Jen Merrill, author of the “Laughing at Chaos” blog, brings laughter, tears, and honesty to her latest book by GHF Press, “If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional.” Join Jen on her journey through discovery, understanding, and acceptance, as she copes with the challenges that only the gifted and twice exceptional can create.
This helpful guide walks parents through the terminology, signs, and challenges associated with twice exceptionality, as well as information about testing and the best ways to empower children who are 2e.
Jade Rivera has been working with twice exceptional children for nearly 10 years. Her work is inspired by her time spent running a micro-school in Oakland, California, where she worked to create a highly individualized learning environment. Jade offers family coaching, educational coaching, public speaking appearances, and community workshops to help 2e children and their families, as well as educators and professionals, better understand the unique needs and abilities of 2e children.
Jessica Thayer provides insightful coaching for gifted and sensitive individuals, especially those in professional positions. Her perceptual acuity, accompanied by her ability to describe complex and subtle themes, enables her to help highly gifted and sensitive clients discern and resolve challenges. She is based out of the Charlottesville area.
CTY’s Diagnostic and Counseling Center provides individualized assessments and educational guidance for students of all ages. The goal is to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and learning style of students, and to help families find ways to support their bright child’s educational needs.
Licensed psychologist Dr. Karen M. Jordan provides psychological and psychoeducational assessments for children, adolescents, and adults. These assessments are designed to address issues such as giftedness, best school fit, learning disorders, and emotional concerns. The center is located in Overland Park, Kansas.
Kira Christensen is a Licensed Educational Psychologist in Sacramento, CA, specializing in educational consulting and diagnostic assessment of students from elementary school through high school and college, including adult students. Kira determines the presence of giftedness, intellectual and learning disabilities, including dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, as well as the presence of memory, attention, and social emotional and behavioral problems impeding learning, such as ADHD, anxiety and depression.
Laughing at Chaos is a blog started by Jen Torbeck Merrill, the mother of a twice-exceptional child. She is the author of If This Is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional, a book which many 2e families found extremely relatable and comforting. The topics discussed on her blog focus mainly on gifted families and gifted advocacy.
LD OnLine seeks to help children and adults reach their full potential by providing accurate and up-to-date information and advice about learning disabilities and ADHD. The site features hundreds of helpful articles, multimedia, monthly columns by noted experts, first person essays, children’s writing and artwork, a comprehensive resource guide, very active forums, and a Yellow Pages referral directory of professionals, schools, and products.
Linda Powers-Leviton specializes in counseling for the gifted. She has her own psychotherapy private practice in addition to working at the West Coast Office of the Gifted Development Center. Her expertise with the gifted population (particularly the twice exceptional–those who also have learning or emotional challenges) has prepared her to offer a uniquely specialized program to address the particular needs of this community. She offers services by phone or email in addition to in person appointments.
The Long Island Whole Child Academy has taken the one-room schoolhouse and revolutionized it into a 21st Century center of experimentation and learning, offering a rigorous and open-ended academic program infused with clinically proven strategies to reduce school-related anxieties, ADHD, and dysregulation. Their team of educational and clinical collaborators work in tandem to deliver the best in gifted educational content designed for each unique child.
In Making the Choice, Corin Barsily Goodwin, Executive Director of the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum (GHF), and Mika Gustavon, MFT, discuss how giftedness and twice exceptionality (gifted plus learning differences or “invisible disabilities”) might affect the educational needs of your child. They also consider a variety of options regarding educational choices and the path to making them. Finally, they provide some questions (and hopefully answers) intended to help you make your way along this path.
Maryland Educators of Gifted Students provides professional development, support, and growth opportunities for educators responsible for facilitating the education of gifted students.
The brightest, most creative children and adults are often being misdiagnosed with behavioral and emotional disorders such as ADHD, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, Bipolar, OCD, or Asperger?s. Many receive unneeded medication and inappropriate counseling as a result. Physicians, psychologists, and counselors are unaware of characteristics of gifted children and adults that mimic pathological diagnoses. Six nationally prominent health care professionals describe ways parents and professionals can distinguish between gifted behaviors and pathological behaviors. These authors have brought to light a widespread and serious problem: the wasting of lives from the misdiagnosis of gifted children and adults and the inappropriate treatment that often follows.
Founded by parents and teachers in 1974, MAGC is a non-profit organization that serves as a public advocate for gifted children and youth in the state of Mississippi. MAGC is the only state-level organization specifically for the gifted. In 1988, MAGC initiated legislation that resulted in state mandated gifted programs and their funding in all Mississippi public school districts. The mission of the Mississippi Association for Gifted Children is to advocate for appropriate educational opportunities that address the unique needs of Mississippi’s gifted children and foster the development of their abilities and potential; encourage advocacy, communication, and collaboration among educators, parents, agencies, and other organizations; and work for improvement in all areas of education and for better educational opportunities for all children. MAGC is an affiliate of the National Assocation for Gifted Children.
The organization goes by the name of ‘Neufeld Institute’ in order to honour the contribution of Dr. Gordon Neufeld whose life’s work has been to create a comprehensive evidence-based model for the unfolding of human potential. The institute was created initially in response to a growing number of educators and helping professionals who wanted in-depth training in attachment-based developmental paradigm approach. The Institute has grown rapidly in response to demands for parent education, professional development and continuing education. As individuals, they are a group of parents, teachers and helping professionals who have experienced the transforming power of insight and organized themselves into faculty, staff, facilitators and volunteers to help pass on this insight to others involved with children. Although the Neufeld Institute is physically headquartered in Vancouver, it uses the latest internet technology to provide training and education throughout the world. Neufeld Faculty as well as training and education programs exist currently in a number of languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Swedish, Russian, Danish and Dutch.
