Uniquely Gifted Search Now:

Especially for Parents

Contents

• Homeschooling
• Residential Placements
• Camps
• Financial Aid
• College

Please note: Being listed here is not per se an endorsement of any particular site or email list. I have included annotations for those sites or lists that I am familiar with and strongly recommend.

Homeschooling

Many of us have found that the best way to meet the needs of our twice-special children is to do it ourselves.  Homeschooling can be a wonderful way to meet both the gifted needs and other special needs of our children, as I discuss in the article Homeschooling Twice-Exceptional Children.

One good starting point for information is the “Homeschooling 101” section of the Resource Room:  http://www.resourceroom.net/Surfin/index.asp - Homeschooling101

The National Home Education Network (NHEN) is a good place to find local support groups.
http://www.nhen.org/support/groups/browse.htm will help you search by state for local support groups.
http://www.nhen.org/leginfo/state_list.html provides legal information by state.
http://www.nhen.org/ is the main site.
http://www.nhen.org/specneed/ provides information and links for homeschooling special needs kids (including gifted).

The Aut-2B-Home site is for families homeschooling children with autistic-spectrum disorders (both high and low functioning).
http://home.earthlink.net/~tammyglaser798/authome.html

Positively ADD - Parenting and Unschooling is a site with interesting information and lots of links.
http://www.mindspring.com/~jupton/jan1.html

Leaping From the Box is another fun and provocative homeschooling site
http://www.leapingfromthebox.com

The Hadley School for the Blind offers free distance learning programs for eligible students
http://www.hadley-school.org/

About.com's Special Education site has an article about homeschooling at http://specialed.about.com/library/weekly/aa080201a.htm and links on homeschooling at http://specialed.about.com/cs/homeschool/index.htm

About.com's Homeschooling site has a section on homeschooling special needs children at http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/specialchallenges/index.htm

“Homeschooling LD/ADD Children: Great Idea or Big Mistake?” by Suzanne H. Stevens
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/parenting/homeschooling.html

“Homeschooling Gifted Students: An Introductory Guide for Parents” by Jacque Ensign
http://www.resourceroom.net/homeschooling/ERIChomeschool.htm

The Homeschool Zone has the article "Ten Steps to Successfully Homeschooling Children with Special Needs" by Janie Bowman
http://www.homeschoolzone.com/hsz/bowman2.htm

And for some humor and encouragement, read Diane Flynn Keith's article "A Recovery Program for Homeschooling Paranoia" at
http://www.shehomeschools.com/article_paranoia.html

The Homeschool Social Register also has lots of useful links, including for countries other than the U.S.
http://www.homeschoolmedia.net/register/

Homeschooling Books

If you only buy one homeschooling book, buy Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children: A Resource Guide by Lisa Rivero. Great Potential Press. Rivero has done an amazing job discussing the issues involved in homeschooling gifted children, and she touches upon special needs as well. I have never read a homeschooling book with so many references, and it also contains a wealth of resources.

Home Schooling Children With Special Needs by Sharon Hensley. Noble Books.  Doesn't address giftedness and I don't agree with everything it says, but the book has some good suggestions from someone who has homeschooled her own special needs child.

Real-Life Homeschooling: The Stories of 21 Families Who Teach Their Children at Home by Rhonda Barfield. Fireside. Presents 21 families from a wide spectrum of family constellations, religious and racial backgrounds, locations, reasons for and styles of homeschooling. Includes families with gifted children and two families with special needs (ADD, Down Syndrome).

Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling by John Holt & Pat Farenga. Holt's classic, recently updated and expanded by Farenga. Although I don't agree with Holt's dismissal of the notions of "hyperactivity" and "learning disabilities", there is much gold in this book.

Homeschooling Email Lists

Residential Placements

Sometimes our children's needs cannot be met at home.  The following are some sites that provide information on residential placements.

http://www.spedschools.com/

http://specialneedschildren.com/

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/2869/links.html

http://trainland.tripod.com/residential.htm

http://www.petersons.com/PSchools/select/pssns.asp?sponsor=1
 

Camps

Tips for Choosing A Summer Camp Program for Your LD Child by Ann Cathcart.
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/parenting/camp_tips.html

Therapy/Respite Camps for Kids is a list of camps for kids with special needs
http://wizard.ucr.edu/~wm/therapy.html

The Tourette Syndrome "Plus" site also has a list of special needs camps at
http://www.tourettesyndrome.net/summer_camps.htm

Financial Aid

The National Gifted Children's Fund assists profoundly gifted youth with the educational materials to enhance their education. NGCF provides aid to individuals, not organizations, based on financial and academic needs. The NGCF provides direct assistance in the form of tuition, tutorial fees, computers, software, musical instruments, books, science equipment, curriculum, testing, as well as other individual educational needs specific to each applicant. The NGCF will not make cash contributions to any applicant.
http://www.ngcfcharity.org/

The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) is seeking applicants for the Anne Ford Scholarship, which is available to students of high merit in public or private secondary schools with an identified learning disability (LD). Financial need will be strongly considered. Minorities and women are encouraged to apply. Only U.S. citizens are eligible. Applications are due January 31.
http://www.ld.org/press/afscholar.cfm

College

LD Online has an extensive section on post-secondary education. Topics include: Transition, Success Strategies, Selected Publications, Planning & Selection, For Advisors, Online Resources, Community Colleges, Financial Assistance, For Discussion, Self-Advocacy, Technology.
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/postsecondary/

For SAT exams, having an IEP or 504 does not necessarily guarantee that a student is eligible for testing accommodations. (If they're not already getting such accommodations in high school, they won't be able to get them for the SAT). Here are two addresses for that information from the College Boards:
http://www.collegeboard.org/disable/counsel/html/indx000.html

For similar information for the ACT exams, go to 
http://www.act.org/aap/disab/index.html

Santa Barbara City College's Disabled Student Programs & Services (DSPS) website on learning is a nice site for and by college kids with learning disabilities.
http://www.west.net/~ger/visions.html

The article "Section 504 and Postsecondary Education" at the PACER Center (Parent Advocacy Coalition for Educational Rights) site has useful information on the legal protections available to college students with special needs.
http://www.pacer.org/pride/504.htm

A brochure about transitioning from high school to college is available online: "Ladders to Success: A Student's Guide to School After High School". It prints out to 67 pages and is an Acrobat file that can take a very long time to load (and the first page starts low on the screen, so it can look like nothing is 
there). It's well worth printing the whole thing out and using selected pages as part of your child's IEP or transition plan.
http://www.k12.wa.us/specialed/Links/ladders_to_success.pdf

Wrightslaw has a flyer with resources for making the transition to college, with information on rights and responsibilities under Section 504, planning and preparation, and keys to success
http://www.wrightslaw.com/flyers/college.504.pdf (PDF, requires Adobe Reader)

Most colleges have information on their websites concerning disability services.  It's worth checking out for any college where you are considering applying.

For those who did not finish high school, LD Online has an article on taking the GED exam to get a high school equivalency at
http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/adult/transitions_ged.html

The following books provide helpful information on college/career:

Colleges with Programs for Students with Learning Disabilities or Attention Deficit Disorders: More Than 750 College Programs in the U.S. and Canada for Special-Needs Students. by Peterson's Guides (Editor), Stephen S. Strichart (Editor), Charles T., II Mangrum (Editor). Peterson’s Guides.

Learning a Living : A Guide to Planning Your Career and Finding a Job for People With Learning Disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Dyslexia by Dale S. Brown. Woodbine House. To read excerpts from this book, go to http://www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/adult/job_in_college.html.

Unlocking Potential : College and Other Choices for People With LD and AD/HD by Juliana M. Taymans (Editor), Lynda L. West (Editor), Madeline Sullivan (Contributor). Woodbine House.

Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different by by Donald Asher
                      and
Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools You Should Know About Even If You're Not a Straight-A Student by Loren Pope.

Last updated Friday October 06, 2006