BRAIN AWARENESS WEEK is this week, March 12-18. So take a few minutes to ponder the brain in your head or in the head of that twice-exceptional child you raise or educate. Maybe visit the site of the Dana Foundation, which co-founded Brain Awareness Week. Or find brain resources at the site of The Society for Neuroscience. Separately and possibly in observation of BAW, the Diane Rehm show on March 14 featured the topic of "The Emotional Life of Your Brain," about the interaction of chemistry, thought, and emotion; find the show.

AD/HD DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT. A pediatrician writing for the Boston Globe describes what are apparently common but sketchy approaches for diagnosing AD/HD in children, and the tendency to treat symptoms rather than the underlying causes. She also notes that current practice makes it possible to diagnose and treat AD/HD without ever learning about family history or stressors in the child's life. In response to all this, she offers changes to the process of diagnosis and treatment of AD/HD. One recommendation: having a minimum of two 50-minute visits [!] in order to evaluate the child's issues. Read more.

IT'S OKAY TO BE NOT NORMAL is the message from a psychiatrist writing at a Fox News site. He bemoans the increase in rates of diagnosis of AD/HD. He suggests that Huckleberry Finn would today be on Adderall. He says, "We must empower individuals to think it's ok to be 'not normal' and change the mindset that everything can be 'fixed' with a pill or a few therapy sessions." Read more. 

SENG. The March issue of the SENGVine Newsletter is out, with articles focusing on the topic of diversity within SENG initiatives. Find the newsletter. 

ASK DR. JUDY. Judy Willis is presenting a free webinar on April 5 (rescheduled) titled "What Makes the Adolescent and Teen Brain So Different and What Should Educators Do about these Differences?" Find out more. 

AND FINALLY, THIS. Got a crabby kid? (Or a crabby spouse?) It could be trans fatty acids, which according to a new study are linked to irritability and aggression "in men and women of all ages." Find out more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

TO MEDICATE OR NOT -- that's often an issue in a family with 2e children, and an Indiana news outlet takes a look, citing scary stories as well as successes. One success was a young man with behavior issues, who, with the right meds, went from getting Ds and Fs to As and Bs. The report also notes a shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists. Find the report. 

BROCK EIDE ON NPR. The co-author of The Dyslexic Advantage was a guest on NPR's Diane Rehm Show on February 15 for a discussion of "The Dyslexic Brain." Also on the show, Jeffrey Gilger, whose work has been featured in 2e Newsletter. Find the show.

"YES I CAN" AWARD. A young man in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, has won a self-advocacy award in CEC's "Yes I Can" recognition. Eleven-year-old Cade Gardner has LDs and was born with a cleft palate, but speaks to groups about overcoming obstacles, according to news reports. Find out more.

CEC, THE PREZ, AND EDUCATION. The Council for Exceptional Children has released a statement in response to President Obama's education budget request for fiscal year 2013. The president gets praise for a couple things and disappointment for a couple. CEC charts out the request for FY 2012 compared to 2012; in the chart, we see that funding for the category "Gifted and Talented" is... still... zero. Find the statement.

A.T. BOOK ON SALE. In the January/February issue of 2e Newsletter we profiled Joan Green, author of the Prufrock book The Ultimate Guide to Assistive Technology in Special Education. Prufrock has put the book on sale for 40 percent off for the remainder of this month. Find out more.

DSM DISCUSSION. Following the discussion over the upcoming DSM-5? A University of Michigan psychiatrist has weighed in with his opinions, prefaced by the statement "Almost no one likes the DSM, but no one knows what to do about it." Read more.

DC-AREA EVENT. Don't forget the third annual "Diamonds in the Rough" event in Shady Grove, Maryland, on Sunday, March 16. Early-bird registration -- $25 -- ends February 29. Find out more.

HORMEL G-T ED SYMPOSIUM. Registration is now open fo the 4th Annual Hormel Foundation Gifted and Talented Education Symposium, scheduled for June 11-14, 2012, in Austin, Minnesota. Readers of 2e Newsletter will be familiar with some of the presenters. (Austin is also home to the SPAM Museum, a tour of which is one of the optional events at the symposium.) Find out more.

SENG. The SENG Vine Newsletter for February is out, including news that registration is now open for the summer SENG conference in Milwaukee. Find the newsletter.

ANTI-BULLYING. The entertainer known as Lady Gaga is establishing a foundation focusing on anti-bullying and self-esteem for youth. The organization, Born This Way Foundation, is to be officially launched with an event at Harvard University on February 29th. Guests at the launch will include Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, US Secretary of Heath and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and Professor Charles Ogletree. Find the pre-launch website for the foundation at http://www.bornthiswayfoundation.org/.

AND FINALLY, THIS. The US Census Bureau reminds us that February is the anniversary of America's first public school. The Boston Latin School opened in 1635, presumably in Boston, Massachusetts.

GIFTED ATHLETE, AD/HD. We believe in Gardner's Multiple Intelligences, so a recent sports story was of interest to us. It's about a New York Mets baseball player who played in the minor leagues for decade before accepting a diagnosis of AD/HD and beginning to take AD/HD medications. After that, he blossomed and made it back to the majors. Read more.

PARENTING  MATTERS -- especially if the kid has a short allele of gene 5-HTTLPR,  a gene associated with a predisposition to depression. Dutch researchers have found that as far as parenting quality was concerned, “If the environment is bad, these children have worse outcomes, but if it is good, they have much better outcomes.” They called these susceptible kids "orchids" because they need a good environment to flourish, as opposed to weeds that will flourish anywhere. Read more.

PARENTING RESOURCE. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a site called HealthyChildren.org. Included on the site is a feature called "Sound Advice on Mental Health," a collection of audios by pediatricians on behavior, mental health, and emotions. Sample audio topics: adolescent mental health; how to recognize anxiety and depression; and AD/HD in children and adolescents. The site also offers transcripts of the audios for those who read faster than they listen. Find the site.

ABOUT.COM has a page called "Understanding Learning Differences" that's based on a presentation by Jonathan Mooney. Find out what he said.

AUTISM SPEAKS has issued its "Top 10 Science Autism Research Achievements of 2011." Find them.

SAYING THANK YOU is the topics of WrightsLaw's Special Ed Advocate this month. The organization offers to "learn how and why to say thank you to those who have helped your child succeed." Read more.

AT SENG. The organization Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted has posted an article by Melissa Sornik, a contributor to 2e Newsletter. The article is a primer on twice-exceptionalilty and is titled "Gifted and Underachieving: The Twice-Exceptional Learner." Find this and other SENG resources.

WE WISH YOU the best of the holiday season as you raise, educate, or counsel the twice-exceptional children in your life.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

LANDMARK COLLEGE, a 2-year school in Vermont that focuses on educating students with LDs, was featured in an article and video by USA Today. Besides academics -- or, rather, as a foundation for them -- Landmark teaches organizational and compensatory skills. Landmark can serve as a springboard to attendance (and graduation from) a four-year college. Go to USA Today. 

THE EDUCATORS GUILD NEWSLETTER for October is out and posted on the DITD website. In it are an article by Jim Delisle on the peer relations of gifted students; gifted news; and news about DITD. Find it.

THE SENG VINE newsletter is also out, including articles on GT kids and behavior, the role of a pediatric doctor in caring for gifted kids, and more. Find it.

PRODIGY: WHAT NEXT? In Deborah Ruf's October Talent Igniter newsletter we found a pointer to a story on a young prodigy, now 13, who at age 9 got perfect 5's in five AP math and science tests. From the article: "When he's not in class, he's working through a stack of books at home; he keeps a list of everything he has read. He's absorbed 52 textbooks on science and math: read the physics lectures of Richard Feynman, and books on robot programming, systems biology, immunobiology, fractals, Latin (a new passion), music theory and the work of Fibonacci, René Descartes, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, among others." Read more. 

EDUCATOR'S RESOURCE. Adobe offers a free curriculum and resources for educators to  "create breakthrough learning experiences for young people." Find out more. 

AD/HD AWARENESS EXPO. During AD/HD Awareness Week, visitors may attend a free online Awareness Expo. Find out more. 

NO TV FOR KIDS UNDER 2 -- That's what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends. On the other hand, this current recommendation is evidently less restrictive than the AAP's prior issuance on the topic. Got an almost-toddler? Read more.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

ANOTHER AD/HD DANGER. With our kids in the car one day, we almost ran over a boy whose family we knew to be a hotbed of AD/HD; the boy, on his bicycle, simply rode into the street to cross it without looking for traffic -- or else seriously misjudged traffic. Had we not braked quickly, the results would have not been pretty. Now a study reported in Pediatrics shows that children with AD/HD, compared to normally developing children, do not process the information necessary to safely cross the street. In the study, children with AD/HD chose smaller gaps in traffic to cross within, and had considerably less time to reach the end of the crosswalk before the next car approached, resulting in a more dangerous crossing environment. Read more at US News/HealthDay. 

BOOK DEAL FROM PRUFROCK. In honor of of National Parenting Gifted Children Week (last week), Prufrock is offering an e-book version of their title Parenting Gifted Kids, by Jim Delisle, for $2.99. Sounds like the offer expires soon. Find out more. 

ARE YOU A WORKING MOM? A study indicates that your children are no more likely to have behavioral or emotional problems than kids in families with stay-at-home moms. Read more. 

FEDERAL FUNDING FOR SPECIAL ED. Apparently, long ago, the U.S. government pledged to pay 40 percent of the cost of educating students with disabilities, but the current federal spending is around 16 percent. Now a senator has introduced a bill to make up the gap. No word on how the bill, if passed, would affect 2e students. Read more at Education Week or the site of CEC. 

BOOKS BEGONE. South Korea will replace paper textbooks with tablet PCs, according to recent media reports. The move will allow learners to take more advantage of media-based materials and provide fast access to lots of online information. (In theory, tablets would also offer alternative ways for learners to take in the same information, accommodating those who do better with visually-based or audio-based materials.) Read more. 

HAPPY MONDAY! More blog posts soon.

From the Publishers of 2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter

ASPIES IN COLLEGE. NPR aired a story on how some colleges are helping students with Asperger's survive and thrive. Colorado State University, for example, has a program called "Opportunities for Post-secondary Success" that involves mentoring and other services. Find the story.

ON TV: LD GOING TO COLLEGE. ABC interviewed an educator who provided advice on steps to take when heading for college with an LD. No transcript, but embedded video is at this site.

EXERCISE BALLS AS CLASSROOM SEATS. Some schools have good results allowing students to sit on exercise balls to increase attention, fitness, and even handwriting. Read more about the experiences of some schools and educators.

HOW GENIUS WORKS is the title of a "culture special report" in Atlantic. Various creative minds -- TC Boyle, Paul Simon, Frank Gehry, Grant Achatz, and more -- explain the how and the process of creation. Find it.

AND FINALLY, THIS. Anyone who's argued with a toddler has likely tried to figure out techniques to shorten the discussion process. A charming video of a father negotiating with his son brought back to us memories of such negotiations. Watch it and laugh.