He’s doing ne.” This
could be enough for the
son to not do his best in
school.
While I can’t tell you for
sure whether your son has
a problem, I can encourage
you to be united in giving
him a clear message about
the importance of working
hard in school and always
doing his best. Take an
interest in what he is learn-
ing and expect high grades.
Say good things about his
teacher and his mother.
Hopefully, they will return
the favor. When parents
are respectful of each other
and also respectful of chil-
dren’s teachers, children
are much more likely to
achieve better in school.
Successful adults typically
believe that their parents
had high expectations of
them. Of course, too high
expectations can cause
unhealthy pressure. Doing
one’s best is more appro-
priate than doing the best
in the class for avoiding too
much pressure.
Mother Sees a Problem; Father Doesn’t
Dr. Sylvia
Rimm is
a child
psycholo-
gist and
clinical
profes-
sor at Case University
School of Medicine, author,
newspaper and magazine
columnist, and radio/
TV personality. For free
newsletters about how
education pays off for the
rest of your life or parenting
with a united front, send a
self-addressed, stamped
envelope to P.O. Box 32,
Watertown, WI, 53094.
Read Dr. Rimm’s “Articles
for Parents and Teachers”
and submit family ques-
tions online at www.sylvi-
arimm.com. All questions
are answered. 2e
Professor Emeritus Bob Seney is
retired from teaching in the Mas-
ters of Gifted Studies Program at
Mississippi University for Women.
At conferences, he often presents
a session titled “What’s New in
Young Adult Literature.” Reach him
at bseney@muw.edu. 2e
My response to Out of My Mind is purely and com-
pletely at Louise Rosenblatt’s emotive level! [If you don’t
know her research on the levels of response to literature,
please send me an e-mail me and I will “hook you up.”] If
not careful, I could get very preachy about this amazing
novel, but I will constrain myself and just urge you to read
this truly remarkable book. I promise, you will not be sorry.
Happy Reading!
Out of My Mind, concluded
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2
March 26-27, 2011 AEGUS International Conference,
Honolulu, Hawaii. By the Association for the Education of
Gifted Underachieving Students. For parents, educators,
clinicians. Find more information at www.aegus1.org/
about.html.
April 25-28, CEC Convention and Expo, National Harbor,
Maryland. For educators, professionals, parents. More
information at www.cec.sped.org.
July 10-15, Confratute, Storrs, Connecticut. By the Univer-
sity of Connecticut. For educators of the gifted. More infor-
mation at www.gifted.uconn.edu/confratute.
July 15-17, SENG Summit, Seattle, Washington. By the
organization Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted.
For parents, educators, clinicians. More information at
www.sengifted.org.
Events
July 24-29, Boise, Idaho, 15th Annual Edufest. For educa-
tors of the gifted and talented. More information at www.
edufest.org.
August 8-12, Prague, Czech Republic (new location), 19th
World Conference for Gifted and Talented Children. For
educators, researchers; includes programs for parents
and kids. More information at www.worldconference2011.
org.
November 3-6, 2011, NAGC Convention, New Orleans,
Louisiana. For educators and other professionals; in-
cludes a parents’ day. More information at www.nagc.org.
Please note: For state association conferences relating
to giftedness, see Hoagies’ website. For additional con-
ferences on learning differences, see the website of the
Council for Exceptional Children. 2e
