Smart Kids With LD

By Susan Baum, Ph.D.

Education professor Susan Baum, Ph.D. is a leading authority on children who are both gifted and learning disabled. Here she discusses the unique challenges facing this often misunderstood, misdiagnosed group of students.

Many people assume that learning disabilities and giftedness are at opposite ends of a continuum. In some states, a student may be identified with either LD or giftedness, but not both. In fact, we know that learning disabilities and giftedness can—and often do—exist simultaneously. You’ve probably come across people who exhibit remarkable talents or strengths in some areas and disabling weaknesses in others. This is the 8-year-old bug expert who can name and classify a hundred species of insects, yet he can’t read; or the obviously bright student who is struggling to stay on grade level.

Missed Diagnosis

Often bright children who are having difficulty maintaining their grades are neither identified nor offered services because they are not failing or performing below grade level. But a profile from the WISC IV IQ test can provide the evidence for diagnosis of such a subtle learning disability.

Likewise, children who have been diagnosed with LD are passed over for gifted programs. Their overall IQ test scores, depressed by their learning disability, prevent them from being identified and receiving services they deserve as gifted or talented. Again, examining areas of strengths on the WISC IV can provide the needed evidence for proper identification, setting the stage for appropriate services.

Different Shapes and Sizes

Students that are gifted and LD can be grouped into three categories, each resulting in unique challenges:

1. Identified gifted students who have subtle learning disabilities. While increased effort may be expected of them due to their obvious intellect, they often do not know how to do what’s being asked of them due to their LD.
2. Unidentified students whose gifts and disabilities are masked by average achievement. These students are struggling to stay at grade level. Their superior intellectual ability is working overtime to compensate for undiagnosed learning difficulties.
3. Identified LD who also are gifted. These students are most at risk because of the implicit message that often accompanies an LD diagnosis: something is wrong that must be fixed before anything else can happen. As a result their talents are put on hold, when in fact, nurturing their gifts is the key to helping them deal with their learning challenges.

In the final analysis, students must learn to be their own advocates. But parents and teachers can help by following these general guidelines:

• Focus attention on developing your child’s gifts
• Provide a nurturing environment that values individual differences
• Encourage compensation strategies
• Encourage awareness of individual strengths

ADHD Drop-Out Rates

Having ADHD may make teens less likely to finish high school, says a new University of California, Davis study. According to the study published in the July issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, almost a third of students with ADHD do not graduate with their peers. “That’s high compared with the national high-school dropout rate of 15 percent,” says lead author Dr. Joshua Breslau.

People with ADHD may have trouble focusing, controlling impulsive behaviors, and/or are overly active. When looking at the different types of ADHD, the study found all types associated with a high dropout rate.

The study also found students who use alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs are at greater risk for dropping out. “Psychiatric disorders have an adverse effect on education,” Breslau says. “There are really two main disorders, ADHD and conduct disorder, and there is an interlinking of smoking and drop out that is troubling.”

Researchers say parents need to make sure they are working together with their schools so that the pediatrician and the child’s teacher are communicating about the child’s medical health and performance in school. “We need to better integrate school health with what schools do, education,” says Breslau.

Summer Reading Closes Achievement Gap

If you’re that parent who struggled to get your child to crack a book this summer, you’re about to reap the reward for fighting the good fight. According to the National Summer Learning Association, students who don’t engage in reading during the summer months lose the equivalent of two months of reading and spelling skills by the time they return to the classroom in the fall. Those that do read during the off months gain about a month.

Although the summer slide is greatest among low-income children whose exposure to reading materials at home is limited, the antidote for all kids is the same: provide access to books that kids are interested in reading. Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville recently completed a three-year study comparing students who were given books of their own choosing to take home for the summer with those who were not offered books. Their findings, confirming earlier studies, found that summer reading was definitely beneficial. In fact, this study found that summer reading was just as effective, if not more than attending summer school. Says lead researcher Richard Allenton, “We found our intervention was less expensive and less extensive than either providing summer school or engaging in comprehensive schools reform.”

So make sure that your child spends at least part of the summer break in the library finding, and then reading, books he enjoys. The payoff will be worth it.