Emily Kircher-Morris, M.A., M.Ed., LPC

Neurodiversity Podcast, Author, Counselor

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Topic: It's Okay to Stop and Ask for Directions: Helping Kids Learn to Self-Advocate for Accommodations with Executive Functioning Struggles

What You Will Learn: Finding ways to bring children and teens into the process of creating a system of support and accommodations around them empowers them to become independent advocates for their own needs. Through specific communication strategies and explicit scaffolding techniques, parents can help children grow toward effective self-advocacy and success.

About Emily: Emily Kircher-Morris, LPC has dual Masters degrees, the first in Education with certification in Gifted Education and the second in Counseling and Family Therapy. Emily combines her experience and training to support twice-exceptional and neurodivergent kids, teens, and their families. She, with her husband, Dave, created The Neurodiversity Podcast (www.neurodiversitypodcast.com) in 2018. Now in its fourth year, The Neurodiversity Podcast continues to provide interviews with experts and #ownvoices within the neurodiversity movement.

Emily has two books scheduled for release in 2021:

Teaching Twice-Exceptional Learners in Today’s Classroom (Free Spirit Publishing, August 24 2021) - Twice-exceptional (2e) learners have often been misunderstood, disciplined, unchallenged, and left behind. Even as awareness of 2e learners has grown, educators are still in need of practical tools to recognize and support their twice-exceptional students. This book answers that need, providing teachers with accessible information about twice-exceptional diagnoses and suggested accommodations, modifications, and collaboration with other educational professionals.

Raising Twice-Exceptional Children: A Handbook for Parents of Neurodivergent Gifted Kids (Prufrock Publishing, November 1 2021) - Just because a child is gifted doesn't mean they don't have other types of neurodivergence, like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and more. Conversely, even children with one of these diagnoses can be cognitively gifted. Raising Twice-Exceptional Children provides parents with a roadmap to understand the complex makeup of their "gifted-plus," or twice-exceptional, child or teen.

Emily began her career as a teacher in the St. Louis, MO metro area. With a Masters in Education and gifted certification, and armed with her own experiences as a twice-exceptional student, she took an interest in helping her districts better serve their gifted student population. She helped develop curriculum and a learning environment that allowed students to learn at their own unique pace, building on each child's strengths.

She decided to commit herself to the deeper needs of the gifted community by getting a Masters degree in Counseling from the University of Missouri/St. Louis. In 2011, she opened a private practice, Unlimited Potential Counseling and Education Center (www.unlimitedpotentialstl.com), in the western St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, MO. The practice specializes in gifted and family counseling, group counseling, testing, and education services. The practice has eight counselors on staff.

In 2012, Emily founded the Gifted Support Network (www.giftedsupportnetwork.org), an organization which provides resources and support to parents and educators of gifted and high-ability children of St. Louis. She currently serves as the President of the organization.

In addition, she provides lectures and presentations across the country for organizations like NAGC and the ACA, and provides continuing education lectures to local universities and school districts. She's a soon-to-be-published author, and the mother of three gifted children of her own.

Website(s): https://neurodiversitypodcast.com/, www.emilykirchermorris.com, www.giftedsupportnetwork.org

Twitter: @neurodiversepod, @EmilyKM_LPC

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