Parent Education Series
The Often Overlooked Needs of Gifted Girls
Wednesday, January 18th @6:00pm (PST)
Guest Speakers - Sharon Duncan and Dr. Beth Levy
We are honored to be hosting Sharon Duncan, Co-Founder of Gifted Identity, and Gifted Research and Outreach Inc., and Dr. Beth Levy, neuropsychologist serving the gifted community for over 15 years, to speak and share their insights on “The Often Overlooked Needs of Gifted Girls on Wednesday, January 18th at 6:00pm (PST).
There is a crisis of gifted girls often being unseen in education. It is well known by gifted experts that girls with high IQs make themselves invisible, hiding their intelligence, typically by 2nd grade. This makes it difficult to identify them and therefore difficult to appropriately support them academically, socially, and emotionally.
Gifted girls:
- Are less likely to be identified as gifted than boys
- Often hide their intelligence because they want to fit in socially
- Tend to treat school as a social experience
- Are less likely to be disruptive and withdraw than boys (and thus be identified)
- Often pretend they can’t do things they can do
- Parents & teachers commonly miss the signs of their girl’s giftedness
- Often slow down their natural rate of learning & give up their dreams
Sharon Duncan is an independent consultant. She works with parents, educators, schools, districts, psychologists and pediatricians to help them understand and meet the social emotional and educational needs of gifted children. Sharon also consults on educational decisions, options and concerns including homeschooling.
Prior to her work with Gifted Identity, she spent 26 years working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory before leaving to home-school her son. Sharon has served on the Board of Trustees a private K-8 school, as President of the School Site council at a public elementary school, is a SENG Model Parent Group facilitator and a regular presenter at State and National conferences on various topics about gifted children. She and a partner have completed a research study of identify formation in the parents of gifted children, In addition she is a founding member of GRO (Gifted Research and Outreach), a non-profit entity with the mission to promote a comprehensive and accurate understanding of giftedness.
Co-Founder of Gifted Identity, and Gifted Research and Outreach Inc.
Clinical Pediatric Psychologist
Beth Levy has been helping families for over 15 years, in both her private practice which includes giftedness testing, neurological/psycho-educational testing, school placement, IEP development and more, as well as serving as a consultant and evaluator for local schools serving the gifted community. She works with Pasadena School District Preschool Team, LVUSD, LAUSD, the Regional Center and Children’s Hospital USC Affiliated Program. Beth Levy is well-known and well-versed in the evaluation, assessment and nuances of the 2E (twice-exceptional) child and is a well sought-after speaker at events to help parents and educators understand the complexities of the 2E diagnosis. Beth’s experience in her assessments and evaluations, as well as being the mother to two amazing young adults, consistently brings a level of expertise and knowledge to the table in both discussing your child with you, as well as advocating and presenting data in IEP meetings to make sure that the needs of her clients are being met or exceeded.
