The Gifted Learning Lab

09/02/2026

Autism is often missed in gifted kids, in part because common gifted/autistic characteristics are misattributed to giftedness alone.

Why is it a problem if a gifted child’s autism is missed?

When a child’s autistic twice-exceptionality is unidentified, they often worry that they are flawed in some way - weird, awkward, too intense, irresponsible, incapable, reactive, or rude. When these kids learn that they’re autistic, it’s often easier for them to accept that there’s nothing wrong with them - that they’re just different. In fact, they learn that their different way of thinking and working has a name and a community of people like them!

So what does an autistic gifted kid look like? Act like? If not the stereotype?

🧮 Early fascination with letters or numbers
​
🧱Love of organizing and systematizing

🦕 Love of collecting items and/or information

🎯 Drive for accuracy ​

🔍 Clear idea about how they want things to go

🦄 Intense curiosity about subjects that interest them

🗣️ Advanced and formal use of language
​
🌀 Advanced ability to notice patterns and understand systems

⚡️Emotional intensity

In these slides I dive deeper into each of these traits.

If you’d like to read more about commonly-missed signs of twice-exceptionality, comment EXCEPTIONAL to read my article “Could Your Child Be Twice-Exceptional?”

In the article I cover more of these commonly missed indicators and explain why it can be liberating to discover twice-exceptionality.

08/27/2026

Parenting in public: tips for tough conversations.

Many of us look forward to summer gatherings with a mix of longing and worry. We want to see our people. We also know new spaces and hot weather can overwhelm our kids, and we brace for the comments.

You don't have to explain anything. Not your parenting, not your child's behavior, not to anyone. You're the expert on your family, even if you're still figuring out what works.

Keep these in your back pocket: "We know what we're doing." "Now's not a good time." "I don't talk about my child in front of them."

Prepare people in advance, not in the moment. And in the tough moment itself, focus on your kid, not the audience. Your kid can feel that focus, and it calms them too.

Some people won't ever agree with how you parent. If your values are fundamentally mismatched, release the hope for understanding. Stick to clear requests, and adjust how much time you spend.

When it gets hard, remember your why. What are you giving your child that you didn't have?

Want scripts like this in your inbox? Comment "NOTES" for Gifted Lab Notes. Comment SUPPORT to learn about Support Your Intense Gifted/2e Kid — next live cohort starts in September.

08/21/2026

Do you feel stuck in negotiations and power struggles with your twice-exceptional kid, teen, or young adult?

Do daily tasks feel like a battle or a grind?

Do you want to feel like you and your kid are on the same team instead of opposing forces?

If so, I'd love for you to join me and the Bridges 2e Center for this free webinar next Tuesday, Reduce 2e Power Struggles with Strengths-Based, Affirming Approaches.

When: Next Tuesday, August 25th, 12pm - 1pm PT

Where: Zoom (comment BRIDGES for the registration link!)

During the talk, I'll:

💪 Explain why power struggles are so common with twice-exceptional kids

🧠 Help you shift these dynamics with strengths-based, neurodivergent-affirming approaches

📝 Share powerful, practical strategies to prevent and defuse power struggles

🏡 Share real-life examples to help you apply these strategies in your family.

Sign up for this free talk at the link below.

https://pci.jotform.com/form/262225769103153

08/20/2026

Do you feel stuck in negotiations and power struggles with your twice-exceptional kid, teen, or young adult?

Do daily tasks feel like a battle or a grind?

Do you want to feel like you and your kid are on the same team instead of opposing forces?

If so, I'd love for you to join me and the Bridges 2e Center for this free webinar next Tuesday, Reduce 2e Power Struggles with Strengths-Based, Affirming Approaches.

When: Next Tuesday, August 25th, 12pm - 1pm PT

Where: Zoom (sign up to get the link - click on the image below to sign up)

During the talk, I'll:

✅ Explain why power struggles are so common with twice-exceptional kids
✅ Help you shift these dynamics with strengths-based, neurodivergent-affirming approaches
✅ Share powerful, practical strategies to prevent and defuse power struggles
✅ Share real-life examples to help you apply these strategies in your family.

I'd love to see you there!

Please click the link to complete this form.

08/10/2026

Traveling with your gifted/2e kid? Save this for your next trip.

Here's what actually keeps my family sane on planes, car rides, and rental house evenings.

Travel goes best when I'm prepared with plenty of activities, games, and novelty. These are our real favorites, tested by me and my 7-year-old.

🃏 CARD GAMES FOR THE ROAD:

100 Pics decks: quiz-style cards in tons of topics (Minecraft, riddles, animals). Perfect for kids who love quizzing themselves or you.

Take 10: our every-restaurant game. We ignore the official rules and play collaboratively so everyone wins.

🦸‍♂️ TINY BUT MIGHTY:

After Dinner Amusements mini decks fit in any purse or backpack and spark conversation anywhere.

Kanoodle travel packs are gold for visual thinkers who love 3D puzzles. Kids love stumping the grownups.

👾 OFFLINE GAME APPS:

2-Player Games: Offline Games lets you play together on one device. We always let our kid win. A quick regulation boost on long travel days or while waiting for a meal.

🌍 MORE APPS MY KID LOVES:

Escape Room: Mystery Word, word puzzle escape rooms we solve together on planes.

Level Devil, a troll game full of tricks and traps that he finds hilarious.
Threes, a number-merge game with fun animations, worth the $0.99.

🔎 BEYOND GAMES:

Hoopla for free library audiobooks in the car.

Music apps so your kid can DJ (bonus game: name that song as fast as possible).

Everywhere is Q***r to find queer-owned businesses wherever you travel.

🎧 PODCASTS FOR EVERYONE:

For kids: Story Land, Greeking Out, Brains On!

For you: an earbud with your own podcast helps you stay connected to your own interests when your kid needs you close. That counts as self-care.

Want more tips like this in your inbox? Comment NOTES for Gifted Lab Notes, weekly(ish) tips for parenting intense, sensitive gifted/2e kids.

And if you feel like sharing below, I'd love to know what's your family's go-to travel game?

08/08/2026

Autism gets missed in gifted kids all the time. Not because it isn't there, but because it rarely looks like what people expect.

Here are four reasons it slips past parents, teachers, and even professionals.

1. Most of us only know the stereotypes.

If the picture in your head is a nonverbal child who avoids eye contact, then a chatty, curious kid who makes friends won't match it. So the thought never comes up.

2. Advanced language covers a lot.

A gifted autistic kid often has a huge vocabulary and can talk circles around adults. That verbal strength can hide the parts that are genuinely hard, like reading social cues or handling a change in plans.

3. Autism still gets treated as a bad word.

When people hear "autism" and think something negative, they resist seeing it in a child they love. But a diagnosis isn't a verdict on your kid. It's a key to understanding how they're wired and what actually helps them.

4. Even professionals miss the subtle signs.

Plenty of providers were trained on the obvious presentations. The more internal, more masked version, which shows up often in gifted kids and especially in girls, can go right over their heads.

A missed diagnosis usually means a kid working twice as hard to look "fine," often at the cost of their mental health. Once we understand what's really going on, we can stop asking them to push through and start giving them what they need.

If any of this sounds like your child, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone.

Want more like this in your inbox? Comment NOTES and I'll send you the link to sign up for Gifted Lab Notes, my weekly(ish) email newsletter with practical tips for parenting intense, sensitive gifted/2e kids.

08/06/2026

"You get what you get, and you don't get upset."

If you grew up hearing this, odds are you say it too. Most of us do. It slips out in a room full of kids when there's no time to negotiate over who got the blue marker.

But look at what it actually teaches: your feelings are an inconvenience. Push them down. Don't make them anyone else's problem.

My son and his friend came up with a better version. "You get what you get, and you CAN get upset, but you can't hit someone on the head." They went straight to the real issue. It was never about the feeling. It was about what you do with it.

Telling kids not to be upset doesn't build resilience. It teaches them to hide. And for neurodivergent kids, who often can't count on adults to read their needs without being told, learning to name a feeling and speak up isn't a nice-to-have. It's how they get through the day.

These small, everyday moments are some of the best chances we get to teach fairness and problem-solving. When kids can't all have the same thing, we can walk them through why, and help them sit with the disappointment instead of pretending it isn't there.

So here's to raising kids who get upset, name it, and figure out the next move.

Does your child hear this one at school? Tell me if they've pushed back on it or just absorbed it.

Want more like this in your inbox? Comment NOTES and I'll send you the link to sign up for Gifted Lab Notes, my weekly(ish) newsletter with practical tips for parenting intense, sensitive gifted/2e kids.

07/30/2026

Travel goes best for my family when I'm prepared with plenty of activities, games, and novelty for my gifted/2e kid. I often think through activity options for the car ride, the flight, and/or the place we're staying.

Earlier this summer in one of my weekly Gifted Lab Notes emails, I shared (in detail) some of our favorite games, apps, and podcasts in case any of them are helpful for you on your travels.

A few we come back to again and again:

🃏 Take 10 comes with us every time we go to a restaurant. My kid loves to choose a card and give clues until we guess all 10 items, or vice versa. This way, the game is collaborative and we all win.

🧩 Kanoodle travels with us on our school camping trip, and the kids like to set up the puzzles for the grownups or vice versa.

🎧 And for you: if your kid needs a lot of attention and regulation, and often needs you nearby, you may find that listening to your own music, podcast, or show in an earbud can help you feel a little more connected to your own interests and needs.

What are your favorite travel games, activities, apps, and podcasts? I'd love to learn more!

If this was supportive and you want more ideas like these sent straight to your inbox, sign up for Gifted Lab Notes, my weekly(ish) newsletter, by commenting NOTES below 💌

07/29/2026

Research suggests - and I’ve seen firsthand - that many gifted autistic kids and teens go unidentified for years and never receive proper understanding or support.

Why does this happen?

First, it makes sense that parents may not realize their gifted kid is autistic.

Media portrayals of autism tend to focus on simplistic stereotypes and representations of autistic people with more obvious external differences. Many autistic gifted kids look nothing like the stereotype of autism.

Gifted autistic kids tend to have extraordinary language abilities, for example, not delayed language. Many (not all) are socially motivated and have friends. These kids’ differences are often attributed to their giftedness, and their strong intelligence often changes the expression of their autistic differences, which means their autistic differences are often less obvious to outside observers.

So what does an autistic gifted kid look like? Act like?

Some common characteristics include:

🧮Early fascination with letters or numbers

⭐️Love of organizing and systematizing

🦕Love of collecting items and/or information

✅Drive for accuracy

🔍Clear idea about how they want things to go

👀Intense curiosity about subjects that interest them

🗣️Advanced and formal use of language

🌀Advanced ability to notice patterns and understand systems

😡Emotional intensity

Want to dive deeper? Comment AUTISM below to read my full article, “Why is Autism Often Missed in Gifted Kids?” to learn more about the way autism often presents in gifted kids.

And if you'd like to dive into gifted/2e-specific parenting strategies, comment SUPPORT to learn more about Support Your Intense Gifted/2e Kid. The next live cohort will start in September but you can sign up to get started with the online modules at any time.

07/25/2026

Power struggles with your gifted or twice-exceptional kid aren't a parenting failure. They're information.

On Monday, I'm talking with the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted about why these standoffs happen so often in gifted/2e families — and what actually defuses them in the moment.

We'll cover:
💡 why power struggles show up so much with gifted/2e kids
💡 where they actually come from
💡 two ways to prevent them before they start
💡 what to say when you're already in one
💡 where to put your energy so the whole house feels less like a negotiation table

This is the same territory as my free mini course, live and in conversation — bring your real situations.

📅 Monday, July 27 @ 12PM Central
🔗 Comment "WEBINAR" below and I'll send you the link, or register at the link in bio.

https://watg.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F48154