Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students by Christine Fonseca

Author:Christine Fonseca
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc

Twice-Exceptional Children

Twice-exceptional children often experience increased frustration due to the way in which both parts of their personality interface. The learning-disabled, yet gifted child, for example, often will underperform because of frustration related to the inability to express her ideas at school as a result of her learning disability. This frustration can create a continuous cycle of poor task initiation at school, which ultimately leads to more arguments in the home setting. Strategies to address both the learning difficulties and the frustration are required if a positive change is going to be made.

Learning difficulties are best addressed through collaboration in the school setting. By maintaining consistent communication with the school, adjustments to the workload can be handled with little difficulty.

Dealing with the frustration can be more difficult, as the gifted child often associates performance with intelligence. Because they struggle with learning, many gifted children with learning disabilities make the assumption that they are not smart at all or that their weakness permeates all aspects of learning. Teaching the child to discern between accurate mental messages and inaccurate messages is vital if success in this area is going to be gained.

One method that helps the child learn to discern correct from incorrect information is a strategy I call Proof:

1.Start by asking the child to identify what she believes about her learning and school (see Worksheet 9). Make this as specific as possible. Ask clarifying questions as needed.

2.Once the child is able to identify the mental messages she holds about her ability to complete her work, ask her to find proof or evidence that the message is correct. This must be tangible evidence that can have no meaning other than confirming the mental message she is holding about herself.

3.If she finds proof, help her analyze the accuracy of the proof.

4.If she does not find proof, help her create a new mental message about her own competencies.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.