Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties: Overcoming Obstacles and Realizing Potential

Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties: Overcoming Obstacles and Realizing Potential is an engaging must-read for any parent, educator, or counselor of smart kids who face learning difficulties. The authors, who have more than 20 years experience working with and advocating for gifted and learning-disabled children, provide useful, practical advice for helping smart kids with learning challenges succeed in school.

The purpose of Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties is to guide parents and educators toward identifying and planning for smart kids with learning challenges so that they will reach their true potential. This book deals with research and experience the authors have gained from working directly with students who are smart, but struggle in school. The authors present learning and teaching methods that have been applied successfully to both the gifted and talented and the learning-disabled populations. These methods can, and should, be used with all bright kids with learning difficulties, whether or not they have official labels.

Topics covered in the book include identifying and recognizing gifted/learning-disabled students, what the law says about this population, planning and developing accommodations that empower these students, what works and doesn't work in the classroom, tools and checklists to build supportive learning environments, and the roles and responsibilities of parents, students, and school personnel.

For additional information on gifted students with learning difficulties, see Distinguishing Characteristics of Gifted Students With Disabilities, Teaching Gifted Students With Disabilities, and Successful Strategies for Twice-Exceptional Students.

Educational Resource

Rich Weinfeld is a national leader in the education of gifted children with learning difficulties. Weinfeld was instrumental in coordinating the Montgomery County, MD, gifted and learning-disabled program and is currently an educational advocate in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area.

Linda Barnes-Robinson has worked with children and parents for more than 25 years, and has devoted her professional life to advocating for children and families. With Montgomery County Public Schools, she coordinated the identification of gifted and talented students, advocated for parents and students, and worked to establish one of the first comprehensive programs for gifted/learning-disabled students in the nation.

Linda is a nationally recognized trainer and educational consultant in gifted identification, gifted/learning-disabled programs, and conflict resolution and mediation. She has coauthored and edited numerous articles, manuals, books, and curricula documents. Her most recent publications include two articles for the journal Teaching Exceptional Children.

She received her bachelor's degree from Cedar Crest College, her master's degree from The George Washington University, and a postgraduate certificate in family mediation from The Catholic University of America.