Page 30 - Kyalami Issue 4 December 2025

Kyalami Estates Corporate Brand Bible Design 26
3.0 Folder (Inner)
TODAY'S CHILD

Change the Lens,

Change the Story

BY KATE LA TROBE MSC, BCBA AND NICOLA KILLOPS, EDUCATOR AND GIFTED & TWICE-EXCEPTIONAL SPECIALIST

e were those kids: bright, talk- standing why the world never seemed to out of ideas and call it “non-compliance.”
ative, imaginative, distracted. make sense. Kate sees it every day in her clinical work.
The ones teachers described Nicola has seen it from the front of a class-
Was “full of potential if they’d just WHERE OUR STORIES MET room and from the driver’s seat of the car
apply themselves.” We did apply ourselves That quiet recognition became the thread after yet another call from school. Gifted and
— just not to what made sense to other that later tied two lives together. Kate and twice-exceptional learners live in a strange
people’s brains. Nicola came from different paths but rec- limbo—smart enough to know they’re failing
ognised the same story — children who were invisible tests, too tired to keep pretending
Like so many adults, especially women, never quite understood, growing into adults to be typical.
we were misdiagnosed, overlooked, or told determined to make sure no one else felt
we were simply “too sensitive.” It was only that way again. The real cost isn’t detentions or grades. It’s
later, as adults, that we began to under- self-worth.
stand our own wiring. That understanding THE COST OF MISUNDERSTANDING
brought a kind of quiet liberation: the re- When difference isn’t recognised, it gets DIAGNOSIS AS TURNING POINT
lease of years of guilt, of endless self-flag- punished. Kids learn to hide. Parents learn For both of them, diagnosis wasn’t about a
ellation for not being okay, for not under- to brace. Teachers, even the kind ones, run label; it was about language.

28 Kyalami Estates • CONNECT • Issue 4 • 2025