Your Child's Potential

I have 4 children, my oldest was diagnosed with ADHD in grade 1 in 1994. That started my long journey to understand why some kids just didn't learn the way the school was teaching them. My next child is cognitively gifted, but a perfectionist with anxiety issues. It wasn't under grade 12 that he was finally correctly diagnosed with a non verbal learning disability, and received the Twice Exceptional label. My 3rd child has the diagnosis of Aspergers, but is now considered HFA or high functioning autistic on the spectrum. As far as I can tell, my 4th child is completely neurotypical. EACH of these children learn differently, not better, not worse than anyone else, just differently. In my quest to understand how to help each child reach their potential I studied developemental psychology, psychopathology, early childhood education, neuropsychology, cognition, attention and other psychological branches. After graduating I wanted to further my knowledge of twice excpeptionality, but found very limited schooling options. I was fortunate enough to have met Dr. Lannie Kanevsky as a child when she was MY teacher in elementary school. I ran into her at a gifted education conference I was attending as a parent while trying to learn how to differentiate and accelerate my son's education. She agreed that there are a few people knowledgeable on gifted education, and quite a few more knowledgeable on special education, but very few people who know a lot about both learning differences and so we designed an Individual Masters Program at Simon Fraser University and the Dean granted our request. I graduate after a very long road in June 2014 with an Individual program in Gifted Education (Twice Exceptional Specialty) from Simon Fraser University. During my Masters degree I took courses in Vygotskian psychology and edcuational practices, special education, gifted eduation, educational planning and twice exceptionality. With my educational knowledge and my experience in the educational system with my four children, the oldest of which is 25 years old, I feel I can offer a valuable service to other parents who want to help THEIR child reach their potential in school, no matter HOW they learn!