CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS

Presenter: Tanya Thorogood

2e STUDENTS… GIFTED BUT LEARNING DISABLED…How to alleviate their agonies in high school.

Being an exceptional student is tricky. These students’ intensity, curiosity and ability are often out of step with both their peers and the curriculum. They think faster, harder, wider and deeper. But being a twice-exceptional student is agonising. These students’ uncertainty, confusion and frustration undermine their ease and effort. They may read slower or write messier, sidetrack more or fail to finish. As such, many students with dual exceptionalities struggle to sustain their involvement in gifted programmes. The duality and disparity of gifted but learning-disabled students present practitioners with unique challenges in sustainable gifted education and nowhere more than in secondary schools. Despite the improved level of identification of giftedness, and its corresponding validation in education budgets, sadly many gifted children remain unseen, because of their intrusive underpinning skills. Behaviour Masks Norming This interactive workshop is grounded in global and national research on the role of neurophysiological functioning in learning differences and sensory processing. It offers proven, practical and integrated strategies for identifying, remediating and compensating for these variations. And on the way, these students’ agonies can be alleviated and they can put wind in their sails.