Gifted but Learning Disabled: A Puzzling Paradox (continued)

•  Find sources of information that are appropriate for students who may have difficulty reading. Some examples are visitations, interviews, photographs, pictorial histories, films, lectures, or experimentation. Remember, these children do not want the curriculum to be less challenging or demanding. Rather, they need alternative ways to receive the information.
• Provide advanced organizers to help students receive and communicate information. Students who have difficulty organizing and managing time also benefit from receiving outlines of class lectures, study guides, and a syllabus of topics to be covered. Teach students who have difficulty transferring ideas to a sequential format on paper to use brainstorming and webbing to generate outlines and organize written work. Provide management plans in which tasks are listed sequentially with target dates for completion. Finally, provide a structure or visual format to guide the finished product. A sketch of an essay or science project board will enable these students to produce a well-organized product.
•  Use technology to promote productivity. Technology has provided efficient means to organize and access information, increase accuracy in mathematics and spelling, and enhance the visual quality of the finished product. In short, it allows students with learning disabilities to hand in work of which they can feel proud. Preventing these students from using word processing programs to complete all written assignments is like prohibiting blind children from using texts printed in braille!
• Offer a variety of options for communication of ideas. Writing is not the only way to communicate; all learning can be expressed and applied in a variety of modes. Slides, models, speeches, mime, murals, and film productions are examples. Remember, however, to offer these options to all children. Alternate modes should be the rule rather than the exception.
• Help students who have problems in short-term memory develop strategies for remembering. The use of mnemonics, especially those created by students themselves, is one effective strategy to enhance memory. Visualization techniques have also proved to be effective. Resources are listed at the end of this digest.

   4. Encourage awareness of individual strengths and weaknesses. It is imperative that students who are gifted and learning disabled understand their abilities, strengths, and weaknesses so that they can make intelligent choices about their future. If a goal that is important to such a students will require extensive reading, and, if reading is a weak area, the student will have to acknowledge the role of effort and the need for assistance to achieve success. "Rap" sessions, in which these students can discuss their frustrations and learn how to cope with their strange mix of abilities and disabilities, are helpful. Mentoring experiences with adults who are gifted and learning disabled will lend validity to the belief that such individuals can succeed.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, students who are both gifted and learning disabled must learn how to be their own advocates. They must ultimately choose careers that will accentuate their strengths. In doing so they will meet others who think, feel, and create as they do.

One such student, after years of feeling different and struggling to succeed, was finally able to make appropriate decisions about what he truly needed in his life. He was an outstanding amateur photographer who loved music. He had also started several "businesses" during his teenage years. In his junior year at college he became depressed and realized that he was totally dissatisfied with his coursework, peers, and instructors. He wondered whether he should quit school. After all, he was barely earning C's in his courses. His advisor suggested that he might like to create his own major, perhaps in the business of art. That was the turning point in this young man's life. For the first time since primary grades, he began to earn A's in his courses. He related that he finally felt worthwhile. "You know," he said, "finally I'm with people who think like me and have my interests and values. I am found!"

References

Baum, S. (1984). Meeting the needs of learning disabled gifted children. Roeper Review, 7, 16-19.

Baum, S. (1988). An enrichment program for gifted learning disabled students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 32, 226- 230.

Baum, S. & Owen, S. (1988). High Ability/Learning Disabled Students: How are they different? Gifted Child Quarterly, 32, 321-326.

Fox, L. H., Brody, L. & Tobin, D. (Eds.) (1983). Learning disabled gifted children: Identification and programming. Baltimore, MD: Allyn & Bacon.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books, Inc.

Maslow, A. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrum.

Renzulli, J. (1978). What makes giftedness: Reexamining a definition. Phi Delta Kappan, 60, 180-184.

Whitmore, J. (1980). Giftedness, conflict, and underachievement. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.