Thanks for the giggle I needed it while on my hunt for the elusive orange folder with brads-school supplies…uugghh

yes, it is not only possible, but fairly common for someone to have a learning disability and be gifted. It seems to be related to the fact that high intelligence often represents unusually brain activity which can sometimes slip out of the realm productive gifted patterns and into counter-productive disabilities. In gifted education circles, they call this “twice gifted”.

Your son sounds like he may be a visual-spatial learner. This kids can be extremely bright, but have a harder time than most with verbal expression. Ask him if he ever thinks in pictures, shapes or colors. Many people who are visual spatial learners think this way. For obvious reasons, it can be hard for them to translate these images into words properly.

As for resources, my first thought, which you are probably already doing, would be to find any information you can about kids with fetal alcohol syndrome. From what I know of this problem, it tends to manifest most strongly in problems with attention issues, impulse control and medium to long range planning. From what you’re saying, this doesn’t sound like your son’s main issue, but knowledge is always helpful.

As far as gifted and “twice gifted” issues, I highly recommend the Hoagies’s Gifted link I provide at the end of the post above. They have tons and tons of information, including on twice gifted kids, special circumstances, how to get testing, visual-spatial learners, etc.

OTOH, there is SO much information on Hoagie’s that it can be a little intimidating. For information in easier to swallow chunks, there’s a sight called The Homeschool Diner. I have a link to it on my blogroll in the sidebar. It is specifically geared towards homeschoolers, but she has some fantastic information on giftedness, “twice gifted” and visual-spatial learners. The woman who runs it is actually a friend of mine. She too is an adoptive mom of a teenaged boy who is a visual spatial learner. I believe that he is twice-gifted in some way as well.

One other resource I would recommend is anything by a man name Dr. Mel Levine. In particular his book “A Mind At a Time” is helpful for parents working with a child with learning differences or disabilities. He advocates for figuring out exactly where the breakdown(s) in a child’s learning or output is/are and then working to re-train, accommodate or re-route these problem areas to minimize the difficulties they cause. He’s also big on good work habits which can be hard for both kids with disabilities and the gifted. Here’s the link to the amazon listing for “A Mind at a Time”:
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-at-Time-Mel-Levine/dp/B0012FBA38/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218252587&sr=8-1

I hope this helps!

I think that if you look at a person and see the personification of failure and sin, the fear of their plight will be transfered onto the person: “Addiction is a scary thing. That person is addiction walking. I fear them and then when my fear becomes emotionally untenable, I will move on to the more comfortable emotions of hate and contempt.” If all we see is their failure, we tend to transfer our emotional energy to the person themselves.

However, if we move through the process of imagining one’s self in the other’s shoes, we can begin to separate the sin from the person made in God’s image. We also see the role of God’s grace in protecting us from the trials and even temperment issues which allowed a person to wind up in such a perilous position to begin with. After going through that process it seems to me that fear would be directed not at the person, but towards the power of evil and sin and towards God himself. Which is, after all, the beginning of wisdom.

I know that this isn’t necessarily how it always works for people, but I do think that to the extent that we are willing to lean on God and not on our own power, “perfect love [which only God is capable of] casts out fear.”