Sunday, October 6, 2013
Marlo Payne Thurman is a private consultant specializing in identifying and meeting the needs of children who are gifted, yet asynchronous in their development. Marlo's clients circle the globe. For more information, contact Marlo directly: email@example.com
Sunday, February 5, 2012
By Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S.
In my practice, where I have specialized in working with highly intelligent children, I have seen a lot of kids who cut themselves. Over the years I have gained valuable insights that have helped me understand cutting behaviors and enabled me to offer appropriate supports to young people for whom cutting has become a method of coping.
To understand gifted kids who cut, we must first understand the evolution of cutting behavior. In today’s popular culture, cutting is merely the “new trend” in a long human history of self-mutilation. While we see this as abnormal, and we clearly should be concerned, every culture in human history records methods of self-inflicted pain as a path to altering one’s mental state. Medical research shows that physical pain stimulates the release of certain endorphins which calm the nervous system, clear the mind, and create a state of euphoria. In recent decades, body piercing, tattoos, bulimia, and even anorexia stand out as popular methods of seeking endorphin release. So, in my professional experience, cutting behavior is generally not an attempt at suicide. In fact, most kids who cut keep their “evidence” secret, and few want to die or even seriously hurt themselves.
Cutting behavior usually develops over time. Most cutters have a history of either biting themselves, head banging, picking their scabs, hair pulling, pricking or scratching themselves with pins, or nicking themselves with razors. For our gifted kids who self-mutilate, cutting seems to be a habituated response to deal with the intense emotional and cognitive overload. Almost all cutters will say that cutting, while it hurts some, actually feels good. Once the endorphin release occurs, cutters report that they feel calmer, are more in control, and have a clearer mind. Many also say that they are better able to sleep after a cutting episode. The bad news for cutters and their families is that the release of endorphins that comes from cutting feels so good that the cutter can easily fall into the habit of cutting. Additionally, for some, the self-inflicted pain must become more severe for the endorphin reaction to occur.
So how do we help? I have discovered that the starting point for many of these kids is in helping them find a way to get fully and deeply rested. For some, that may mean just taking a few days off of school every few weeks, with teacher support. For others, it may mean making changes in school and work schedules, academic course loads, leisure activities, and even sleep habits.
From there, counseling and medical support is often a necessary next step to help them get healthy. Kids who self-mutilate are usually depleted in many ways. The majority of my clients who opt for cutting behavior, when appropriately evaluated, are found to be suffering from adrenal fatigue. Because gifted kids spend so much just filtering their “noisy” world, I believe they have learned to rely heavily on their reserve fuel (the adrenal system) for everyday functioning. With that in mind, addressing nutrition, detoxification, and allergies, and providing breath-response training come next. I then expect all of my clients to engage in some form of physical exercise to naturally enhance their endorphins.
Advocacy with the school is often necessary as well. Frequently, the expectations, views, and available supports at school are inappropriate for gifted kids, especially if they also have some twice-exceptionality.
Finally, I use cognitive therapy and continued advocacy at school as well as advocacy at home to help kids and their teachers and parents to understand cognitive fatigue and its impact on energy and mental health.
These kids can learn to better understand their stressors, manage their adrenal systems, deal with the emotional intensities of being gifted, and find healthy ways to trigger their “feel good” endorphins. In time, and with proper help, kids who cut do “outgrow” their cutting behaviors.
*For more information on adrenal fatigue, see “Too Tired! Energy and Wellness in 2e Children, Parts 1 and 2” in the November, 2009, and January, 2010, issues of 2e Newsletter.
Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S., is a school psychologist, education consultant, and member of the 2e Newsletter Editorial Advisory Board. She specializes in assessment, advocacy, cognitive training, sensory and behavior support, and socio-emotional coaching for individuals from around the country who are gifted yet asynchronous. Marlo is the founder of the Brideun Learning Communities designed as a play-based, therapeutic school model for twice-exceptional children. She now operates 2E Consulting Service and is the Executive Director for the US College Autism Project. Marlo trains educators and professional around the globe to better meet the needs of twice-exceptional individuals.
Marlo Payne Thurman is a private consultant specializing in identifying and meeting the needs of children who are gifted, yet asynchronous in their development. Marlo's clients circle the globe. For more information, contact Marlo directly: firstname.lastname@example.org
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
By Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S.
“What is this world coming to?” I want to know why roughly 25 percent of all people in the U.S. are diagnosed with a mental health disorder and approximately 60 million people take medications to treat these conditions. Why the first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM) only had 60 categories, but today that number has tripled and promises to increase even more in the new edition. Why ten percent of school-age children have learning disabilities (not including AD/HD) and one in three students, on national average, drops out of school before graduation.
I have training in both education and psychology. As such, I’ve handed out my fair share of labels; and I can honestly say that our children today are not the happy, healthy kids of 20 years ago. But we can’t all be disordered. Instead of automatically assuming that our kids are just “sick,” let’s examine those educational, mental health, and medical systems that classify, label, treat, and medicate. Let’s ask some questions: When did we decide that everyone should be normal? With so many of our kids diagnosed with something, isn’t it clear that our systems may not work? And what is the value of human neurodiversity in our world today?
A Limited View of Normal
I often see cutting-edge medical research on the differences in brain development for children with AD/HD. Through the use of imaging data, we believe we have a picture of the “normal” brain of a child – what it should look like and how it should grow. Based on that data, medical and mental health professionals prescribe medications and therapies for children.
It all sounds convincing; but, in reality, we live under a disease-based mentality. As such, differences mean something is wrong. Researchers don’t often get funding to examine the parts of the AD/HD brain that might work better than the norm.
In the United States, we use 90 percent of the world’s Ritalin, and estimates of the number school-age children taking psychotropic medications are as high as 18 to 22 percent. All of these medications have side effects, some have never been properly evaluated for their use with children, and none have been evaluated for their impact on health throughout the entire human lifespan.
So why are so many thoughtful and well-intentioned parents putting their children on medications? The answer is simple. Their children are unhappy, they don’t function well in school, they have trouble with their peers, and the DSM has diagnosed a disorder. We are taught to believe in our teachers, our psychologists, and our doctors who are trained to know more than we do; so, because there generally isn’t another good option, we comply.
At one time, our compulsory school systems’ mission was to produce factory workers. In school, children learned to read, spell and write, do math, and study civics and elocution. Lessons were taught orally and reading, writing, and recitation tasks assessed the level of memorization obtained.
Little in our schools has changed since that time, despite the call from corporate CEO’s for out-of-the-box thinkers. Today’s business leaders seek bright, creative, independent problem solvers who can multitask. Unfortunately, our schools don’t teach that; and our mental health systems and medicines may actually be striving to cure out-of-the-box thinking.
In our schools, modern-day curriculum standards still treat information as if it were a valuable commodity, despite the possibility that learning these subjects in this way may no longer be relevant. In the past, students unsuccessful in this education model left school to help out in family businesses, or they trained in vocations or apprenticeships. Today’s children don’t have a viable out. They’re tied up in schooling and homework that have little applicability to today’s world, and they have few alternatives to school. The lives of our children are not congruent with the world they live in, and they fail to see how they will ever participate successfully in their future.
The Value of Neurodiversity
The term neurodiversity, coined in 1998 by Harvey Blume, refers to the idea that people experience the world differently based on their neurological attributes. Blume tells us that “neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general.”
So why the push to normalize? I learned the answer to that question on a farm in rural Wyoming. A group of normal cows is easier to herd. On the other hand, any farmer can tell us that all living species require diversity to survive; and without it, organisms lack vigor. On the farm, it’s the cows with “heart” – those who have passion, curiosity, and even a little hint of trouble-making – that out-produce the other cows.
In today’s world, however, with all of our new medical insights, we believe we should eliminate trouble-making, find ways to fit our kids into existing systems, and strive to normalize our children if we can. I, personally, am not convinced. We know for certain that individuals with “different” minds often do great things. Not many of the world’s famous movers and shakers would be described as normal. Furthermore, in the field of gifted education, shouldn’t we expect that the brain of a gifted child will develop differently than the brain of a normal child? After all, we know for certain that brain development is different on the other end of the bell curve. Unfortunately, we don’t have any studies that properly examine “normal” brain development in gifted children.
There are those who will argue that it’s too costly to change our educational, medical, and mental health systems. But what is the dollar value of eradicating our inherent cognitive differences? While the cost of changing our systems is great, the loss of cognitive diversity and the possible long-term health issues stemming from a life of medications may be even costlier.
As long as increasingly large percentages of our children are unsuccessful in schools, require treatments, and take mind-altering medications, we must continue looking for other answers. Furthermore, until schools are better equipped and funded to meet the needs of today’s children, we will be forced to rely on medication and other treatment alternatives to fix our kids. My hope is that someday soon we will recognize the financial value of neurodiversity in humans and put our money towards the earth’s most valuable resource, our children.
The author thanks Mark Jarrett Carroll for his assistance with the research for this article. The following resources were consulted.
APA Working Group on Psychoactive Medications for Children and Adolescents. (2006). Psychopharmacological, psychosocial, and combined interventions for childhood disorders: Evidence base, contextual factors, and future directions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Armstrong. T. (2010). Neurodiversity: Discovering the extraordinary gifts of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and other brain differences. Cambridge: Da Capo Press.
Blume, H. (1998, September 30). Neurodiversity: on the underpinnings of geekdom. The Atlantic. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
Kliebard, H.M. (1995). The struggle for the American curriculum (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Rowan, C. (2010). Unplug – don’t drug: A critical look at the influence of technology on child behavior. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 12(1).
Stein, D.B. (2001). Unraveling the ADD/ADHD fiasco: Successful parenting without drugs. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing.
Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S., specializes in assessment, advocacy, cognitive training, sensory and behavior support, and socio-emotional coaching for individuals who are both highly intelligent and asynchronously developed. In 1999 she founded the Brideun Learning Communities and built a play-based, therapeutic school. After funding deficits led to the school’s closing, Marlo founded 2E Consulting Services to provide support and training to programs that work with individuals who, despite adequate intelligence, are unable to find success in traditional settings. Marlo holds board positions with 2E Newsletter and the US Autism and Asperger’s Association, where she directs the U.S. College Autism Project. Marlo has been recognized for her work by People and ADDitude magazines, the Special Educator, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and numerous local venues.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
By Marlo Payne Thurman
Marlo Payne Thurman (formerly Marlo Rice) has developed a theory based on her 20 years of working with twice-exceptional children as a psychologist and educator. In a two-part article she discusses the unique relationships among intelligence, sensory stimulation, and energy; and she looks at the impact of these factors on learning, social and emotional function, and the mental and physical health of our gifted and twice-exceptional (2e) populations.
When I began my work with gifted children, the field of education had not yet adopted the term “twice-exceptional.” Characteristics associated with high intelligence were barely discussed in courses, and not a single text-book covered giftedness. That a child could be both gifted and learning disabled was something we did not consider. Little did I know then that the next 20 years of my life would be dedicated to understanding gifted, asynchronous children.
Looking back on those years, we certainly lacked a good understanding of giftedness; but what I think we lacked even more was a basic understanding of how individuals process sensory information, based on their level of intelligence. Even today, we are only beginning to understand sensory issues and their impact on social and emotional functioning and behavior.
What Sets the Gifted Apart
In 1979, Jean Ayres described intelligence as “The ability to interact with the physical environment with thoughts and ideas.” According to Dr. Ayres, “Intelligence seems to correspond to the number of neurons in the brain and the number of connections between those neurons.” She also said that children with sensory processing difficulties have “average or above average intelligence” but have developed in an “uneven way.” (Ayres, 1979) Dr. Ayres was alluding to the notion that children of high intelligence have more neurons and, therefore, the capacity to process more information, an idea that, in my opinion, is still largely undervalued.
We know that asynchronous (uneven) development is common in gifted and twice-exceptional populations. While we can speculate as to which came first, high intelligence, uneven development, or sensory processing difficulties, we can certainly agree upon the relationship. Yet, we’re only beginning to realize how asynchronous development affects our gifted and 2e children.
It seems that a considerable amount of energy goes into processing sensory information, energy that is not always available to gifted individuals with disability. It is my premise that if we lack sufficient energy to simultaneously compensate for skill deficits and filter out extraneous sensory information, our bodies access “flight or fight” mechanisms, which tap into our emergency energy reserves. The result is often a positive effect coupled with a negative effect. The positive effect is continued cognitive processing; the negative effect may be an increase in symptoms and/or behaviors that look like mental health disorders or that exacerbate developmental disabilities. To understand this logic, we must first discuss learning.
For each of us, new learning occurs best when we have the right amount of information coming in – not too much, not too little. If new concepts or experiences come at us too quickly, we feel anxious and over-stimulated. We may then shut down, tune out, or avoid; and we can feel rigid, irritable, and fatigued. If we lack information, on the other hand, we might feel bored, restless, or annoyed. We then might fidget, seek novel stimulation, or daydream.
We regulate our internal arousal levels by engaging in our world or withdrawing from it. We can respond physically, emotionally, or cognitively. When we block certain stimuli out, we can appear detached or hyper-focused. For example, our children often tune out everything but the screen and sound when watching television. Physical withdrawal takes us out of the setting or causes us to create a large physical space between ourselves and an overwhelming stimulus.
School, however, teaches us to remain in the classroom and on task. A standardized curriculum sets content, pacing standards, and developmental expectations regarding productivity. Typical schools expect all children to learn and perform within a norm, unlike the real world, where individuals are rewarded for offering up their best abilities, despite age or school training.
Ideally, children have arousal levels that keep them calm and alert in the classroom and provide just enough information for new learning to take place and to stay on task. Those children who engage or perform at a different level, either above or below the average, however, are subject to issues with arousal because the presentation of material is not well matched to the levels of input and output that are comfortable for them.
For the average gifted student (one with no areas of delay or asynchrony) who is under-challenged, we see a lack of stimulation, boredom, and inattention. It’s hard to attend when the material being covered is well below one’s ability. When I talk to individuals who don’t understand that gifted, inattentive children are often bored, I like to suggest that these adults spend a few weeks as students in a fourth- or fifth-grade classroom. It wouldn’t take long for any normal adult to look pretty fidgety, restless, and inattentive once the novelty of being in the fifth grade again wore off. In fact, as the weeks progressed, I would expect to see irritability, attention problems, and possibly even aggression as attempts to modify the adult’s fidgety or daydreaming behavior increased. When we are bored, we do what we need to do to stay awake, alert, and engaged. Our minds require that. When our attempts at engagement are met with disapproval or failure, the outcome is likely a negative one.
The Energy Problem
Twice-exceptional children face an even more complicated dilemma. Not only are they often bored and under-stimulated, but, given their intelligence, they are also over-aroused and anxious when faced with tasks of production that should be easy for them. A child may start out with the equivalent of a master’s thesis on turtles, for example; but by the time the child struggles to organize her complex ideas and get those thoughts onto paper, what comes out may sound like “I have a little turtle that lives in a box in my room.” To fully understand the frustration and difficulty of this situation, we must consider energy.
About 10 years ago, I sustained a mild traumatic brain injury. After the accident, I was still as “smart” as I had always been; but I couldn’t do things with the same consistency and efficiency as before. I could, however, do pretty much everything as long as I found a way to stay rested. My cognitive therapist explained to me the role of energy in cognitive processing, and a light came on for me in regard to both my situation and that of the twice-exceptional clients with whom I was working.
The therapist explained that, as humans, we consume energy to perform cognitive tasks, to engage in physical activity, and to experience social interactions and emotions. While these different tasks are not mutually exclusive, we do have a finite allotment of energy for each. Simply put, we can be cognitively, physically, or emotionally too tired to perform one type of task, although we could still successfully engage in other types. For example, our children often tell us they are too tired from school to complete their math homework, but we see them able to run around outside or play with friends. Given the rules of energy, my therapist explained, children are not “conning” us. They are accurately reporting on the energy state that is depleted, although other states still have fuel.
According to the rules of energy:
We cannot borrow from one energy state to fuel another.
Each energy state, once consumed, can be replenished only by sleep, food, and time.
Every day we get a fresh allotment of energy in each state.
Every individual has a differing amount of energy in each state; but when consumed, the response is the same for everyone.
To sleep well, all three of the energy states should be equally depleted.
The therapist also explained that we can certainly fall asleep without adequate cognitive processing, physical activity, or meaningful social time in our lives; but we only feel rested, refreshed, and happy when these three states are in balance. For 2e children, who consume tremendous amounts of cognitive energy in compensation for their disabilities, finding a balance to feel both calm and alert, while maintaining an even flow of energy consumption, is challenging.
Making things even more difficult is one additional variable, the body’s “fight or flight” defense mechanism. This reserve energy source, fueled through the adrenal system, allows us to press on, if necessary, when we are cognitively, physically, or emotionally tired. However, dipping into our adrenaline-fueled reserves is costly, as I learned following my injury. Despite my best attempts at compensating for my head trauma, my consistent, day-to-day functioning failed. I simply could not continue to rely on my emergency energy reserves, and over time developed adrenal fatigue.
Cognitive energy levels are not equal for all individuals. Gifted athletes can press on physically because they have more stamina, just as cognitively gifted individuals can perform complex thinking tasks longer than others can because they have a larger-than-average “slice” of cognitive energy. However, gifted individuals also expend more cognitive energy than others because they think more thoughts, take in more information, and do so over a longer period of time. In other words, typical gifted children can keep going long after their peers have lost interest. The asynchronous, twice-exceptional learner, on the other hand, cannot. Because these individuals must consume larger amounts of cognitive energy to compensate for their learning disabilities, a shortage results in their cognitive energy level. It would be nice if their giftedness simply diminished with their fatigue; but what we find is that the deep abstract reasoning portions of the mind still crave input, long after the more peripheral aspects of sequencing, organizing, multitasking, and demonstrating knowledge through written output are depleted. As a result, the 2e child is both bored and over-aroused.
The Role of the Sensory System
There is more to this theory than learning, engaging or withdrawing from stimulation, and the energy states necessary for consistent performance. The sensory system also plays a part. One of the biggest consumers of our cognitive energy is the taking in, processing, filtering, and storing of input from the outside world through our senses. We learn in school about the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling; but we also process information about motion, pressure, temperature, and the inner states of our body’s responses to breathing, digestion, circulation, and so forth.
At birth, assuming we have an adequate caretaker, we are carefully swaddled; fed when hungry; and protected from bright lights, loud noises, and uncomfortable temperature variations. For most of us, this results in a calm and alert body system that can, over time, successfully take in, filter, and process increasing amounts of new sensory information. Gifted children, however, remain out-of-sync in their sensory processing. Their high cognitive potentials allow them to take in larger-than-normal amounts of sensory information; but their sensory “filters,” even if maturing at an advanced rate, take a while to catch up. Nevertheless, gifted children have more cognitive energy, enabling them to accurately filter, despite having more information to filter. In other words, having extra cognitive energy works to their advantage, unless that energy is needed elsewhere.
For the twice-exceptional child, on the other hand, an entirely different phenomenon seems to occur. In my observation, 2e children develop, from a very young age, an ability to tap into their energy reserves as a means of staying alert and focused. Given the energy they need to filter their also-heightened amounts of sensory information, and the equally large amount of energy needed to compensate for their asynchronous skills, 2e children come up short in the cognitive energy department. However, it has been my experience that these children quickly learn to tap into their emergency energy reserves to make up for the shortfall. While the emergency energy supply is generally allocated for short-term use, it can be accessed on a day-to-day basis as well. However, because this reserve system is fueled through what we’ll call an adrenal (“fight or flight”) response, the borrowed energy does not give the child the same outcome as drawing on cognitive energy does. Relying on so-called adrenal energy has a severe impact on the overall body system.
To better understand the adrenal response, consider this scenario. Imagine yourself home alone, at night. Overly tired, you struggle to fall asleep, only to be startled awake by some foreign sound. Your mind automatically prepares your body for a reaction. Nothing more happens, but now you notice the faucet dripping, the neighbor’s dog whining, the uncomfortable position of your blanket and pillow. Your startled awakening has led to a heightened state of discomfort and over-arousal. Now, as you again try to fall asleep, you find that your thoughts are racing. Things that seemed trivial yesterday now require your immediate attention – your aunt’s forgotten birthday, the transmission service on your car – all have become problems that you feel you must deal with instantly. So despite being extremely tired, you can’t sleep. The next morning, you might find that you feel a bit sick; but if all goes well, you rest the following night and the adrenal state has passed.
Now, imagine being a 2e child who must continue to dip into his energy reserves each and every day to allow him the necessary energy for functioning. This method of “getting by” is, in my opinion, at the very heart of the mental health issues and exacerbated behavioral and social/ emotional symptoms often seen in our gifted and learning disabled population.
In Part 2 of this article, we’ll look at the obstacles to accurately diagnosing 2e children and at ways to better meet their physical, emotional, and intellectual needs.
Ayres, A. J. (1979). Sensory Integration and the Child. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services.
Marlo Payne Thurman, M.S., is a school psychologist, education consultant, and member of the 2e Newsletter Editorial Advisory Board. She specializes in assessment, advocacy, cognitive training, sensory and behavior support, and socio-emotional coaching for individuals from around the country who are gifted yet asynchronous. Marlo is also the founder of the Brideun School for Exceptional Children in Colorado, which designed a play-based, therapeutic school model exclusively for twice-exceptional children. She now operates Brideun Learning Communities and, in addition to her private practice, provides consultative support to new 2e program start-ups. Marlo holds a board position with the United States Autism and Asperger’s Association and is working in that capacity towards the development of a “very high functioning” division within USAAA for individuals who are both gifted and on the spectrum of autism or Asperger Syndrome.
Marlo Payne Thurman is a private consultant specializing in identifying and meeting the needs of children who are gifted, yet asynchronous in their development. Marlo's clients circle the globe. For more information, contact Marlo directly: email@example.com
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Gifted kids notoriously sleep less than their non-gifted peers. But, do they actually just need less sleep or do heightened states of sensory arousal and overly busy minds just keep them from sleeping? I believe the latter is true, especially for those gifted children who must use extra energy to compensate for their skill deficits. Being gifted means that we take in more information. When we process, we have more informaiton to sort
And when our minds race, we cover more ground. Dabrowski wrote extensively about the over-exciteabilities of gifted children but wasn't he really telling us that gifted kids take, process and respond to more? Yet, no matterr our gifts, more takes energy. Energy shortages create mind-body asynchrony (ie, heightened response, sensitivity and over-response or exciteability). Gifted kids have more going on and as such are required to respond to more? Does this then not make them more prone to my current condition, too much life =too busy to sleep. That may in itself not be a problem but I believe it is the "root of all evil" so to speak for our twice-exceptional children.
I have started thinking about the mind-body connection a lot these days. It has been easy to do because my "body" has been sick. Low back pain, a wierd summer cold that won't let up... and I am faced with the realizatiaon that I can't actually remember when I last felt calm and centered. I am overexciteable and overly sensitive but my mind is on a roll. I also don't remember my last good night's sleep and while I don't feel particularly tired, in fact I am never sleepy these days, my body is telling me that I am exhausted. But like a lot of people with heightened sensitivity, I'm pretty good at "leaving" my body to get at my mind's work. And that I believe is at the heart of too busy to sleep. My mind is working faster than my body can handle.
So,with that in mind, I might suggest that we all take a good look around, and realize that a wound up and falling apart gifed kid may not actually need more to think about or more stimulation. And at a deeper level, these 2E kids may not have a mental health disorder at all, but they might just need a good old "boring" summer vacation to get back to nature, get back to to their bodies and get some rest. Happy summer, get some sleep, and I will try to do the same.
Marlo Payne Thurman is a private consultant specializing in identifying and meeting the needs of children who are gifted, yet asynchronous in their development. Marlo's clients circle the globe. For more information,about services or to contact Marlo directly e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.org
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
2e Newsletter asked Marlo Payne Rice to comment on hyperactivity and other behavior issues that can be part of the “twice-exceptional package.” Marlo prefaced her comments by saying, “My model is derived from my own ideas and is not yet supported in the literature. I’m not sure I'll ever think about this in the same way that others do because I have such a unique experience with this population. I guess that makes me a bit of ‘the odd man out.’ Having worked with over 2,500 2e families, however, I’m not often too far off base.”
I believe that AD/HD is horribly over diagnosed in the twice-exceptional population. When you have a 2e child who is cognitively gifted but can't take in enough information due to auditory, visual, or sensory processing issues, that child will manifest with the symptoms of AD/HD. Therefore, a basic understanding of energy and arousal is critical to any discussion on the behavioral aspects of AD/HD.
Let’s start with arousal. What if you, as an adult, were placed in the 7th grade for a year. To stay cognitively alert and focused, you’d need more information than the 7th-grade classroom normally provides. In a few days you’d probably start to fidget. You would soon begin to think about other things and over time, staying in your seat would be unbearable.
For twice exceptional children with input problems, school life is like the adult in the 7th grade. 2E children simply can't take in enough information to stay alert and aroused. This results in restlessness and boredom. For this reason, behavior problems are common in twice-exceptional children. Improperly identified, these children fall into existing mental health diagnosis, even though the label may not be accurate. This notion may seem simple but a further understanding of energy is necessary to complete the model.
Each of us has a specific allotment of energy in our physical, emotional and cognitive capacities. Being gifted usually means having a larger “slice” of cognitive energy. If we use the analogy of a pie, we can say that the pie is divided into four sections, with the three areas of energy and a backup or reserve as the fourth slice. Twice-exceptional children, although given a large slice of cognitive energy, use up their allotment and often dip into their reserves to compensate. Tapping into the reserve further complicates the energy-arousal dilemma.
Typical gifted children have as much cognitive energy as they need to perform to their own levels of expectation. However, for gifted children with attention or learning difficulties, the large cognitive allotment gives them the reasoning skills to expect more of themselves and the ability to perform at the gifted level over time. But because they use more energy in compensating, they fall short in day-to-day consistency and performance.
It would be easy if, once their cognitive energy is used up, these children stopped being gifted. However, the internal expectations and emotions of gifted children do not change simply because they cannot continue to push through their learning disabilities. In fact, 2e children learn very early that they can borrow energy from their reserves to continue on.
This seems like a good solution. However, reserves are “funded” on the basis of adrenalin. Children who go past their allotment of cognitive energy force themselves into a state of hyper-vigilance or over-arousal, which then allows them to continue on despite fatigue. This certainly complicates the AD/HD picture. The adrenalin energy, unlike cognitive energy, comes with increased heart rate, pupil dilation, altered blood flow, heightened skin response, and so forth. It unnecessarily prepares a child for fight or flight. Because we are programmed to react to adrenalin by running away or defending ourselves in battle, when the catalyst (a big bear) presents, the adrenalin surges through our body and out in the form of a reaction.
However, for the 2e child, the big bear never shows up. We are now dealing with a child who has no original cognitive energy but a large slice of emotional energy. Furthermore, this child may not have depleted his/her physical energy and is agitated, angry and in a state of sensory reactivity because the adrenalin released in the child’s body can’t be dispelled easily. Plus, the child is still bored from the original arousal problem! Unless the child can explode, implode, or trick his/her body out of the adrenalin state, the adrenalin will keep the child in a constant state of unrest. This impacts eating, sleeping, and wakeful resting. As a result, the child will need to dip into energy reserves sooner the following day.
When the pattern goes on for days, weeks, months or even years, the child adapts by raging, internalizing, and/or acting out in small bursts. Over time, we simply see an overly sensitive, often sensory-reactive, bored child who cannot seem to control behavior or organize thoughts (AD/HD), inwardly, the child may also be anxious and/or depressed.
Recognizing this pattern is the first step in dealing with the problem. As a seasoned behavior management specialist, I can confirm that no level system, punishment or positive reinforcement system in the world will change the 2e behavior until the child can be successful within their cognitive limits and comfortably settled into their bodies. A child who is at constant battle with a pending “big bear” and not enough information to be turned on, cannot be expected to ignore their physiology and simply calm down. Without specific attention to the adrenalin-driven body of the 2e child we cannot implement change in the mind. Without appropriate accommodations and support for deficits in input, we cannot calm the body.
I certainly recognize true attention deficits in all children. However, I also believe that there are a lot of false positives in the twice-exceptional population. Accurate diagnosis is problematic. In many cases the stimulants even work. However, the additional compensatory energy allowed through medication does not solve the original input problem and often, only exacerbates the arousal-energy mismatch. The answer to this complex system of variables lies in accommodations and therapies for input, appropriate cognitive stimulation (from the classroom), modifications for output, and sensory awareness training. Until we include all of these issues into a comprehensive model, we will not get AD/HD identification and treatment right for our 2e kids.
Does intelligence play a significant role in the manifestation of autism spectrum disorders?
The following paper will discuss my impressions about cognition, sensory processing and arousal in the symptomology of autism.
Like all children, those with autism have unique sensory needs, cognitive skills, and individual strengths and weaknesses for learning. However it is common, because autism itself is so difficult to understand, for us to label all autistic children as the same in an attempt to create a clean service model. Autism is messy. In thinking that all autistic children are alike we fail to recognize the sensory and cognitive continuums of the autistic individual and in turn we render ourselves unable to provide appropriate arousal states for new learning. Furthermore, by lacking good information about learning styles and different modalities for learning, we limit the ultimate potential for our autistic children by expecting them to succeed in our traditional language driven model of education.
For new learning to occur, each of us must have the right amount of information coming in. Not too much, not too little, calm yet still alert. When things are coming at us too quickly, we feel anxious and over stimulated. This causes us to shut down, tune out or avoid by filtering everything away. Not enough information results in feelings of boredom, restlessness and irritability. In turn, we fidget, seek novel stimulation, self stimulate or daydream. For the autistic individual, the ability to find the perfect state is difficult because so much energy is consumed through the simple tasks of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, feeling pressure and motion and regulating body systems. When we recognize that autism is an extreme state of sensory integration and modulation difficulty, it is not hard to understand why social interaction, attention and learning become problematic. Simply put, these children are not “in” their bodies.
Further complicating the picture is the role that is played by the adrenalin response process. We each have a biological system that prepares us to fight or flee in a dangerous situation. This body reaction gives us energy to keep going, even if we are exhausted. Breath, blood flow, pupil response, respiration, skin sensitivity etc. all react when we are over our limit. Yet for the autistic individual the over-the-limit state becomes the norm as they attempt to fit into our sensory rich, language based, socially intensive world. For many autistics, the adrenalin state that is usually reserved for crisis becomes a habitual pattern of anxiety, withdrawal, feelings of fear and panic and, if forced to keep going, behavioral reactivity. In order to effectively deal with adrenalin issues for our autistic children, we must understand arousal, identify the individual sensory issues of each autistic child, (because each is very different), and provide sensory accommodation and modulation training to help them feel safe. To do this we often must rely on their behaviors to tell or show us what we can do to bring them to a calm/alert state. All too often, we focus on eliminating or substituting these “needful” behaviors, and as such, we miss the best clues we have in working with the over aroused autistic individual. Once these children are in safely in their bodies then they can find the calm and alert state that is necessary for us to begin addressing their cognition and learning.
Historically, autism has been associated with mental retardation. Up until the late 80’s, published college textbooks taught that 75% of all autistic individuals had inferior mental capacities. Yet as early as the 1950’s, and at the same time Dr. Leo Kanner was laying the foundation for the autistic diagnosis, Dr. Hans Asperger argued that a normal continuum of intelligence was present in the autistic population. Kanner, the “father” of autism, ultimately won the popular vote and thereafter we defined intelligence in autism as a characteristic set of specialized “splinter skills.” For many years, all autistics were thought to be of somewhat inferior intelligence. It has only been in the past two decades that we have finally begun to identify those individuals with high functioning autism or Asperger’s as normally intelligent. Even today however, I find it impossible for educated professionals to recognize giftedness in autism once the autism label has been assigned. I still hear the argument that the child may have average intelligence but those characteristics that we would usually associate with giftedness in other populations are, for autistics, splinter skills. We have a long way to go in our understanding of the continuums of intelligence and this in turn will ultimately define our delivery of appropriately challenging services and programs for autistic individuals. For now, as a professional specializing in gifted and learning disabled individuals, I am constantly faced with highly intelligent and even gifted autistic children who because of language, social delays or behavior are served in self-contained learning labs alongside those individuals with severe mental retardation.
Furthermore, and in addition to our lack of understanding about cognition, we also fail to recognize the autistic as different minded. Eureka, a term coined from the non-linear, deeply abstract thoughts of a physicist in his bath, best characterizes the thinking of the autistic individual. Yet because we define education as a verbally acquired, linear, sequential system of thought that is demonstrated through speaking and writing, little room for strength-based learning is given to our autistic individuals. It is about time we recognize that our existing systems of education do not work for our autistic children, or for many other visually minded children. So, faced with the obstacle of teaching the abstract, visual and kinesthetic child in our language based school system, much emphasis is given to emotional, social and behavioral modification and little actual learning is obtained. Yet, it is my experience that in the higher cognitive ends of the autistic population, if appropriately placed in settings that do provide adequate cognitive challenge and good multi-sensory learning, these children find success as adults in our world of technology. Today, individuals no longer need to remember oral facts. Intelligent, “eureka” thinking supported with secretaries and advanced organizers allow these individuals to revolutionize our world. Why then can we not rethink education for some of our most alternative minded children and teach the autistic population within their innate areas of strength? We assume that the goal is to “fix” the autistic child, making them more like their peers when it is my opinion that we should help them find ways to achieve their potentials, find their unique strengths and ultimately have a place in our society where they, like all children can contribute and feel success.
In conclusion, I believe that once we can identify and modify our schools, support programs and our community at large, on the basis of the sensory needs, arousal issues, cognitive continuums and learning styles, we will then be able to tap the invaluable resource of our different minded, “eureka” thinkers. While autism may be on the extremes of the continuum, if we pay attention, we find that each of us, at times, has a little taste of the autistic world. Every once in a while, we ourselves fall into the adrenalin state, or we find ourselves cognitively under or over challenged, some days we can’t find our words, or the thought of facing yet another social event might feel too exhausting. Perhaps when we experience these bits of autism, it is then that we can begin to see autism as a continuum. Autism isn’t really so difficult to understand. But, it is time for us to acknowledge intelligence in autism and create a better system of education. We must teach our autistic children how to find their own calm/alert learning state, and, at long last, perhaps we ourselves need to locate that arousal balance point in which we have enough information to stay excited and engaged, but not so much that we lose those defining moments of peace and self-reflection.