Hanna David – författare

This book presents the reader with the main inherent problems of double-exceptionality, namely, the difficulties educators and mental health professionals must deal with when working with gifted disabled children and youths. The first chapter describes ten of these problems; on the one hand, some have been caused by unfamiliarity of the basic terms and definitions of giftedness and on the other, learning or other disabilities; some by treatment failures of gifted disabled children and youths. The main part of the book, chapters 2-5, include six detailed case studies of gifted children and adolescents who were dealing, in some cases, with learning disabilities, but in all cases with social, emotional, psychological and familial issues that jeopardized not only their educational and professional future, but also their well-being and even their mental health. These chapters include also shorter vignettes of gifted disabled young and older children whom I have met in the last thirty years. Some of these cases–both the longer and the shorter case studies–are of students who had considered dropping out of school. This book challenges the assumption that dropping out is necessarily also an educational failure. Some of the cases described did not have a “happy ending”: they describe young people who unsuccessfully tried to be “like everybody else,” an attempt that has always been hard to live with. The last chapter shows that only when all components in the child’s or adolescent’s life, the family, the education system, and the social circle she or he belonged to encouraged and nurtured the child, materializing one’s giftedness while maintaining a high level of well-being and social acceptability can be accomplished. The chapter of the book analyzes these factors while showing how misunderstanding of the child’s needs, along with inability to provide her or him with the proper educational and psychological help might cause “giving up” one’s giftedness, deterioration in the social/emotional situation or both.

This book is about exploring and finding the best ways of matching educational and psychological means and methods for each gifted child. The book tries to help the reader understand the different educational, emotional or social needs of various gifted children, those considered “highly-gifted” and the others who are perceived as “mildly-gifted”; children who are interested in science and others who tend to the humanities or to arts; chess Olympic champions or child-musicians or actors. The first chapter offers an extended case study of the early life of a gifted girl, born to an Orthodox family in the early 50''s: "my own life story from birth to adulthood. I describe the origins of my own giftedness, my educational and social path that helped me to become a giftedness expert in spite of all obstacles." The second chapter describes the different ways gifted education is applied in the educational systems of three German-speaking European countries, Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and offers ways to improve them. Creativity is the subject of the third chapter; gender differences in creativity have been a major concern of hundreds of scholars – both feminists and giftedness researchers – for many decades. This chapter summarizes the most updated knowledge in this area. The fourth chapter is about gifted children with ADHD. The high occurrence of them stresses the need for more research and more case studies available to teachers, headmasters or mistresses, scholars, psychologists and psychiatrists. The chapter is a substantial contribution providing accessibility to such needed knowledge. The fifth chapter is aimed primarily at teachers, but it can also be useful to mental health professionals. It unravels the innovative concept of future thinking, elaborating on the suitable learning space proposed for gifted and able students at elementary and secondary schools named LIFTS centers. It then addressed teaching-learning using a Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) explaining its conceptual framework, construction and components, thinking skills developed, and curriculum design. The last chapter describes all families seeking my help for their gifted daughters in the year 2014. All girls described in this chapter had the opportunity to participate in gifted classes or other activities for the gifted, but most of them chose not to. This chapter is a “closing comparison” between the first chapter describing an Ultra-Orthodox girl whose family did not prevent her from doing what she wanted to in spite of social prejudices, financial difficulties, fears and even shame. Most girls described in chapter 6 had not materialized their potential due to lack of parental support needed in order to “have it their own way.”

The book DYNAMIC ON-LINE ASSESSMENT OF GIFTED CHILDREN offers educators, counselors and parents of 3-16-year-old gifted, talented, curious, and creative children and youths a new, original tool of assessing their interests and abilities. As this book has been published during the second wave of the covid19 pandemic, it concentrates on ways of assessment that can all function on-line as well. All offered activities have been tried both before "corona-time" started, when on-line therapy, let alone – on-line giftedness identification, was not practiced for children. The case studies presented in the book have all been written since March 2019, proved effective, enriching the knowledge of the counselor. They were also described as "easy", "nice", pleasant" and "interesting" by the children involved, and thus are recommended as unlike formal identification they put no pressure either on the child or on her or his parents. The first assessed child described is a 3-year-old girl, who was identified as highly gifted in mathematics. The "game" played was "the geometrical shapes game", during which she was asked "what do you want me [the counselor] to paint?" and then: "what color do you want me to use?" During the "game" the child showed a wide knowledge in both 2- and 3-dimentional shapes, she always insisted on using the exact mathematical terms, and each time she approved on the result she was very happy. The next "games" descried were all word games. In "The associations game" the counselor writes a word and the child adds another one without thinking, and this goes on alternately for as long as the counselor decides, depending on the child''s age, her or his attention span, level of hunger or thirst, etc. This "game" is suitable toddlers, kindergartners and first grader. The "ugly words game" is suitable especially for children with emotional and social problems. "Writing a story" is most suitable for kindergartners; it does not only reveal many important characteristics of the child but also enables them to express themselves freely, knowing that the story is imaginary. "Writing a story together" is the last suggestion for on-line assessment through a word game.

This book addresses a wide range of issues situated in the core of theoreticians’ and clinicians’ work in the field of giftedness. It gathers practical issues, relevant for the lives of many gifted children, adolescents and adults, from a neuropsychological point of view. By studying the basic questions in gifted education through a neuropsychological lens, this book aims to establish a uniform new way for the treatment of gifted children with social or emotional difficulties, learning disabilities, physical limitations, or psychological and psychiatric disorders. This book helps educators and mental-health professionals to obtain a deeper understanding of the neurological system and its role in learning. This includes memory, knowledge-processing, making connections, and the implications on the cognitive, emotional, and physical aspects – all of which play major roles in the life of each gifted child and adolescent. By acquiring this new knowledge, more teachers, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists will be able to help individuals materialize their giftedness, while preserving their mental health and productivity.

This book describes some of the most critical issues in gifted education, i.e., gender inequity concerning giftedness examinations and the boys/girls ratio. The book also discusses the background of the gifted child's family, including their parents’ education and number of their siblings. The book’s findings are based on quantitative studies concerning 5–15-year-old gifted children participating at the Erika Landau Institute for Gifted and Creative Children and Youths in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 1968 until 2003. It discusses aspects such as the advantages of affirmative action standards in gifted education because girls who score lower than boys on the admission test to a gifted program usually have better social skills, persistence, and fine motor skills and, thus, integrate successfully in a gifted group with boys of higher intelligence. The book's second part addresses Landau's academic work in multiple languages and offers a critique that helps educators and mental health experts build gifted programs.