TPP 055: Dr. Devon MacEachron on Assessing and Supporting Twice-Exceptional Children
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
36 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 11 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is “twice‑exceptional” (2e) and how is it defined?
I mean you you can usually find an expert to help remediate or find accommodations for some of the weaknesses, but it's the strengths of these children that are going to carry them into their adulthood and be their passions and probably their careers. So that's what really needs to be enriched.
Welcome to the Tilt Parenting Podcast, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. I'm your host, Debbie Rieber, and today I'm talking with Dr. Devin McEchran, a clinician, researcher, author, and speaker who specializes in assessing and supporting twice exceptional learners. As she'll tell you in our conversation, Devin actually went back to school to get her PhD. As part of her own journey in trying to support her own differently wired children. Since then, she's founded a private psychology practice in New York City where she meets the psychoeducational assessment and educational planning needs of the families of bright learners.
Her mission is to help position these awesome students to achieve their goals and dreams and to help parents feel confident they're doing their best for their kids. Before we get into our conversation, Conversation a quick public service announcement. If you like what we're doing here through the Tilt Parenting podcast, please consider supporting us through our Patreon campaign. My goal is to ultimately outsource the most time-consuming aspects of podcast production, and I am very close to being able to do that. If you're a regular listener and get value out of our podcast, even a modest contribution can make a big difference. Just visit patreon.com slash tiltparenting for more information. Thank you for considering and for being a part of our audience.
And now let's get on with the show. Hey Devin, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Debbie. I'm excited to be here.
Well, I am excited to have you on the show and also I know you've been super busy since the New Year, so I just wanna thank you for making the time to talk with us today.
Pleasure.
So before we get into this, and I want you to know this is kind of a hot topic. I posted on the Tilt Facebook page that I was gonna be speaking with an expert in twice exceptional assessment and education, and I got a lot of comments and questions. So we'll see what we can get through. But before we get into that, would you mind just taking a few minutes to walk us through your background? Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and maybe how you got into doing this work.
Of course. I'm one of those moms who was inspired by her children's challenges. So I I was I got my college degree in an MBA and happily went off into the business and government worlds and was plugging away there enjoying my work. And then my kids came along and as things started to uh come out for both of them, um I was getting increasingly frustrated with the the lack of resources, the lack of knowledge. about kids who are bright and who have learning issues that are impeding them from achieving. And it it it was extremely frustrating. We we probably had, I don't know, four or five, six assessments for each child and still didn't have a clear picture. So I was reading everything at Barnes and Noble and reading everything online and realized that I basically needed to go back to school and get a PhD in it and and to really understand.
So I went back to school at Berkeley in my uh I guess I was in my early fifties at that point. And um my kids were then in middle school, so it was perfect. I'd I'd drop them at school, go to Berkeley, study, come back, pick them up, and we'd all do our homework together.
Wow, that is commitment. Can I just applaud you? That I mean, some of us buy a few books, but I don't I don't think I've spoken to anyone on the show so far who's decided to get their PhD to become an expert in this. So well done.
Well, I think it also maybe helped to not focus quite as much on my own children because you can just, you know, go crazy fixating on on how to help them so with a focus on a broader population, I want to help other parents not have as much difficulty going through it all as we did.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is “twice‑exceptional” (2e) and how is it defined?
0:00–5:13
2
How did Dr. Devon’s own parenting journey lead her to earn a PhD and start a 2e practice?
5:13–10:13
3
What signs should parents look for when they suspect their child might be 2e?
10:13–15:03
4
What is the optimal age for a comprehensive 2e assessment and why?
15:03–19:04
5
Why are there so few schools that adequately serve twice‑exceptional learners?
19:04–23:50
6
How can parents effectively support a 2e child within a traditional school setting?
23:50–28:38
7
What resources (books, websites, groups) are most helpful for 2e families?
28:38–32:29
8
Where can listeners connect with Dr. Devon and learn more about her work?
32:29–36:33
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids