NEWS  
As a preferred provider for the ASD program at IMAGINE!, and referred by Mapleton Center for Pediatrics, you may now also find my private practice listed on Boulder Valley Gifted & Talented website for family resources: http://www.bvgt.org/families.html

Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted

www.sengifted.org is a wonderful website for many resources 
offered to parents raising gifted children and recommended by
Boulder Valley Gifted & Talented 

What do gifted and twice-exceptional (2e) children have in common? The bulk of my private practice is focused on the gifted or 2e population of children and teens.  For clarification, twice-exceptional simply means a child posesses both giftedness and a disbility, which could include a learning disability, dyslexia or an attention difference, for example. Some 2e's are gifted, and also live with high-functioning Austism, Asperger's Syndrome, AD/HD, Bipolar and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, to name a few.

GIFTED: I see gifted children presenting on a spectrum somewhat similar to the attention or autistic spectrum that spans far and includes much variation, individuality and complexity.  In some ways it is the other side of the same coin.  There are many different types of giftedness: much is measureable, some artistic giftedness perhaps less measurable. There is  visual & spacial giftedness, gifted children with supreme auditory processing and expressive language. There is the gifted tween who has a disability in expressive language. There is the Asperger's teen who excels in chemistry but is socially isolated; a gifted middle schooler who has the ability to design 3D software, but cannot express his feelings or is physically clumsy. The classic nerd, the child the bully picks on; or the shy bright girl who has no friends.  The gifted boy who may also come from divorce, and struggles with anxiety and depression.

I have seen each and every one of these case examples in my professional experience. The list goes on, especially when we take into account the high level cognitive functioning combined very often with an on-track developing child combined with a mood, attention or autism spectrum disorder.  Or a gifted child who is adopted, and athough she has a good and loving adoptive family, she struggles with a deep feeling of isolation and feeling different. 

A Parent's Guide to Raising Gifted Children is a very good book.