Customer Reviews

Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties: Overcoming Obstacles and Realizing Potential

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Rich Weinfeld, Linda Barnes-Robinson, Sue Jeweler, and Betty Roffman Shevitz have written a very comprehensive, clear, and practical handbook for helping bright children with a range of learning and developmental difficulties. Based upon their rich experiences developing nationally-recognized programs for gifted kids with learning disabilities, ADHD, and Aspergers/Autism (and other Pervasive Developmental Disorders), they provide practical and creative recommendations for helping kids with uneven development. Providing many examples and exceptionally useful suggestions for educational strategies, accommodations, and modifications, the authors provide parents, teachers, and mental health professionals with a deep appreciation for the unique needs of gifted children with learning differences.

As a neuropsychologist in private practice, I will continue to recommend this book to my clients. Unlike many books that espouse theoretical positions but are thin on suggestions, Smart Kids with Learning Difficulties offers practical advice and guidance for helping students with a wide range of developmental differences.

Finally, we have a practical guide to the effective education of bright but struggling students which can be used by all players on the team: parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, and the students themselves. The earlier giftedness is recognized and learning disabilities are unmasked, diagnosed, and planned for, the less likely it is that these students will be defeated by repeated failure and the burden of emotional baggage that often develops in the wake of crushed self-confidence. Our country cannot afford to waste the brain power and creativity of our "different learners."

This powerful book brims with optimism and genuine affection for gifted kids with learning disabilities. The crux of the message is to discover and engage the student through his/her talents and interests while directly teaching strategies for getting around deficits and using accommodations and assistive technology to build success. The sections in Chapter 3 on adaptations and accommodations and what does and doesn't work are particularly strong. The glossary will help parents and students interpret educational buzzwords like metacognition.

In my work with GT/LD students, both in the public school classroom in Maryland and now in my college advisory business in Oregon, I have seen amazing strides made by kids who have been taught by the principles of this book. I recommend it highly to my clients.

I am a mom with a very bright 3rd grade son who has been diagnosed with a learning difference. So I appreciate all the help I can get navigating my way through the special education/IEP system. What sets this book apart from the many others I have read is the incredible number of practical solutions and suggestions in it. I am using these ideas at home, can pass them onto my son's team of teachers at school, as well as evalute my son's current program. With a supportive tone and charts full of specifics that focus on bringing out the positive from the many challenges a special child may face, this will be a valuable guide that I will treasure and learn from for years to come. This book offers substance, not the fluff I often come across. I highly recommend it.

Co-authored by Rich Weinfeld , Linda Barnes-Robinson, Sue Jeweler, & Betty Roffman Shevitz (a team of leading experts drawn from America's "cutting-edge" schools), Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties: Overcoming Obstacles And Realizing Potential is an informed and informative study of teaching strategies appropriate to children with a variety of significant learning disorders. Covering such particulars as Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD and other Attention Deficit Disorders, Dyslexia and other learning disabilities, Autism, and other restrictive learning barriers, Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties identifies particular children and presents the legal requirements, accommodations, and classroom/curriculum solutions drawn from each of the authors many years of practical experience in teaching children with various learning problems. Enhanced with a glossary, references and resources, Smart Kids With Learning Difficulties is very strongly recommended for parents and teachers of children with variable learning disorders for its concise and thorough documentation and "reader friendly" text.

It is not everyday that one comes across a book that profoundly alters the discourse about education; though here is one that does, which at the same time could not be more deeply grounded in proven school practices. If your child excelled in school in the past, though is performing with increasing inconsistency in the present, this book will offer you some answers to that problem.
Although the strategies outlined by its authors are intended to help Gifted and Talented Children with Learning Differences (GT/LD), their utility is far greater. If you stop to reflect for a moment, all of us fit the description of that acronym; we are, in fact, all "smart kids" in one way or another, who nonetheless face difficulties not only in learning, but in applying what we've learned, throughout our lives. So the issues presented by the authors here bear relevance well beyond their possible application to the needs of special students. They apply to everyone and everything that goes on in our schools - from the nursery level to post-doctoral programs. Identifying and constructively developing the unique and innate gifts and talents of each person remains one of the principal aims of education. Yet learning how to capitalize on learners' differences, rather than insist on homogeneity in their performance, is the issue that most profoundly plagues most educational systems. It also makes our nation's growing insistence on standardized testing so misguided in its attempt to ensure real and enduring educational achievement. Our elementary and secondary schools, our colleges and universities, and the adult learning programs that are found in business, religious and other institutional settings, would prove more exciting for everyone involved, and far more productive for our society as a whole, if the diverse methods of teaching and assessment that are described in this book were universally adopted.
Beyond the book's incisive descriptions of the aptitudes and attitudes of bright though often disadvantaged youth who don't succeed under traditional teaching methods, the book is helpful in delimiting the variable notion of "giftedness" from several historical, educational and legal perspectives. It also proposes a set of practical methods for constructing and uniformly evaluating school programs that are designed to address this particular, though universal, educational need. Drawn from the authors' work in the public schools over the past twenty years, what is so refreshing about their approach is that it begins with the identification of students' individual strengths, rather than with their weaknesses. Hence when difficulties arise for a student in a class, the initiative proceeds not by seeking to redress the student's deficiencies, with a program of remediation, but rather proposes the design of a set of strategies intended to establish his/her independence and "self-efficacy". This has profound ramifications for how that individual's learning actually proceeds, by ensuring both his/her commitment to the program that is proposed, and the collaborative involvement of the entire school community in the process. Under these conditions, teachers learn how to develop dynamic and highly interactive instructional styles, using a variety of different modalities - whose goal is to help each student succeed, rather than to be allowed to fail.
The book offers a special boon to parents who may not be well-versed in contemporary pedagogy, because it enables them to understand in lay terms not only what successful academic programs look like, but how they can be developed from the ground up, utilizing the resources that are commonly available within most public school systems. At the same time, it explains the teaching methods that experience has demonstrated typically do not work for many children, and shows how they can be modified to help young people succeed. It also goes to great lengths in describing the kinds of assessment tools that can be developed to enhance the school's effectiveness for every child.
With literally tens of charts, tables, forms, checklists and road maps included - that can be readily reproduced and distributed to all of the stakeholders in any school, religious organization, business, or other educational system - as well as an extensive glossary of topical educational terms, and a notable list of references, the book could not be more practical nor useful in advancing the best educational practices that our nation has developed.
In short, this book deserves widespread national attention. Read and follow it to help your child and your school, and you will find yourself making a contribution to the advancement of our society in the process.


* The reviewer is an educational consultant affiliated with the International Association for Intercultural Education (in Brussels), and the National Society for the Study of Education (in Chicago).

I am a high school teacher who sees the spectrum of abilities in my regular classes, as well as my AP and IB classes. I wanted to find a book to help me work with the students who struggle, but I did not find this one to be particularly helpful.

While I see some value in this book in helping to develop strategies for elementary and junior high students, very little of it is directed toward the older students. I appreciate the intent of the authors to help parents and educators work within the system to develop each student's potential, but I have some concerns. The book seems to be based on an ideal school system, where the teachers have small classes and unlimited resources at their disposal. I work with 25 to 30 students in each of my six classes, and I do not see any practical advice to help meet the needs of each of my students.

I desperately want to help each student to succeed, but have not seen much in the way of practical solutions. The idea of "teams" for each student is laudable, but I have not seen how to make this work, especially since I only have a 45-minute planning period each day. I am willing to stay after school, but that still does not give me much time, and trying to schedule a team for each student is impossible.

I also have issues with the advice that seems to contradict itself in different chapters. Teachers are encouraged to have high standards and rigorous curriculum, but are also instructed to give assessments that are not in the area of the student's difficulty. This seems, to me, to be exacerbating the problem. I would like practical methods to help students develop the areas in which they are weak, not ignore them. I am also concerned that the students will have a harder time once they reach "the real world" because they haven't developed the necessary skills to succeed. It is even less practical for my AP and IB students who are required to take lengthy, rigorous exams and need to be able to communicate effectively in order to be successful.

I would also like to see more parent involvement, other than advocating. I think that parents need specific guidance on how to help their child cope with their difficulties - organization, time-management, etc. - that cannot be taught strictly in the classroom.

Please understand that I have the best intentions. I am not a teacher who "can't be bothered" to help these students, but I do not think this book was very helpful.

As a parent who raised a "Smart Kid with Learning Difficulties", I can honestly say I wish this book had been available to me and to my school district 25 years ago. My daughter is now an adult and this book deals with every issue that we faced while navigating the educational system and raising our daughter. During the early years when we were trying to understand the paradox our daughter represented, I felt utterly alone in our struggle to help her. It is comforting to know that since our journey began so much has happened with regard to awareness and options for kids with special needs. I highly recommend this book for both parents and educators as they navigate the complex world of living with and educating our very special children. Rich Weinfeld, Linda Barnes-Robinson, Sue Jeweler and Betty Roffman Shevitz have provided an exceptionally useful and helpful reference. My only wish is that it had been written 25 years ago!

As a parent of "Smart Kids, With Learning Difficulties", I have become to understand how their real world looks like. This book made me realize of the importance of understanding "their world" and how to appreciate their giftedness. It contains chapters that explains about how to identify their potential, school programs, how tohelp them overcome difficulties, etc. A very interesting book to read.

this was an easy, interesting read, in my quest for knowledge and understanding of my sons learning issues, I highly recommend this book for sorting out the confusing issue of why your smart kid just doesn't seem to get it.

If you teach this is a must have book. It is so informative but also written in a style easy to read. Really helped me with my LD gifted student.