Myth 1: There's No Empirical Evidence

In episode 68, Chris and Emma debriefed about Chris’s session from NAGC 2023 titled “Overexcitabilities and Dąbrowski’s Theory: Correcting the Course in Gifted Education.” We covered the five common myths or misunderstandings about the theory of positive disintegration that were addressed in the presentation.

We’ve been sitting on this episode because we didn’t have time to get it out right after last year's conference. Michael’s episode was the priority following NAGC 2023 since his 90th birthday was approaching. We were also concerned that we had shared so many posts about NAGC in the lead-up to the conference that people might be burned out on the topic—but now, we are ready to share!

Highlights

00:02:13 Debriefing about the conference

00:03:50 Previous sessions from Chris at NAGC

00:07:22 Positive impact of the 2022 OE panel session

00:10:02 Myth 1: There is little or no empirical evidence for TPD

00:14:54 Myth 2: TPD is a theory of giftedness

00:24:27 Myth 3: Overexcitability can only be understood within the context of positive disintegration

00:28:43 We do still need the theory as a non-pathologizing framework

00:35:27 Myth 4: Overexcitability and openness to experience are the same thing, and the five-factor model can replace TPD

00:39:45 Myth 5: Overexcitability can be differentiated from ADHD and autism

00:44:50 There's no clear line of demarcation for types of neurodivergence and OE.

00:48:08 Best practices for working with overexcitability

00:52:58 Main takeaways from the session

00:56:49 We care a lot

We hope you’ll enjoy this episode! We’re releasing it ahead of NAGC 2024 in Seattle. Chris submitted no proposals this year and looks forward to attending NAGC without presenting for once. They feel it’s worth repeating this material from last year instead.

Links from this episode

Click here for the download Chris shared at NAGC with slides and relevant papers.

View the post NAGC 2023: Overexcitabilities and Dąbrowski’s Theory from November 2023.

The song “We Care a Lot” by Faith No More (1985), for those who are unfamiliar. It was mentioned during this exchange at the end of the episode.

Connect with us

Positive Disintegration on Substack

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Adults with Overexcitabilities group on Facebook

The Tragic Gift blog by Emma

Email us at positivedisintegration.pod@gmail.com

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