Dr. Jeremy Sharp (01:18)
Hey folks, welcome back to the Testing Psychologist Podcast. We have a clinical episode for you today with my guest, Dr. Megan Hellman. In horror
Hey folks, welcome back to the Testing Psychologist Podcast. We have a clinical episode for you today. I’m talking with Dr. Megan Hellman. In her early work with autistic children and their families, Megan became increasingly aware of how difficult and disorienting the diagnostic process can be. This awareness shaped her professional mission, which is to provide a more informed, compassionate, and empowering introduction to neurodevelopmental understanding.
Dr. Hellman’s approach combines clinical expertise and research-backed strategies with genuine connection and a sense of humor. Now, after more than a decade in clinical practice within medical systems, she founded Developmental Discoveries to offer a more humanized and family-centered model of service. Practices built on ensuring that kids feel welcome and understood while caregivers gain meaningful insight into their child’s strengths and struggles and opportunities for growth.
So Megan is also a speaker and presenter. We’re talking today about a topic that is near and dear to her heart, which is giftedness or two e kiddos and neurodevelopmental concerns. So we tackle a lot within this realm. So we start with some basic understanding of 2e, what that is, how it’s defined both quantitatively and qualitatively. We talk about the state of the research with 2e kids right now and some
common structure or framework out there like Dabrowski’s overexcitability framework and highly sensitive persons and how that applies to giftedness. Talk about the association between giftedness and mental health concerns. Then we get into the assessment process. So we talk about both qualitative and quantitative or structured means of asking questions during our interview, things to look for, stories to pull for
Things that should catch our attention. Talk about the assessment process and how Megan primarily focuses on observations versus the quantitative data or even the tests that she selects. It’s more how kids approach certain tasks. We also, you know, talk about a little more detailed information around the overlap between giftedness and ADHD and autism, gender differences.
And a whole host of other things. So if you work with kids, you are going to be seeing gifted kids in some form or fashion, and there’s a lot to take away from this episode. So please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Megan Hellman.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:05)
Megan, hey, welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Megan Helmen (04:08)
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:10)
yeah, yeah. I’m glad to have you. I mean, you’ve been kinda all over the place doing a fair amount of speaking and presenting over the last several months. So I just feel lucky to have some of your time to chat about this topic of giftedness and two E stuff. So thanks for being here.
Dr. Megan Helmen (04:25)
Absolutely. It’s a full circle moment for me because I used your podcast as a study guide essentially when I was working to open my practice, developmental discoveries, coming up on four years ago. So it feels really exciting to be here and talking about my favorite, one of my favorite topics, giftedness and functionality.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:44)
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I’m glad to hear that it was helpful. Yeah, and it’s wild that it’s been four years. I can’t believe that. I don’t know. I know we talked like that kind of toward the beginning. And yeah, it’s awesome to see how things develop. So I’ll start with the question that I always start with with guests, which is of all the things to spend your time and energy and emotions on, you know, why why this topic, why is it so important?
Dr. Megan Helmen (04:52)
Yeah.
I think my answer is a short version of what essentially most people’s answers are, which is it’s me. And I can I can remember sitting in my Psych 1001 lecture hall and the professor saying
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (05:15)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (05:23)
You know, most people go into psychology to figure something out about themselves or just to figure out who they are. And I remember actually thinking to myself, Well, that’s really nice for everybody else. But, you know, nothing to see here. And then of course, slowly but surely found my way into this teeny tiny niche corner of the field that is twice exceptionality. and
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (05:30)
Mm-hmm.
Ha ha of course.
Dr. Megan Helmen (05:47)
found I really enjoyed the nuance and complexity of assessment with really bright kids when there were questions about developmental disabilities.
And as I got intrigued by that topic, I found that number one, there was almost zero resources and information on it. And number two, in the same time frame, had my own child assessed and learned that she’s a 2E ADHD kid, and then had the very common parenting experience of going,
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (06:22)
Mm-hmm,
mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (06:23)
Like looking in a mirror, hearing everything about her. and so kind of exploring it professionally, personally, has been a real joy and I decided to be the change I wished to see in the world and start
Teaching other people what I knew about it so that there could be more information out there for other professionals in our position.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (06:50)
Mm. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. I mean, there’s always a personal component, I think, to the work that we do. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re in a such a unique, what’s the word? Privileged position, you know, I think where we can we actually do have the power to dig in deeply and do that work and help others, you know, topics that we care about. So yeah, I mean so we’ve talked about
Dr. Megan Helmen (06:55)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (07:13)
two E on the podcast a little bit before. It’s been a long time. so I’m totally okay just starting with some basics. I would love to hear your just your definition of two E at this point and our understanding.
Dr. Megan Helmen (07:26)
Sure, well let’s start with the giftedness piece. So when we say two e, we’re referring to twice exceptional.
Meaning there’s two areas of exceptional functioning, some that are well above the mean and some that are below the mean. and giftedness I like to think of from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective. So quantitatively is what we usually think about as psychologists in the testing field. We think about our bell curve, and we get some training, I would argue, a lot more training on the lower end of.
the curves and people we would identify as having an intellectual disability whose you know reasoning capabilities and you know skill acquisition pace and style are two standard deviations below the mean or lower.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (07:59)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (08:13)
And giftedness, oftentimes, if I’m gonna have to stand on a certain number, which of course there’s no solid agreement on this, but generally we think about two standard deviations on the other end of the mean. And if you can appreciate that that group is just as far from the norm as people who are intellectually disabled, but in the other direction, then you can start to think about how their way of experiencing.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (08:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (08:38)
world processing information reasoning thinking interacting is going to be qualitatively different from a qualitative perspective the most concise definition i’ve ever heard is more
Morness. I would love to quote whoever said it. I can’t recall. So if it’s you, let me know. But there’s just more noticing, you know, more processing, more questioning, more curiosity, more exploration, more thirst for knowledge. ⁓ oftentimes just that rapid web-like thinking patterns, connecting the dots more quickly than other people do. so those are like maybe the students who are hearing a concept for the first time get right away.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (08:59)
Mm.
Yes.
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (09:20)
Away and then are quickly associating it with what else they know and what interesting questions they’d like to ask about it while everyone else is still going through those six, seven, eight you know, learning trials to kind of process the information. and that aligns fairly neatly with the NAGC definition, which talks about a difference in.
processing style that requires a a different set of approaches educationally and can often come with some of these qualitative differences. So ⁓
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (09:55)
Sure. And what’s the N A G
C just for anyone who may not be familiar?
Dr. Megan Helmen (09:59)
sure, the National Association for Gifted Children. And it’s primarily focused on the educational sector, but it’s one place to find some information as a psychologist if you’re interested.
And so thinking about choice exceptionality, we’re thinking about someone who has an area of intellectual giftedness and a developmental disability. That’s how I think about it. I don’t know that there’s an across the board agreement, but I think about I don’t group mental health diagnoses in as part of choice exceptionality. I’m thinking about developmental differences. So ADHD autism learning disability is another.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (10:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (10:36)
diagnoses in that category being present within this, yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (10:39)
That makes sense.
Sure, sure. I think that’s fair. I can get on board with that for the purposes of our discussion. let me go back to the quantitative component just for a second. and you alluded to the idea there’s n maybe not an agreed upon quantitative definition of giftedness. So I know I think here in Colorado, you know, just according to the Department of Education, they put giftedness, quote unquote, at the ninety-fifth percentile or above.
So we have we have a quantification just from the Department of Education. is there anything like that? Is there any is there any agreed upon you know, percentile standard score, anything like that? Or is it kind of state by state or are we just sort of winging it when we define two E?
Dr. Megan Helmen (11:12)
Sure.
Yeah.
I should mention first that a lot of your listeners might be thinking about this in the educational context, and that’s what so much information is available in terms of giftedness is in the context of the educational field. And I’m really thinking about it more from a developmental, neuropsychological lens, and it being a neurotype of its own.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (11:33)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (11:48)
So for me, I’m thinking about it more in the context of that quantitative, qualitative piece, whereas educational systems may be looking at a child’s score in the Cogat or how well they are performing in a certain academic area.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (11:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (12:03)
In the research on giftedness, I’ve seen the cutoff of 120 used, 130 seems to be more common. I like 125 because it aligns with the intellectual gift or intellectual
Disability diagnosis, you think about 70 or up to 75, but being present with impairments in functioning. So on the other end of the continuum, thinking about 130 or maybe 125 and higher with some of these qualitative features that present with it or areas where they’re really accelerating as kind of a nice way to think about it, since we already have a template for thinking about the other end of the bell curve.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (12:42)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (12:42)
applying that to giftedness. But yeah, I would say state by state, even school by school, and even that it can change year to year. But I’ve observed in my school district where, you know, a kid one year with similar scores to a kid the next year didn’t qualify for a program because the pool of candidates was different. So it’s it really depends.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (13:03)
Right,
right. Yeah, and I I just wanna go back to the the point that you made about how we tend to focus on you know, individuals at the lower end of the bell curve. You know, we do spend a lot of time talking about yeah, I don’t I don’t know if deficits is the right word. I don’t I don’t really like that word, but I can’t think of a better one right now. But
Dr. Megan Helmen (13:22)
Say requiring
more support in order to be successful and have independence or autonomy in daily life.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (13:28)
Thank you. Yes. That’s much more eloquent and descriptive and affirming. Yeah, so those folks, but it’s such a good point. You know, if we’re just thinking like statistically, and psychometrically, gifted kids wa, you know, are twenty, thirty points above mean, and that’s you know, that’s the equivalent just on the o in the other direction. But I think we assume maybe I’m saying we a lot, I I’ll I’ll speak personally. I sometimes just assume
Dr. Megan Helmen (13:31)
Huh.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (13:54)
That because kids are smart, they’re probably doing fine, you know? And ⁓ I think a l maybe a lot of people do have that assumption as well.
Dr. Megan Helmen (13:57)
Yeah.
Yeah, that is a common assumption. If we can take a step back from the maybe cultural presumption that smarter is better and think of it more as this is quantitatively different, so it’s gonna be qualitatively different. And if you’re that different from the mean, the standard structures and systems that are set up are
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (14:16)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (14:29)
Most likely or often not going to be a good fit for your pace style preferences of learning. ⁓ may make it harder to find social connections where it feels like it clicks and you know, you are kind of operating on the same level in some ways. and then just like functioning in day-to-day life, feeling maybe out of step at times with others because.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (14:36)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (14:55)
People with intellectual giftedness aren’t gifted in all areas. So a common term you hear is asynchrony, meaning there’s gonna be areas where they may be typically functioning in a more typical way, or even a little bit below typical, or very impaired, you know, all the way up to these areas where they have.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (15:01)
Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (15:15)
really exceptional capabilities. So the amount of variability in the profile is very different from most people and that can be easily misinterpreted.
by someone kind of assessing themselves, well it must be I’m not very good at this, or it must be that I’m not trying hard enough, and those same messages can be assumed by other people trying to make sense of this person who is so variable in their capabilities across different domains.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (15:47)
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, it’s not a monolith by any means. There’s a lot of variability. As with any group, right. Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (15:54)
Are there
features that you notice and patterns that you’ve seen over the years when you are working with someone who has areas of exceptional cognitive abilities?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (16:06)
Yeah, yeah, it’s a good question. I think that well, I my first response is it varies, you know. Like I can call up maybe four or five different kids, you know, that I’m thinking of, like top of mind. And but they are all a little bit different, you know? Like to me, you know, like verbal whatever, like high verbal skills feels very different than like high visual spatial skills or ⁓ kids who are like super creative.
Dr. Megan Helmen (16:28)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (16:33)
you know, feels a little bit different than, you know, kids who are more, I don’t know if you like intellectually gifted, so to speak.
Dr. Megan Helmen (16:39)
Sure, or those
engineering minds, those STEM kids. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (16:42)
Mm-hmm. Right, right. I mean I would say maybe a thread that runs throughout is kind of what you alluded to is just like those deeper layers of maybe simultaneous thinking, you know, like being able to like think through things more quickly and with a higher like a higher volume of you know parallel threads or something like that. You know. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (17:02)
Sure, I like those descriptions, yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (17:07)
Yeah, so that’s what I don’t know, that’s what comes to mind for me. there does I I could be inventing this, but it seems like, you know, there is a an amount of anxiety, maybe is the right word that kind of goes along with giftedness. And maybe that’s just from you know, a sampling bias of the kids I’m thinking of. I don’t know. You tell me. Is there I was gonna ask, I mean, is there any association that we know of between, you know, giftedness and different mental health diagnoses at this point?
Dr. Megan Helmen (17:34)
Yeah, there is, you know, the short answer is the research varies, but there are some studies to point to higher levels of mood and anxiety concerns in the gifted population. You know, like you said, it’s a sampling bias because we’re only seeing the kids who are coming in because something’s not going well for one reason or another.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (17:48)
Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (17:58)
But my observation is that a lot of gifted traits are a two-sided coin.
And a common gifted trait is attention to detail. This is wonderful in many ways, right? These are the kids who are walking in your office and they’re noticing all kinds of things and asking questions. They’re artists maybe, they’re really great at coding, so they you know pick apart all these details and patterns, but then you add distress to that or anxiety or judgment to that quality, and you can easily
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (18:27)
Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (18:34)
Get perfectionism and focusing too much on detail in a way that causes them to you know.
Feel like a failure or avoid tasks altogether. Or another common quality I see a common trait in giftedness is this ability to think out several steps really quickly. That can be a great benefit in certain situations, but if you’re feeling stressed and you’re thinking out several layers or several steps and it’s all worst-case scenarios, then that’s extremely overwhelming and distressing. So I think
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (18:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (19:09)
I it seems to me, my observations over the years, and hopefully someday there will be research to back back this up, but that these traits that can often show up in these kids and adults, the goal becomes learning to notice them, notice when they’re showing up and how, labeling it, naming it, and then learning.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (19:28)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (19:30)
Is this helping me right now? Is this harmful right now? And I have some free downloads on my website that kind of have a few of these examples of traits and how they can be helpful or harmful, how they might show up in different ways. So that we’re not gonna change this quality about a person. We wouldn’t want to, nor could we if we tried. So let’s just learn about it, notice it, engage with it, adjust it as needed.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (19:53)
I like how you phrase that. Yeah. Do we know do we know of any differences in the research, broad, you know, broad wide scale differences between girls and boys who are gifted?
Dr. Megan Helmen (20:07)
I from what I read in the research, it’s often more often includes boys or the pool of can or the pool of participants is often skewed toward boys, but there isn’t
You know, if you do random sampling of the population, you sh it’s pretty evenly distributed. You know, the whisk, for example, it doesn’t have different norms for girls and boys or gender groups, it’s all pulled together.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (20:28)
Right.
Sure, sure. And as far as the maybe qu I don’t know if you’d say qualitative differences, but I suppose maybe the question is like, is giftedness sort of like manifesting differently with boys and girls? Does that make sense?
Dr. Megan Helmen (20:47)
Yeah.
Sure. The short answer is I don’t know. I haven’t noticed. Yeah. I haven’t noticed any particular patterns that way. If we got into talking about like autism and giftedness in girls versus boys, I I
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (20:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don’t either. You know it
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (21:09)
can point to some themes that I’ve observed there. I’d say same with ADHD to an extent, but just thinking broadly about giftedness, I haven’t noticed a pattern.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (21:14)
Mm-hmm.
Okay. Yeah, let’s pin both of those topics. I want to come back to those. let me, you know, I know I’m hitting you with a lot of kind of background questions, but these are just the things that pop up for me, you know, when I’m thinking about this topic. And I wonder, you know, I’ve heard a lot about I think this was my initial maybe introduction to giftedness, way back whenever, was Dabrowski’s overexcitabilities, you know, and that whole, I guess, I guess, theory ⁓ or you know, framework.
Dr. Megan Helmen (21:45)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (21:48)
What do you make of that? Is that legit? is it supported by the research?
Dr. Megan Helmen (21:54)
Good question. So, for anyone who’s not aware, Dabrowski had a theory developed in the 1960s and looked at intellectually gifted individuals and noticed these patterns that he called overexcitability. I often interchange that with the term intensity. Seems like parents can
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (22:14)
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (22:18)
grasp that or relate to that term a bit better. Like, yep, my kids pretty intense. and there’s five main areas. So this is thinking about those qualitative aspects of giftedness, ⁓ where these qualities show up in a much more intense way. So one is psycho motor. So these are just they have more energy they need to exude, whether that’s through fidgeting or movement or
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (22:23)
Right. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (22:45)
climbing, just it’s hard for them to just be completely still.
Sensual, which refers to sensory experiences. They are the kids who are deeply moved by or entrenched in like art and music. They might be more s sensitive to sensory input. They’re noticing the sounds, smells, details that other people aren’t noticing. Imaginational. I’ve had kids come in here and they have developed extraordinarily elaborate imaginary worlds with characters and storylines.
you know, they might pace and kind of get into their world, and that’s a really fun activity for them. and they it it’s almost it can be hard to harness at times. Like it’s it’s become so real for them, like they’re watching it play out in front of them. ⁓
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (23:33)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (23:34)
Intellectual intensity has to do with this really strong drive for knowledge. They’re the kids who are asking a million questions, who really have a deep desire to understand. They’re the kid who will
You know, it’ll drive them crazy if you don’t stop to explain the full depth of the concept, right? When they need to hear it and you would just want to graze past it and move on. And then emotional. So there’s this profound
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (23:58)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (24:03)
sensitivity to emotion. They’re the kids who might be picking up on all of the layers of the emotional atmosphere and the space they’re in. They’re experiencing their emotions very deeply and intensely. deep empathy might have bigger emotional responses. And
The tricky thing is I think with some of these, they obviously overlap with other when we’re thinking about diagnoses, like autism. There is sensory processing differences and with autism and ADHD, these emotional intensity and reactivity differences. Psychomotor, obviously that sounds like hyperactivity and ADHD. and to what extent you think about them conceptually in one way or another, I think depends, and we can dig into that more.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (24:37)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (24:48)
I think the imaginational and the in intellectual excitabilities are more unique to intellectual giftedness.
the emotional and the intellectual excitabilities or intensities were the most common seen in a recent study. So the short answer on is there good research to back this up is no.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (25:05)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (25:11)
I did a search in APA for Dabrowski and it was very minimal what was there. I would say clinically in practice, I really like having this framework to pull from because it’s
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (25:16)
Okay.
Dr. Megan Helmen (25:25)
A nice easy way for families and kids to conceptualize themselves, like, my brain is differently. I’m thinking in more complex ways. And for me, that also means I have a really intense imagination or I have a lot of more energy moving through me where I need to move a lot.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (25:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (25:46)
And so I think for the listeners, if they have intellectually gifted kids they’re seeing or adults, just talking, having this conversation, like do you relate to some of these and what does that mean for you? Can be a really an enriching experience.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (26:00)
I hear you. As you describe this, makes me think a lot of the highly sensitive person construct. And I wonder, do we know much about is there any overlap there? And I’m admittedly naive. I haven’t dug into the research on highly sensitive people. I’m not sure if that’s even a legitimate construct, separate from other diagnoses or what. So I’m open to anything you might know about this.
Dr. Megan Helmen (26:20)
Yeah, I’d say it’s a a bit of a sloppy Venn diagram that we’re talking about here. ⁓ yeah, so high the highly sensitive person construct comes from Dr. Elaine Aaron, A-R-O-N. And she did some research in the 90s. There’s been some research that did find there’s more mirror neurons in people who have this highly sensitive profile.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (26:25)
Yeah, yeah. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah.
Okay.
Dr. Megan Helmen (26:46)
She in her work cites that about one in six people is highly sensitive. And the best way that the what really helped me understand it was that for so much of our existence as humans, then when we lived in smaller tribes, you had to have part of the group that noticed everything on the horizon, who was sensitive to changes in weather, who made sure everyone was doing kind of what they’re supposed to be doing, rhythms were being followed.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (26:51)
Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (27:14)
and then we plop that same nervous system in today’s world. And so these are the people who are more sensory sensitive, really rely a bit more on routine, are gonna be thrown for a loop more if things change, thinking with a bit more depth there
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (27:31)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (27:35)
maybe a bit more emotionally responsive and sensitive. So you’re hearing a lot of the same themes now as we’re going through these different constructs.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (27:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Certainly.
Dr. Megan Helmen (27:46)
I think the big difference here is highly sensitive. She’s saying it’s about one in six people and it’s independent of intellectual ability. Dabrowski is looking specifically at intellectually gifted people and noticing patterns that probably overlap with what she’s observing in a lot of general population. And then some of it overlaps with our the diagnoses that we use. So it’s about whether or not it’s impairing them or getting in the way of things or causing distress.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (28:14)
Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. Like you said, a messy Venn diagram. It just strikes me, you know, we’re just still working toward how to describe humans. There’s a lot of different ways to think about it. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (28:17)
Yeah.
I don’t think we’ll ever come to a solid agreement. It will just be lots of interesting conversations and people with their own perspectives and ways of seeing things through their personal and professional lenses. That’s why it’s fun to have conversations like this.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (28:44)
Definitely, definitely. Well, maybe we move to the clinical aspect, right? So all of us, I think, who are listening are doing assessment in some form or fashion. So let’s talk about the assessment process. What does this look like for you? And what do we need to be considering? Maybe we start at the top in terms of just like a diagnostic interview, you know. What lens do we need to be looking through? Questions we might want to ask, things to pick up on, hidden comments that could signal.
Giftedness, yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (29:13)
Yeah.
So if you’re hearing parents tell stories where their child taught themselves to read before kindergarten or they were noticing and showing an interest in numbers and letters at an early age.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (29:27)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (29:28)
I had a parent explain to me once how she watched her 18 month-old figure out how to get a ball that had rolled under a cabinet. And at 18 months he’s he sat and looked at it and then he went across the room, got a stick, and went back and figured out how to reach under the cabinet and pull the ball out. I mean, just some really phenomenal problem solving skills. ⁓ they talk a bit earlier, they tend to reach first words earlier. They are the they might be.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (29:50)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (29:57)
the kids who are talking in full sentences and using more advanced vocabulary from a young age. I hear a lot of parents talk about deep thinking. So they might be the, you know, I remember driving my four when she was four, my daughter, from the backseat asking questions about life and death.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:04)
Mm-hmm.
Hm.
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (30:18)
And of course that she was the same kid who just couldn’t follow one step instruction without me, you know, losing my patience. So that’s a two E profile right there. but yeah, the the you know, they’re one I had a parent just the other day at say, you know, my child is five years old and they’re laying in bed and they’re doing the math and they’re realizing that when they’re my age that I might not be alive and so what’s gonna happen then? So they’re re thinking about these concepts and questioning things.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:28)
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
gosh. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (30:48)
That are and learning things that are tend to be beyond their years in the typical population.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (30:54)
That makes sense. Yeah. I’m thinking back to some of those conversations with my own kids, which were kind of startling and fascinating and interesting all at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is great. And once we are you know, so we’re in there. I I like the idea of asking for stories from parents in a lot, you know, versus like symptom driven questions.
Dr. Megan Helmen (31:03)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:19)
And so I could see that fitting like pretty nicely with with this, I don’t know, with these kiddos where you know we’re eliciting like more stories versus I don’t know developmental milestones necessarily. What do you think about
Dr. Megan Helmen (31:32)
Yeah. You know, I it didn’t even occur to me to interview around symptoms. I I really don’t approach it that way most of the time, unless I’m really trying to fine-tune my understanding of what’s going on towards the end of my interview. But I generally am listening to stories throughout most of my interview, and I’m listening for some of these cues and breadcrumbs to pick up on and then or listening for patterns across stories, themes that start to emerge because parents don’t know symptom checklists.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (31:39)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (32:04)
They just know what’s happening in their life and with their child and so they’re bringing in these stories. And I think, you know, for all of the clinicians listening, if they can start to learn a bit more about how intellectual giftedness can look or sound in kids and how these things can show up.
You know, you’re listening for some of those anomaly areas, a positive anomaly likely, but an anomaly nonetheless in terms of the things they say or the questions they ask, the topics they’re thinking about. It’s sounding beyond their ears. And you might go, okay, let me go back and like ask a bit more about some of the early milestones, ask about pace of learning. How are they feeling about school? you know, are they
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (32:37)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (32:52)
I often find that sometimes the symptoms in these kids are showing up because they have an unmet intellectual need. And something I’ll say to parents that I’ve observed in my work over the years is that
Everyone has certain human needs, you know, sleep, hunger, physical activity, social connection. And intellectually gifted kids and adults have an intellectual need that if not met can make it difficult to function well or to feel well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (33:19)
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (33:24)
One example, I had a a really bright girl and this parent’s story that she shared was it’s so hard to get her to bed at night. She’s always wanting to talk more or ask for things. It’s like her wheels can’t stop turning. And so j j even at the intake, I said, I’m just gonna give you a couple ideas.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (33:41)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (33:47)
Play around with it, experiment, see how it goes, and then you know, we’ll be checking in at the appointments and the feedback. So I gave them a few ideas for some intellectually stimulating activities they could do in the time leading up to bed to see if meeting a a need, you know, playing some trivia games, doing some puzzles on the floor, things like that.
And it did actually help. They kind of met this need of hers. So it’s really, yeah, important to listen to the stories, listen for these themes. And then assessing the areas of disability is a whole nother piece that we can dive into as well.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (34:25)
Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m glad you brought that up. That’s a nice segue, I think, to something that was on my mind, which is you know, we’re all trying to balance the time in a diagnostic interview. And we all have our things, right? Like we focus on what catches our attention or you know, what the parents are are bringing at the forefront. I ⁓ so
Dr. Megan Helmen (34:38)
Okay.
Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (34:46)
This is a tricky question. Maybe there’s not a great answer, but I’m curious how you kind of think about structuring the time in an interview and you know, balancing you know, pulling on some of these threads that could indicate giftedness versus, you know, the the struggles that a kid might be having or other other aspects that you want to focus on.
Dr. Megan Helmen (35:05)
Sure. I always, number one, I start with saying here’s what I understand to be true so far based on my review of the chart. So number one, they know I did my homework and two, I make sure I’m starting off kind of in the right spot with them. They haven’t missed anything while you know, anything blaring. The second thing I do is sort of leave it pretty open and see what comes forward first. You just used a term that that caught me sort of like what what comes forth or what do they bring out in the beginning because that’s obviously what
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (35:21)
Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (35:37)
Most pressing. So qualitatively, that’s good information, and that lets me know that that should be an area for me to focus my understanding on. And from that, I’m pulling, I’m kind of noticing what they’re sharing and starting in my mind to go, okay. I want to make sure I go down this path, this path, this path, this path, and thinking about
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (35:39)
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (35:59)
differentiating and and teasing apart what’s what diagnostically. And so then I do some follow-up questions and then I’d say the last portion, I do a 90 minute intake. ⁓ The last portion I’m really that’s where I might be really more specifically fine tuning my understanding by asking specific targeted questions rather than keeping it more open ended. And I’ll tell parents too I’ll say I’m gonna
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (36:11)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (36:26)
Shift my approach here a bit because I want to make sure I’ve turned over every stone and I really understand what’s going on. So it might seem like I’m jumping around a bit, but I have some specific questions I wanted to ask. And I think for in general, for gifted 2e kids, like if they’re coming in for an assessment, there’s maybe a good chance they’re twice as exceptional or they’re gifted and having some mental health concerns. And so really
Fine spending more time on that fine-tuning, you might need more of a balance there because you have to dig deeper. Screening isn’t enough. So maybe if one message comes away from today, if people don’t remember anything else with gifted and 2e kids, you have to dig deeper. The screening’s not enough because their strengths can mask or compensate for areas of difficulty. so you really need to to get a deeper
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:05)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (37:15)
understanding of how they got to where they are, how they’re achieving the way they are, how they’re functioning at the level they are.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:23)
Right, right. Again, speaking of this whole process, you’re setting up these questions so well, Megan, and I love it. Is there we’ve been talking a lot about the kind of the qualitative aspect of this and you know, hearing stories and getting parents’ perspectives and things. is there a
Dr. Megan Helmen (37:30)
Great.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:39)
yeah, a structured sort of quantitative way to do this? Like are there any like structure semi-structured interviews for giftedness that we need to be aware of that are out there if we did want to use an approach like that?
Dr. Megan Helmen (37:50)
That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer. I would guess that there are. I haven’t I haven’t used them myself. So
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (37:53)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. I haven’t heard of anyone using them, but again, I’m not an expert in this area by any means. But yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (38:04)
Yeah.
I’ve got plenty to learn myself. So I can find an answer and let you know.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (38:07)
We all do. We all do.
Nice. Nice. I love that. I love that. That’s what I tell it’s funny. I tell my interns and postdocs, like it’s totally okay to say I don’t know. Just say I don’t know. I’ll go look it up and you know, send you the answer if I find it.
Dr. Megan Helmen (38:19)
Yeah.
People can find that wildly refreshing. It’s more important to know what you don’t know than to know everything. To say or claim that you know everything. Yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (38:24)
Right? Right? Yeah. Yeah. I know this is
a hundred percent.
Yeah, I’m with you. I’m with you. It was very we’re like really getting on a tangent now, but it was very relieving to me when I figured out I could just say I don’t know in my career and go find the answer and send it to them later. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (38:44)
Right. And that’s far
more impressive from a supervisor position to observe that self-awareness and then drive for understanding and problem solving and coming to a solution on your own. Seemed to work out okay for you.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (39:00)
I hope so. I hope so. Yeah, I’ll take that. I don’t know so far. So far. Yeah.
Mostly. Okay. So let’s see. Maybe we move to a discussion around well, we can stick on this thread of like the actual assessment process. So is there anything that changes in your battery, in your you know, your cognitive measures, your rating scales, questionnaires?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (40:42)
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Dr. Megan Helmen (41:48)
Sure. I would actually approach it from a slightly different perspective instead of thinking about what test measures to me a big shift in thinking about assessing giftedness is number one really focusing
More on observations, the qualitative observations of how they approach the test, how they navigate their way through the test and achieve the score they achieve on the test is really important. You can’t just interpret the score because there’s gonna most likely be some important qualitative information of how they got to that score. And the reason why that’s important is number two, an average score doesn’t mean average experience for them.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (42:08)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (42:34)
them in their day-to-day life for that skill set that you’re trying to test. Sure. Oftentimes what we think we’re measuring for gifted kids, like let’s test their phonological processing. Let’s test, let’s test their you know their math reasoning skills. Like you may actually
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (42:39)
Say more about that.
Dr. Megan Helmen (42:55)
Get a much higher score. I’m going to use the Phonics one as an example. They may achieve a higher higher score on that specific test measure because they can use their pattern reasoning skills, their observational skills to hack.
The test and achieve a certain score that isn’t reflective of how they’re actively using their phonological awareness skills in day-to-day life. So I had a teen here recently who I was doing the C Top with. If you’re not familiar, it looks at various processes involved in reading and
she got some of the easier answers or lower level answers wrong, but then she recognized a pattern that all the answers were a word.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (43:37)
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (43:44)
So if you’re you know, when we’re doing saying like say truck without the er sound, it’s tuck, right? Like she recognized that there was this pattern happening, and so I watched her struggle with that phonological task, and then she would whisper to herself several words that sounded similar, and then figured out, like, this is probably the answer. So she got a lot right and scored, I think she was average or maybe low average, but she she didn’t.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (43:44)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (44:13)
She
just move through the task normally. She figured out the pattern and she used a good strategy to answer correctly. But in her day-to-day life with reading, she was feeling overwhelmed, falling behind with her reading, struggling with comprehension.
So really noticing their approach to tasks and not just going, average moving on, because an average score for a kid who’s intellectually gifted is a significant discrepancy and they’re probably not experiencing that average score as
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (44:42)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (44:47)
just run of the mill in daily life. It could be a source of a lot of frustration for them. And functionally they may be functioning lower than what they scored on this the test, measuring that skill.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (44:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That’s a great example. I would love to hear more if you have them, like other observations that we need to pay attention to or examples of behaviors or process that we could look at.
Dr. Megan Helmen (45:05)
Yeah.
Sure.
How about I do one more reading one and then we can go to like ADHD and autism? That’s perfect. Okay. Another recent one example that comes to mind was a middle school age girl who was, you know, actually gifted, verbally gifted, and they had suspected dyslexia, but when she was younger, she did some testing, the scores looked fine.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (45:16)
Nice, yeah, let’s do that. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (45:36)
Now she’s in middle school and she was actually still doing okay. And when she did the Wyatt with me.
She had memorized plenty of sight words, so her word reading was fine, average range. Her reading comprehension was average. I think she had a 106, as I recall. Why that number sticks in my head, but qualitatively, the way she got there was that she would go back and reread the entire passage for every single question. So it took a really long time for her to finish. And if you just look at a score, you’re not gonna know that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (45:55)
Ha ha ha.
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (46:11)
And then, of course, her dyslexia was really highlighted in her spelling challenges and having her read aloud, which if you’re ever testing dyslexia, you have to listen to them read out loud, especially gifted kids, because they can read and fill in the gaps pretty well with their reasoning and using context. But if you listen to them read out loud.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (46:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (46:37)
Then you’ll hear where they’re making errors or mis, you know, substituting words that you’re not gonna catch if you if you just have them read silently and then answer comprehension questions. with ADHD in giftedness, I’d notice a lot of
Lots of ideas, lots of directions to go, but trouble organizing that information, trouble following through on any one particular train of thought. in testing, they might score average to low average on measures intended to assess attention and impulse control.
Joe Neglieri did a study looking at intellectual giftedness and processing differences like ADHD, and found that using a score of 90 as a cutoff was more appropriate in capturing intellectually gifted kids who had slower processing speed that was aligned with a constellation of challenges like ADHD. And actually going back for a moment to dyslexia and learning disabilities, Danica Maddox has done a couple.
Studies and she actually found the same cutoff, 90 was a better threshold to use to capture the right number of students with a learning disability when you’re looking at the gifted population. So if you use discrepancy model, you are going to capture way too many. There’s gonna be a disproportionate number of kids identified as learning disabled because there is some asynchrony that happens.
If you use an the impairment level, like a 70 or lower, you’re gonna hardly capture any. So the sweet spot seems to be 90. So I tend to keep that in mind as a rule of thumb. I look back at a test measure that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:16)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (48:23)
Fortunately, the psychologist in my first practicum had us try out a bunch of the tests because I’ll never know for sure. But I remember my processing speed score was an 87, which was a far cry from how I performed on the reasoning and analytical thinking tasks, which is helpful for me to understand myself now. I really have to slow down in order to think through things effectively.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:28)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (48:49)
And now I’m going on a tangent because of who I am as a person. Back to the ADHD case. ADHD and testing. ⁓ How ironic. so many thoughts to follow through on. ⁓ yeah. But if you’re doing like a CPT measure, for example, or like nepsi attention and it’s in inhibition, things like that, I find you have to
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (48:52)
Hey, I’m right with you. ⁓ Parallel process. Yes, yes.
Right, right.
Dr. Megan Helmen (49:17)
let go of some of maybe the rigid thoughts about an impaired score is this or lower because again they can find ways to adapt to the test and score
Reasonably better than what is truly reflective of how it’s impacting them in their daily life. So you have to make sure you’re integrating those stories you heard. Where are things falling apart for them? Where are they impaired without supports in place? Where are they experiencing high levels of distress? And what are the threads that run through those stories? What are the skills they’re missing? And how does that translate to areas of relative weakness in their testing profile?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (49:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that. You know, I was talking with Dr. Paul Belgian a few weeks ago, you know, about this in kind of a context of learning disorder specifically. And he’s just we weren’t talking about giftedness necessarily, but just he’s a big advocate of you know looking at process versus psychometrics, strictly, you know, strictly looking at scores. And I feel like we’re just reinforcing the that idea here. And it’s even more important with gifted.
kids, where you got to ask about the qualitative experience as well. and okay, like maybe you’re reading at an average level, but you know, what’s the effort involved here? What’s this like for you? how confident do you feel right now? You know, things like that to get at those underlying features. Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (50:41)
Right.
Yeah, and then course
we have the pleasure of talking with the parents of these kids. And when we’re explaining all this in feedback, I hear more stories. So then all of a sudden the dad’s sharing, Yeah, I didn’t buy any textbooks in college. I’ll never be able to get through it anyway. So I just went to all my classes, I listened, I
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (50:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (51:05)
you know, went and discussed the topics with with my study group, but I never did any of the reading and I did just fine. So they they find ways to work around it. and so that you know I well yeah, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had dyslexia. It does run in families and it sounds like reading was harder for you too.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (51:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, right. Yeah. You know, going back I when we’re talking about gifted kids with ADHD potentially, I again I’m thinking about those like highly verbal kids specifically, but I get this sort of like picture in my mind of a like a like a dollhouse or like a complex structure built with popsicle sticks where it’s like there’s a lot of words, but maybe not a lot of
glue to hold it all together or like substance necessarily, where kids will just, you know, like throw out a lot of content, but it’s kind of disorganized and could fall apart if you like poke poke too hard, if that makes sense. and I’m always kind of tuned into that, right? And does this all like stick together?
Dr. Megan Helmen (52:05)
Are you thinking is
are you thinking about gifted and ADHD? Is that what you’re referring? Yeah. Okay.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:10)
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Like just lots of ideas, lots of words, probably big words, great vocabulary and maybe even complex ideas and ⁓ I have to work really hard to you know, make it all sort of like cohesive and solid. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (52:20)
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah, there’s a really cool study that
it was pretty small but it looked at groups of adults one with one with ADHD one group without ADHD had them read the same story and then relay the story afterwards and then they mapped words the key words and points in the story and the visual maps of how they told the story if you didn’t have ADHD it was like a a well thought out well planned
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:42)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (52:57)
Structure. So imagine a circle, a full circle with a couple offshoots, and then the ADHD storytelling structure was very tangential, and there was these little loops where they repeat themselves. They go off this way and then come back again. So visually, they had all the information, but they couldn’t organize it to tell an effective.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (52:58)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (53:21)
story or structure and that is I mean I’m sitting here with my post-it notes because I need visual reminders of the structure of how to put my thoughts together to try to avoid rambling tangentially
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (53:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Nice. Nice.
Yeah. I this is how it goes. I mean, and I think it speaks to compensatory strategies too, you know, and finding ways that work for you.
Dr. Megan Helmen (53:42)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (53:48)
Yeah. So what about autism? How does this where’s the intersection here of autism and giftedness?
Dr. Megan Helmen (53:55)
This is truly one of my very favorite, favorite areas, and what brought me to the field in the first place. I I’ve worked with kids with autism since high school, and it was the what I call subtle but significant presentations of autism that really got me curious about twice exceptionality. These really bright kids I found were often
Misunderstood as well, it’s because they’re so smart, they’re really quirky, they have these interests they’re so passionate about, and you know, kind of over ascribing autistic traits as giftedness. And then conversely, some kids who were
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (54:34)
Mm, yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (54:39)
Autistic, maybe more apparently so, and their areas of intellectual giftedness weren’t being fully recognized and fostered more often, the former. And I think it’s really important to know that.
don’t assume that someone who’s intellectually gifted is really quirky. You know, they might be, but they might not be. That’s not that’s kind of neither here nor there, or that they’re all, you know, like little professors or don’t know how to don’t have people skills or street smarts. They’re just book smart. You know, that’s there are people like that, but that’s you know, there’s not a monolith with intellectual giftedness just like anything else. that
If you’re hearing social struggles, if you’re hearing overwhelm, meltdowns, and the theme that runs through those stories is when there is a change, or because they it required some flexibility on their part to with the rules or issues of fairness and justice, like that’s notable. more extreme sensory processing differences. So while a lot of
intellectually gifted people might notice and sense more and it could be even bothersome at times. It’s not at the level that typically seen as in autism where unless it’s appropriately addressed, adjusted for, or a sensory need is met, they’re not gonna be able to function well. So it’s I talk a lot about preferences versus needs.
If you’re trying to think about is this aspect of their profile a preference or a need? Because it’s not about preference. If it was about preference, it wouldn’t be disabling. You know, you c I strongly prefer to wear leisure wear all the time. But I can handle it if I don’t, right? Like I can wear in a comfortable pair of shoes for a day and handle it.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (56:12)
Mm.
Yeah. Same.
Right.
Dr. Megan Helmen (56:32)
Whereas like a sensory need is like if this kid can’t be able to move their body, or if the noise is too loud, or there’s too many people talking at once, if they become unglued, that’s another level. So thinking about what you already know about autism, and again, you have to go past the screening questions.
Having friends doesn’t rule out autism. Having strength does not rule out autism. That is something I would like to shout from the mountaintops, right? Because especially 2E autistic kids are gonna have some really exceptional strengths and they might be using those strengths to hack some of the areas where they’re struggling.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (56:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. That’s such a good point. Can I go back? I I like this distinction between preferences and needs. And just to put a fine point on it, you know, you’re kind of saying, hey, if this is a clinical, like functionally, you know, im impairing, like needing support sort of diagnostic picture, like autism, for example, that is more of a need. Whereas, you know, a lot of gift kids will have more of a preference.
Dr. Megan Helmen (57:24)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (57:43)
Is that right?
Dr. Megan Helmen (57:44)
Yeah, and I mean everyone has preferences, right? But if we’re thinking about the Dabrowski, for example, and some of the sensory overexcitability. You know, like I I relate to that myself. I tune into a lot more noises than most people. I smell things before anyone else does. ⁓ things like that.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (57:57)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (58:08)
But it doesn’t impair my functioning, it doesn’t cause me distress. I don’t have to think ahead about is this place gonna have a certain smell? And I’m gonna have to figure out a way to manage that. Whereas if you have a sensory processing difference in your profile, where unless you’re accounting for it, accommodating it, have people who will understand and adjust for you.
without those pieces in place, you’re gonna experience disability, then it’s part of a diagnostic criteria for a disability. so I I do worry sometimes about the watering down that happens with some of the criteria. You know, we want to make sure we’re capturing people who are often overlooked who are truly autistic and we don’t want to water it down to where it
encompasses so many people and now you have people just trying on this identity for fun when there’s a lot of real suffering and impairment that happens for those who truly have a disability.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (59:09)
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean we’re that opens up a whole other can of worms. ⁓ yeah. Tune in for Megan’s opinion. my gosh. Yes, yes. I mean I think this is I’ll maybe I’ll go out on a limb and offer like a very lukewarm take that this is the biggest problem in our field right now. Problem. Maybe it’s just biggest discussion point or biggest ⁓ friction point to work through is
Dr. Megan Helmen (59:13)
I’ll be back next week for an episode on cultural appropriation and disability. Yeah.
Sure. Yeah. This
is a blessing and a curse that comes with these things with mass, you know, dis dispersion of information and everyone gets an opinion and everyone gets a platform. And but I digress. So circling back to your original question with assessment, with giftedness and autism.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (59:51)
Right. Circling back. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:00:01)
A couple things that have stood out to me over the years are these air there’s I think four common areas I see come up as areas of discrepancy. ⁓
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:00:10)
Okay.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:00:12)
So, and you may or may not see these, but if you see one of them, I would think about the others and think about that as something to dig deeper on or pay more attention to, which is a discrepancy between really strong verbal capabilities yet struggling to use language for social purposes. They could speak very eloquently about a topic of interest, but they’re struggling to have a conversation outside of that topic of interest.
a discrepancy between visual perceptual skills that are extremely high or advanced, and so thinking about like attention to detail, honing in on different aspects of visual information, and yet they’re not picking up on visual nonverbal cues. So like shifts in facial expression or body language.
So for somebody like that visual information, they’re having to work harder to notice with effort versus intuitively picking up on it. ⁓ another a third one, they may have deep concern for big real-world issues. Climate change, poverty.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:01:12)
Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:01:22)
animal welfare and care very much about these issues and want to do something to help, but in their developmental history you hear stories where they can have no idea what to do if someone in the moment is having a hard time or is upset.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:01:24)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:01:41)
They maybe use really concrete ways of comforting people, which is beautiful, right? There’s they might like they’re the kid who’s always bringing a band-aid regardless of what the situation is, or showing care and concern through giving making a craft or giving gifts, something that’s more tangible versus something more abstract.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:01:52)
Mm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:02:03)
And then the fourth one is a big discrepancy between their knowledge about a topic of interest and their knowledge about social situations and social understanding. So they might explain to you in great detail about a specific species of bird they’re interested in or bird diseases. That was one I had come up recently. But then the same, yeah.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:02:28)
Ooh, bird diseases. Yeah.
That’s new. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:02:31)
that great
we need people to care about bird diseases i don’t want to care about bird diseases but if one happens i need her to figure it out for me right so she’s telling me in great detail about this this interest of hers but if i asked her so tell me like you know what some of the the that you’d ask questions what what does it mean to you to be a friend and
Mighty suppose some people want to live together long term and what might be difficult about that? She her answers were like, Well I haven’t learned that yet. Or I haven’t studied that yet. So they’re approaching s the social world more like
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:02:59)
Mm. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:03:04)
A scientist. They’re observing noticing patterns and they can be quite good at it. I feel like girls especially pick up on language and phrasing they can use and use it pretty effectively. But the important part to understand is they’re doing it with effort rather than intuitively and over time and in certain contexts that creates a lot of fatigue and anxiety.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:03:06)
Mm-hmm.
Right, right. I wanna maybe dig a little bit deeper here. I don’t know, we’re kind of pushing time a little bit, but I want to ask a little bit more just about the social component and giftedness. And this goes well, I think, with the autism discussion. But you know, sometimes I’ll hear and have even thought this myself and sort of like convince myself one way or the other on this question. But I mean, is it inherent to being gifted that you are going to have social problems?
And the rationale here is often like, this kid is just so smart. Like they can’t relate to other kids. Like, you know, they can’t relate to other kids their age. So of course they have social problems and don’t get along with other kids. They’re just like too smart. They’re thinking at a higher level, their language is at a higher level. other kids just can’t keep up. What do you think about
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:04:17)
Yeah. Well, like every answer in psychology, it depends. But you know, if you if you ask that same question about someone with mild intellectual disability versus severe intellectual disability, you know
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:04:22)
No.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:04:32)
A lot of people with mild intellectual disability would socialize fairly typically. You it might not you might not notice that there’s much of a difference versus someone who’s severely intellectually disabled or moderately you’re probably gonna pick up on it might be harder for them. And I think there’s a similar pattern with giftedness because if you think about one thirty or higher, that’s you know, one in fifty kids. Most gifted kids are gonna be in that you know.
say mildly gifted, that’s not a thing, but just for the sake of the conversation, mildly gifted.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:05:03)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:05:04)
There’s still plenty of them out there and they’re not so far from a lot of the rest of the bell curve of kids that they could click with. But if you’re talking about a kid with an IQ of 140, 150, 160 or higher, you know, the the Sheldons of the world where they’re going to college at age 12, yeah, that’s gonna be hard for them to find a kid they really click with, understandably. but in general, most of the time, do not assume that social difficulties are just because of gift.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:05:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:05:34)
That’s an unfair assumption.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:05:36)
I appreciate that distinction. Yeah. And as always, there are levels, right? There’s levels. You can’t just lump all these kids together and like anything else. But it’s easy to forget that. We like binary and you know black and white classifications.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:05:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. If you and a kid
come through your practice and you see them scoring 140 or higher, you really need, need, need, need to be thinking about what alternative options are out there for them. looking at resources for highly and profoundly gifted kids. And the further you move away from the norm, the more important it is gonna be to address that need.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:06:12)
Right, right. Well, maybe let’s that might be a good place to start to land the plane. If you do you have resources for that y that you go to for those highly gifted kids? And these could be like general, like, hey, look for a specialty school in your area or more specific, like, this website is great for parents or something. But do you have any resources right off hand that can be helpful in those situations?
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:06:29)
Mm-hmm.
Sure. Davidson Academy is a program out of Nevada that they have a brick and mortar school out there, but they also have online programming. And it’s if you have a child come through your clinic who is scoring, you know, 145 and higher.
They cater specifically to those kids and their families. So they also have programming for families, parent education nights, they have camps so that you can find a community and some educational options to connect to.
I’ll send you a link because I’m blanking on her name, but there’s a wonderful psychologist in Vancouver who s specializes in profoundly gifted kids. I’ve been to her talks before and she has wonderful information on her website. So that can be in your show notes. I can’t think of I’m blanking on the name. but for for to e specifically, the real two e dot org, so r-e-e-l two e dot org.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:07:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Great. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:07:38)
is out of Bridges Grad School in California. It’s a really wonderful resource. If you’re writing a report for a child who is twice exceptional, put that in your educational recommendation sections, just suggesting educators review what’s there and parents review what’s there because they have formatted a beautiful set of options for accommodations and ideas for those students.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:08:03)
Yes.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:08:03)
Anything that Julie Scholnick is doing, she’s kind of my two ego to. I recommend her book, Bright, no, gifted and distractable a lot. And her website has some wonderful resources, bright and quirky.com. Great name. That’s a good resource families can I believe they do a subscription model and it allows you to access a lot of expert videos and educational information.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:08:12)
huh.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:08:30)
The other one I wanted to make sure I mentioned was Young Scholars Academy, which is there’s a lot of programs out there with a similar or same name, but the one I’m talking about is an online set of classes and programming for kids and
It can help them find their people because they can be harder to find, right? Sometimes they have like quirky interests or whatever. My daughter did their theater class and it was all virtual, but it was so cool. And so she and she also did a Dungeons and Dragons class with them. and it was just really neat. And all those kids, it’s like you put them together, it’s magic. They all are operating on this wavelength and they just the way they
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:08:48)
Yes. Yes.
Sure.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:09:12)
communicate and think and to see it happen is is wonderful. And otherwise look at your state’s gifted associations. They may be through the educational side of things. We’re lucky in Minnesota have Minnesota Council for Gifted and Talented which puts on a lot of great programming and provides resources for families. And then finally do I get to plug my own things too?
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:09:34)
Yeah,
of course.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:09:35)
All
right. I did a three-hour CEU course for American Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology two years ago now, but it’ll be in their library for three more years that that’s available to access if you’re looking to learn more specifically on assessment of giftedness and autism. I’m doing a course
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:09:56)
Wonderful.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:09:58)
on this topic for the Minnesota Psych Association on July 10th. I don’t know if this will be out before after then, but I believe that will be available. Okay. if you’re not from Minnesota, a lot of times you can you know apply those credits or submit them to be approved if you’re interested. And then I have some infographics that you can download on my website, some free ones and some for a small payment, and then
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:10:06)
Yeah. It should be out before that. Yeah.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:10:24)
You can copy them to your heart’s content. I just want them out in the world and you can copy them and have them in your practice for families and they s go to one page. Here’s the nuts and bolts, here’s some strategies of gifted ADHD, gifted autism, and gifted and dyslexic. So you can check those out.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:10:43)
Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah. I really appreciate this discussion and your willingness to come and spend some time with me. Yeah, and let me ask some pretty basic questions to dig into this topic.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:10:54)
Those aren’t basic. We could I could be here all day. So yeah, I really enjoyed it. It’s
It’s really they’re it’s such a wonderful population. They’re kids who are so often misunderstood. And my whole approach to testing is more knowledge, more understanding leads to more compassion and the right support. So if you can learn more about Gifted and 2E, please do. You’ll be a gift to these families and helping them better understand and support their kids and themselves in the process a lot of the time in terms of the parents.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (1:11:23)
Mm.
Well, yeah,
yeah. It’s kinda like we you know, the place that we started when we helped these kids were also helping parents a lot of the time and helping them gain some insight and you know, that’s always a good thing.
Thanks so much, Megan. Yeah, it was great to great to talk to you. folks, you know, we’ll put all those links in the show notes if you wanna learn more, check out Megan’s stuff, go check it out. And yeah, hope we talk again soon.
Dr. Megan Helmen (1:11:51)
Sounds great. Take care.
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